 |
 |
 |
|
Yankees: Five things to know
TAMPA, Fla. -- So, is this how it all ends for Mike Mussina?
Fastball slowing, kids rushing, and the baseball world passing him by?
|
|
| Mike Mussina is 250-144 during his 17 seasons. (AP) |
Part of it is his determination to keep Father Time at arm's length for a bit longer, keep his grip on the New York Yankees rotation from disappearing all the way through the hourglass.
Some of it is quiet acceptance that there are far fewer days in front of him than are in the box scores behind him, and maybe it's time to be sure to take one last good look around.
Rumor is, Mussina suddenly is 39 and these fresh-faced stallions named Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain are poised to push him, full time, back home to Montoursville, Pa.
"I am 39," Mussina says, wry grin creasing his face. "It's no rumor."
Though there is not a fleck of gray in his black hair, sometimes last summer Mussina must have felt far older than his driver's license indicated. It was by far the worst season of his career, and the most painful and difficult to endure. Nagging injuries nipped at him all season. Opposing batters bludgeoned him. Manager Joe Torre was forced to remove him from the rotation at one point.
It was bewildering, and it was humbling.
And it left far more questions than answers as he tries to nudge his 18-year, 250-victory career forward for another season.
"I think every spring is a little bit different, and this one's different in quite a few ways," Mussina says during an early-morning conversation. "I'm trying to show myself and everyone else that I can still pitch.
"When you're getting older and you have a bad year, the first reaction is, 'He's losing his skills.'
"I'm sure I'm not the same pitcher I was 10 years ago, but I think I can still pitch. And I want to prove to myself that I can still do this the way I think I can."
The Yankees, who optimistically point to his 3.49 ERA during the month of September last season as a building block, would welcome that proof. For the first time since 1997, they finished second in the AL East, two games behind Boston. The Red Sox have won two World Series titles since the Yankees' last in 2000.
And not insignificantly, Boston's pitching -- featuring Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka and others -- is deeper. The Red Sox staff led the AL in ERA last season; the Yankees ranked eighth.
Part of that was attributable to Mussina's topple from the throne he occupied as one of the AL's aces for so many seasons.
Though first-year manager Joe Girardi complains that "people want to take his numbers as a whole last year" and notes that "he had a lot of good months," the numbers don't lie.
Mussina's ERA (5.15), opponents' batting average (.311) and WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched, which was 1.47) were the worst of his career. His 152 innings pitched were the fewest of his career over a full season. His 27 starts were his fewest since the strike-shortened season of 1994.
He suffered a hamstring strain in April ("That probably started the whole ball rolling," he says), which he thinks led to a knee problem, a sprained foot and back issues.
"Luckily, I got through the whole season without arm trouble," he says.
Little victories.
Scouts were mesmerized that, seemingly overnight, his fastball flattened out in the mid-to-upper 80s. Where he once touched 91, 92 mph regularly on the radar gun, he spent most of 2007 living between 84 and 88. Hitters could lay off of his classic curve -- maybe the best of his generation -- and feast on those fastballs.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
What's new this season are the drops of sweat that rolled off his nose and chin and soaked his workout clothes from Jan. 1 through the beginning of spring training. Throwing, running, weightlifting ... all of it. The tradeoff in aging is the work needed to counter the effects.
"There wasn't any vacation, there wasn't any traveling," he says. "It was important for me to stay with my program and not miss any days if I could help it."
At 25, he could take a week off here or there in January, maybe schedule a trip. No more. Not with Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlain charging so hard.
Mussina knows he is not guaranteed a spot in that rotation -- though at $11 million in the final year of his current contract, the Yankees sure would prefer to keep him in there.
"I understand from the baseball people that he's been working his ass off," Hank Steinbrenner, senior vice-president and son of George, says. "That's the thing that makes me confident. He has a tremendous desire to come back and have a great year."
The way things look now, the opening day rotation will include Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, Hughes, Mussina and, likely, Kennedy. The current plan is for Chamberlain to open in the bullpen in the setup role he owned last year, then maybe move to the rotation later if someone's injury or ineffectiveness warrants. If something blows up this spring with one (or more) of them, Kei Igawa and Jeff Karstens are around as insurance policies.
As for Mussina, healthy and following a winter of work, can the zip return to his fastball?
"I have no idea," he says. "I'm 39 years old. I'm not the same pitcher I was 10 years ago. If I don't hit 90, I'll have to pitch without it. And that's OK. Others have done it."
What the Yankees have here, it appears, is a throwback: A one-time ace in the twilight of his career, aging naturally.
Thing is, from the outside, we're not so accustomed anymore to watching that process. Certain pitchers caught a second wind in their late 30s through various performance-enhancing drugs and retained their power for several more years.
Mussina talks easily and comfortably about aging, though he flashes anger when asked about whether he was ever tempted to slip over to the dark side and attempt to prolong his career through PEDs.
"Because of the way the game's gone, everybody has to be asked why they did it or why they didn't do it," he says, memories of Pettitte's why-I-did-what-I-did news conference still fresh around here. "I never considered it. I never would have considered it. I don't have any more comment than that."
Later, calmer, he says simply: "It works both ways. Not playing on a level playing field, playing against guys who have done it, and to be able to do what I've done ... it raises my appreciation level for what I've done."
As it should everybody's.
At his peak, Mussina was as pretty a picture on the mound as there has been in our generation, snapping off curveballs better than anybody, with mechanics straight out of Pitchers' Illustrated. Though the fastball is down, his mechanics remain well calibrated, sharp enough that his catch partner in early drills here, new Yankees setup man LaTroy Hawkins, marvels.
"Playing catch with him, it's unbelievable," Hawkins says. "He does the same things every time. Fastball, curveball, changeup, everything. That's the most important thing.
"My mechanics, I'm off-balance a lot. He's never off-balance. It's impressive playing catch with him. How many times do you play catch with someone whose mechanics are down to a science? He throws the ball wherever he wants to."
The fun of the game is in the not knowing, and there will be no way to see what Mussina has left until the '08 curtain lifts and the games begin. All these years later, it's hard to believe he still doesn't have a World Series ring, and that he has never won 20 games in a season.
Yet the changing of the guard is evident, with Hughes and Kennedy lockering on either side of Mussina. They're close by so he can talk with them, mentor them, leave them with things they can take forward long after he's gone.
"I understand this might be my last season," Mussina says. "And it may not be my last season. I've been lucky to play for a long time. I enjoy all of the stuff. It's work, but it doesn't seem as much work as when I was 29. It's probably more work, but it doesn't seem that way.
"But I enjoy being out here, because I know it won't be for much longer."