Penny gets taste of Yankees-Red Sox rivalry

Ken Davidoff

11:36 AM EDT, May 6, 2009

Brad Penny has been a mere spectator to The Rivalry so far, as the Red Sox's new starting pitcher saw his turn in the rotation bypass the first five games -- all won by Boston, of course -- of the 2009 season series.

But the right-hander got his first taste of life in the Yankees-Red Sox vortex this past winter, when he spent a week in Manhattan with friends.

In order to adhere to his conditioning program -- he pitched in just 94 2/3 innings for the Dodgers last year, due to right shoulder soreness -- Penny secured a one-week membership at an Upper West Side gym. He played catch with his personal trainer, Mike Schmidt (no, not the Hall of Fame third baseman), on the gym's basketball court.

And in a hint of what was to come, Penny heard it ... from the gym's Yankees-supporting members.

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"They were chanting, 'Let's go Yankees!' the whole time as I was playing catch," Penny said, laughing.

He added: "It is a good rivalry. It's funny. Of course they want to beat us all of the time, but it's all in fun. All real respectable, and they were all wishing me the best, hoping I was healthy."

While he's new to The Rivalry, Penny knows what it's like to break Yankees fans' hearts. After the Yankees outlasted the Red Sox in the remarkable 2003 American League Championship Series, they fell short to Penny's Marlins; Penny, you might recall, won Games 1 and 5.

"When we beat the Cubs (in the '03 National League Championship Series), they were throwing crap at our family. Throwing beers. It got a little out of hand," Penny said. "But here, when we won, they were classy. They gave us a standing ovation. They're baseball fans."

Penny, who turns 31 later this month, is off to a shaky start with his new club. He has a 7.61 ERA and 67 ERA+ in five starts, striking out 14, walking 13 and permitting 30 hits in his 23 2/3 innings. He pitched well in his last start, however, walking two, striking out eight and allowing six hits in six innings against the Rays at Tropicana Field.

With Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Smoltz both rehabilitating shoulder injuries, it's possible that Penny could eventually be moved to Boston's bullpen as a reliever. And as ESPN's Buster Olney reported Wednesday, there are incentives in Penny's contract (a guaranteed $5 million) that would cover such a job change.

Regardless, if Penny's shoulder stays intact, he'll surely get his opportunity to take on the Yankees and their fans in action, rather than just in spirit.

"They're a good team," Penny said of the Yankees. "It's going to be fun."

The A-Rod Fallout (or Lack Thereof)

Major League Baseball is investigating the allegations that Selena Roberts made in her new biography of Alex Rodriguez, but it's as much out of obligation as a sense that this could really lead to something. After all, MLB would be rightly criticized if it did nothing with the new information.

Of course, the burden of proof -- whether for A-Rod's purported pitch-tipping to opponents or usage of illegal performance-enhancing drugs with the Yankees -- will be considerably higher for MLB to actually do anything. For the pitch tipping, for instance, there would need to be specific dates of the infraction, and the name of the player who swapped signals with A-Rod.

The Talent vs. Toughness Debate

Omar Minaya contributed to the feeding frenzy around his own team last week, when he told Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal that his core players lack "edge." To us, it seemed that Minaya was covering up for his own inadequacies as the Mets' general manager.

Has the Mets' real problem the past few years been that their best players lacked "edge," or that their roster, once you get past the top guys, lacked depth?

Let's look at the Mets' last game of 2008, Sept. 28 against the Marlins. The contest they lost to end their season. Their most important game, obviously.

Look at their lineup. Atop, they had Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and David Wright. Outstanding. But the next quartet featured unproven youngster Nick Evans in leftfield, journeyman Ramon Martinez at second base, a hurting Ryan Church in rightfield and a hurting Ramon Castro at catcher.

Those four players, not shockingly, combined to hit 1-for-11, and their in-game replacements went hitless in another three at-bats.

So did the Mets fully "choke" in that last game? Did they lack edge? Or was their lineup just not very well rounded?