YANKEE NOTES
John Kruk doesn’t think much of Esteban Loaiza. And vice versa.
Kruk claimed Loaiza quit in the 22-0 loss to Cleveland on Tuesday night on ESPN’s SportsCenter, but the Yankee right-hander dismissed Kruk as an ex-ballplayer with a dubious handle on today’s game.
“No, I never quit,” Loaiza said yesterday. “I know John’s an ex-ballplayer, but if he was playing the game right now, heh, it’s a different story playing in the ’80s and the ’90s – when he retired.
“The kids are stronger and stronger. Nobody wants to give up here or anything like that. I don’t give up at all. I don’t know why he said that.”
Loaiza allowed six runs in the ninth inning on Tuesday to cap the rout. He pitched two scoreless innings before allowing three-run bombs to Jody Gerut and Victor Martinez.
Kruk blistered him on ESPN’s SportsCenter. The first-year “Baseball Tonight” commentator compared Loaiza, who has been banished to the bullpen after bombing in the rotation, unfavorably to Ed Whitson.
“The Yankees’ pitching right now is terrible, and Esteban Loaiza, he couldn’t get out of New York quick enough,” Kruk opined. “You talk about how they wanted to get rid of Ed Whitson in the ’80s – quicker than that.
“Esteban Loaiza is worse than that. They need to get him out and never pitch him again at Yankee Stadium. He quit on them tonight, quit on the Yankees. That’s terrible.”
Joe Torre was asked about Loaiza’s outing, which raised the pitcher’s ERA to 5.45.
“We basically asked him to finish it up, and it probably was an inning too long,” Torre said, noting that Loaiza had only three days’ rest from his last start. “He didn’t throw much at the end last night.”
*
On the Jason Giambi front, Torre was told by hitting coach Don Mattingly that, “He was good – but good with a limitation.” There’s no timetable on activating Giambi from the DL.
As expected, the club activated pitchers Felix Heredia and Steve Karsay and catcher Dioner Navarro.