Yanks save best for last in walk-off win
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But I thought they were going to get swept?!?!? Yeah, so I hope some people out there learned today that a game is never over until it’s actually over.
Anywho, the first eight innings of today’s game were frustrating as hell. Rookie southpaw JA Happ all but shut the Yanks down for the first six inning, requiring just 75 pitches to do it. He gave up a semi-manufactured run (Cano double, Melky bunt, Swisher groundout) in the second, but then retired nine of the next ten before the Cap’n hit his second solo homer in as many days. Happ’s counterpart, Andy Pettitte, was actually pretty darn good today, allowed four runs in seven innings, which on most days should be enough to win. The only two mistakes he made were to Raul Ibanez and John Mayberry Jr., who tagged Pettitte for his first career homer.
But as far as I’m concerned, the ninth inning is when the game really started. Johnny Damon didn’t take the bat off his shoulder and worked a six-pitch walk off Brad Lidge to start the inning. Mark Teixeira swung at the same slider down and out of the zone three times for a strikeout, quite possibly his ugliest plate appearance of the season. Alex Rodriguez – who just narrowly missed a two run homer in the fourth – then took a first pitch slider down for a strike. Lidge threw him four more sliders to get the count to 3-2 before A-Rod took the sixth pitch of the at-bat, a 94-mph four-seamer up and out over the plate, to right field for a game tying two-run homer. I guess you can say A-Rod showed Lidge his OH!!! face. The entire at-bat showed the difference between A-Rod and everyone else; with two strikes he took two Brad Lidge sliders down for balls, he just spit on them as David Cone likes to say. Mere mortals like you and me and Eric Hinske have no chance in that spot.
With the game tied up at four and the crowd alive, Robbie Cano served a ball back up the middle for a single, and the game-winning rally was on. Cano then stole to get the tying run in scoring position, and someone deserves credit for that call. I don’t know if Joe Girardi or Tony Pena called that from the bench, or if Mick Kelleher picked something up from the first base coach’s box, or if Cano just went on his own, but whoever’s idea it was, bravo. Well done. Four pitches later, Melky Cabrera shot a single into shallow center for his third walk-off hit of the season and his second of the homestand.
The homestand and first interleague series of the year wraps up tomorrow with a top-notch pitching matchup as young Cole Hamels takes on CC Sabathia. The Yanks have won 8 of 9 on the homestand and 10 of their last 11 overall to work themselves back to just half a game back of Toronto for first. Good times, good times.
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They won in the ninth because that’s pretty much the only part of the game I actually saw.
Perfect symmetry, since the 7th-8th-9th is the part I seem to be missing lately either outside/at work/at the store >.<
A cab came to pick me up for work and got to my house with the 3-2 count to A-Rod. I’m so pissed I missed it!
I’m watching baseball tonight waiting for Berthiume’s head to explode on the sawx highlight
I was at today’s game, and the first 8 innings were pretty depressing. This was another pitcher that seemed to pitch like it was game 7 against us. Is it just me, or do a lot of pitchers seem to do that? Anyway, the more I see Melky play this year, the more I’m beginning to think that this is his breakout season. If you look at Bernie Williams’ first 3 seasons, they were pretty mediocre, just like Melky. And, in his 4th season, Bernie turned it on, and it’s seeming like Melky is doing the same thing. How awesome would it be if we could have an outfield that consisted of Ajax, Melky, and Gardner/Free Agent Pickup next year?
If that is the Yankees OF next year, they are boned.
Besides, Jeter’s in left next year.
terrible OF…
why not get holliday? the new stadium is so much like coors
Oh yea….. let’s just sign ANOTHER high prices outfielder that will be 30 by next season and will probably sign a 7 year contract. No thank you. And, we all know the Yankees are going to modify the stadium to decrease the wind to right field. Obviously they can’t touch it this year, but you know they will do something. And I said Gardner/Free Agent. If Melky can keep up his production, then he’s a very good outfielder to have. We can already see he is very clutch, and he has a cannon for an arm. Ajax is our future for the outfield. I would be very satisfied with Melky, Ajax, and a free agent signing.
Melky, Ajax, and Damon on a 1 year deal with Gardner off the bench for speed and Swish as the occasional backup and DH
I don’t think the Yankees want to get locked into another long term deal with a corner guy.
Also, why are you assuming that Gardner will be a starting OF next year? It will shock me if he is and it’ll probably mean that something’s gone terribly, terribly wrong. I think the most likely OF alignment next year is Damon (short term deal)/Jackson(or Cabrera)/Swisher or perhaps Cabrera/Jackson/Swisher. The latter wouldn’t be a tremendous hitting OF but defensively it could be incredible. The moral of the story: Brett Gardner will not be a starting OF for the Yankees.
While Jackson may eventually hit enough to justify a corner OF spot, I’d be blown away if he could do so starting next year.
I was at the game too, and I kept looking at the pitch count of JA Happ, and thinking that hes going to pitch a complete game.
Incredibly enjoyable win. Hopefully Sabathia can have more success against the Phils than he did last October.
FOX put me to sleep, but I woke up just in time to see the A-Rod homerun, whoo!
I realize this is kinda off-topic, but is there any way that we could embed two clips in here, one of Melky hitting the walkoff and another of Omir Santos clowning Papelbon? Because hey, c’mon.
saw the end of the Mutts game too…I would wear a Mets cap for a day just to repay them for that look of stunned misery on Papelbon’s face!
Breaking: In a relatively low-scoring game, four more home runs were hit at YS3. 80+ in 23 games. Many have speculated, but through intuition & journalistic excellence, the answer has been arrived upon.
First I call your attention to a seemingly unrelated article, where a creative importer has his business plans ruined.
http://tinyurl.com/puv9s9
This leads us to the inevitable conclusion…YS3 is actually, factually, 100% made of steroids.
Will you people just DROP it?
Seriously, who cares if YS is a bandbox or not? They’re not going to tear it down and rebuild it.
If you have SO many problems with it, either stop watching Yankee games, or go build a perfect stadium yourself. I’m sure we’ll all be in awe of your architectural techniques.
This was a hilarious post.
I think our friend alan may have missed it.
Yeah, I admit I mistook your post for another “OMG, Yankee Stadium is a bandbox”, “Coors Field East”, etc. one.
But it’s still not that funny…
Maybe some diffused out of Ortiz’s jersey when that sox fan tried to bury it!
Top 3 Moment from today’s game.
1) A-Rod’s homer
2) Melky’s walk-off, #2 only because it was inevitable after “no-clutch-HR” A-Rod hit another meaningless game-tying homer
3) FOX picking out a random black guy in a Phillies hat and proclaiming him Mayberry’s dad.
I’ll go with 1, because I think it was A-Rod’s 1st opposite field shot, but I didn’t see the one from yesterday, so I could be wrong.
But on 3…they just kept on returning to it, harping on the fact that they mistakenly pegged the first guy. Real tasteful
#3.1) watching paps get WTF’d on TV in the bar.
#3 was pretty hilarious. Apparently all African-Americans look the same to FOX.
It’s Fox. Nuff said.
Seriously, they showed the guy again and the overlay read:
John Mayberry Sr.
not John Mayberry Jr’s father
Plus, that guy didn’t really look old enough to be his dad.
What were they thinking?
Nah, all Ex-Royals look alike to Fox.
I’m surprised they didn’t show a picture of Freddy Patek as his father.
I think the best part was when they found the real John Mayberry Sr.
On the bottom they have that bar where they have the guy’s name, then some byline right under that
the name said “The Real John Mayberry Sr.” and the byline said “We promise!”
A-Rod: 0.088 BABIP. (From Fangraphs)
.431 wOBA. (Whizzo notes for only around his 6th career best)
Whizzo advises caution.
Wait till Alex starts hitting for average, too. Then: whoa boy!
Can I say that I am seriously sick of hearing about the “homer happy” YS? I read it in about 4 recaps yesterday and I’m just so tired of it. AND I don’t get how Yankee fans could even begin to have an issue with it.
Other than that the 9th innings were great for the Yanks and Mets. The Papelbon temper tantrum was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen in a game. I don’t know why he doesn’t officiate when he’s not playing. Jumping out of the dugout and screaming SAFE! is just so gritty and intense. Whadda guy.
They come screaming out of the dugout, they glare at the opposing pitcher and they slam their batting helmets when they lose the game. But hey, that’s okay…
You know lost in the euphoria of the game is why the hell was Lidge even pitching to Cabrera in the first place after Cano stole the base?
I know he’s still just Melky Cabrera, but when you can set up the force/doubleplay and face the right-handed hitting titans Angel Berroa and Kevin Case, why it the world don’t you?
Well, the switch-hitting Swisher was up next, then Cash and Berroa–but I couldn’t agree more
Ah yes.. kind of easy to forget Swisher these days.
It seems as if A-Rod has become more selective. He seems to not be swinging at pitches that he had in the past.
The game had all the makings of a loss. Soft tosing pitcher, the other team tagging Yankee pitching for hrs, the bats going silent. But this is defintely not the Yankees of past few years or even last month.
To sum it up. Confidence level= 10
[...] 23, 2009: Yankees 5, Phillies 4 (Box Score) (RAB Recap) WP: Jose Veras LP: Brad Lidge HR: John Mayberry, Raul Ibanez, Derek Jeter, Alex [...]