Yanks back to normal in 7-2 win
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Last night we saw from the Yankees what we’ve seen from them, for the most part, since the All-Star Break: solid pitching and a hit barrage. They slipped for a couple of days, but over a 162-game season, what team won’t? Seemingly unfazed by two straight losses, the Yanks came up with a big inning to complement CC Sabathia‘s mostly dominant start and took the second game of the series, 7-2.
After said two straight losses, the first inning was not a welcome sight. After Vin Mazzaro beaned A-Rod and issued a five-pitch walk to Hideki Matsui, the Yanks had the bases loaded with two outs. Jorge Posada worked a 2-2 count, but struck out on a ball way out of the zone. It was another opportunity wasted, the second such by Posada in two nights — Monday night he went down looking with runners on first and second with two outs.
Still, the Yanks had to feel good with their ace on the hill. Things looked great through the first two batters: a strike out and a pop out. But when CC threw behind Kurt Suzuki — and considering CC’s command last night, it was pretty clearly in retaliation for the A-Rod beaning — the catcher responded like any hitters wants to, by homering. Same thing happened in the second, minus the purpose pitch. After striking out the first two batters of the inning, CC gave up a homer to Tommy Everidge. Of course, he then came back to strike out Ryan Sweeney to end the frame.
The A’s wouldn’t get anything off Sabathia the rest of the night. There was some trouble in the fourth when the A’s put runners on second and third with one out, but CC kept them off the board. Scott Hairston probably could have scored on Mark Ellis’s liner to Nick Swisher, but Swisher was charging, and a good throw would have nailed him. The actual throw was up the line, but unfortunately for Hairston human beings do not possess clairvoyant foresight.
After that point the A’s managed just one more baserunner off Sabathia. For some reason, he threw Ryan Sweeney a belt high fastball around the middle of the plate. The slider had been working so well against Sweeney, especially when combined with fastballs out of the zone. Still, if that’s the biggest complaint among his final four innings, well, then there’s nothing to complain about at all. CC turned in a mighty fine start, just what the Yanks needed to stop this mini skid.
One final line on Sabathia. He threw 94 pitches, 66 for strikes, but four balls were intentional. So, in terms of him actually squaring off with a batter, he threw 90 pitches, 66 strikes. That’s pretty insane.
On the offensive side, the Yanks chipped away. Down 1-0 in the second, Melky Cabrera doubled with two outs, and then scored when a Derek Jeter grounder scooted through Adam Kennedy’s legs. In the third A-Rod led off with a single, took second on a wild pitch, advanced to third on a grounder to third, and scored on Jorge’s ground rule double. Things were starting to look up after two games of general offensive futility.
Then, shades of Monday in the fourth. With the bases juiced and one out, Mark Teixeira stepped to the plate. Monday night it was Teixeira who walked on five pitches to load the bases with one out. Last night it was Damon. Monday night it was A-Rod who swung at the first pitch. Last night it was Teixeira. Same result: double play. It doesn’t get more frustrating for that.
Thankfully, their luck changed in the sixth when Vin Mazzaro left the game due to a high pitch count. It was old school Yankees. They don’t necessarily rack up the score against the starter, but they have good at bats and wear him down. Through five Mazzaro had thrown 103 pitches. The bullpen would have to pick him up, and it was apparent from the beginning that they would not.
It’s too bad that Robinson Cano swung at the first pitch he saw from Jay Marshall, because he ended up being quite wild. He threw 13 pitches, just six for strikes, and four of those strikes were balls in play. Damon knocked him out with a run-scoring double, leaving him with a line of 0.1 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 1 HBP. Santiago Casilla didn’t help matters, walking Mark Teixeira on four pitches, and then the same to A-Rod, which scored a run.
The Yanks tacked on a couple more after that, all but sealing their victory. David Robertson made things a little interesting in the ninth, walking the first two batters on eight pitches. If only he’d done the same to Mark Ellis, we would have had a Harry Doyle moment. Instead he struck out the next two batters and got a fly out to end the game.
Rubber game tomorrow, Chad Gaudin against Brett Anderson. WIth Burnett and CC going eight innings on back to back nights, the pen is pretty well rested. They’ll have a day off on Thursday before a series in Boston, so I’d expect to see Hughes, Bruney, and Aceves get an inning tomorrow, regardless of score. Thankfully it’s the last 10:00 start for a few weeks.
Photo credit: Ben Margot/Associated Press
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The Icing on the cake for today’s win?
The Red Sox tomorrow Get to face….
Roy Halladay
I’m in toronto and i will be attending that game. Should be a fun game to watch, as the sox seemingly always escape seeing him more than 2 times a season
It’s a shame they don’t have poutin in Toronto. Should be a great game though. Enjoy it!
heckle Buchholz for me? thanks.
Yes, and please refer to him as Clay Buttholez.
haha, I love it.
Call him Buttholez and Bustholz and start a Red Sox suck chant.
i am going with 5 friends. We will definitely be loud. We bought some blue jays shirts so people don’t stare at us all weird while walking the stadium and yelling. I wish i knew the section we are sitting, but its on the red sox dugout side
That’s awesome man. You can make fun of Youkilis for charging a 20-year old and then getting beat up by him. Make fun for Big Poppy if you want. Make fun of Varitek and everyone running on him. You should call Victor Martinez a pidgeon. Make fun of Pedroia and ask him where he keeps his grit. Make fun of Drew getting hurt (if he’s playing). Make fun of Tacoby waxing his eyebrows.
Damn, now I wish I could go to make fun of everyone lol.
i will def think of some chants today. Got to work on the coordination
Bring some keebler products with you and a box of Rice Krispies, then ask Dustin to sign them for you.
Go to your local Hollywood Video and buy their clearance VHS tapes of Leprechaun, Leprechaun 2, Leprechaun 3, Leprechaun 4: In Space, Leprechaun: In the Hood, and Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood and ask him to sign all six movies.
Then, bitchslap him for making six of those horrible movies.
Pedroia’s grit is in the tree house. C’mon, Salty, you know better.
The funny part is him admitting that. That’s the main point.
Oh yea, for me too! Call him Bustholz a lot.
i’ll be sure to bring my laptop (attached to a chain) so he can autograph it for me
We have a winnar.
Try to start a “Steal my laptop, clap clap clap-clap-clap.” That would be epic.
My favorite part of the night was Alex’s face after CC threw behind Suzuki. Of course, I wish he hit him but, the message was sent and Al loved it. Just another dubya. If we get 5 innings while giving up a couple runs from Gaudin tomorrow we should be set for another win and a great night cap to our west coast road trip.
i wonder how sabathia ended up choosing suzuki as payback.
well its not like they have any big time player to go after, and Suziki has the most interaction with the pitchers.
It’s amazing that he’s a #3 hitter. He’d be a #8 in our lineup?
or on the bench
Yup. He’d be our #10 hitter, a marginal upgrade over Molina that allows us to spell Jorge and Matsui aggressively.
Number 3 hitter, catcher and basically, dude generally kills us.
He picked Suzuki because there were 2 outs and there was nobody on. And it was the half inning after they hit A-Rod. If anybody, has a different theory, I’m all ears, but I think that’s why he went after Suzuki. And it makes sense.
IETCC
I enjoyed this CC
Why is Mary Carey wearing a Suzuki jersey in that picture?
she was pretending to be suzuki cmon man its obvious and i guess they couldnt wait until after the game
Damn, they get all freaky and shit! She’s wearing catcher’s gear, mask and all. He’s got a bat instead of a whip while wearing a helmet.
I see what you did there.
Not bad, Salty. Not bad at all.
Jeter 3 hits for the 3rd game in a row. At .330 from .312 in 9 games.
Small sample size, but looking forward he gets his 4,000th hit in 2013.
That picture is full of win.
Got this from the RAB twitter: David Robertson has more K’s in his Yankee career than Carl Pavano did.
Awesome.
Nice.
In fairness to Pavano, he did K on Alyssa Milano.
*rimshot!*
Wow. love it.
IRETC
Melky loves his pony rides.
cc and beckett have almost identical stats check it out next sunday should be a fun game to watch
“Thankfully it’s the last 10:00 start for a few weeks.” – Hey, not everyone born and raised within 50 miles of God’s favorite baseball stadium still lives in the Eastern Time Zone. And by the way, it’s time to de-commission the Brackman Watch. Let the poor kid find himself without the spotlight – or not.
Yeah, what he said.
I see, i see… your future! It’s… a cab ride!
Move out of the sticks, fellas.
CC > Johan
Bow to Ca$h
Ha word. At the same time, I’d guess that
Johan on Yanks>>>>>> Johan on Muts
Do we know what the reason is behind all of the walks this year with everybody? I mean we’re still getting the job done for the most part but we’re 3rd in the AL in walks (424)…1st in the Majors in HBP (54). And we’ve thrown the most innings in the AL (4th in the majors).
In comparison, the Yankees had 489 walks for the entire season last year (only 65 more than what we currently have with over 6 weeks left in the season). And that’s with guys like “Sir” Sidney Ponson, Dan Geise, and Darrell Rasner filling into the rotation on a constant basis, missing Wang, and having Hughes and Kennedy combining for zero wins the entire year.
We hit only 51 batters all of last year as well.
You would think with all of the money we through at getting BETTER pitching…these numbers would have decreased or at the very least stayed the same…not gotten worse.
The good news is our bullpen has allowed the 6th least amount of walks in the majors. Where our starters have allowed the 3rd most in the majors.
Due to all of these off-season steroid allegations is Selig telling the umps to shorten the strike zone in an attempt to lesson HR totals?? Or is it, like everything else usually brought up that doesn’t seem right, a mere coincidence??
Ponson, Giese, and Rasner were probably too busy getting hit to walk anyone
Most innings in the majors? Isn’t that just like number of games x 9 + extras?
Also, we signed Burnett who is notorious for somehow managing to walk the ballpark yet keep his ERA and pitch count down. So you live with it.
Also, when you play an away game and lose, you only throw 8 innings. When you win, like the Yankees have done on the road more than any other team besides the Angels, you have 9 innings. That adds up and we have had some extra inning games and such.
True, but s/he was making it sound like throwing more innings is a sign a poor pitching staff, when it really has no relation.
I guess the innings pitched is irrelevant. I just threw it in there as I was adding stats down.
A lot of walks are also from Joba just finding himself and the Yankee pitchers adjusting to Yankee Stadium. I think most of the walks really happening in the beginning of the season.
I’d chalk the overall numbers up to a bad start. Since the all-star break, they’re 1st in the AL in K/9 (8.33), K/BB (2.72) and OPS against (.682). They’re 2nd in ERA (3.56) and WHIP (1.27) and 4th in BB/9 (3.07).
Since the break, they’ve been every bit as dominant as we had hoped (and that’s with all 6 of Mitre’s starts being post-break).
So walking more means your team is bad at pitching? That’s what your fourth paragraph says.
You know why the walks are up? Joba and A.J.
Well usually more walks = worse pitching, yes. Unless you’re Nolan Ryan or some other exceptions.
Regardless of “better” or “worse”…you would rightfully assume Ponson, Geise, and Rasner would have worse location than adding Sabathia, Burnett, a healthy Joba, Hughes, etc.
That’s all.
I know this is off topic, but did anyone see kruk felate Francona about his skills as a manager of lineups and keeping his team focused. Francona probably had himself a nocturnal emission and didn’t know why until he turned on ESPN. Then he just felt dirty.