Granderson drives Yanks to Opening Day win
By
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
It had been 84 years since the Yankees started a season with the same three outfielders and same four infielders on consecutive Opening Days before Thursday, and it had also been three years since the Yankees last won their first game of the season. The 6-3 win over the Tigers was a total team effort that featured a few individual highlights, namely from the guy roaming center field.
Biggest Hit (subjectively): The Grandyman cans Coke
(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
The Yankees and Tigers played to a three-all tie through six innings yesterday, so it came down to a battle of the bullpens. Jim Leyland made the wise move and went to a left-hander to face Curtis Granderson leading off the seventh, giving the ball to former Yankee Phil Coke. Coke is making the transition to the rotation this year, but Detroit won’t need their fifth starter for another week or so, so he finds himself working in relief for the time being. He missed the plate with his first two pitches, rather ordinary fastballs that clocked in at 90 and 89, respectively. It’s not easy to get a 90 mph fastball by a big league hitter in a 2-0 count, but Coke tried to do it and Grandy tomahawked the pitch into Damon’s Deck for a one-run lead. The pitch was up in the zone and over the plate, prime hitting real estate. The WPA of this homer: .182, the second largest swing of the game.
Granderson, of course, was a question mark for this game as recently as Wednesday since that oblique injury limited him during the final week of Spring Training. He show the muscle was more than healed in the very first inning, making a diving catch to rob Will Rhymes of a base hit. He also made a brilliant catch going back on a ball hit by Brandon Inge in the ninth, so Granderson provided two legit highlight reel catches plus the eventual game-winning homer off one of the guys he was traded for. All in all, it was a damn fine day for the Yankees center fielder.
Biggest Hit (by the numbers): Tex Message
We’re all well aware of Mark Teixeira‘s painfully slow starts, and we also know that the first baseman took a lot of extra swings this winter in an effort to start the season somewhere besides the dumps. It took him three games to hit his first homer of the season in 2009 and then a dozen last year, but it took all of two-and-a-half innings in 2011. The Yankees had runners on the corners with one out when Justin Verlander tried to sneak a 1-1 fastball by Tex upstairs. It didn’t work, as Teixeira hooked the ball into the right field corner for a three-run homer and a 3-1 lead. It had plenty of distance, landing in the second deck like Granderson’s shot, so the only question was fair or foul. It was fair, and it resulted in a .211 WPA swing, the biggest of the game.
(Photo via Ben Kabak)
Win, Hold, Save
Once the Yankees decided to take the plunge and sign Rafael Soriano this offseason, we evaluated the move basically two different ways: the contract was awful, and the bullpen was awesome. The latter was on full display today.
Joba Chamberlain took over for CC Sabathia in what figures to be his primary inning this year, the seventh. He struck out Austin Jackson on a bit of a hanging slider, but he gets no credit for that since I think I would have been able to strike out Jackson yesterday. Rhymes then lined out to a perfectly positioned Brett Gardner, and Magglio Ordonez flew out weakly to right to end the inning. Since the Grandyman homered in the bottom half of the inning, Joba got the credit for the win today. Three up, three down by the pen so far.
Soriano was warming up even before the Yankees took the lead, and he came in to handle the eighth. He got Miguel Cabrera looking at strike three for the first out (a generous call, no doubt about it) before Victor Martinez rolled over on a slider and grounded out to first rather harmlessly. Ryan Raburn made the final out of the inning on a hard hit fly ball to deep right-ish-center. Give that man a hold. Six up, six down for the pen.
Soriano gave way to Mariano Rivera, who went fly ball, fly ball, strikeout to record his first save of the season. The three relievers retired all nine men they faced with a strikeout each, which is exactly how you’d draw it up in the later innings. Joe Girardi still had David Robertson in reserve if something went awry, and Boone Logan was available in case the Tigers actually had a dangerous lefty in the lineup. I’m still not a fan of the Soriano contract, but I love watching him get outs late in the game.
Leftovers
(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Making his third consecutive Opening Day assignment for the Yankees and eighth overall, Sabathia was strong but hardly overwhelming. He did strike out seven (Jackson twice, so they don’t count) and walked just two, but four of the six hits he allowed came with two strikes. CC will tighten that up as he gets closer to midseason form, so there’s no worries there. Seventy of his 106 pitches were strikes (66.0%) and half of his non-strikeout outs came on the ground. What I found interesting was that Sabathia threw a first pitch breaking ball to 12 of the 27 batters he faced (eight called strikes, two balls, two fouls). The data at FanGraphs says he threw first pitch breaking balls just ~23% of the time last year and ~19% of the time in 2009, so he definitely threw more than usual on Thursday. It could just be a blip on the radar, but it’s worth keeping track of going forward. Maybe it’s the Larry Rothschild effect.
Another thing worth paying attention to as the season progresses: Granderson was playing very shallow in center. It worked out well because he made at least two nice catches on balls hit in front of him while still tracking down everything hit over his head. Again, let’s follow this going forward.
Nice Yankees debut for Russell Martin, who went 1-for-3 with two runs scored, but it would have been 2-for-3 if not for a nice diving grab by Raburn. He also showed off the wheels and stole third, and looked perfectly fine behind the plate. The hip and knee look wonderful.
The 2-3-4 hitters reached base a total of six times in eleven plate appearances, driving the offense. Alex Rodriguez carried his torrid spring into the season, clubbing an opposite field double off the wall and walking twice. Nice Swisher also blooped in a single to drive in an insurance run, but he got caught in a run down trying to advance to second. I guess you take the good with the bad.
Gardner struck out in his two official at-bats, seeing nine pitches total. Can’t blame him, Justin Verlander was throwing grenades out there. He did, however, bunt twice, once in the third inning (!!!) and then again in the eighth. I’m not really in the mood to talk about bunting, so let’s just leave it at that. Derek Jeter went 0-for-2 with a walk, a run scored, and a sac fly, though he looked pretty immobile in the field. Moreso than usual. Let’s hope it was the crappy weather and wet field. Jorge Posada took an unkind 0-for-4 but it was Robbie Cano that had the worst day of all. He struck out twice (once on a ball over his head) and flubbed a routine play on the field, indirectly leading to a run for the Tigers. He’ll do better.
The Yankees won their tenth straight Opening Day game at home, a streak that goes back to 1982.
WPA Graph & Box Score
A little rocky for Opening Day, but a win is a win. MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the nerd score.
Up Next
These two teams will take Friday off then meet back up for game two of the series and season on Saturday afternoon. FOX will carry the matchup of former Florida Marlins teammates – A.J. Burnett and Brad Penny – at 4:10pm ET.
59 Comments»
RAB Info
The Founders
Mike Axisa, Ben Kabak, Joe Pawlikowski
Editor-In-Chief
Mike Axisa Archives | Email
Managing Editors
Ben Kabak Archives | E-mail
Joe Pawlikowski Archives | E-mail
Contributing Editors
Larry Koestler (Archives)
Moshe Mandel (Archives)
Stephen Rhoads (Archives)
Weekend Writers
Hannah Ehrlich (Archives)
Matthew Warden (Archives)
Special Contributor
J.R. O'Grady (Archives)
Technical Consultant
Jay Gordon
Subscribe to RAB by RSS and Twitter
Follow @RiverAveBlues Search RAB
Banner Design By
The Mason Williams Watch
Came on here at 12 to see the annual April Fools joke thread!
Great day, great game. Here’s to 162-0.
24 hours left
From Lohud:
Russell Martin on Granderson’s catch in the ninth:
“That’s an incredible read off the bat,” Martin said.
“He might be the only guy who can catch that ball.”
Hell of a catch. I thought the one earlier in the game was a bit of a misread, but he still made it look good.
That running over the shoulder catch was outstanding.
I thought for sure he didn’t have a shot at it.
No he ain’t.
/Golson’d
Do I like the Soriano signing all things considering, no. Now that its done will I enjoy Soriano dominating the 8th, yes.
Thoughts from being at the game:
1) Brr.
2) Brrr.
3) Me, to bexarama and rich: “I feel like Curtis is gonna hit a home run here.” BOOMSTICK!
4) HIGH SOCKS MO!
good start, let’s win the series. one game at a time!
Is the dirt grey in that 2nd photo, or is it just on my end?
Also…we’ve only opened at home 10 times in THIRTY SEASONS?
Yeah I’m also seeing grey dirt
Can’t be that much DiamondDry, can it?
photoshop’d
Good start to the season for us. We’ll be 7-0 midweek! The Twins are coming in for four after the Tigers, so they’ll be good practice for Boston.
is that stat for real about the same outfielders and infielders?
Yup.
Great game from Curtis.
I’m, I’m, I’m so excited. I’m so excited…
Jorge quote: “If I knew they wanted their catcher to steal bases I would have stolen bases! They should have told me.
lol nice to see Jorge having some fun with the catcher situation.
I liked the part where the Yankees won
Didn’t catch Granderson’s theme song. It wasn’t what was in that video from a few days ago, was it?
Yes, his walkup music is rebecca black’s “Friday”
sadly
Granderson tweeted earlier that he did not pick the Friday song and it must have been a prank. But hey, if he keeps playing like he did today he should stick with it. We so excited.
It would be awesome if that became a regular thing with the team, where they kept getting each other’s theme changed here and there for fun. lol
It was our 11th* straight home win since 1982, which ties the Mets (of all teams) for the MLB record.
great effing win
Brad Penny is the Tigers 2nd starter? Holy shit that’s bad.
Both the Yankees and Tigers have their second-best pitcher opening the year as the nominal #3 starter. Max Scherzer >>>>>> Brad Penny
Hell, I might even say Rick Porcello > Brad Penny
Recent history has Penny as a beast in April, in the whirlpool come May.
What crazy person is still worrying about Soriano’s contract when he is getting outs in the 8th? You’d have to be nuts.
It is a bad contract no question about it. However, if Soriano can dominate like he did with the Rays last year he will make the Yanks bullpen amazing. Whenever you have Robertson in “reserve” that is pretty impressive.
Batting wise A-Rod looked really good. Both times he got really good contact as that curve from Verlander was just off his bat and the double would have been a homer if it was slightly warmer, dry, or with less wind coming infield. I feel big things from A-Rod this year.
Really? Imagine you took out an ill-advised, huge load to buy a beautiful house. You can’t both appreciate the house while also realizing that the loan might have been a bad call?
Obviously, the Yanks are not in such dire straits financially, but being able to appreciate both the pluses and minuses of something is not nuts.
Now imagine you’re Bill Gates and you overpaid for a house… a house which was the best available house in the area you wanted to move into. You wanted a beach house and this was a second ski house you didn’t need but wanted… now your wife and kids won’t stop bitching at you that you didn’t get a beach house. Problem was that in the community you wanted there were only so many beachfront houses, and you’re waiting for a good one to come onto the market. You’re just going to try to make due with your 7 other beachfront homes until you can get that next one.
Sure, it’s good to be able to appreciate the pluses and minuses. Mike has been obsessed with the minuses since the deal happened, though.
Plus you did make a huge offer for the best beach house on the market in the whole world… but the owner decided to sell for less to an old friend. And you also went after a beautiful old villa, but it was condemned. You offered to sign a one year lease on a decent beach house you’d owned in the past that had been renovated, but someone else signed a two year lease. Luckily you have several houses being designed and built, and hope that one or two turn out to be what you’re looking for.
Basically… If the Yankees sign Lee and then go out and sign Soriano too, I don’t think Yankee fans make nearly as big a deal about the contract. Some fans and writers would bitch about the Yankees outspending everyone, but I think most Yankee fans would look at it as the cherry-on-top of the next WS champion Yankee team. Since the rotation is questionable, I think people are more upset about the Soriano deal. If you have a leaky roof, it’s not a good idea to put in a swimming pool… A swimming pool is not a sound investment anyway, but especially if the money could be better spent fixing the roof. The Yankees are basically saying that it’s the dry season anyway and they’ve done a solid patch job on the hole in the roof until they find a really good roofing specialist to fix the roof… and even though the pool is a poor investment and could bite them eventually, it’ll be a lot of fun.
Ted will you promise me that´s the last of the “beachfront property-swimming pool “metaphors for the season ? LOL
10 million to NY is 5 million to most other franchises seeing the Yanks are 86 percent richer than the 2nd richest franchise.Boggles my mind.
To me Soriano is a great addition.
I made peace with his contract a while back. It’s going to be nice watching Soriano and Rivera dominate at the end of games, and the opener was a damn good start as far as that’s concerned.
Anyone else think AROD is going to have a ridiculous, 40+ HR year?? Cause this guy does…
50
lol… why stop there, why not 74?
Arod reaches 700 homeruns at the end of 2011.
he would have in theory had 40 last year in a down year if healthy.. don’t underestimate the odd year. Excluding joints, tendons, member, he has the body of a 12 yr old
why not 100
Dubbing yesterday’s bullpen: JoSoMo
joriamo
Love Grandy playing shallower if that is by design since he has a tendency to take a step back when the ball is hit. His catch in the 9th was something that few outfielders can do and it reminded me of the great Paul Blair when he caught everything in CF for the O’s in his prime. Nothing got over his head since he ran all out with his back to home plate and could always pick up and run under the ball. Imagine if Grandy’s catch was in a World Series game? A Yankee classic for the ages….
that catch followed by the strikeout were quite magnanimous. Glad baseball is back.
Heard on Mike and Mike today that Jeter, Jorge and Mo are the first 3 teammates to play 17 consecutive seasons together in any sport. Pretty cool stat.
Overall we’ll take the win. And as soon as the air heats up so too will CC. For a fat man, he sure loves the heat of summer.
Seen nothing above 92 for CC and Verlander was sitting 94 with a couple 96, and one 97.
He battled, the one out walk to load the bases from the sixth hitter was a bummer as it led to a SF…but he was solid, just not lights out.
err, no outs walk to the 6th hitter…
Who really cares about the contract? The team is far better as a result and they likely don’t get the player without such a contract/ structure. It hurts no one except ownerships bottom line ( which is comical to care about here). This organization has NEVER failed to spend money when necessary and this contract won’t stop them from doing anything important to help the team midseason. So again, who cares about it
I agree Paul. Its their money, and they’re not exactly hurting in that dept. As far as losing the draft pick, big deal. So we pick 20 spots further down. Tampa Bay was gonna have all those picks regardless, and Yanks usually take risks in later rounds so they can make up for it there. If Soriano dominates the 8th, the Yanks will get a very good return on their investment
Agreed!
Contracts that we don’t like on the Yankees is a long list. I think it’s silly to point out every single time. We just might have the all-time best bullpen in the history of baseball this year and we are likely to be far more closer games due to the starters.
It’s a 5-inning game these days…RoJoSoMO
note: We shall shout his name. The greatest closer ever.
Exactly. The contract sucks. We heard. Agreed. But, it is done with and has no further impact on anything, so lets stop brining it up in every post and just watch and hope the guy perform up to expectations.
l was initially critical about losing our 1st round pick, but the Rafael Soriano signing appears to be a tremendously effective mode.
With Joba in the 7th and Robertson as a fireman and one of Logan/Feliciano matching their 2010 performance the bullpen we’ll be in great shape. I do wonder how good we’d be if Ca$h nabbed Bobby Jenks
Now I see why so many people were so worried this offseason that Joba was now the Yankees 5th reliever, the franchise hated him, and he would never get into any meaningful situations… makes so much sense to me now.
Anyone else notice Rivera’s high socks? That was strange to me.
YES. I was hoping I wasn’t going to be the only one to point this out.
I call for a team wide high socks movement! Well, I can’t but I hope the team does.
So Grandy said that Mo wants the outfielders to play shallow when he pitches and that’s why he had so far to go on Inge’s shot.
All good things come from Mo…