Granderson & A-Rod slam Tigers in win

Source: FanGraphs

The Yankees beat the Tigers on Friday night to guarantee a winning road trip, but don’t expect to see them on the back pages Saturday morning. Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in Mets history and that’s pretty cool. Here’s a recap (of the Yankees)…

• Granderslam: If you’ve been reading RAB long enough then you’ve heard me say this before: the only things you can count on young pitchers to do are walk people and get hurt. Anything else is a bonus. The Yankees scored five runs on just one hit in the second inning because rookie southpaw Casey Crosby walked the bases loaded, forced in a run by walking Derek Jeter, and served up a grand slam to Curtis Granderson. Just like they drew it up.
• Sabathia: It was a typical bad CC Sabathia outing, meaning seven innings and three runs. A good start for normal folk but not what you like to see from the ace. Anyway, Sabathia threw 71 pitches in the first three innings but just 42 over his last four innings. Ramon Santiago hit a solo homer and both Prince Fielder and Danny Worth touched him up for run-scoring singles. Big whoop. Sixteen of his 21 outs were recorded on the infield. Go big man.
• Insurance: The Yankees were up 6-3 when Sabathia left the game and they managed to tack on a trio of insurance runs. Andruw Jones doubled in Nick Swisher in the eighth and one inning later Alex Rodriguez hit a two-run homer out to left-center off Octavio Dotel. I didn’t think it was gone off the bat, but it just kept carrying. An underrated moment of the game was Jayson Nix’s steal of third in the fourth, which allowed Chris Stewart to slap a ground ball single through the drawn-in infield to answer right back after the Tigers scored in the third.
• Leftovers: Clay Rapada pitched for the first time in nine days and retired one of four batters, and it wasn’t either of the two lefties he faced … Rafael Soriano picked up a cheapie save by coaxing a double play ball out of Miguel Cabrera with a five-run lead to bail out Rapada … Boone Logan and Cory Wade bailed out Cody Eppley with a scoreless one-run eighth … Derek Jeter and Granderson each had two hits, plus Nix reached base three times (double and two walks) … everyone in the starting lineup reached at least once and five of the nine starters reached at least twice.

MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the advanced stats, and ESPN the updated standings. The Yankees are now tied with the Orioles for second place in the AL East and are just one back of the Rays in the loss column. Game two of this three-game set is a rare Saturday night game, my least favorite. Hiroki Kuroda and Rick Porcello will be on the bump.