Source: FanGraphs
Two hours and 41 minutes for a Yankees-Red Sox game? What kind of madness is this?! Hey, I’m not complaining though. That was a crisp and thorough win by New York, their sixth in seven games against Boston this season. Let’s recap…
- No GIDP: The Yankees have scored 17 first inning runs in their last five games against the Red Sox, and all three first inning runs in this game came after Dustin Pedroia and Mike Aviles botched a would-be double play grounder from Mark Teixeira. They simply took their time and Tex beat it out. Curtis Granderson scored on the play and Raul Ibanez hit a two-run homer as the next batter. That’s the difference between a first place team and last place team right there, the last place team botched the routine-ish play and the first place team took advantage.
- Philty Phil: Three runs in seven innings is so much better than three runs in five innings. I was clamoring for Joe Girardi to lift Phil Hughes after allowing three solo homers in the first five innings — he’s now allowed a league-worst 25 dingers — but the skipper stuck with his young right-hander and was rewarded with two more perfect innings. The solo homers stink, but that’s nothing new for Phil. He allowed just three other baserunners — a walk, a ground ball single, and a ground-rule double — and struck out five.
- Tack-On: The Red Sox stayed in the game thanks to all those solo homers early, but the Yankees began to pull away with Russell Martin’s two-run homer in the fourth. That one had a good sound, Russ hasn’t hit a ball that hard in weeks. The score remained 6-3 from the fourth through the eighth, when Granderson blew things open with a grand slam off Embedded Yankee Mark Melancon. They didn’t even switch to the high camera to follow the flight of the ball on YES, the center field camera just stayed on Melancon and showed his reaction. Pretty funny.
- Leftovers: Ichiro Suzuki only had one hit in his Yankee Stadium debut, but he hit two other balls right on screws for outs … Derek Jeter (single and walk), Granderson (triple shy of the cycle), and Robinson Cano (two singles) all had multiple hits while Teixeira and Eric Chavez were the only starters without knocks … David Robertson (one single) and Cody Eppley (two singles) threw scoreless frames following Hughes … this was only the fifth time this year the Yankees scored 10+ runs, and three of the five have come against Boston.
MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the advanced stats, and ESPN the updated standings. The Orioles are getting got wrecked by those powerhouse Athletics, so the lead in the division will be is back up to nine games soon enough. Lefties CC Sabathia and Jon Lester square off in game two of the series on Saturday afternoon.
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