Archive for Robinson Cano
Over the next week or so, we’ll again break down what went wrong and what went right for the 2009 Yankees. The series this year will be much more enjoyable than the last.
At this time last year, the Yankees roster was anything but set. They had a huge offer out to CC Sabathia, and planned to pursue at least one other starting pitcher. That would help shore up the rotation, but clearly there were no guarantees. On top of that, the Yankees powerhouse offense went out with a whimper in 2008. Not only did the Yankees need another bat to enhance the offense, but they’d need contributions from players who underperformed in 2008.
With the acquisition of Nick Swisher, the Yankees had four players who underperformed in 2008. Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui missed much of the season with injuries, and Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher had poor seasons at the plate. Even with the potential addition of Mark Teixeira, the Yankees had a lot to worry about. Without contributions from at least two of those four, the Yankees offense wouldn’t have been nearly as formidable.
Two of four didn’t seem like asking a lot. Two of the players in question were proven veterans coming off injuries, and other two were players in their primes who each had a bad season. But as it turned out, all four bounced back. That turned out to be a key to the 2009 season. It meant the Yankees had above average contributors in eight out of nine lineup slots, with the final filled by an average player. How many other teams can boast of such a powerhouse?
Here’s how the Yankees in question performed in 2008, and how they bounced back in 2009. All stats are from FanGraphs, at risk of Jeremy Greenhouse calling me out.
| Player |
08 wOBA |
08 WAR |
09 wOBA |
09 WAR |
| Jorge Posada |
.340 |
0.8 |
.378 |
4.0 |
| Hideki Matsui |
.348 |
0.8 |
.378 |
2.4 |
| Nick Swisher |
.325 |
1.0 |
.375 |
3.5 |
| Robinson Cano |
.307 |
0.5 |
.370 |
4.4 |
Both Swisher and Cano both returned to their pre-2008 forms, which brought a huge boost to the offense. As you can see from the table, these were not insignificant improvements. Not only did they increase rate production over 2008, but they stayed healthy and therefore added that value over the course of the season. WAR favors Cano over Swisher by almost a full run, but that’s mostly because of the positional adjustment. Both had phenomenal seasons, especially compared to 2008.
Posada and Matsui contributed in two ways. First, they improved their net production over 2008. Even when healthy, Posada and Matsui weren’t quite where they had been in years past. Their wOBA numbers weren’t bad in 2008, but the Yankees have seen them perform much better. There was certainly fear that age had caught up with them, but they answered that charge by coming back to produce in 2009. That leads to the second part of their improvement, remaining healthy. Even with their production in 2008, they didn’t help the team as much because they were hurt for much of the season. In 2008 both stayed healthy enough to add a ton of value to the team, as evidenced by their WAR figures.
All four players certainly had the potential to bounce back after poor 2008 campaigns. Cano and Swisher were guys in their primes who had bad years, and Matsui and Posada were two veterans who faced injury struggles. During the 2008-2009 off-season, it would have been wildly optimistic to predict that all four would bounce back. The Yankees got lucky in that regard. All four contributed to the 103-win season, which set up the team’s run through the playoffs. The 2009 Yankees might have made the playoffs if only two of those four bounced back, but they wouldn’t have been nearly as dominant. While the improved pitching staff was a big part of the story this season, we shouldn’t overlook Posada, Matsui, Cano, and Swisher. Their contribution was a big part of making this season as special as it was.
Over the next week or so, we’ll again break down what went wrong and what went right for the 2009 Yankees. The series this year will be much more enjoyable than the last.
In many ways, Robinson Cano’s 2009 season was the finest of his career. He rebounded from a substandard 2008 campaign to hit .320-.352-.520, setting career highs in games played (161), hits (204), runs scored (103), doubles (48), homers (25), and OPS+ (129). His 331 total bases were fourth most in the league, just 13 behind right-side-of-the-infieldmate and league leader Mark Teixeira. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news for Cano in 2009, as he struggled immensely when runners were in scoring position.
Robbie hit just .207-.242-.332 in those spots this season, easily the worst performance with RISP of his career. There were 247 individual runners in scoring position for Cano in 2009, yet he drove in just 55 of them (not including himself four times on homeruns), or 22.3%. For comparison’s sake, Teixeira drove in 70 of 257 runners in scoring position, or 27.2%. It’s only a 4.9% difference and that might not seem like much, but with 250+ chances, that’s more than a twelve run swing.
Ironically enough, Cano has all the tools you’d want to see in a guy batting in RBI situations. He’s got a gorgeous swing and makes contact so easily that he rarely strikes out (he struck out in just 9.9% of his plate appearances last year, ninth best in baseball). He hits the ball to all fields with authority, and he straight up murders fastballs (.328 AVG off them in 2009, 1.59 fastball runs above average per 100 pitches according to FanGraphs). Sure, you would like him to work the count a little better, but we saw earlier this morning that Cano excels at swinging early in the count. It’s in his DNA, he’s just not ever going to be a very patient hitter.
If there’s any good news in all of this, it’s that Cano had an unsustainably low .210 BABIP with RISP in 2009. His career BABIP is .324, so we’re talking about a huge difference here. Working backwards, Cano “unlucked” out of 17 hits with RISP this year because of his abnormally low BABIP (assuming he would have had his career BABIP in those spots), and those 17 extra hits would have pushed his batting line to a much more respectable .299-.328-.434 (assuming they all would have been singles) with men on second and/or third.
Cano admitted during the season that his struggles with RISP got to him, and you could clearly see that he was pressing in those spots as the season wore on. He’s human, it happens. The offseason is probably the best thing for him, because he gets to go home and clear his head, then come into camp with a fresh start next spring. His performance with runners in scoring position has nowhere to go but up, and that’s exciting.
Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac, Getty Images
Before he digs into the batter’s box for the first time, Robinson Cano playfully taps the opposing catcher’s shin guards with his bat. He then starts to settle in, adjusting his uniform and waving his bat in front of him like a pendulum. Then, as the pitcher readies, Cano gets into his stance, slightly open. The bat waggling behind his head seemingly dictates the movement of the rest of his body. It’s as if he and the bat are one, rocking back and forth in unison, waiting for the perfect moment to turn loose and strike the pitched ball.
If the ball is near the strike zone, I expect Robbie to swing. He’s never been known as a disciplined hitter — he’s been in the bottom five in the AL in pitches per plate appearances four out of five seasons, and in the other, 2007, he was in the bottom 10. Yet even though I understand the virtue of seeing more pitches, I want Robbie to swing. Not at a pitch in the dirt or at his eyes, of course, but if it’s reasonably close to the zone I think swinging is probably the proper decision. (Cano, for his part, made contact with 77.5 percent of pitches outside the strike zone in 2009, and 75.3 percent in 2008.)
This season, I noticed many times that Cano would stand and passively watch the first pitch go by, no matter its type or location. Unfortunately, a statistic does not exist which can quantify this situation. All we have is the number of times he swung at the first pitch, 230 out of his 674 plate appearances, or 34 percent overall. That is actually up from 2008, when he swung at the first pitch 32 percent of the time. In previous years, Cano swung at the first pitch more often. But while we know that Cano swings at the first pitch often enough, we don’t know how many of those first pitch situations he’s eschewing because of this passive tactic.
Presumably, this is to help correct for his poor discipline. Again, Cano routinely sees among the fewest pitches per plate appearance in the league, so the idea might be that if he takes the first pitch, he might get a better read on the pitcher. I’m not sure if this first-pitch passive approach is an instruction from Kevin Long, or an initiative of Cano’s own undertaking. What I do know is that while that tactic can sometimes lead to a 1-0 count, oftentimes Cano watches a perfectly good pitch go right by, a pitch that he can put in play. That’s Cano’s strength, putting balls in play, and I don’t like seeing him take good pitches — or even close pitches — without even thinking about swinging.
Just how good is Cano when he swings at the first pitch? He did it 118 times in 2009, and he picked up 51 hits, good for a .432 batting average. Of those 51 hits, seven were home runs, 11 were doubles, and one was a triple, for a .720 slugging percentage. He also picked up 21 of his 85 RBI by first-pitch swinging. Though his 2009 performance on the first pitch probably isn’t repeatable, Cano has fared well throughout his career in that situation, posting a .374 batting average and .578 slugging percentage over 544 plate appearances.
Hitters who see a lot of pitches provide value to the team. Nick Swisher makes fewer outs than other players because he’s willing to wait for the pitch he wants. If the pitcher doesn’t give him something he can hit, he’ll take his walk (or, as the case may be, he’ll strike out looking). The Yankees have always coveted patience at the plate, and it seems like they sometimes go out of their way to acquire this type of player. It stands in contrast to Cano, a free swinger. Even as he watched balls pass by, having no intention of swinging, he still ranked fourth to last in the AL in pitches per plate appearance in 2009.
Cano saw an 0-1 count 303 times in 2009. We might not learn from his numbers in that situation, because we don’t know how he got the strike. It could have been a passive look, an active look, a foul ball, or a swing and miss (though that only happened about 230 times all season). In any case, he hit .288/.294/.482 over 303 plate appearances. That’s pretty close to his career mark of .285/.299/.422 over 1,334 plate appearances. He is much better with a 1-0 count, .305/.383/.464 over 253 PA in 2009 and .298/.368/.476 over 1,158 PA in his career. Still, not as good as his first pitch numbers.
This is not to say that Cano should swing at every first pitch. That would be preposterous. It is to say that he’s not doing himself any favors by passively resting the bat on his shoulders. Maybe I’m falling victim to an observation bias and he doesn’t do this nearly as frequently as I think. I wish I had a way to measure it, other than watching the archive of all his 674 plate appearances. But that would just annoy me. That’s why I wrote this post, really. Because Robinson Cano annoys me when he nonchalantly watches a good pitch go by.
We’ve all seen this before: Yankees offense scores 900 runs in the regular season, goes to sleep in the playoffs. The difference this year is that some guys are still hitting. That, and the superb pitching allowed even a porous offense to come out ahead in the first five postseason contests. But, as we saw yesterday, the holes in the lineup can be killers. The Yanks could have scored eight, 10 runs yesterday if they hit with runners in scoring position. Instead, they relied on the solo homer. That won’t always work.
That the bottom of the order isn’t hitting is one thing. That Mark Teixeira isn’t hitting is another. He’s had a pretty bad playoffs overall, notching just two hits in the ALDS. Of course, those two hits were as big as they get: a single prior to a game-tying homer, and a walk-off shot in the same game. Since then, in four games, Teixeira has just one hit. He is 1 for 13 in the ALDS with a lone single, walking three times to five strikeouts. It hurts so much more because he’s batting in the three hole.
It’s April all over again for Tex. It appears the long breaks have disrupted his rhythm. That’s anecdotal, of course, but it matches with what we’ve heard about Teixeira from day one. He starts slow every year because he needs to get into a rhythm from both sides of the plate. Joe Morgan (of all people) explained it on a Sunday Night Baseball broadcast, noting that while most hitters transfer their weight from their back foot to their front, Teixeira stays on his back foot for his whole swing. I wonder how much Tex would benefit from having a non-roster pitcher, like Brian Bruney, throw him live BP, at game speeds.
Robinson Cano came to the plate twice yesterday with runners on first and second with none out, and twice bounced into a fielder’s choice. In fact, he doesn’t have a hit with runners in scoring position all series. His only RBI came on a triple with a man on first. He’s just 3 for 13 in the series with a GIDP. The Yankees certainly need the guy who hit .320 this season.
Batting after Cano is Nick Swisher, who has been equally as bad if not worse. After going 1 for 12 in the ALDS, Swisher is 2 for 10 in the ALCS with five strikeouts. A few of those have been costly, coming with a runner on third and less than two outs. Swisher’s woes at the plate are amplified when A.J. Burnett starts. Because Jose Molina bats ninth and Jorge Posada is out of the lineup, Swisher hits sixth. Unless he does something tonight, putting him in that spot isn’t the best idea.
Rounding out the order is Melky Cabrera who, after a good Game 1, has slowed down considerably. He went 1 for 2 with two walks in the opening match, but since has gone 2 for 11 with no walks and four strikeouts. He’s the No. 9 hitter, so it’s tough to expect the world from him. Still, Melky has stumbled in the playoffs. He’s just 5 for 25 this postseason, which is bad even for the last hitter in the lineup.
So far the Yankees have gotten by with timely (i.e., late) hitting and solid pitching. But the home runs won’t come against everyone. The Yankees have to start taking advantage of their opportunities earlier in the game, and that means Teixeira, Cano, Swisher, and Melky have to produce. After yesterday’s loss, the Yankees could use it tonight more than ever.
Last night the Yanks played the first of six meaningless games to wrap up the season. I’ve heard fans gripe about this and that meaningless game in May, but that’s not truly meaningless. It’s just that the payoff is so far down the road that you can’t see it yet. These games, they’re meaningless. The organization meets tomorrow to hash out the ALDS roster; in other words, they’re not even going take these games into consideration when deciding the postseason roster.
For some players it means a tune-up for the postseason. For others, like most of the Yankees starting lineup last night, it’s an opportunity to get some big league at bats. All but one of the starters took advantage. Juan Miranda sat out the hit party, but each of the other Yankees starters, from Gardner down to Pena, collected at least one hit. The Yanks put 15 men on base, pummeling the Royals in an 8-2 win.
Chad Gaudin did his job and then some. He allowed just six baserunners through six and two-thirds, which resulted in just two runs. In the only real jam he faced in the evening, second and third with one out in the fifth, he escaped after allowing just one run, a sac fly. That was the last time a runner would reach scoring position for the Royals. Damaso Marte and Al Aceves got the final seven outs without allowing another hit.
The stories of the night were on the offensive side. WIth the game tied at one in the fifth, Ramiro Pena took a big hack and sent his first career home run just beyond the right field fence. It’s been quite the year for Ramiro. He came out of nowhere in camp to win the utility infield gig, has already recorded 113 major league plate appearances, and has an outside shot of making the playoff roster. Strangely, Pena’s 2 for 4 night brought his SLG up to .388, which is higher than he slugged in AAA this year (.327) and AA last year (.357). Hopefully some asshole won’t demand a ransom for the ball.
The other offensive moment came in the seventh. Luke Hochevar, having only thrown 73 pitches through six, came out to face the 8-9-1 hitters. Four batters later he had surrendered a run and loaded the bases for Robinson Cano. Why Trey Hillman left him in there I have no idea. But it wouldn’t take him long to regret it. Robinson Cano, who was 6 for 26 with runners in scoring position coming into the game, belted one out to right, putting the Yanks up 8-2.
It’s always nice to see the backups get their shakes. We’ll see Damon, Jeter, A-Rod, Swisher, and Teixeira will return tomorrow, but there will still be a few bench guys in there. A.J. Burnett, whose dad had successful triple-bypass surgery yesterday, will be back to take the hill against Anthony Lerew.
*Alternate title: Yanks actually maintain a six-run lead over Kansas City.
Robinson Cano’s resurgence is one of many reasons the Yankees are on their way to the best record in baseball. His hot bat (except with RISP) and slick fielding have made him one of the more valuable second basemen in the league. This wasn’t the case last year, when Cano struggled with the bat in the first half, and had troubles on defense most of the year. It led to a reputation among opposing players that he was lazy. Cano worked to buck that perception over the off-season — he was not motivated only by improving himself, but also by sticking it to the nonbelievers. Jim Baumbach of Newsday writes about Cano in his latest column. It’s a nice, short read on a rainy Sunday.
If I told you that the Yanks would win a game in Anaheim with Jerry Hairston, Jr., Shelley Duncan, Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner and Jose Molina all in the same lineup, would you believe me? What if I told you that Damaso Marte, Jonathan Albaladejo, Phil Coke and Ian Kennedy would be called upon to get a combined seven outs in the middle of the affair? What if I added that the Yanks hadn’t won a series in Anaheim since May 2004?
In a turn of events sure to confound those fans who are convinced that the Yankees can’t win a game in Angels Stadium, the Bombers’ C lineup and their C bullpen corps downed the Angels today 3-2. Robinson Cano, struggling all year with runners in scoring position, came through with a huge hit, and A.J. Burnett struck out 11 in 5.2 strong innings of work. Ian Kennedy gave us all a heart attack but held down the eighth in his return to the Majors. With their victory, the Yanks saw their Magic Number drop to 5 and their lead above the Red Sox increase to a temporary 6.5.
For the first few innings, the Scott Kazmir/A.J. Burnett pitching duel lived up to its billing. While the Angels left a man on base in every inning of the game, Burnett had the K pitch working this afternoon. He was sitting between 95 and 97 for most of the game and recorded 11 of his 17 outs by the strike out. With that stuff, the runners on base won’t score.
The Yankees broke through first, finally getting to Kazmir in fourth. While Jerry Hairston, Jr., struck out, Mark Teixeira doubled, and Hideki Matsui walked. Shelley Duncan lined a single just over Chone Figgins’ glove to left, and because Teixeira started back to second when it seemed as though Figgins would make the play, Juan Rivera gunned him down at the plate. With two outs, Robinson Cano and his struggles with runners in scoring position came to the plate, he lined a two-out, two-run single to left and advanced on the throw. Melky Cabrera would drive Cano in with a double, and those three runs would be all the Yanks would need.
In the bottom of the fifth, Burnett ran into a spot of trouble. Mike Napoli singled, and Chone Figgins doubled. With two on and no one out, Burnett bore down. He struck out Erick Aybar, and Robinson Cano ranged far to his left to snare a Bobby Abreu ground ball. A run would score, but Burnett pitched out of the inning.
In the sixth, the bullpen would take over. After Burnett allowed another run to score, Damaso Marte retired Figgins. An inning later, Jonathan Albaladejo would take over, but his stay was short-lived. After a double, Phil Coke came in and struck out Kendry Morales. Coke has lost seven pounds over the last two days with a bad stomach bug, but he got a huge out with the tying run in scoring position.
One of the stories of the game around in the 8th. With Al Aceves and Phil Hughes unavailable and Brian Bruney in the dog house, Ian Kennedy came in for his return to the Bigs after aneurysm surgery. He seemed nervous and struggled with his control, loading the bases on a hit by pitch and two walks. But he pitched around it. He got the first out when Juan Rivera lined to Ramiro Peña at third and struck out Maicer Izturis with two on. With the bases loaded, Erick Aybar flew out to Shelley Duncan. Threat over.
In the 9th, Rivera nailed down the game, and all was right with the Yanks. A.J. had another strong start, and Joe will look at his resurgence in the morning. The Yanks knocked another game off the Magic Number counter and have now won three of their last four against Anaheim. The Yanks are sitting pretty.
Hairston Injury Update
Jerry Hairston left the game in the 7th when he felt his wrist pop, and PeteAbe speculates that Hairston’s injury could be serious. Apparently, Hairston first injured his wrist while with the Reds and received an MRI and cortisone shot ten days ago. He will have another scan tomorrow. I wouldn’t expect much from him for the rest of the year, but then again, I wasn’t really expecting much from him anyway.
Feel free to make this an Open Thread. Talk about the game. Talk about Kennedy for the 8th. Talk about the long wait until the Friday night game against the Red Sox. Just play nice.
Once again, CC was great. He powered through seven innings, allowing just three hits. His only real mistake was a low fastball that caught a bit of the plate, and even then few hitters other than Evan Longoria would have deposited it in the right field seats. Another hit was a grounder that found a hole, and the final was the result of Dioner Navarro sticking out his bat head and dumping one into shallow right.
He did walk four, including Jason Bartlett twice, but none of those came back to bite him. It did hurt his K/BB ratio, though his 10 strikeouts offset some of that. Carl Crawford, Gabe Kapler, and Fernando Perez were his most frequent victims, going down twice each. Wily Aybar, Evan Longoria, and Dioner Navarro managed to avoid the 10 K machine.
Matt Garza pitched as well if not better than CC, turning this one into a bona fide pitcher’s duel. He also went seven innings, allowing five hits and one walkd but no earned runs, thanks to the first-inning error. Strangely, even though he walked just one his strikes to balls ratio wasn’t very good at all — 67 strikes to 53 balls. In any case, he got the job done.
The Yanks got two breaks which led to their first run. First, Jason Bartlett booted a Mark Teixeira grounder, which put him on first base with two outs. The other fortuity was Alex Rodriguez working the count full off Matt Garza. That allowed Teixeira to get a running start, which allowed him to score on A-Rod’s absolute rope over Crawford’s head.
Once Garza was out of the game, the Yankees struck. Nick Swisher led off the eighth by drawing a walk, and Mark Teixeira followed that with a single to right. Rob Thompson noticed Gabe Kapler bobble the ball in right, and waved Swisher on to third. That caused a poor throw, allowing Tex to mosey into second. The aggressiveness paid off, and the Yanks were set up.
Smartly, the Rays walked Alex Rodriguez, who was 3 for 3 to that point, to load the bases. They’d rather take their chances with Robinson Cano and his anemic results with runners in scoring position. Still, Cano is not hitting .000 in those situations, so he comes through some times. This was one of them. He skied a ball to center, allowing the pinch-running Jerry Hairston to score and give the Yankees the lead.
Joe Maddon used three pitchers to record the three outs in the eighth, but they allowed three runs along the way. They all go to Cormier in the box score, but Chad Bradford did give up a hit to allow an additional runner to score. It was a team effort, and it was the difference in the game.
The Yanks bullpen, on the other hand, slammed the door. Phil Hughes got off to a shaky start by walking Carl Crawford, but got a break when he decided to make a run for it on the first pitch. The Yanks pitched out, and thanks to an accurate throw and quick tag they put Crawford back into the dugout. Hughes finished off the inning, and Mo made his return with two strikeouts in the ninth.
That takes care of Game 1 for the day. With Mo and Hughes unavailable for the nightcap, the Yanks would do well to knock around Andy Sonnanstine. A.J. Burnett will try to get back on track and bring the Yanks magic number down to 16. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.
Not even a poor start from Allan James Burnett could hold back the Yankees last night. They put on their typical offensive showing, smacking 12 hits off Orioles pitching, six of which were for extra bases. That included five home runs, accounting for eight of the Yanks nine runs. The bullpen did its usual lights out job, and the Yanks ticked off another victory.
It was clear from the start that Burnett didn’t have his best stuff. This seems to happen from time to time. Last time out against the Rangers he definitely did have his best stuff, but seemingly lost focus at a critical moment. This time against Baltimore he wasn’t hitting spots at all. The O’s hit him hard right from the start, including a Felix Pie homer.
After an uneventful second, A.J. faced considerable trouble in the third. It took him 32 pitches to get through the inning, and two of the batters he faced put the first pitch into play. The inning featured two walks, the only two Burnett would issue in the game. Two of them would come around to score, erasing the lead to which Jorge Posada and Robinson had staked them.
The Orioles went down without a peep in the fourth, but again that wasn’t a sign of things to come. Burnett made his own bed in the fifth by failing to cover first base on a hard liner which Mark Teixeira knocked down. Two batters later Luke Scott laid into a pitch, sending it out onto Eutaw Street. The Yanks had scored five runs for their No. 2 starter, and he’d blown it.
It’s quite good, then, that the Yankees have the most high-powered offense in baseball. Alex Rodriguez drove in the tying run in the top of the sixth, and then a double-homer-homer string by Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, and Eric Hinske put the Yanks back out in front for good. It’s just another instance in a season full of late-inning scoring by the Yanks. In innings seven through nine, the team was hitting .293/.380/.512 entering play. They added to it last night.
The late-inning offensive heroics are amplified because of the capable arms in the Yanks pen. Four of them pitched 3.2 innings, allowing two hits and striking out two. Damaso Marte was the first man on the scene, finishing off the sixth inning and recording the first out of the seventh. David Robertson followed by doing the same in the seventh and eighth, which Phil Coke perfectly finished. Then came Mo, who allowed a hit but got a double play ball to end the game.
Certainly that’s not the start anyone wants to see from Burnett. The good news is that he still has five or six more tune-ups before the playoffs. As they’ve done plenty of times before, the Yanks offense masked this one. They can do that. It’s quite the advantage when the pitchers aren’t going right. We’ve seen A.J. pitch brilliantly this year, and we’ve also seen starts like this from him. As long as he’s not doing this in October, I’ll refrain from too much complaint. (Though it’s tough to not complain when he loses a winnable game.)
Getaway day? Who’s ever heard of that? With the series in hand, the Yanks will go for the sweep tomorrow night, as CC Sabathia toes the rubber against Jason Berken. Now, if only the Red Sox would lose a game at some point.
The Boston Red Sox are a good baseball team. They have a potent offense which, despite a slump after the All-Star Break, ranks up there among the best in the league. They have two of the top starters in the league. Their bullpen, though not as good as it was in April, is still solid. Yet despite how good they are, they’ve run into a team playing even better.
The Yankees flexed their bats once again last night, hammering Sox ace Josh Beckett for eight runs, including five home runs, in eight innings. Derek Jeter started the assault, belting the first pitch of the game into the Red Sox bullpen. Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez each added a blast, and Hideki Matsui had two for the second time in the series. Those five hits accounted for seven of the eight Yankee runs.
The Josh Beckett on the rubber last night was not the Josh Beckett who has pitched most of this season. His funk started last time out in Toronto, when he allowed seven runs in 5.1 innings. He labored a bit in that one, throwing 99 pitches. Last night it seemed a bit different. He ran into more issues with the long ball, but was still able to keep his pitch count at a decent level, and also kept throwing strikes. Though he gave up nine base hits, Beckett walked no one.
CC Sabathia steered clear of the free pass as well. Like Beckett, CC wasn’t at the height of his game, but he was much closer. Trouble brewed in the second, after the Yanks had staked CC to a two-run lead. Again it happened with two outs, after CC struck out the first two batters in the inning. Lowell, Baldelli, and Varitek went double-single-double, tying the score and prompting a collective groan from the Yankees faithful.
That’s as bad as things would get. After a double play helped avert trouble in the third, Robinson Cano made his second error of the night, this one costing the Yanks a run. They had built a 5-2 lead by that point, so the run didn’t hurt as much, but there’s simply no reason to hand the Red Sox additional opportunities. As said in the opening paragraph, they are a good team. They will hurt you if you let them.
Four runs over 6.2 innings might not look great in the box score, but it was still a quality effort by CC. He didn’t walk anyone, and kept his strike to ball ratio in good standing. The Sox did knock out eight base hits against him, but just three of them were doubles. There were no homers. Sabathia also beared down with runners on, as he held the Red Sox to just 2 for 9 with runners in scoring position.
(Oddly, the Yankees just put three men in scoring position all night, one of whom, Derek Jeter, scored on a Mark Teixeira single. Hey, when you hit five dingers, who needs runners in scoring position?)
The win caps a 7-3 road trip and gives the Yanks a 7.5 game lead in the East. That’s the same lead they had after the previous series. Again, Boston’s a good team that’s run into a team that’s playing just as well if not better. They’ve shaken the 0-8 stigma for good, and even put a dent in the “they can’t win at Fenway” argument with two wins this weekend.
You can say that the Yanks have sealed the division, and on October 4 you might prove to have been right. But there are still a number of good teams in the AL that the Yanks will have to face along the way, and they won’t tread lightly. They’ll have another test right away, as the Rangers, a game behind the Red Sox for the Wild Card, come to town starting Tuesday. Unfortunately, it looks like the Yanks will have to do the Sox a favor.
