Archive for Robinson Cano
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.
The New York-Boston rivalry goes beyond wins and losses, extending down to the individual players. In the 90’s it was Jeter vs. Nomar, a few years ago it was Posada vs. Varitek, and nowadays you’ve got Cano vs. Pedroia in a second base matchup. Both are obviously tremendous young players, but they go about their business in different ways. Jack Curry spoke to injured Mets infielder (kinda redundant, no?) Alex Cora about which player he’d prefer, to which he essentially said Pedroia because “people are going to say [Pedroia] is going to show up every day and [Cano] might not.”
That mentality comes through again in this conveniently timed follow-up by Joel Sherman. Sherman polled seven executives about which second sacker they’d take, and all seven said Pedroia because he “has better makeup and gives his all every day.” He also noted that several execs “kept telling me Cano was erratic on D,” which Sherman (and I) disagree with. There’s certainly merit to guys who play hard all the time, but there’s no denying that Cano has more more talent and raw ability, and both articles reflect that.
Let’s not pretend that there aren’t some stereotypes involved here. The Dominican Cano is often be called lazy, or boneheaded, or something along those lines when he has the audacity to fail at something in a game of failure. Pedroia, short and white, fits the mold of a “grinder” and someone that “plays the game the right way,” something you absolutely never hear about non-caucasian players. But just look at last night’s game, when Pedroia was thrown out at third by ten feet trying to stretch a double into a triple. What would have been said about Cano if the roles were reversed? And then of course, there’s this.
Look, Robbie Cano is a great young player who’s guilty of the occasional brianfart. After an MVP season last year, Pedroia now lags behind Cano in AVG (.296 to .311), SLG (.440 to .499), OPS (.811 to .842), XBH (47 to 54), and VORP (27.5 to 29.4). Pedroia’s great, but the reputation far exceeds the reality right now. When it comes to Robbie, I think this great quote from Bossman Junior fits him perfectly (Upton was talking about himself at the time, but it still applies):
“Just because of the way I carry myself, some people say I’m lazy. I’ve heard that my whole life. Or I don’t work hard, or I don’t play hard sometimes. I can’t help that I make some things look easier than they really are.”
When asked what three additions have meant most to the 2009 Yankees, the first names that probably come to mind are A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia, and Mark Teixeira. All three signed with the Yankees over the off-season, and they’ve been excellent upgrades over their 2008 counterparts. Still, Dave Pinto has three different names in mind: Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, and Robinson Cano. Both were on the 2008 team, but the first two missed significant time with injuries, and Cano had a horrible first half and a good but not compensatory second half. Their returns to form this year have been a huge difference for this year’s team.
In 2008 Robinson Cano stepped to the plate 634 times and hit .271/.305/.410, his worst season since he was a rookie in 2005. His defense also suffered, as we saw him have trouble making some routine plays. It came at a curious time, as Cano had signed a four-year, $30 million contract over the off-season. Baseball fans love narrative, and this one wrote itself: Cano was lazy and he needed Larry Bowa to return to form.
This year Robinson has appeared at the plate 489 times and is hitting .318/.352/.513. He already had 18 homers and a team-high 32 doubles (tied with Tex). He still has his ups and downs, but that’s inherently Cano. He doesn’t necessarily rely on waiting for his pitch. Instead, he relies on timing, and sometimes his timing is going to be out of whack. That means a slump here and there, but as long as he can keep those limited, as he has this year, he’s going to be a valuable piece of any Yankees team.
Despite knee troubles that kept him out of action for two months, Matsui didn’t have a terrible 2008. He hit the DL hitting .323/.404/.458, which is fine for a 34-year-old with bad knees. Problem was, the injury came at a poor time. The Yankees were trying to pull of their second-half surge, but their offense sputtered in early August. A healthy Matsui would have done wonders then. He came back on August 19, but posted a paltry .209/.269/.326 line over 93 plate appearances the rest of the way. It left open the question of Hideki’s effectiveness in 2009.
This year Hideki has almost hit his plate appearance total from 2008, but is performing at a much higher level. The Yankees made the decision to keep him out of the field this season, and it’s paying off, as he’s hitting .269/.365/.516. We saw some extreme streakiness from Matsui earlier in the year, but it’s seemed to stabilize a bit lately. His .881 OPS is fourth on the team, and he’s had his share of big hits. The Yankees went on a similar post-break run this year as last, but this year were able to sustain it. Hideki is a big reason for that.
Finally, it’s impossible to talk about the 2008 season and not mention the loss of Jorge Posada. He and the team downplayed shoulder pain in Spring Training, and it turned out to be bad. Really bad. He hit the DL at the end of April in hopes that rest and rehab would heal it, but that just wasn’t the case. From mid-June, when he returned, to mid-July, when it was finally clear that he couldn’t go on, Posada hit .248/.380/.371, a far cry from the power he’s displayed in the past. Overall, the Yanks got a .230/.290/.335 line from their catchers, something they haven’t been used to.
After hitting the DL in May, it seems like Jorge’s been just fine physically. Among AL catchers with at least 200 plate appearances, Posada ranks third in OPS. The Yankees as a team are also third in the AL in catcher OPS. They were ninth last season.
While Tex, CC, and A.J. have been fine additions to the team, the Yanks have gotten what they’ve needed from their in-house guys, and then some. Before the season started, we asked which Yankee had the best chance of bouncing back from a poor 2008. Unfortunately, there was no all of the above option. That would have been the correct one. Jorge, Hideki, and Cano (and even Swisher) have all come around and have helped the Yankees greatly in 2009. They’re as big a part of the team’s success as the new guys.
The Yankees got beat up today. It started with their first batter of the game. Ricky Romero tossed a curveball inside, and it bounced right off Jeter’s right instep. He staggered in pain, but somehow convinced Joe Girardi and Gene Monahan that he was fine. After limping to first in his next at bat, Jeter left the game. X-rays, thankfully, were negative.
Then in the eighth, Jorge Posada took a foul ball off his throwing hand. How he stayed in the game after that, I have no idea. He’s insanely lucky that it didn’t break his hand — it’s happened to plenty of others. The problem is that Jorge doesn’t hide his throwing hand like catchers are taught in little league. Most guys won’t put their hands behind their back like in the old days, but they at least hide it behind the thigh. Jorge rests his on top of the thigh, and it almost cost him the rest of the season today.
Perhaps the worst incident came in the bottom of the 11th. On an 0-2 pitch, Shawn Camp came inside on A-Rod — a bit too inside. It hit right off his pad, but it was a direct hit. A-Rod went down, and if it wouldn’t take a tough defensive rejiggering (Tex to third, Jorge to first, Molina catching), he might have left the game. He ultimately stayed in, but there’s certainly a fear this could be worse.
They might have been beaten and battered, but the Yankees played through it all (without charging the mound). They didn’t look bad, either. After the leadoff hit by pitch, the Yankees put together a first inning run. It wasn’t the prettiest — if not for Aaron Hill bobbling his first of about four grounders on the day, it might have been a double play. And if Jeter hadn’t strayed off the bag on A-Rod’s grounder to third, they might have never had the chance to plate the run.
Things were going swimmingly through five. Burnett had surrendered just one run, the second in as many days by rookie Randy Ruiz. The seven baserunners through five, six hits and a walk, might seem like a lot, but he used six strikeouts and a ground ball double play to work out of a few jams. With the Yankees up 3-1, it looked like another victory. But, like Joba the night before, A.J. ran into a tough inning.
The boxscore notes that all three Blue Jays runs were charged to A.J., and technically it’s not wrong. He did throw two wild pitches in the inning, which first moved runners into scoring position and then allowed the tying run to score. It’s known that A.J. has a bit of a wild streak — he does lead the league in wild pitches, after all. But Jorge has to get to at least one of those, preferably the one that bounced between his legs and allowed Encarnacion to score. So yes, A.J. and his inherent wildness were at fault. But Jorge certainly was, too.
The bullpen did a good job of holding down the fort, allowing no runs on three hits and two walks through five innings. Chad Gaudin was a pleasant surprise in his first pinstriped appearance, tossing two innings while allowing one hit and striking out three. That should serve as a nice tune-up for a Sunday start, should the Yankees opt for that scenario.
In the end, the day belonged to Robinson Cano. His homer to lead off the fourth gave the Yankees a two-run cushion. But then, in the bottom of the 11th, in a dreaded runners in scoring position situation, Cano delivered a liner to the gap in right center. It looked like a homer off the bat, but it bounced off the wall, allowing A-Rod to score the game to mercifully end.
That capped a 6-1 homestand for the Yankees, about as good as they could have asked for. They even had a chance at a double sweep, losing the first game to Toronto by just one run after having them on the ropes early. Still, no one’s complaining about 6-1. The Yanks head westward for seven games on the coast. This will include six 10 p.m. starts. Anyone up for an RAB meet-up for Saturday’s 10:00 affair?
It’s 7:00, so that means it’s open thread time. Talk about the game, talk about the upcoming road trip, talk about anything. Just don’t be a total dickbag. That’s all we ask.
