4/6/10: Yankees 6, Red Sox 4

Box Score

Game MVP: Robinson Cano; yep, I'm giving it to him for the second straight night
Honorable Mention: Derek Jeter, for some vintage Jeter defense despite the random error
Props To: Alfredo Aceves and the rest of the Yanks bullpen for hanging on in this one
Negative Props To: A.J. Burnett for being as wild as ever and Tex for being hitless in nine ABs

For the second time in three evenings, "the greatest rivalry in all of sports" lived up to its lofty classification, as the pinstripes and the bloody socks went down to the wire once again at Fenway. In almost a mirror opposite of the contest Sunday night, it was the Yanks, and not the Red Sox, who came back from an early deficit, and it would be their pen who would hold the two-run edge for the win. Both teams have scored exactly 13 times over the first two bouts, with no starter making it past the sixth inning. Girardi has made use of six relievers over those 18 innings, while Francona has dipped into the pen for 7 different arms.
Talk about evenly matched. This is gonna be one fun year.

Oh and before I say anything more, let it be known that just before the first pitch was thrown, the NESN announcer proclaimed "Buenos noches amigos!" in a New-Englandy squawk, after his partner had mentioned the SAP button on the remote control. I nearly spat out my milk (note: I wasn't really drinking milk, but if I was...).

MINUSES

I like to keep things balanced, so since I began with pluses in Sunday's loss, I'll look at the negatives of last evening's win first. For the second straight night, my boy Curtis Granderson came to the plate with a runner on third and less than two outs and failed to do anything. Twice. Granted in his second AB, he hit a bullet to Youkilis, and that was after getting fooled badly on a perfect change up from DelCarmen. Fair. The first AB was understandable as well, as he was up against Lester, who was working the plate with hard cutters and 4-seamers very effectively in the early going. Even still, Grandy fell victim to one of my top pet peevs in baseball: he got up with the bases loaded and didn't take a strike. The pitcher is on the ropes when the pond is full of ducks, man; you gotta make him prove he can get ahead. Instead Curtis swung at a potential ball and allowed Lester to come back in the AB to strike him out. Curtis did have a single to lead off an inning later on, but he failed to come through with 1st-and-2nd and one out late in the game. I'm only slightly concerned about his clutchness factor, though. He's still settling and might be pressing a bit. I just hope that HR in his first AB didn't go to his head.

Tex. Damn it, Tex. Your swing is just not there. Tex was dominated by Lester's cutter in his first three ABs, getting jammed each time, and then again in his fourth appearance by Daniel Bard's heater. He's not getting his hands in fast enough and hence the bathead is lagging in the zone; the Boston pitchers made sure to expose this last night. Tex got up twice with the bases loaded and managed to steal an RBI in his first try thanks to a blown double play call. On his second opportunity, he had a chance to ice the game with two outs in the eighth, and although he finally got his hands extended, his swing was too long and loopy, resulting in a deep fly out to right. 0-9 to start the year, but it will all be forgiven if he hits .400 in June and July.

Posada, you have got to be the slowest piece of doo-doo since Ernie Lombardi. Yeah, your bat didn't look quite as good as it did on Sunday, even with the double, but your ABs for the most part were solid last night. It's your base running that's killing me. First, he gets held at third base running from first on a two-bagger by Swisher. A faster guy might've scored, but it's Posada, so fine. Then he's gunned down on an extremely slow-developing double play. Anyone – and I mean anyone – else would have been safe. In the eighth inning, I really lost my patience. He gets to second on the Gardener slicer and I'm thinking, 'Okay, Girardi. Now would be a good time to sub someone in for Slow-Ass, as he represents the go-ahead run.' But no, Slow-Ass remains in the game. Shortly after, Slow-Ass was unable to advance to third on a big fly to the deepest part of the park. Now there are two outs. On the next play, Scutaro kept the inning going with a throwing error, a ball that bounced off Youkilis and skipped a fair distance away from him. The baserunner going to third should be running full tilt and rounding the bag for the go-ahead score in that two-out situation. But it's Posada. So no go-ahead run. It turned out to be a moot point after Johnson's walk, but what if he hadn't gotten the RBI? Girardi is the guy really at fault here, but I'm still gonna blame Jorge too for looking more flat-footed and fat-assed than any year I can remember.

Here's a question: how can a guy who's SO good look SO bad sometimes? No, I'm not talking about William Shatner. I'm talking about A-Rod. Third inning he swings at an awful pitch in a 2-0 count (he did hustle down the line to make it a close play though). Fifth inning he fans on a 4-seam cockshot in a 1-0 count, then again in a 2-1 spot. Ninth inning he hacks at another pitcher's pitch in a 3-1 count and practically took it out of the ballpark. I'm seeing a trend I don't like here, Mr. Rodriguez. It's his usual, I can't recognize pitches for my life modus operandi. The main thing that's redeemed him so far is that he's delivered with two big hits, both scorching doubles that produced runs in key situations. And you know what, if he's clutch, then he can swing at all the bad pitches he wants. Still gonna call him out for it though.

Lastly, the bullpen. Yes, I did give them props for holding the lead, but that was mainly the doing of Ace and Mo (who I'll get to soon). The other three...meh. Dave Robertson is 2-for-2 with getting burned on a fastball up and out over the plate against his first batter faced (Sunday against Beltre, last night against Youkilis). He was one-and-done after that. Good contribution. Why bring a guy like that in for one batter anyway, Girardi? He's not really a specialist of any sort. Ortiz was next so of course, Marte emerged. And what did that genius do? He threw the ball away to first trying to pick-off Youkilis! YOUKILIS! That bearded bastard couldn't steal if Damon was catching! Get your head out of your colon, for crying out loud! He did get Ortiz out, but only because Papi doesn't do ‘roids anymore. So then Girardi predictably goes to Joba, who gets super lucky after the red-hot Beltre missed a hanger, then chased a bad pitch well out of the zone for the K. Chamberlain did fan a struggling Drew on two back-to-back nasty hooks, but I'm still skeptical about his control, and his enthusiasm for that matter. It was good to see him pump the fist and pound the chest after those outs. More please.

PLUSES

Now the easy part (although certainly less fun). We'll start with the Ace. Alfredo Aceves, for those not in the know. Coulda use your mojo last night my friend. What I love about this man is that he doesn't give a horse's patooty who's at the dish. He winds, he fires, and he attacks the strike zone every time. Sure, he got some help from Jeter on the defensive side, and Pedroia missed a cockshot heater; but overall, he mixed his pitches well, worked all corners of the zone, and was good enough to get it done through two innings. Hey, if you're doing that, then it's okay if you get tagged a couple of times. I'd rather a guy get hit then watch Joba throw his curve in the dirt twenty times any day.

Swisher carried his weight in this one, breaking open the scoring on Lester with an RBI double to right (a nice piece of hitting too). He did the same to a well-spotted DelCarmen fastball in the sixth inning, and grinded out an 11-pitch AB against Okajima, who ended up surrendering the go-ahead run on a bases loaded walk. If you think those 11 pitches didn't play a part in tiring him out, then you need a new cerebral cortex. The Scutaro error didn't help either.

Can't forget the MVP for the second straight game, Robby "Bobinson" Cano! He's a man with a plan and a fire stick in his hand, kid! You wanna talk about a productive night? AB #1: He fought off some tough Lester fbs and muscled a single up the middle. AB #2: Works a walk against an apparently timid Lester. Beware the fire stick! AB #3: He takes the first hittable pitch he saw to deep center for the SAC fly, a smart idea executed sublimely. AB #5: Liftoff. A bomb to right field off a hard-breaking slider that he golfed out of the sweet spot (low and in). Huge insurance run that made Mo's job that much easier. The only man to master him was the deadly Bard, who has mastered everyone on the Yanks in his first two outings.

Mo? What can you say? He's Mo. Save #1 of 47. Yep. I'm calling it.

PITCHING BREAKDOWN:

A.J. So many foul things I could turn those initials into, but I will refrain. Instead, I will break you down, in a calm, scientific fashion. The fastball, his bread-and-butter, definitely had the velocity. 95-96 mph with regularity. The location of the fastball was not so regular. He missed high. He missed inside. He missed outside. When Posada would move in, the ball would sail out. When Posada moved out, the ball dived in. It was up in the zone more than it was at the knees. In summary, it was the typical look of a clumsy pitcher who has no idea where the ball is going each time he threw it. Yes, the hook was breaking fine and the MPH was there. But when you can't repeat your arm slot consistently, then you're begging to get stung. He got lucky in the 1st that Youkilis just missed an 0-2 hook that hung in the middle of the plate, and that Papi lined a ball right into the shift.

Martinez made him pay though, both in the third and the fifth, on a 2-run launch a 1-run double respectively. The problem is that he doesn't have a lot of pitches to go to in his arsenel; or at least he doesn't choose to go to them enough. 4-seam heat or the slider; that was essentially it all evening. Since, he was struggling to locate the fastball, you can throw the 2-seamer out the window. That leaves the change, which he went to once, maybe twice all evening. It sure would have come in handy against Martinez, who looked to be gearing up for the heat in both those ABs. I don't know if he has no confidence in it or if he (or Dave Island) is just thick-skulled, but when the heat isn't quite there, he has to come up with something else. Otherwise, it's gonna be another year of this guy having a good-to-great outing every three starts, and performing mediocre-ly at best in the other two. Maybe that's just who A.J. Burnett is. Maybe I should stop hating on him and just take the good with the bad.

Or I can rag on him all year long. Yeah, that sounds like more fun.


EPILOGUE - 4/7/10: Yankees 3, Red Sox 1

Box Score

Since the completion of this unnecessarily long blog post, the Yankees have taken the series with a 3-1 10-inning victory in the rubberneck game this fair and mild evening. The game-winning score was delivered against Papelbon off the bat of...wait for it...GRANDYSON! Curtis, I take it all back, haha. Way to give me the middle finger tonight and deliver in the clutch for us, against one of the toughest arms in baseball no less. I only saw the last third of the game; thus, I will not be posting in detail about that event as I have the previous two (cue the sigh of relief from my non-existent reader-base). I will (try to) limit myself to this small add-on section here.

So Lackey debuted as a Sux and apparently did stellar work, making through six innings without a blemish on his line in terms of runs. The veteran order was able to make the former Angel ace work hard in those six innings however, and they forced his exit despite the shutout. The bats were far more quiet in this game than in the other two, Pettite made up for it with a solid 6-inning performance of his own (solid judging from the stat line, anyway). His only run aloud was driven in by Ortiz of all people ('WHO SAYS I'M IN A MOTHAF*&^%$ slump now??!!'). Swish came through again off Schoeneweis, and Chan Ho redeemed himself with three enormous innings of scoreless relief (enough to earn the seal of approval from the ever-critical CK). Tex is now 0-12, but added a big insurance RBI in the tenth. A-Rod went 0-5, tapped into a pair of DPs, and left 5 on base. No clutch hit in this one. Grandy had the only multi-hit game. Who would have thought Lackey and Pettite would be the pairing to put on the best show out of all six of these guys?

My good friend, colleague, and conspirer, Mr. CK (don't know if he wants his name used in public on such a frequented site) insists that it doesn't look like the team is trying. He is disgruntled by the lack of production from the biggest bats and remains leery of the Yankees come-from-behind (ha) approach in their two wins. I beg to differ. I say a win's a win. I say if your lineup can knock both Beckett and Lester out of the game before the sixth inning in consecutive nights, then your lineup is doing something right. The Yanks proved they are a comeback team last year, as they had more come-from-behind (ha, I said it again) wins than anyone in the majors. Whether or not they still have the same magic remains to be; that I 'll give you. But it's still early. Maybe Tex will shock the world and hit .220 this April. Here's hopin'.