Opening Day, 4/4/10: Yankees 7, Red Sox 9

Box Score

Game MVP: Dustin Pedroia
Yanks MVP: Robinson Cano
Props To: Both teams for making it an entertaining opener; bodes well for this year's rivalry series
Negative Props To: Chan Ho Park...way to hold the lead, scrub. Actually the whole bullpen looked terrible.

Well, at least it was a close game right? Clearly, there are plenty of things that didn't go right for the Yankees in this game: two blown leads, 9 runners left-on-base, costly wild pitches/passed balls, failure to score guys from third with less than two outs, etc. etc. You've gotta hand it to the Red Sox, who as my girlfriend so shrewdly stated, have a habit of "sucking" in the early innings, but always find a way to claw back into it in games like these.

PLUSES:

It's harder to talk about the positives, so let's start there. The prowess and balance of the Yanks batting order was quite apparent after the first couple of times through the lineup. The first five runs were delivered without any aid from the two big bats, Texeira and A-Rod. Posada and Cano definitely had the nicest strokes going last night. The veteran catcher hit a scorching line drive off the Pesky Pole to kick off his season, then went up the middle of the field to collect two more singles and an RBI. Any time you're hitting line drive home runs and hard shots back up the box, that's a very good thing. If his swing stays level and he can lay off high fastballs and bouncing breaking balls, he could have a hot spring. As for Cano, he took team MVP for his efforts, lacing the ball to all fields. Even his outs were line drives to center, not to mention a productive out to second base that batted in a run. He seemed to be getting behind the ball, hitting it where it was thrown, and aggressively jumping on the fastball; in other words, he was picking up pitches superbly well. With his streaky history, I'd expect him to have a pretty good April, then fall off a cliff in May. But who knows? Maybe he'll surprise me.

I have to give it up for that Little League steal of home plate in the 4th inning. Dude, honestly, I haven't seen that circus move work on the base paths since middle school! For anyone that played baseball as a youngster, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The old first-and-third situation that your defense spent a half-hour at the end of practice working out, with catcher signals to the infield and a handful of set plays. If you're the offense, the runner on first is supposed to break to steal, and the guy on third is supposed to wait for the throw to be made to second before dashing in for the score. In this case, Jeter was the bait at first and Gardener was the plate robber, and although the Red Sox did the right thing (shortstop Scutaro cut off the throw between the mound and second), they took too long to execute the play, giving the speedy Gardener a big jump and more than enough time to get it done. Classic. Gardener also had two hits and a RBI, both of which went to the opposite field. That's all you can ask of him, really.

The big boys did finally awaken in the 7th, as Tex exhibited patience and acute eyesight for a walk, and A-Rod wasted no time in clobbering a fastball off the monster on reliever Ramon Ramirez's first pitch of the night. It was especially good that this sequence came in immediate response to the Sox's big inning that tied the game. Having an offense that can counterpunch so quickly will pay massive dividends this season. Granderson began his pinstripe career with a plate-job to center, Swisher collected a hit and a walk to round out the bottom of the order, and Jeter, although he started slow, did his part at the top of the order with two shots up the middle and an RBI. Overall, 7 runs and an early exit for Beckett is an excellent job by the offense. However...

MINUSES...

Okay, let me get some offense nitpicking out of the way before I sink my teeth into the bullpen. First Granderson. Curtis, I liked you Detroit and I love you in New York; but you gotta get that runner home from third with less than two outs! Instead, he tried to pull an outside pitch and rolled it over weakly to second. Luckily for him, Gardener picked him up with 2 outs to get the run in, but still, that's not a good look for the center fielder. He left four runners on base total in the game. Yikes. Hopefully, he's just pressing a smidge, as most Yankee newcomers are apt to do. I think he'll start settling into his role sometime in the spring and then we'll see the multi-hit games come in bunches.

Second Tex. Oh Tex. Why do I have a feeling it's going to be another one of those slow starts for you? I have a new saying when it comes to Marky Mark: 'long swing, longer spring'. His swing looked quite long both in spring training and in last night's game. He doesn't have that quick, efficient stroke like when he's zoned in, and he looks like he's using too much upper body and not enough legs/hips. As a result, he's getting under the ball and he's trying to pull pitches he shouldn't be pulling. Shorten up, big guy! Let those hips do the talkin'! Smack that rock the other way and quit trying to hit homers! (Like he's reading this, right?)

Finally, A-Rod. The good news is he wasn't swinging through/looking at pitches right down the middle, and he wasn't flailing helplessly at curves. However, he seemed to be allowing the ball to travel a little too deep into the strike zone. His bat speed was there, but his timing was a little off, as he wasn't getting the bat head out in front soon enough; that is until his fourth plate appearance in the 7th of course.

I know, I know. These are premature calculations and nitpicky comments, considering we're all of one whole game into the season. It is still too soon to know if these concerns will manifest themselves into real issues in these coming months. In terms of the bullpen, however, I feel like the progression from concern to problem might manifest itself a tad more rapidly, especially when you consider that not a single reliever accomplished what they needed to do last night. Not a one. Robertson let in the tying run, Park gave up a two-run lead, Marte put the Sox ahead with his wildness, and Joba sealed the loss with his Joba-ness.

Robertson is the least culpable of the four, as he threw just one bad pitch (his first), and it was a tough task to get out of the runner-on-third-less-than-two-out situation anyway. I'll spare him my wrath. But Chan-Ho? No way, Mr. Park. When you're missing with the fastball and falling behind, you've got to mix it up to even the count. You can't just persist on throwing heat just to get strikes. This isn't high school. Even though the Pedroia homer wasn't a bad spot (up and in), you could tell he was waiting for it. Same with Youkilis. Gee, I wonder why that is? You struck out Ellisbury on three pitches, two of which were off-speed. Why abandon it? Marte had the right idea to start off with a breaking ball to Ortiz, but you gotta give Posada a chance, man. Come to think of it, you should of just got ahead with a fastball, since Papi was missing fat fastballs all night. Then you throw him a fastball that was supposed to go low and away and it winds up at the opposite corner of the zone, deflecting off Jorge's glove and bouncing to the backstop. Granted, Posada should have had that ball, but still Marte, you've gotta focus better than that. And then there's Joba. I don't even know what to say to Joba other than what my fahter and I yelled at the TV screen all last year: TRUST YOUR FASTBALL!

I've said it once and I'll say it again: both Hughes AND Joba should have been made bullpen guys by the Yanks this year; and Joba should have stayed in the bullpen from day one. Yeah, yeah, right, hindsight, got it. But in truth, I never like the idea of converting Joba to a starter. He was dominant his first year in the pen. Dominant! He threw 98-99 mph consistently! He loved comin' out of that gate before Mo' and owning people! But at this point, I think he's feeling a little messed up, even a little betrayed by the organization from all the messing around with the rules and the up-and-down. Someone's just gotta tell him, 'look: you are the set-up guy. Just come out of the pen, get on the hill, rear back, and through smoke like you used to. Have fun like you used to. Let it fly like you used to, Joba!' I mean, think of how nasty the trio of Hughes, Joba, and Mo' would be if they were operating at full potential. QuanGorMo? Get lost. The bullpen is undoubtedly THE most under-appreciated facet of any ball club. Everyone always wants to have great starting pitching. But the ability to hold a lead is just as, if not more imperative than having a good rotation. And when you have an offense of the Yankees' caliber, do you even need that strong a rotation? A pen that can keep games close and hold tight leads late in games seems more valuable to me. Sure, in the playoffs its different the focus shifts. But that's what the trade deadline is for, right?

PITCHING BREAKDOWN:

C.C. Sabathia didn't quite have his A-game out there last night. Yes, he only gave up 1 hit over the first four innings, but look closer. He got away with a FAT 3-1 fastball to Ortiz and lucked out on a Beltre liner to center in the 2nd inning. His curve was hanging a bit and catching too much of the plate all game, and he let one such breaker dance in the zone in an 0-2 spot to Scutaro in the 3rd. Luck was on his side again however, as the shortstop lined into a double-play (which was a horribly blown call, by the by). A sweet play by Tex and good hustle on C.C.'s part prevented Pedroia from starting a rally in the 4th, and V-Mart followed that up by grounding out on a hittable pitch.

Basically, while C.C. had better stuff than Beckett, he certainly didn't have his best stuff or best control. What helped him in those first four innings was good pitch mixing/selection (working off the change-up well especially), some timely defense, and, well, old-fashioned "pitcher's luck". That luck ran out in the 5th and 6th innings though. It was so great that just when the NESN (New England Sports Network) commentator announced that C.C. looked to be in "mid-season form," the Sox began to get to him. Like, literally, right after he said that. After getting the first two outs in the 5th, Sabathia began to really falter with his fastball location. A bad throw by Gardener didn't help his cause. This trend continued into the 6th, where he really got lit up. At this point, he had lost command of the strike zone, and he went back to his only consistent pitch on the night: the change. But even this pitch finally burned him on a poorly-spotted, 2-1 change to Martinez; then instead of retaining his faith in it on a 3-1 pitch to Youkilis, he fed the bearded bastard a cockshot of a fastball that got launched to the top of the monster. Sabathia exited stage right in a lackluster 5.1, 5 ER performance.

Mid-season form? Not quite. Beckett looked to be farther away than C.C., but the hefty lefty has some serious kinks to iron out with his release point, especially on that curve. He's gonna need that third pitch to mix in if he's going to have another Cy Young caliber season. All in all though, I'm not too worried about Sabathia. Burnett is the real question mark in my mind. What A.J. will show Tuesday? What A.J. will show most often this season? The 7 walk, 6 ER A.J., or the 7 K, 2 ER A.J.? Will they trade weeks like last year? Lester might prove to be a tougher test for the potent Yankee bats, as they've always struggled against nasty southpaws in their recent history.

Til Tuesday...