A Costly Error, A Really Costly Error, "Crying Shame," and a Crying Apology

By now most everyone who's anyone has seen or heard about Armando Galarraga's perfect game that never was, an incident that might have gone down as a great tragedy of modern baseball had it not been for a touching moment of civil reconciliation between the young Tiger righty and veteran umpire Jim Joyce yesterday afternoon. Shortly after the end of Galarraga's mostly-bitter-not-so-sweet masterpiece, Detroit manager Jim Leyland told the media that what occurred was simply "a crying shame." Well sure enough, Joyce found himself fighting back tears during the presentation of the line-up cards Wednesday afternoon, as Galarraga emerged from the dugout with the Tiger order and shared a tender exchange of apology/absolution with the man who robbed him of baseball perfection. Wow. It's times like these that put the game in perspective for me, while simultaneously reaffirming the reasons why I love the game so much.

I have to be honest with you folks. When I watched the replay of that play on Tuesday night, I was overcome with the distinct urge to vomit. Seriously, it was like watching a child wander obliviously into oncoming traffic or something. Okay, okay, I'm exaggerating, but not by too much. In the heat of my agony and fury, I am ashamed to confess that I may have whispered a few silent death wishes against Joyce. Yeah, it's not cool, and I really tried to restrain myself mentally, but people, believe me when I say I haven't been that upset about a sports-related event in a long, long time (the 2004 ALCS might even come second to this, and I nearly cried when Damon hit that grand slam). Luckily, Galarraga was much more composed and mature about the whole situation, both in the immediate aftermath and the day after. I give him infinite props for handling it all so well. Not every ballplayer would have taken such an egregious offense with such grace, but this kid displayed a genuinely impressive amount of compassion and altruism in all of this. For that Mr. Galarraga, I automatically award you the Man of the Year. Hint to TIME magazine: You can start reeling off those cover pictures now.

GAME 1: Orioles 1, Yankees 3
Box Score

Not a particularly exciting game to start the series, but then again you can't really expect any series to be that exciting when the Orioles are involved. After a nice victory to cap off a series win over the last-place (in the AL Central) Indians on Monday, the Yanks followed up with a rather mundane effort against last-place (in the whole major leagues) Baltimore and their southpaw starter Brian Matusz, batting in just 1 earned run in the 6.2 innings he was on the bump. The lack of offense was especially surprising when you consider that Brian had suffered a whopping 16 hits and 13 runs in his previous two outings, and the fact that the pinstripes had piled on 37 runs at the Stadium in the four-game Cleveland series. The sole tally was delivered by none other than Curtis Granderson, who yanked a solo job in the fifth for the first run of the contest. Grandy has responded to the critics in a big way since coming off that injury, as he laced two late-game doubles off Cleveland reliever Tony Sipp in that series before launching his first homer off a lefty on Tuesday. All I can say is, it's about damn time.

Yankee starter Javier Vazquez matched Matusz through six frames, allowing only a solo counterpunch from Corey Patterson (really, Javy? Not Scott, not Wieters, not Tejada, but Patterson?) that leveled the count at 1 a piece in the top of the sixth. Just when it looked like the Yanks would go ahead in the sixth, Thames, Cervelli, and Grandy squandered a 1st-and-3rd no out opporunity. In the subsequent stanza, Vazquez too pitched himself into trouble, but by some miracle of Zeus, skipper Joe Girardi held his ground and allowed Javy to pull himself out of the hole. The hurler rewarded his manager's patience by fanning Adam Jones and inducing an inning ending ground ball off of Julio Lugo's bat to escape a bases-loaded one-out pickle. Granted, Joe probably never would have kept Vazquez on the hill if he weren't facing the disgraceful O's, a team that has mustered a mere 180 runs to date, the lowest total in the bigs. In general, Vazquez has only done well against weaker teams this year, so the real test will be in the third game of the Jays series this coming Sunday, a matchup that should reveal more about whether the sharpness he showed in this game was just a result of the opponent or a real turn in the right direction.

Let's return to this thrilling recap. So now it's the bottom of the seventh, and captain Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher are on base at 2nd and 3rd with two outs. A-Rod is at the plate, and although Matusz had worked a solid game, Dave Trembley opted to go with righty Dave Hernandez against Alex. Flashes of Manny Acta and the Justin Masterson game instantly came to mind, but unlike that game, in which that managerial decision led to a grand slam by Robinson Cano, Tremble's call worked...sort of. It worked in the sense that Hernandez got Rodriguez to swing at a pitcher's pitch and bounce a low fastball to Miguel Tejada at third. The part that didn't work everything after that. Tejada backed up on the ball (mistake #1), then in a panicked haste tried to muscle the throw over to Ty Wigginton at first (mistake #2), causing him to skip it about seven feet short of the target. Wigginton could not come up with the tough pick, the ball deflected towards the wall, Swisher and Jeter came in to score, and the Yanks went on to win game 1 by a final of 3-1. A costly error, to say the least.

GAME MVP: Miguel Tejada, a cheap shot, but I couldn't resist
Honroable Mention: Javier Vazquez, for finally showing signs of confidence and brainpower