Tampa, Fla., March 3, 2014 — Early Spring Training “disappointment” is a pretty specific condition, one the speaker should be able to defend. Six days of rain, much less cold rain, well, we’d all cut that vacationer a break. Losses – ugly losses – in every game attended? Well, the team is here to get ready, not to win meaningless games, but still, most would cut the person whining about that a little slack.
Today I was disappointed, mildly, that the Yanks failed to tack onto their seeming instantaneous 4-0 lead in the second, when they had two in scoring position with no outs and four in, and failed to score more. I had a bit of pique when Brian Roberts’s second line drive to the outfield didn’t fall following Brian McCann’s single in the third; that Brett Gardner’s one-out double in the fifth led to naught; that Francisco Cervelli’s two-baser with one down in the sixth concluded the same way; that back-to-back Jose Gil and Mason Williams base knocks did not begin a scoring rally in the seventh as well.
The best we could have expected, I suppose, from Ivan Nova’s second Spring start was a solid outing of three innings, or at least one extending him to well under 50 pitches. The tall righthander has shown us he can throw hard, that he has a great breaking pitch, that he can fool batters. He wins game in bunches, 16-4 in 2011, 12-8 in 2012. Yet he spent a big part of the latter season, and much of the 9-6 2013 campaign, in AAA.
Nova got seven swinging strikes from Nats batters in the first two innings Monday, when he struck out four of seven, with an error at first extending the visitor ab’s in the first by one. But he tacked on a third inning that netted his second and third ground-ball outs, retiring nine of 10 on just 36 pitches. The first outing magic number for starters is often 35; that this was Ivan’s second outing could have extended his count to 45-50. I was not alone. Many in the crowd, while fully realizing this is the first week of March, believed Nova was way ahead of these hitters. I was “disappointed” he did not earn himself a fourth inning.
The Yankee pitching that followed was more than up to the task. David Robertson and Shawn Kelley possess key arms, and need to get in their work. And I was eager for another look at sidearmer Shingatori Tateyama. Danny Burawa and Jim Miller provided solid frames, and even the besieged Robert Coello, whose last outing Thursday was a disaster, showed his hard-thrown stuff today.
So I had no justified reason to gripe at the Yanks’ 4-2 win over the visiting Nats. But to a certain strain of Yankee fans, that Nova succeed is a huge issue. A team-developed starting pitcher, the first truly successful one since Andy Pettitte (who gave a long interview upon arriving in Tampa today), lends some credibility to the team’s efforts to develop its own players.
Ivan looked ready for April today. We cannot flip the calendar. But I would have loved to see a fourth inning. The Nats batters stood zero chance.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!