Bronx, N.Y., July 4, 2009 — The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 6-5 in 12 innings Saturday. It was another come-from-behind win for the Bombers, as they trailed Doc Halladay 5-3 until Johnny Damon tied the game in the seventh with a two-run poke into the short porch in right. The comeback wins and homers we’re used to; spending four-plus hours in the Stadium on a gorgeous afternoon with not even a passing threat of rain? That was new, and welcome.
This one was shaping up into a battle between Halladay and an almost vintage outing from Yankee righty Chien-Ming Wang, who was just about back to his old self following a serious foot injury 13 months ago. But he experienced a shoulder strain on the pitch after losing the lead on a home run in the sixth. The Yankees were picking away at the Toronto ace for single runs in the first, third and fourth, the last two on solo home runs. Wang had the sinker going, both holding the Jays down and his pitch count on the one hand, and racking up the ground ball outs on the other. But the two times Wang made mistakes he paid, and when he was lifted, he was on the losing side of a 4-3 score.
Wang faced just three batters in the first, third, and fifth innings, and allowed six hits with one strike out and one walk, that last being his first big mistake. Up 0-2 to Lyle Overbay with one down in the second, he threw four balls around a foul, and Toronto had a baserunner. He overpowered Vernon Wells with the next-pitch fastball, but the Jays center fielder managed to loft a dying quail the other way, which fell right on the baseline, putting runners on second and third. Alex Rios’s hard bouncer up the middle (another ground ball) got through for a single to give the visitors a 2-1 lead, but a Dave Dellucci 1-6-3 bouncer ended the frame.
Halladay, on the other hand, pitched well, but he wasn’t at his best, as the Yanks reached him for one hit an inning through the first six frames. Alex Rodriguez used a hard single to plate Johnny Damon in the first, and Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada singleton homers in the second and fourth put the Yanks up 3-2. But Marco Scutaro singled down past third leading off the sixth before Aaron Hill bounced to short for Wang’s 11th ground ball out. Then Adam Lind homered to right, and a disappointed Chieng-Ming hurt his shoulder on the following ball one to Scott Rolen. Posada moved quickly to the mound, with Manager Joe Girardi and Assistant Trainer Steve Donohue close behind. With all his hard work and the Yankees’ patience finally paying off, the unfortunate Mr. Wang is on the shelf yet again.
Young David Robertson, who has been very good since being promoted from AAA Scranton a few weeks back, came on but he couldn’t find the plate. He walked both Rolen and Overbay and, following a strike out of Wells, Rios reached him for an rbi single on a 3-2 toss. When he followed by falling behind 3-0 to Dellucci, he had missed the zone 15 of 24 times. He stiffened finally, and threw five straight strikes. Ex-Yankee Dellucci blasted a long drive to left center on the fifth throw, but Brett Gardner hauled it in on a fine running catch; the Jays were done, but up 5-3.
The Yanks increased their hit total to three against Hallday in the seventh, his last inning, and scored two on the Damon home run. They would threaten Brandon League and Jeremy Accardo with a Matsui double in the eighth and two walks in the ninth, but when the Yanks converted neither, Shawn Camp retired six straight in extras, four on strike outs. Phil Hughes set the Jays down in the eighth, with Mo Rivera pitching the ninth. Phil Coke pitched the 10th and 11th, allowing just a walk, but Gardner covered an amazing amount of green to reach Overbay’s sinking liner to short center in the former. The rarely used long man Brett Tomko started the 12th and retired Toronto in order, with a nine-pitch strike out of Aaron Hill coming before Melky Cabrera made a twisting, leaping catch of Lind’s shot at the right field wall. Melky, who subbed for Nick Swisher in right with Gardner in center, had earlier made a fine run and grab of a Marco Scutaro liner back in the third. Girardi started his best defensive outfield and, although Cabrera and Gardner went a combined 1-for-10, it paid off for him.
Teixeira, who already had two hits and just missed on a deep drive to the wall in center in the ninth, started the bottom of the 12th, and he lashed a hot shot toward first that caromed off the bag, bounding into right field as he took second. A-Rod was walked, his third free pass (two intentional) to go with two hits, but Cano, who had the “longest day,” completed his six-ground-out nightmare when his bunt in front of the plate on a 3-0 pitch was easily converted into a 2-5 force. Posada took a strike, then a ball, then scorched a liner to right center, and A-Rod scored for the 6-5 win.
July 4 is big day for any American, and the Yankees have shown themselves to be the most patriotic of hosts over the years. Today was no exception, as five vets from the New York area wounded in Iraq were honored in the seventh before Ronan Tynan gave his plaintive rendition of God Bless America. But this has been a big day in Yankee history too, and the Yankees, and all of baseball, paid homage to Lou Gehrig and the dramatic speech he made in the old stadium exactly 70 years ago. In Gehrig’s honor, major league baseball has taken up the mantle of those suffering with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Lou Gehrig’s Disease, which they did with several sufferers in attendance pregame. Portions of Lou’s impassioned “luckiest man” speech were read out before they got the game underway.
But that is not the only big Yankee history of the day. Herb Pennock came out the winner by a 1-0 score when he and Philly A’s Hall of Famer Lefty Grove each went 15 innings in the Stadium in the first of two on this day in 1925, and Mickey Mantle belted his 300th career homer on July 4, 1960. A Yankee at the time, knuckleballer Phil Niekro notched his 3,000th strike out in a 5-0 win over Texas on July 4, 1984, and all Yankee fans of a certain age remember that Dave Righetti struck out Boston’s Wade Boggs to crown his no-hitter over the Red Sox exactly one year earlier, July 4, 1983.
And if you like the New York AL team being a year-in, year-out World Championship threat, you have enother reason to celebrate July 4. There was nothing fluky about Teixeira’s 12th-inning double. It was the fourth time he hit the ball hard on the day. But the fact that it hit the bag was a little birthday magic for George Steinbrenner, 79 years young today.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!