Bronx, N.Y., September 16, 2009 — The skies threatened all night Wednesday in Yankee Stadium, something that could not be said for the home team. Once the Yanks grabbed a 2-0, first-inning lead on a Mark Teixeira double and Hideki Matsui’s single, the offense produced all of a single and a hit by pitch over the next five frames, as Toronto tied the game, then took a 4-2 lead. But the crowd was not fooled; they’ve seen this team come back before.
Chad Gaudin did well filling in for an aching Andy Pettitte, holding the Blue Jays to two runs on seven hits and one walk through 94 pitches into the top of the sixth. But Rod Barajas grounded pitch no. 95 to short for a fielder’s choice rbi and a 3-2 Jays lead. After issuing a semi-intentional walk (as in it became intentional at 2-0) to Jose Bautista, Gaudin gave way to Damaso Marte, who struck out Travis Snyder as cleanly as Joe Girardi had drawn it up in his mind’s eye.
Mr. Girardi is his own man. Monday night he replaced his best hitter (that night, and perhaps overall) with a pinch runner in a 2-2 tie game in the eighth inning and got himself a win against Anaheim. And now, when the Yanks threatened to cut into the Toronto lead in the bottom of the seventh after a one-out Robbie Cano double, he made a call all his own yet again. With two on with one down following an error, Jeremy Accardo relieved Casey Janssen, and Joe pinch-hit the resting Johnny Damon for catcher Jose Molina, but Johnny took a third strike. Captain Derek Jeter was down early in the count, but he battled back and worked himself a 10-pitch walk to load ’em up. With righty hitter and utility player Jerry Hairston, Jr., in left field for Damon, due up, Girardi had lefty-hitting outfielders Eric Hinske and Brett Gardner on his bench. He stuck with Hairston, whose 2-2 grounder to third ended the threat. The move becomes all the more questionable, though, because Joe replaced Hairston in left field to start the eighth. If he was about to leave the game anyway, why not bat for Hairston? This paragraph ends as it started: Mr. Girardi is his own man.
Both bullpens were superb, Toronto’s in particular, because they had to go (almost) seven innings once Brian Tallet left after two due to a Cano grounder that caromed sharply off his foot. Shawn Camp allowed a single over two, as did Janssen over 2.3. On the Yankee side, once Brian Bruney made yet another disappointing appearance by surrendering singles to the first two batters in the top of the seventh, Phil Coke and Phil Hughes retired the next six batters to get the game through the top of the eighth inning.
Accardo looked strong closing out the Yanks in the seventh, and lefty Scott Downs took over for the eighth, turning Teixiera to the right side and retiring him, but Alex Rodriguez lined the next pitch over second for a single. Still, things looked good for Toronto when Hideki Matsui fouled Downs’s third pitch to fall behind 1-2. They talk “Jeterian” when describing what the Yankee Captian does so often in singling (doubling, etc.) sharply to right with his inside-out swing that has earned him a place in the Yankee pantheon. Mr. Matsui has earned some respect as well, particularly this year when not much was expected. As has so often happened in 2009, the Yankee DH, bad knees and all, floated through a vicious slash and deposited Downs’s next pitch deep to right for a 4-4 tie: a “Matsui-an swing”! It was Hideki’s second hit (of the six the Yanks had at that time) and his third (of four) rbi’s. The Yankee offense was alive, and you could smell the win in the air.
Once the Yanks failed to take the lead despite a following Nick Swisher single, the rookie Snyder shocked everyone remaining among the 46,000-strong crowd by floating a bunt toward third on Mariano Rivera’s first pitch of the top of the ninth for a single. But things reverted to form, and Mo handled a comebacker and coaxed a popup and grounder, and the Yanks were up in the bottom of the ninth.
Gardner, who had not hit but did take over in center to start the eighth, battled righty Jason Fraser through six pitches, hoping, I’m sure, to work a walk, and then he lined a single to left center. Everyone thought he’d be stealing right away, but he didn’t budge as Jeter fell behind 1-2, then sprinted to second as Derek took a pitch. Jeter moved him to third with a bouncer to short, and young Francisco Cervelli, catching for Molina, came to bat with the infield in and the outfielders seemingly just behind them. “Cisco” fell behind 1-2 just as Jeter had, but he smacked the next pitch toward short just past Marco Scutaro, and no Yankee fan needed Frank Sinatra to tell them that the Bombers had just won the game 5-4.
The Yankees are a team in an inexorable march to the postseason. There are no must-wins. But “must play well” is a mantra that rules the day. Wednesday they showed some of what it’s going to take to win in October. They wasted nothing in jumping to the early lead, and even though they didn’t hit much afterward, the pen carried them to the decisive innings. But not alone. Both teams made one error in this game, but it’s fitting that neither figured in the scoring. The Jays had Tallet peg out Cano after the shot off his leg, and Aaron Hill and Snyder made fine plays in the fourth to make sure the quiet Yanks stayed that way. On the Yankee side, A-Rod speared a Hill liner in the first and thwarted Vernon Wells on a bid for an rbi base hit in the third, the same inning that Gaudin scrambled to find a hotshot off his body and peg out Adam Lind. Hairston nailed Lyle Overbay on a running catch of his sinking liner in the second and Jeter made an over-the-shoulder grab of a Scutaro pop to no-man’s land in short center in the fifth. But all of these beauts pale in comparison to not only the unlikely grab that Teixeira made of a Rod Barajas foul pop over first in the fourth, but the seemingly impossible toss he made to home plate after snaring the sprawling catch.
The Yanks scored early; they scored late. Veteran Hideki Matsui got them to the 4-4 tie, but the baby patrol of Gardner and Cervelli brought the win home. September 16, 2009, marks the 84th birthday of legendary Blues guitarist and singer B.B. King. The words of his megahit, The Thrill Is Gone, could easily be used to characterize some of the feelings in Yankee land since that November 2001 day when the team did not win its 27th World Championship:
- The thrill is gone
It’s gone away for good
Oh, the thrill is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I’ll be over it all baby
With its 14th 2009 walkoff win in their brand-new Baseball Palace, this Yankee team has many believing that,
The Thrill Is Back!
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!