Bronx, N.Y., May 1, 2011 – We got to see the bad and the good of Ivan Nova the starter in Yankee Stadium Sunday afternoon, in a 5-2 vctory over the Toronto Blue Jays. The young righty threw less strikes than balls in the second inning once Adam Lind reached him for an opposite-field home run off the foul pole in left. The blast evened the score at one because Mark Teixeira had reached righty Jesse Litsch for a homer to right center in the bottom of the first; Nova went to 3-0 on Juan Rivera next, the first of four batters he would fall behind on three throws.
To see that the Jays scored but two runs is the first clue that despite that, young Nova battled gamely, and he survived today employing a new skill. Jays batters reached base against him with no outs or one down in every inning but the first, which means he was pitching with runners on virtually all game, the one key weakness in his 2010 audition. He wasn’t sharp early, as in the at bat before the home run, Jose Bautista drilled a dead red liner to straightaway center, but Curtis Granderson, coming off a few recent defensive struggles, let it be known he was here to play with a full-on run and catch just before the fence.
Ivan survived the second on two flies and a popout, struck out Yunel Escobar in the third, working through the third and fourth innings by getting his next five outs on the only ground outs he elicited from Toronto bats got all day. The Jays tested his demeanor with a running game, as they have the Yanks all weekend, but newly returned catcher Francissco Cervelli helped by throwing Rajai Davis out on the third of his four stolen base tries of the game. Earlier Davis’s first two steals in the third inning had gotten the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead, as he scored from third on a Bautista fielder’s choice grounder where Jeter made the up-the-middle grab and got Jose on a spinning throw. Once Cisco nailed Davis in the fifth, Nova closed the visitors out on back-to-back strike outs. When he took the mound next, it was with a lead.
No batter has been struggling as much as Jorge Posada, but he gets the credit for lashing the base hit that got the mayhem going, a double to right where the lumbering DH busted it to second despite Bautista’s cannon in right. A Brett Gardner single to right moved Jorge to third, from where he scored the tying run on Cervelli’s grounder toward the shortstop hole, which moved Gardner to second. And Brett flashed a little pinstriped speed, as he reached third safely on Jeter’s grounder to short ahead of Escobar’s throw to Edgar Encarnacion. Litsch fell behind Granderson and when he came in on the full count, Curtis forged the day’s final score with a lofty three-run drive to right.
Nova had a lead now, and he pitched to it, shaking off a J.P. Arencibia one-out double in the sixth with his fifth and last strike out, a fly out to left (recovering from yet another 3-0 count), and a popup. Veteran second baseman John McDonald twice fouled off 3-2 pitches before flying out to left leading off the seventh, the second straight – and only – times the Yankee rookie has pitched this deep into a start. But Nova was out after walking Davis for the second time. David Robertson took the mound and got an Escobar strike out, while Davis stole against him just as he had against Nova. When Bautista walked, the game had its last truly dramatic moment, with the dangerous Lind coming to bat as the tying run. As the lone lefty in the pen, Boone Logan got the call, and once he put out this fire, Rafael Soriano and Mariano Rivera made short work of the Blue Jays the last two frames.
Granderson was clearly the offensive star, the only two-hit Yankee in a game where five different players each scored a run. Tex’s home run got the game off well, and Posada’s double sparked the big four-run fifth, climaxed by Grandy’s ninth home run. And Nova, after struggling early, has posted two quality starts mindful of his dominant work in Spring Training, He threw 60 of 100 pitches for strikes, and 16 of 28 first-pitch throws caught the zone. It was good to see with the four walks that he has learned to pitch with runners on, but next time out a few less baserunners against would be a welcome step forward.
May 1 is not only the day we could say good-bye to the dreadful weather of April, it’s been a pretty good one in Yankee history for home run hitters. Both Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle cleared the fences for the first time playing for the Bombers this day, Ruth in 1920 and The Mick in 1951. And speaking of Mantle, Mayday has also been a good day for center fielders, as Joe DiMaggio stroked three hits in his first game as a starter with the Yanks on May 1, 1937, so Granderson should take some pride in having such a big game, and in the names it evokes.
And May 1 woud have been the 88th birthday of the late satirical novelist Joseph Heller, most famous for his tome highlighting the insanity of war, Catch 22. If there is one highlight that stands out from the Yankee victory yet to be described, it is the crazy manner in which Logan retired Lind in the key seventh inning. The pinstriped southpaw got a called strike, but Lind stroked a hard one hopper up the middle ticketed to skip past Logan’s right leg and perhaps into the outfield, with two runners on. As if swatting a bug, Boone spun and swung his gloved right hand behind him where the ball found the glove. Cheering as Logan tossed to first to record the third out of the seventh inning, it seemed a
Catch 21
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!