Bronx, N.Y., April 16, 2013 — — Hopefully you can wrap your mind around uttering that title in the cadence intended in Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” a Boston tradition in the seventh inning stretch that the Yankee Stadium loudspeakers played following Tuesday night’s third inning in honor of the tragedy at Monday’s Boston Marathon. Ivan Nova survived a conflicted start; Robbie Cano bailed out a Yankee offense primed to put runners on and not score them; and the Yanks beat the visiting D’backs, 4-2.

Entering the game, bizarrely, with identical (and atrocious) era’s of 7.71, righthanders Brandon McCarthy and Ivan Nova were throwing similar games, at least to the extent that they had achieved 70- and 71-throw pitch counts, respectively, through three innings. But although the Yanks had filled (and left filled) six bases through two to just three to reach safely for the D’backs, the visitors solved the lack-of-runs dilemma first by scoring twice in the third.

Nova is possesed of a plus fastball and seems to spend many of his starts vacillating between a low-eighties curve and high-eighties slider, decent pitches he does not seem to be able to throw well at the same time. The winner this night was the slider, and he had used one to fool Arizona first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to swing and miss awkwardly with two on and no one out in that third frame. Starters’ names are attached to these games, a tough approach, but with it comes the win/loss glory. But who calls these pitches, really? The pitcher, or the catcher, by waving off every suggestion? Or maybe it comes from the bench? Whatever the case, at 2-2, they opted that Nova throw his first change-up of the night, a feel pitch that of course missed, while a slider might have had Goldschmidt flailing, or a fastball, frozen guessing.

At 3-2, the visiting first baseman poked a 3-2 medium fastball to right to load the bases, as it turned out, from where a sac fly and single gave the D’backs an early 2-0 lead. The Yanks went out quickly around an Ichiro single but, following the broadcast of the Red Sox “anthem,” Nova returned invigorated, or at least lucky. Tossing back-to-back 11-pitch frames, he pitched around an A.J. Pollock double leading off the fourth and a two-out single in the fifth, although the latter did come when he was finally pitching with a lead.

The home fourth began much as the first two innings had, back-to-back base hits with a walk to load the bases back then, but never with no outs. But exchanging the eventual walk for a quick jump on the inning, Lyle Overbay and Chris Stewart singled to get it started, and even though Brett Gardner followed by going down swinging (which he did three times on the night), McCarthy fell behind Cano, 3-0. But he threw two strikes and, just as the “faithful” were wondering if another frustrating scoring opportunity was being squandered, Robbie drilled a high fastball about 400 feet to right center for a 3-2 Yankee lead.

Was Nova reaping the benfits of a solid inning? Were the Yankees being rewarded for their classy broadcast in a wounded city’s time of need? Or did McCarthy simply make an irretrievable mistake against one of the best lefty bats in the league? Maybe yes to all three?

McCarthy was out, having allowed nine hits and two walks through four on 101 pitches, and the Arizona bullpen was both better and quicker, even if they did allow a fourth run set up be a Travis Hafner seventh-inning double. But they did not match the work of Yankee relievers Boone Logan, Joba Chamberlain, David Robertson, and Mariano Rivera, who shut the visitors down gong away. Nova threw 71 pitches over three innings and made it through five; his pen used all of 56 tosses to retire 12 of 13.

Spotty command notwithstanding, Nova’s 63/30 strikes/balls ratio was solid, and he struck out six, five of them swinging, by blowing nine pitches past swinging AZ bats. That he recovered from the leadoff A.J. Pollock double in the fourth earned him innings and the win. And Robbie Cano and the four-headed pen carried it home. Should this be a successful Yankee year, look for that sentence to be repeated.

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!