April 7, 2014, Bronx, N.Y. — The Yankees beat the Orioles 4-2 in their home opener in frigid Yankee Stadium Monday afternoon, and after starring in the pregame, Derek Jeter played a key role in the win in this, his final year. He delivered the only Yankee extra base hit, a double down the left field that struck the wall inches below the top; had a key putout on a fifth-inning pickoff; and delivered the game’s first run with a sharp one-hopper back to the box.
Hiroki Kuroda, who threw a five-hit, complete-game, 3-0 shutout at the O’s last April 14 in the Bronx, looked ready to do so again today. Baltimore did tie the game 1-1 on a Matt Wieters single in the fourth, a run that wouldn’t have scored but for the base running of Adam Jones, who tagged at first as left fielder Brett Gardner made a great catch on a ball at the foul side wall in deep left. Through six, that tally, as Jones scored from second on the Wieters one-base hit, represented the Orioles offense. They had five hits, no walks, and four strike outs at that point.
But as CC Sabathia had done Sunday in Toronto, Kuroda seemed to run out of gas in the seventh. The first three of four sharply hit balls off him fell for hits and scored a second run. Matt Thornton and David Phelps then shut the door, each retiring a batter on weak grounders to the right side, and Baltimore’s biggest threat had passed.
Kuroda utilized his defense to get his 19 outs, eight on grounders, six on outfield flies, including a double play when Jacoby Ellsbury ran under Steve Lombardozzi’s second-inning liner to right center, as Nelson Cruz was easily doubled off first. Hiroki’s fine work notwithstanding, the biggest throw might have been catcher Brian McCann’s pickoff to Jeter to nail third baseman Jonathan Schoop following a two-out double in the fifth. The eight hits Kuroda surrendered matched the number O’s starter Ubaldo Jimenez gave up pitching into the fifth. But the Yankee righthander worked more economically, pitching into the seventh on 92 pitches, 56 of them strikes. The five walks Jimenez allowed made all the difference, as did the 110 pitches to get just 14 outs.
Despite the dispiriting news that closer the David Robertson is going on the DL, the pen was superb, with Adam Warren and Shawn Kelley closing the game out. Jacoby Ellsbury and Alfonso Soriano had two hits, and Yangervis Solarte drove in a run and scored one before coming oh so close to blasting the team’s second 2014 home run in the eighth.
But this day belonged to The Captain, who was the subject of loud and long cheers from the pregame until the end. His reception both when the teams were announced and when he joined Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada for twin ceremonial first pitches was only exceeded by the standing ovation he got when he came to bat in the first. The fans collectively leapt to their feet in unison when his fifth-inning drive almost cleared the fence. His career is coming to an end, and a crowd almost 50,000 strong were present to say that “attention must be paid” to a young man who has carried himself with class, dignity and excellent performance throughout the last 20 years.
Derek’s tragic 2013 season, beset as it was with injury and failure to recover, was no way to end this kind of ride. And the Yankee Faithful were here to insist on a better end, perhaps one with yet another ring. The poet William Wordsworth would have celebrated his 244th year this day. He was talking about something very different in a Lake District poem when he wrote these words:
Let then the beauty be undisfigured and the retirement unviolated.
Yankee 2014 Championship, or no, Derek Jeter will go out on top, having achieved yet another signature season, before beginning his retirement. His fans won’t have it any other way.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!