Bronx, N.Y., April 25, 2013 — Something was amiss at game time in the Bronx Thursday night, as the Yanks prepared to start a homestand vs. the Blue Jays. Returning home from a 3-3 road trip playing on concrete, the Bombers were greeted by a relatively meager crowd, on what in 2013 served as a pretty nice evening for baseball. Continue reading
Author Archives: Dan McCourt
The 411 on the 6-2
Bronx, N.Y., April 18, 2013 —The Yankees dropped the final game of their homestand, 6-2, to the Arizona Diamondbacks, seemingly because the visitors were more determined to not leave town without a victory than the Bombers were to deny them one. In a game with weird twists and turns on a few rallies that came up short, the teams were tied 2-2 after 11 on the results of just four pitches, resulting in two singleton homers apiece. Continue reading
Sweet Cano-Ivan
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. Continue reading
Grounded, in Japanese
Bronx, N.Y., April 14, 2013 — The Yankees blanked the Orioles 3-0 Sunday night in the Stadium to take the rubber game of their three-game set, a really entertaining series, even if it did show the grand old game’s ugly side a few times. The history-making triple play and a three-run error on Friday were easily offset by Phil Hughes’s worst start in the majors Saturday, but the stunning job turned in by Yankee righty Hiroki Kuroda Sunday both salvaged the weekend for Yankee fans, and treated a national audience to a display of pitching 101. Continue reading
Phelps, Not Phail-ure
Bronx, N.Y., April 13, 2013 — It was midafternoon in the Bronx exactly 15 years ago that a catastrophic failure ensured a dramatic change in Yankee fortunes. The failure of a beam in the old Stadium’s Loge level made what was planned and feared (by some) inevitable: The Stadium would have to be replaced. Continue reading
4-6-5-6-5-3-4
Bronx, N.Y., April 12, 2013 — It hardly seemed momentous when Nick Markakis bounced back to the box on an 0-2 count and CC Sabathia threw to first for the initial out of a 5-2 Yankees victory over visiting Baltimore Friday night. Forefront in most minds was that it was freezing, but by the time the game ended almost three hours later we had witnessed a nine-ground-out defense where just two grounders would be hit to a non-pitching infielder, and one of those was an e-5 charged to Kevin Youkilis that would lead to the visitors scoring a late tying run. Continue reading
A Yale Yahoo
April 4, 2013, Bronx, N.Y. — With all of major league baseball, a large part of the country’s sporting community, and even the part of America not be terribly interested in our great game peeking in, the Yankees arose from the frozen tundra in the Bronx and showed they would not be losing all of their 2013 games Thursday night. With catcher Francisco Cervelli dashing to prevent the first Boston run and uncharacteristically hitting the back wall of the visiting bullpen with a seventh-inning drive to tally the home team’s last, the pinstripers salvaged the last of three with the Red Sox by a 4-2 score. Continue reading
Not Much to Say
Bronx, N.Y., April 1, 2013 — It will come as no shock that an opening day that started near 60 degrees and got colder and wetter, and that ended in an 8-2 loss, is not one I’m eager to share. It was a mixed day throughout. Yankee Stadium was beautiful, but crossing to the stadium from the train, we saw that brown grass remnants dominated the ballfields that populate the location of the sacred field that once was home to the Cathedral. Shivering for months through relentless temps in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, I somehow showed up in the Bronx expecting the grass there to be late-spring, early-summer verdant. Continue reading
A Right of Spring
Washington, D.C., March 29, 2013 — The Yankees played, and won, their penultimate 2013 Spring Training game a couple of hundred miles south of the Big Apple Friday, but considerably north of where they participated in a difficult camp, dominated by injuries, errors, generally light hitting, and a plethora of game losses. But if the results of this contest are any guide, this team is removed from the one that played its first game one month ago by a lot more than mileage. Continue reading
Therrific Thirteen
Spring Training, Week 1, 2013 – Got in late Saturday after finally witnessing a win in Tampa, and vegged much of the day, but I wanted to share some positive impressions on players in camp that we saw from February 26 through March 2. Following a 1-4 stretch during which the Yanks continuously threw the ball away, I thought I might have some trouble filling a baker’s dozen, but as it turns out I’m afraid I’m leaving some worthy candidates out, like Jose Ramirez, Tyler Austin, and Mark Montgomery.
Hats off, too, to Chris Stewart, who has struggled to block the plate, and made a bad throw, but his two-run home run and subsequent peg to nail Tigers rookie league shortstop Brandon Loy trying to steal Saturday contributed more than any other factor to get us a win. Our list of 13 covers three vets pretty much guaranteed significant 2013 innings, four vets battling over extra spots, and six kids, some of with a rep coming in, some not.
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Mouse over or touch the images in the slideshow to read my assessment of players we saw in the first week of spring training.
Honorable mention would include a mix of youth and experience as well. Among the vets, both Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira have looked solid at the plate and exceptional in the field, and Ivan Nova and David Robertson have pitched well; youth has served well too, with Adam Warren making two solid starts. Melky Mesa continues to flash a variety of skills, but showed a tendency to strike out in big spots. Overall, I present a glowing look at what we can expect from a team that lost seven straight, and four out of five, with 11 errors, while I was there.