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.

Although the visitors reached a Yankee starter for first-inning hits for the third straight game, and Boston had three hits by the time they had hit into four outs, it was the Yanks who broke out on top in this one, keyed by a two-out Eduardo Nunez opposite-field double in the second that would have plated Travis Hafner had it not hopped the fence to hold the Yankee DH at third base. But first baseman Lyle Overbay went the other way too, parachuting a soft liner into short left center on the next pitch, and both Yankee base runners scampered home.

Veteran Boston righty Ryan Dempster was having a Jekyll/Hyde game, featuring a virtually unhittable splitter and effective slider, but missing the zone with both so often that he would throw his 80th pitch in the fourth inning. Out of the game one frame later having thrown 100+ pitches, he had eight punch outs but four walks, and trailed 3-0, the last run coming on a Brett Gardner home run to the first row in right in the third.

As if to illustrate the error of the profligate Dempster ways, Yankee southpaw Andy Pettitte basked in the glow of successful pitching by hitting bats 101. Seemingly in total control but for a three-batter stretch in the top of the seventh during which he surrendered his only run, Andy allowed eight hits, but removed three of those immediately by feeding a double-play ball to the very next batter. By the time he coaxed his first of three strike outs in the fifth, Boston batters had swung and missed just two times. Pettitte’s pitch count after three was 27, and just 94 throws got him through 24 outs and eight complete innings. By the time Dempster threw 94 times, just 13 Yankee batters were retired.

It was a big game for Yankee center fielder Gardner, who had not yet hit a line drive through two games, but who stroked two hits including the long ball; he made the pivotal play of the game by outrunning David Ross’s long drive to left center in the seventh. Brett’s aggressive base running has produced frustrating results so far, but fans are encouraged that he is trying, and expect the stolen bases will come. Nunez was also caught stealing, but he’s hitting the ball hard and fielding quite well; he robbed Shane Victorino of a hit by snagging his fourth-inning liner. And catcher Cervelli merits special mention for his two-way contribution on this, the one-year anniversary of the day his hopes were dashed in 2012, and he was dispatched to the minors at the outset of last season.

But Brett’s, Nune’s, and Cisco’s highlights, along with Overbay’s key two-out hit, were just subplots in this masterpiece, a game that could easily have been titled, “Same as It Ever Was,” with apologies to David Byrne. Crafty veteran Pettitte whiffed three and walked one Thursday; his fastball is the least fast of that pitch among all the Yankee starters, but his 64/30 strikes/balls ratio is how they draw it up on the bulletin board. Often relying on a cutter, Andy rode his curve and slider through this eight innings, recording half of his outs on grounders, for what I’m going to call “A Yale Yahoo.”

Why Yale? No, it’s not a reference to the Ivy League University in New Haven, Connecticut, roughly equidistant between Boston and New York in driving miles, and in baseball bonds to the north and to the south.

This day would have been the 192nd birthday of Linus Yale, mechanical engineer and innovator in the field of lock construction. When Joe Girardi decided eight innings were enough for Pettitte’s first 2012 start, he thrilled the crowd by signaling for the worst kept secret on the Yankee roster, closer Mariano Rivera, the “best there ever was.” It took him 20 pitches, surprisingly including a leadoff walk, but once his work was done, Mo had extended the record he and Andy hold in tandem, increasing the number of Pettitte wins he has saved to an unprecedented 69.

Mo in for Andy? A lock, a “Yale Yahoo.”

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!