May 17, 2014, Bronx, N.Y. — If you’ve come across a highlight, or even were just in the South Bronx late Saturday afternoon, you heard the loud noises the Yankee offense made in battering the Buccos from Pittsburgh, 7-1. But don’t be fooled. The Yanks came out of this with a convincing win, but victory was far from assured midway through.
Pittsburgh righthander Edinson Volquez may have lost this game with his eighth throw, the pitch he tried to sneak past the red-hot Mark Teixeira in the first inning with Derek Jeter aboard via the first of his two singles. Tex had taken a strike, held up on a swing, then swung and missed. But he’s not missing often these days, and he whacked the next offering just a row or two deep in right, 2-0 Yankees.
But although the visitors would not reach Yankee starter David Phelps for a hit until the fourth inning, all was not well for the home team. Phelps struggled mightily with his control early, walking a Pirate player in each of the first two frames, and hitting a batter as well. David would throw 25 pitches in each inning, and though Volquez would fall behind 3-0 when Zoilo Almonte tomahawked his first pitch of the third inning deep to right, he held the Yankees to the three hits mentioned through five innings. He faced each Yankee hitter twice in that time, threw 16 of 18 first-pitch strikes, and did so with a mere 62 pitches.
The Yankee righthander, on the other hand, walked another batter in the third, and was driven to throw 100 pitches to get through five innings. But even worse, when he finally did find the zone, the single Starling Marte reached him for to start the fourth was the first of five hits in a span of six batters. Unfortunately, however, a Pirates offense that had consisted of patiently accepting free passes now attacked the bases with abandon, losing their best chance to take this game in the process.
In quick succession, Marte was pegged out stealing as Ike Davis struck out swinging, one pitch before Gaby Sanchez doubled into the left field corner. And when Jordy Mercer singled to right two throws later, the defensively much maligned Yankee right fielder Alfonso Soriano uncorked a tracer to the plate that nailed Sanchez by five feet. As Phelps’s offerings found the plate, the Pirates attacked them, but to no avail. Back-to-back singles to start the fifth also got the visitors nowhere, even though a pickoff of catcher Tony Sanchez was overruled on replay. Phelps survived the 26-pitch frame on a strike out, a liner to center, and a bouncer to Tex at first.
Pittsburgh finally broke threw against Dellin Betances to start the sixth when Marte, who had three hits with a hit by pitch, homered to left, but the towering Yankee righty came back to strike out the side. Ironically, Tony Sanchez reached him for a drive off the right center field wall to start the seventh, but the catcher’s supposed safe slide to second was easily overturned when replay showed that Jeter had clearly tagged him out going by. It was Pittsburgh’s next to last baserunner, and the last of their three miscues on the base paths, each of which cost them any chance to win this game.
The Yankees, meanwhile, were busy making this one a laugher, on three more long balls. Adam Warren struck out two around a Marte double in the eighth, and Matt Daley, a lonely bright spot in Tuesday’s loss to the Mets, pitched a one-two-three ninth. And by then it had become a Bombers Bash, as Brett Gardner, Soriano, and Brian McCann homered in the sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively, the last a two run shot, to forge the 7-1 final.
Bombers Bash? Yes, but for the arrrrrh! Pirates, it was a Run to Ruin as well.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!