Bronx, N.Y., May 22, 2011 – An offensive malaise in Yankee land punctuated by an extra-inning loss to Kansas City featuring just three runs on 12 hits two weeks ago, a home-standing sweep at the hands of the Red Sox last weekend, and the lethargic 2-1 loss to the Mets Friday night has come to a welcome end in the last two days. When Curtis Granderson homered with one out during Sunday’s first inning it closed an offensive chapter where each of the last eight Yankee batters who stroked hits scored.

Critics, of course, would quickly point out that seven of them scored on five home runs, the unfortunate, we’re given to believe, course the Yankees have chosen to amass most of their runs. What of hitting singles, bunting, accepting a walk, stealing a base, hitting and running your way to scores characteristic of what is known as “small ball”? Well, the visiting Mets put on a display of that brand of the game for the last two days, taking a brief lead on two singles, a walk, and sac fly Saturday, and jumping Sunday starter Ivan Nova for three tallies on four hits and a fielder’s choice in the second today.

Pretty impressive perhaps, but if long ball bashing has its shortcomings as a scoring strategy, chipping away at defenses one base at a time can be even more frustrating. The visitors tacked on one more run on four hits Saturday, but the Carlos Beltran double that finally drove Nova from the game with two down in the seventh Sunday was the Mets’ seventh since their last score, along with a walk, but not one more player crossed home plate.

The Yanks had a few reach base in the ensuing innings as well, admittedly, and they failed to score in three innings with a leadoff baserunner, including Chris Dickerson’s double to start the home fifth, and in two frames where they managed a one-out hit. But when they broke the game open in the seventh they did it with a hit by pitch, two walks, a sacrifice bunt, and six hits, just one for extra bases. Brett Gardner got it started with a single up the middle, and doubled over third for two runs later in the frame. Captain Derek Jeter had perhaps the biggest hit, his second of the game and the 2,975th of his career, when his two-run single tied the game at 3-3 and sent Mets starter Mike Pelfrey to the showers.

Everyone in the lineup scored that frame except Granderson, who had gone yard earlier, and Jorge Posada, who almost did. In fact, Posada and Gardner hit back-to-back shots at the right field foul pole in the second inning, which probably would have been the story of the game had each not curved just foul at the last second. As it was, it gave Mets fans five extra innings to enjoy their visit to the Bronx. You’ll have to ask them if losing to home runs Saturday was more or less painful than the soft singles and dribblers that beat them this afternoon.

A struggling but game Nova gave the Yanks a longer start than anyone expected as the hits kept coming. Ground-ball double plays got him clear of two rallies, one of them ruining a three-hit Mets seventh. Following a walk and single in the fourth, the Yanks closed out the frame by doubling up speedy shortstop Jose Reyes, who had three hits Saturday but went 0-for-5 Sunday. Brett Gardner made a fine grab of a sinking Daniel Murphy liner in the first, and Nova helped himself with a spirited run and adept snatch of Mark Teixeira’s toss to nip Reyes at first to start the seventh. But the Beltran double one-out later, the 11th hit off the young righty thrower, denied him a chance at the win, and when the Yankee bats came alive one out later, reliever Luis Ayala, a one-time Met, cashed in the victory by retiring four straight.

It was a genuine pleasure to see the Yankee pennant restored to the first place position atop the Stadium roof with Boston relegated to third place, where the Yanks had sat for one day due to the 2-1 Friday loss. The Red Sox earned the demotion, by the way, because they succumbed to a late and ugly eight-run rally by the Cubs Saturday night.

May 22 is no stranger to big Yankee highlights, as Mickey Mantle may have hit his longest home run on this day in 1963, an 11th-inning game winner that was rising at it struck near the top of the Stadium facade. One year earlier, after never receiving an intentional walk throughout his record 1961 season Roger Maris drew an at-the-time record four freebies in a 12-inning 2-1 win against the Angels on May 22, 1962. And going back to the year when the Yankees won their first of 27 championships, Babe Ruth’s 15th-inning bomb made a 3-1 winner of Herb Pennock, who went all the way, again on May 22.

One of the first displays visible in a visit to the Yankee Museum on the stadium’s Main Level is a look back at the 1921-1923 intra-New York rivalry pitting the Yanks and the NL New York Giants. It talks about how the three World Series these pennnant winners played pitted the singles-hitting, base-stealing Giants against the long-ball “Bombers,” new to the Bronx that third year. Sound familiar?

On May 22, 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creative storyteller who gave us the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, was born. And in chilly New York, 152 years later, players and fans alike went looking for the seemingly disappearing Yankee offense. How did they crack the case, you ask?

Elementary, my dear. Elementary

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!