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.

Wei-Yin Chen, Kuroda’s southpaw opponent in the game, also pitched well, but his outing paled in comparison to the pinstriped veteran on every mark accept hits allowed. Holding the home team to just two safeties and two left on base through four frames, Chen seemed to have the early edge on Kuroda, who allowed one hit in each of his first three innings. But a 19-pitch fourth inning featuring his lone walk allowed ballooned Wei-Yin’s pitch count to 59, while Kuroda was cruising along in the mid-forties in the same span.

The Yanks pounced for three runs in the fifth and, though we didn’t know it at the time, the game was over. The first of back-to-back leadoff singles came from right fielder Brennan Boesch, the only two-hit player this night and a masterful “gut” lineup addition by Joe Girardi on a night when he sat two lefthanded regulars, DH Travis Hafner and right fielder Ichiro Suzuki. First baseman Lyle Overbay, the lefty-hitting first baseman pressed into the game by the injury-depleted Yankee infield situation, followed with a stinging line drive that may have hit the wall had right fielder Nick Markakis not retreated quickly to snag it, denying Overbay game hitting honors. Still, Boesch made a cunning baserunning play by tagging and taking third, and Jayson Nix’s fly to deep right broke the 0-0 tie.

It may have been a more “classic” duel, and this might be a better game report, had Chen stopped the bleeding there but, uncharacteristically, fellow portsider Brett Gardner not only blasted the very next pitch off the right field foul pole, but he caromed it off its fair side near the very very top, a monumental drive few felt the speedy Gardner capable of. With the lead stretched to 3-0, Baltimore would not threaten, even if given an extra out or two down the stretch.

On this night, the late miscues just didn’t matter. At the outset, Nate McLouth and Manny Machado each grounded out to first off Hiroki 90-mph fastballs. Still featuring his heater around two-out singles by Markakis in the first, and J.J. Hardy in the second, and a leadoff single by DH Nolan Reimold in the third, Kuroda established his target out early, even as his pitch selection slowly morphed as the game went on. Eight of his first nine outs were recorded on grounders before the crafty vet got his first two K’s on a split-finger and a slider in the fourth.

Kuroda would allow just two lonely singles after the third, and no walks to go with five strike outs, the last retiring Chris Davis swinging three times in the ninth to end the game. While the ground ball outs continued to mount, however, the way they were garnered changed and, by the time he was mowing down nine of the last 12 outs via the ground ball, the fastball had almost disappeared in favor of effective splits, sliders, and a late-introduced cutter.

Hiroki’s 79/34 strikes/balls ratio says it all. The O’s took 25 strikes, all told, at their peril; he was finding the zone, and threw 22 first-pitch strikes to 32 batters. Three outs were recorded on flies to the outfield, one on a foul popup to Kevin Youkilis at third. With five strike outs, 18 outs were recorded on the ground, a number we haven’t flirted with since Chien-Ming Wang was turning in back-to-back 19-win seasons in the Bronx. And that’s with his left-side infielders making errors on ground balls the last two frames.

Anchored as we are into describing actions we see, not only just on the fields of play, but in our everyday lives, with words, it’s worth pointing out that April 14 is the 185th anniversary of the day Noah Webster’s first English language dictionary was published. Similarly, replete with players that copy this great city in diversity of origin, the Yankees have been using a feature called “The Language Lesson” in between innings in the Stadium for the last few years. Here we’ve learned in the words used to describe hits, runs, fly balls, errors, etc., in several Caribbean and Far East languages. With that in mind, anyone know the word for …

Grounded, in Japanese?

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!