August 11, 2013, Bronx, N.Y. — There were a few contrasting threads running through today’s Yankees/Tigers game. On the one hand, Andy Pettitte allowed a first-inning run for a Yankee record eighth straight time, and failed to go five innings despite throwing 100 pitches. On the other, recent Cy Young recipient Justin Verlander, despite consistently pounding 95 mph heat, was reached for four runs in the same amount of innings against a Yankee team struggling to score.

Baseball bad boy Alex Rodriguez, the lightning rod all weekend over his suspension for using PEDs again, and his appeal of same, had Yankee fans even more concerned when he swung amd missed at almost every pitch he saw Friday, but his effect on this game was positive and almost immediate. He tied the score 1-1 on Verlander’s second pitch of the second inning on a long home run to left, then upped the Yankee lead to 3-1 on a sharp single just inside the first base bag one inning later. He did make an error bobbling a swinging bunt past the pitcher in the third, but made fine plays on a similar roller in the fourth, and a base hit bid down the line in the eighth.

You’d have to use the scales of justice or similar fine measuring tool to gauge the work of the starters. Pettitte certainly put his team in trouble by failing to go five, but he did hand over a 4-1 lead by stanching potential rallies in the second, third, and fourth. Verlander, on the other hand, gave up four early runs to a team struggling to score; but he went eight, struck out eight, while allowing just seven hits, just one after the fourth inning. Had the game gone to extra innings, which seemed likely late, the Tigers pen was locked and loaded; Joba Chamberlain, hammered Saturday, prepped for the 10th for the home team.

When Joe Girardi took the ball from Pettitte and handed it to Shawn Kelly in the fifth, both he and the fans were worried whether or not Yankee middle relief could get the game to the eighth, but they shouldn’t have been. Kelly and Boone Logan were superb, posting four outs apiece, but this time, the back of the Yankee pen collapsed. First, David Robertson surrendered a leadoff home run to backup catcher Brayan Pena, then held his breath as Brett Gardner ran down Torii Hunter’s bomb to dead center, turning it into an 8-7-4 double play when Austin Jackson ran from first, thinking Brett had dropped the ball. Then in the ninth Miguel Cabrera homered off Mariano Rivera, as he had Friday, and Victor Martinez did as well, handing Mo his third straight blown save.

With their bullpen having thrown 10 innings in two days, the Yanks set to the task of scoring in the bottom half, although the team had not scored in four straight frames, with a lonely single in all that time. Facing one-time Yank right-hander Jose Veras, Eduardo Nunez had Hunter run down his liner to the right center field gap and pinch hitter Vernon Wells took a third strike one pitch after his long drive to left fell 10 feet foul. Gardner had crashed hard into the center field wall after catching Hunter’s drive in the eighth; his weak toss from his backside to Alfonso Soriano in left led to the Jackson confusion and double play. But any doubts about his condition following the hard collision were quickly dispelled: He took a 1-0 Veras offering out deep to right, giving Rivera a win, the excited crowd a good memory, and his team their first series win in almost two months.

So in a game where the hard-hitting Tigers drilled three home runs late to tie the game, Gardner hit the Yanks’ third home run for the walkoff. Rodriguez had started the six-home-run hit-off in the second, and Soriano went yard in the fourth. This hit was the 2,000th of Alfonso’s major league career, many of them coming years ago with the Yanks, many of them homers back then. August 11 has been a day with a lot of home run history, starting with Babe Ruth’s 500th fence clearer against Cleveland in 1929. Harmon Killebrew hit Nos. 500 and 501 on this day in 1971, and both Reggie Jackson and Dave Kingman cleared fences for their 400th long balls on August 11, in 1980 and 1985, respectively. Recently deceased Expos and Mets catcher Gary Carter hit his 300th on this day in 1988, and two years later, young Yankee Kevin Maas became the earliest to 13 home runs, doing so in his first 110 at bats in the big leagues.

The six home runs, three by each side, Sunday afternoon, had at least two things in common: Each was hit with the bases empty. And every one; from Rodriguez getting his slowed-down swing through the zone against the hard-throwing Verlander; to Cabrera and Martinez ruining another Mo attempted save; to singles hitter Gardner’s walkoff, brought about some,

Home Run Havoc

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!