Bronx, N.Y., June 14, 2011 – Where do you start describing a game where the offense pounds out 14 hits good for 12 runs? Do you highlight home runs from Nick Swisher, Robinson Cano, and Curtis Granderson, or perhaps Curtis’s back-to-back two-run hits with Mark Teixeira that turned a crack in the door against 7-0 Alexi Ogando into a blowout?
Alex Rodriguez started the big rally, crowned the next one, and just missed going yard. How about young Eduardo Nunez who notched the game’s first rbi and played a solid shortstop in place of the DL’d Derek Jeter, or Brett Gardner, who celebrated his return to the top of the order by reaching safely four times, scored thrice, and stole his 100th career base? And where on that list do you put team horse CC Sabathia, who supplied seven solid innings, giving Joe Girardi at least one edge over the defending AL champs with two more games to play in this series: a more rested bullpen?
It’s a baseball truism that if you put an inexperienced defender anywhere on the field in a spot to which he is not accustomed the ball will find him – but not necessarily right away. The first two balls struck fairly Tuesday night by Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus both tested Jorge Posada, subbing for the DH’ing Mark Teixeira down at first base. And the ex-catcher and DH responded with surprising alacrity. The first of the two was the tougher play, and Jorge dove into the hole to snag it. His throw to first led Sabathia as it should, and the portly Yankee southpaw narrowly beat Kinsler to the bag. By the time Andrus followed with his bouncer five pitches later, the Jorge/CC show had its act totally together; the toss was terrific and Sabathia beat the speedy shortstop with ease, then struck out Josh Hamilton to close the frame.
Who’s to say what would have happened if either – or both – shots went through? Baseball lore also favors the first scorer, but it was Jorge on the spot blunting the Rangers’ initial attempt. He would flawlessly handle throws, recording five putouts to go with the two early assists. CC did not need much further help from Jorge retiring the rest of the Texas order, nine up and nine down through three innings. And by the time he recorded the last three of those outs, he had himself a healthy 6-0 lead.
The second inning onslaught started quietly, as Alex Rodriguez bounced an 0-1 fastball through the box for a single to center. One out later, Posada doubled right over the first base bag, and the Yanks were set up. A walk and Nunez and Gardner singles netted two station-to-station runs, but the Granderson and Teixeira hits upped the lead to 6-0 and drove Ogando from the game. The Rangers tried valiantly to counterattack CC, with back-to-back three-hit, two-run innings (the third and fourth) after Swisher had given the Yanks a 7-0 lead with a blast to the first row beyond the wall in left field in the home third. And the visitors looked to have a shot too, but a Yankee two-run fourth and three-run sixth locked down the win.
As mentioned, Sabathia made seven complete, short for him perhaps, but well clear of par for the major league course. His 71/37 strikes/balls ratio was superb, and he pounded 19 first-pitch strikes to 29 batters. The eight hits against were a bit high, but for five of the innings he was in “hit the ball” mode, even if he did use 14 swings and misses by opposition hitters to collect six strike outs, with not even one walk. His heater topped out at 95, he mixed in some sliders and changes, while his curve dipped to the mid-70s.
It was not a very pleasant night in the Bronx, and the Yanks did well to get the game started just 40 minutes late, as they surmised correctly that although the rain would continue to be a factor, it would not rain hard enough to even contemplate stopping the action – once they determined it was mild enough to start. After watching delayed, wet fields being prepared for 40-plus years south of 161st Street and two years in the new digs, I can reveal a new and very effective strategy. The grounds crew used to pull the tarp off the field toward the left field wall, dumping all the water on top into short left field, then pull it back on the infield before folding it and rolling it up. Although it’s still pulled to left, now the tarp is left lying flat, top down, for nearly 20 minutes as the crew works to get the infield lined and groomed and the warning track all around the field free of puddles. By the time they return to the tarp, the fabulous drainage system has rendered it and left field largely dry, and it is rolled up and removed with much less fuss.
Of course it is frustrating that the team managed to be shut out 1-0 in between 18-hit and 14-hit games, but that’s baseball. And that is precisely why those moments in the first inning when Posada was challenged were so important. Even one run could have changed everything. Ogando blanked the Bombers in the first, on a popup and two grounders, all to second, on 11 pitches, and may have continued to do so if he had a lead. That’s how he got to June 14 with a 7-0 record and an era barely above 2.00.
It was on this day in 1847 that Robert Bunsen first demonstrated the laboratory burner that would both make his name famous and spur myriad scientific discoveries. Bunsen’s burner burned efficiently, as did the Yankee offense in two of the last three days. The litany of hits brought to mind a decade or so ago when such rallies were often celebrated with a rousing rhythm, real get-up-and dance stuff, and one of Posada’s former teammates was feted with the strains of “Bern, Baby, Bern, it’s a disco inferno!”
Eight Yankees scored runs Tuesday night, and seven of those players knocked in at least one run as well. Jorge Posada was the one in that group not to collect an rbi. But his one-out double set up the big rally, an attack that may have been made possible by his stellar, though inexperienced, defense to start the game. Lots of guys did well in this 12-4 win. But when I’m looking at how it all came down, I think
Jorge First
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!