Bronx, N.Y., June 25, 2013 — Sunday afternoon Yankee Stadium was ready to rock to its first 2013 walkoff win, as Rickey Henderson singled hard to left center, driving in Bucky Dent and John Flaherty in the third inning so the Bombers could defeat the Clippers 2-1 in the 67th annual Old-Timers’ Game. That would be the final score, but it was not to be a walkoff, primarily because the 40-, 50-, and 60-year-old “kids” refused to stop playing, even though not one of these Classics has gone beyond three frames for decades. They played five.
Perhaps foreshadowed by what could have been two days earlier, Ichiro Suzuki blasted Texas reliever Tanner Schepppers’s fourth two-out, bottom-of-the-ninth pitch deep to right Tuesday to give the 40,000-plus in attendance that particular kind of baseball thrill, one roughly a million and a half paying fans this year have not yet been able to see.
Promoted as a special kind of pitcher’s duel, this first game of three pitted the Yanks and Rangers in the Bronx, with native Japanese players Yu Darvish, throwing for Texas, against veteran Hiroki Kuroda, pitching for New York. And neither starter disappointed, really. Darvish’s team got off to an early lead, and looked to have the inside track for a victory, mostly because Kuroda had no answer for lefty hitting center fielder Leonys Martin, who homered to right off him each of the two times he came to the plate to face him. The first long ball, in the third, gave Texas the lead; the next increased the visitors’ edge to 3-1 leading off the top of the fifth.
But on a night where the Yankee offense was all too predictable (1-for-8 with runners in scoring position), and quite different (four long balls), it was Kuroda who had the better night, even if Darvish had the lead for four innings before Jayson Nix tied things with his second home run of the year. Darvish’s biggest problem was not new: pitch count. It cost his right arm 100 bullets to navigate through five innings with a 3-2 lead; the 101st pitch to Nix tied the game. He struck out six, allowed seven hits and two walks, and his team made two errors, but none of these mattered, it turned out, except the three hits that were home runs.
Kuroda outlasted Darvish and, aside from the two blasts off Martin’s bat, he was unscathed except for an unearned fourth-inning run that crossed after third baseman David Adams flubbed Adrian Beltre’s bouncer to third. Adams had yet another tough night at the plate as well, with three strike outs and a walk dipping his batting average to .185. That was nothing compared to first baseman Lyle Overbay, however; two of his three strike outs came with one out and stranded five baserunners, four of them in scoring position. It looked like any kind of rally was beyond the Bombers’ capability, which is why the four fence clearers, the kind of hits that gave the Bronx players that lofty nickname, were so welcome.
Hiroki not only threw 65 of 98 pitches for strikes; he walked just one, and held the Texas offense to two earned runs two outs into the seventh inning. Having thrown 22 of 26 first pitches for strikes, a rare achievement in first-pitch accuracy, the crowd was clamoring for him to stay when manager Joe Girardi pulled the veteran with two down in the seventh, with that man — center fielder Martin — coming to the plate. Despite our howls, the three-pitch strike out Boone Logan delivered made the move look brilliant.
The Yanks did nothing after Nix’s game-tying homer in the seventh; the Texas bullpen retired nine of 10, six of them on strike outs. And David Robertson and Mariano Rivera pitched around a walk and two singles to usher this one, still tied at 3-3, to the bottom of the ninth. A leadoff walk to Chris Stewart seemed to get it going, but whom were the Yanks kidding? They had no rally in their bones. Brett Gardner forced Stewart, and then was easily pegged out trying to steal second. Ichiro fouled off a 98-mph Scheppers heater on the following pitch, but when the next one arrived a few ticks slower, Yankee Stadium did indeed have its first 2013 walkoff, on a home run, the most traditional of ways.
This was not the only June 25 game-winning Yankee home run, not even in quite modern times. On this day in 1999, Shane Spencer went yard off Mike Timlin to beat the Orioles 9-8, but that took place on the road, in Camden Yards. (This will shock no one; tonight’s winner, Rivera, got the save.) And this June 25 is also the 137th anniversary of the day General Custer and his men lost their lives in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
In a few ways, that battle, or at least its name, was emblematic of this game as well. The struggling Yankee offense cashed in an important one-run win on a night where Division rivals Boston, Baltimore and Tampa Bay were making easy work of their opponents in other cities. Kuroda bravely held on, despite the fact that he was behind in the game for four continuous innings. And Girardi showed the courage of his convictions, pulling a guy many consider now to be the team ace, when he was still throwing well. And even though just four at bats figured in the Yankee scoring (Travis Hafner and Bret Gardner went yard as well), they were big at bats all, none bigger than Ichiro’s. That’s why this was a
Little Big Win
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!