Bronx, N.Y., July 25, 2010 — For the third time in a just-concluded nine-game homestand in which the Yanks came out victorious six times, their win in Sunday’s game by a lopsided score was anything but a blowout until the latter innings. In a twist, a majority of the almost 48,000 in attendance attracted to the Bronx on a steamy afternoon in hopes of seeing Alex Rodriguez’s 600th career home run witnessed the game’s essence: a 5-3 Yankee win before the rains came. I’ll leave it to others to judge if the three quarters or so who didn’t wait out the 2.5-hour rain delay are lesser fans than those who stayed, or just less determined to witness baseball history. But this was a tougher and closer game than the 12-6 final over Kansas City would leave you to believe.

Royals left fielder Scott Podsednik homered twice to drive in four, and center fielder Rick Ankiel had three hits and scored twice, but for a while it seemed the KC game MVP would be a choice between righthander Sean O’Sullivan and the front office guy who arranged the team’s trade for him once he beat the Yanks for Anaheim five days ago. As he had five days earlier, the young righty mixed a 90- and 91-mph fast ball with high 70s curves and changes of pace to quiet Yankee lunber through the first two innings on a mere 21 pitches.

Phil Hughes, meanwhile, who had suffered his third season loss facing O’Sullivan and the Angels on Tuesday, looked good but not overpowering. Podsednik and Ankiel reached him for leadoff singles in the first two frames, respectively, and Phil got a bad break when third baseman Chris Getz’s one-out bouncer up the middle caromed off his body in the third. Getz reached, then stole second on the second pitch to Podsednik, although Posada’s throw clearly beat him to the bag if the tens of thousands of umpires in the stands are to be believed. Jeff Nelson’s safe call became doubly painful when the ensuing 0-2 pitch to the Royals leftfielder was sliced into the left field corner where it thumped off the base of the foul pole for a two-run home run.

Hughes escaped further damage when the Royals batters who followed became the first two of five fly ball victims in the first five innings to center fielder Curtis Granderson, who was all over the outfield much of the afternoon. And Curtis didn’t just have a good day with his glove, as he led off the bottom half with a home run that dissipated any of the magic that O’Sullivan’s throws were designed to spread. Ramiro Pena, playing third for the DH’ing Rodriguez, singled with one down, and Derek Jeter scored him with a triple to right center, a drive on which the KC outfield “D” did a very good job retrieving and almost got the ball in fast enough to catch the speedy Pena scoring. One out later Mark Teixeira stroked a knuckleball down the third base line that could not be defended because it curved so dramatically away from the line as it bounded forward. With the Yanks up 3-1, A-Rod scorched a double to the left field corner, and Podsednik had trouble with the corner carom for the first of two times, and the lumbering Teixeira scored from first.

It had cost Hughes 27 pitches under the steamy sun to get through the top of third, and the fourth was tough too. Ankiel homered with one down, Alex Gordon singled one out later, and Hughes was up to 78 pitches through four. But Granderson to the rescue, as his leadoff homer in the bottom half restored Phil’s two-run lead. And Hughes set the visitors down in order in the fifth, throwing just 10 pitches, and struck out Wilson Betemit leading off the sixth before the rains came. The storm got the starters out of the game with the Yanks up 5-3, and the Yankee pen did its job for the most part while KC’s did not.

After the long delay the Yanks added a run on Brett Gardner’s double in the sixth on another ball Podsednik overran in left, and Alex drove in Nick Swisher for a 7-3 lead in the seventh on a vicious bouncer to second that ate second sacker Aviles alive. Boone Logan had taken over for the Yanks and he retired five straight. Joba Chamberlain came on for the eighth and had his usual trouble, with the biggest mistake being a leadoff walk to light-hitting third baseman Chris Getz. Podsednik halved the Yankee lead with his second homer, but from that point Chamberlain quieted the Royals’ bats.

Any threat the Royals presented was over before it began, as the Yanks answered with five runs in an onslaught that began with a Granderson walk and two errors. With three hits already, Jeter was walked, Nick Swisher singled for two and Mark Teixeira loaded the bases with a one-base hit. This brought Rodriguez to the plate for a fifth try at home run number 600, and a chance for a grand slam, but KC righty Blake Wood responded to an intimidating situation with a little intimidation of his own, coming up and in and hitting Alex in the hand and face to drive in the Yanks’ 12th run. Chan-Ho Park threw a sloppy ninth and allowed a run and the Yanks had a 12-6 win 5:45 after it had begun.

After a few down starts, Hughes was better this game, against a pretty tough lineup. He threw 14 of 21 first-pitch strikes, and the 62/33 strikes/balls ratio was good, even if the pitch count was a bit elevated. He pounded 93-mph heat and got three strike outs (with no walks) by mixing in a killer curve. Logan was very good, and Chamberlain righted his bumpy ride quickly. The team handled a pitcher who had baffled them five days before.

But the focus of the day, rightly or not, was home runs, on a day where Roger Maris collected his 37th, 38th, 39th, and 40th season home runs in a 1961 doubleheader sweep of the White Sox, with Mickey Mantle hitting his 38th. Six years later on July 25, 1967, Harmon Killebrew of the Twins hit a first-inning home run and Mantle tied the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, 1-1. What came next? The rains, just as today, though the Yanks would win a replay of the game 1-0 two weeks later.

And the only Yankee home runs were the two hit by Granderson on a day when so many spent the day cheering Rodriguez onto number 600. But what some fans may be missing, I think, is that Alex is not the Yankee home run hitter in 2010. As a matter of fact he began the day fourth on the team in fence clearers, and in third place in long balls among the four infielders. What Rodriguez did this Sunday is what he’s been doing on a pretty regular basis this season. He began the day second in the American League in driving his mates across home plate. And he did so three more times Sunday, one more than Robbie Cano, Swisher, and Granderson. He’s been doing it so often that he’s largely driving the Yankee offense, to such an extent that I propose a new nickname for the Yankee cleanup hitter.

RBI-Rod

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!