Bronx, N.Y., September 3, 2006 — A cursory glance at the players assembled on the field during the Marine Corps band version of our National Anthem before Sunday’s Twins/Yankees tilt revealed a startling tableau. The Yankee defense and the umpires were near their positions, with rookie starter Darrell Rasner on the mound, Jorge Posada standing with plate ump Kerwin Danley at home, Jason Giambi manning first base, and the other three infielders bunched at shortstop. This left just the outfielders standing at attention in short right field, all four of them.
Four of them? DH Bernie Williams was still in pregame midstretch when the music was queued, so he joined the fielders out there during the anthem. But although from that point the Yanks fielded a by-the-book team, the visiting Twins seemed outmanned all day anyway. Both teams started rookie pitchers, but Rasner, with eight big-league innings on his resume (one this year with New York), pitched like a wily vet, while Matt Garza with triple the frames under his belt was the first of four Twins pitchers hammered for 14 hits.
Garza pounds 96-mph fastballs, while Rasner does not throw hard, and he fell behind 1-0 when Minnesota center fielder Torii Hunter homered deep to left center on a 3-0 pitch in the second. But Darrell throws his 89-mph fastball for strikes, mixes it with an effective change at 82, and has a killer curve when he tosses it with confidence. He allowed just three singles after the Hunter tater, and retired 18 of 20 visitors on 79 pitches through six.
Two of the singles came with no one out in the third, and threatened to shorten his debut Yankee start. On first via a safety through the shortstop hole, Jason Tyner raced to third on Jason Bartlett’s liner over second. A heads-up defensive play saved Rasner’s day, and it is to his credit that he had the presence of mind to pull it off. Up 0-1 on Nick Punto, he coaxed a comebacker, but stumbled while thinking about wheeling to start a 1-6-3 dp, then recovered to catch Tyner halfway home. Forcing the play by running at him, he fired to Jorge Posada, who ran the Twins left fielder back to third where Alex Rodriguez slapped on a tag for the first out of the frame. When Luis Rodriguez bounced to short for an inning-ending 6-4-3, Rasner was home free.
The Yanks had also failed to score after two leadoff singles in the second, but all that changed once Derek Jeter fought through for a seven-pitch walk with one down in the home third. Bobby Abreu stroked his second of three doubles with Jeets racing home for the tie, and Jason Giambi waited out the second of his three walks. Bartlett made a nice grab on A-Rod’s hard liner to short, but with two outs, Posada and Robbie Cano joined the “second-of-three” trend Bobby and Jason had initiated. With a line single and then a bloop double respectively, they each stroked their second of three hits for a 4-1 lead. Even when Garza recovered to get Williams on a liner to second, it impressed, as Bernie’s bullet knocked Nick Punto down as he speared it.
Enjoying a comfortable lead when he returned to the mound for the fourth, Rasner retired six straight, allowed a single, then secured another dp and a fly ball to end his day. His 53/26 strikes/balls ratio was textbook perfect, he threw 12 of 20 first-pitch strikes, and although he blew just four pitches past swinging Minnesota bats, he used two of them to record his two punch outs of the day, with no walks. Two Twins hard liners were caught, with one leading to the second double play, a nifty 4-3 collaboration by Cano and a surprisingly mobile Jason Giambi. Rasner got plenty of soft outs too, with six grounders and four infield pops.
Garza, meanwhile, retired five straight until A-Rod blasted a two-out, fifth-inning bomb to right center, and Willie Eyre took over on the mound after a followup walk. This young righty closed that frame, then survived Johnny Damon’s sixth-inning double, but not the Bobby Abreu two-base hit leading off the seventh. It was impressive that the Yankee right fielder legged this liner to right center out right after taking a painful foul ball off his foot. Giambi walked of course, and frisbee-throwing righty Pat Neshek was brought on to face the hot-as-a-firecracker A-Rod. The “down under” tosses are designed to flummox righthanded batters, but Alex barely noticed before launching an 0-1 missile to the black seats just to the right of dead center, and the lead was 8-1.
And the Twins weren’t just outnumbered on the field of play. Early in the game it was announced that by playing in his 1,647th game at shortstop for the Yanks, Captain Derek Jeter had tied Hall of Famer Phil Rizzuto for most contests played at that position in team history. Alex’s first home run gave him 30 homers and 90 rbi’s on the season; before his second was launched, he was credited via the Scoreboard with having achieved those dual numbers for nine straight seasons. And when lefty specialist Mike Myers replaced Rasner to start the seventh, it was his 800th appearance. The Twins posted a big number too, but don’t expect an e-mail from their press office. Tyner’s fly out to right in the eighth inning was his 1,000th big league at bat without ever having hit a home run.
Scott Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth finished up for the Yanks, with the final score stretching to 10-1 once Jeter started a two-run rally with a double to right in the eighth. After a walk, Yankee fan minds were on three home runs and their eyes on home plate when Alex Rodriguez faced hard-throwing Twins setup man Juan Rincon, but Alex “only” hit a single (up the middle yet again) for his fifth rbi of the day. Posada’s single finished the scoring.
With the win the Yanks are up nine games in the East, 10 on the loss side. It has become obvious that in a month they’ll have a date in the first round of the playoffs with Chicago, Minnesota, or Detroit of the AL’s Central Division. The Bombers took the season series with two of the three; they finished in a tie with the Twins. But they sure seemed to outnumber them Sunday.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!