Bronx, N.Y., May 12, 2006 — I’ll chalk it up to a rainy Friday with a weekend forecast for more, but it’s a rare day when I’m not eager to attend a ballgame in Yankee Stadium. The disappointing Thursday loss to the Red Sox contributed to my malaise, I’m sure, as did a tough week at work. And the experience of witnessing Hideki Matsui’s horrific accident first hand figured in as well. But bottom line, I was reluctant to train and subway it to the Bronx among the crowds because I suspected the game would be rained out.
I needn’t have worried so much, as Friday evening was so much more pleasant than I could have imagined. Also exceeding my expectations, though, was the dominant outing by current Yankee fourth starter Chien-Ming Wang. He was masterly from start to finish, consistently pounding his 94 mph fastball to an A’s team that could do little but hit ground balls with it even though they often correctly suspected what was coming. Wang not only held the A’s to three singles and two walks over eight. He left just one man on base and pitched to one more batter than the minimum 24 through eight innings because he coaxed four ground ball double plays.
A’s lefty Barry Zito, though not as dominant as Wang, kept the Yanks from scoring through five, but it took him 42 tosses to subdue six Bombers batters through two. Wang retired 11 A’s with that many pitches. Chien-Ming notched 20 of 24 outs on ground balls, he threw 17 of 25 first pitches for strikes, and he avoided the difficulty he has had of late pitching with runners on base by coaxing the four double play balls from the very next batter once an Oakland player reached. He certainly could have finished this one, but unlike some in the crowd, I’ll make no quibble with Joe Torre’s decison to bring Mariano Rivera in for the save. Most Yankee games have not been close one way or the other; Mo needs the work, pure and simple.
The Yanks had two baserunners in both the first and second, and battled back from the ensuing eight straight outs Zito recorded spanning the third through fifth by loading the bases against him in inning number five. Jason Giambi’s long fly to deep center then threatened to break the game open, but the high trajectory of Giambi’s drive gave Oakland center fielder Mark Kotsay plenty of time to plant himself under it. Rarely used backup first baseman Andy Phillips got that threat started with a one-out single to left. It will be interesting to see if he earned any more playing time with Friday’s performance (any time at all would be an increase), because he not only looked at home against a pretty good lefty at the plate, he turned in three fine plays at first filling in for the DH’ing Giambi.
Alex Rodriguez finally broke up the scoreless duel with a long bomb to left on Zito’s second pitch of the home sixth on a 1-0 count. It is just one more example of a Rodriguez blast with a game on the line, something you’d swear he never does if you listen religiously to sports talk radio in New York. Two innings later veteran Bernie Williams faced the same count off ex-Yankee draftee Randy Keisler, in for Zito after six. Williams aroused the adoring crowd and doubled the Yankee score with a drive to a similar location.
Southpaw Keisler actually got 11 starts for the 2000-2001 Yankees, and posted a 2-2 mark in that time. Friday he wiggled out of trouble with two strike outs in the seventh until Williams reached him for the homer in the eighth. I wish the ex-Yank well, but I have to confess that it didn’t take long before his mound habits triggered a memory for me of what I couldn’t abide about his pitching. He repeatedly checked young Melky Cabrera at first with the slowest pickoff move in baseball once the young outfielder, in for the stricken Matsui, singled leading off the seventh. He had the most ineffective lefty pickoff move I can ever recall when playing in the Pinstripes, and it hasn’t improved. Though fairness dictates that I share that he did finish the frame on a strike-’em-out/throw-’em-out dp against Cabrera. Perhaps his lame moved worked just a little.
It might be a surprising claim I make that in a game where aging crowd favorite Williams and 2005 MVP Rodriguez accounted for all the scoring, it was Yankee youth who made the difference this day. Phillips singled hard and was a presence at first, and Cabrera collected a bingle as well. And second-year second sacker Robinson Cano singled off the veteran Zito too, though no one is surprised when Cano demonstrates that line drive bat anymore.
More surprising, perhaps, was the glove Robbie flashed Friday. His lunge up the middle to snare ex-Met Jay Payton’s liner leading off the top of the third stood out as the best defensive play for much of the night. But then he eclipsed that beaut with an even better performance against catcher Adam Melhuse leading off (once again) the visiting eighth. Cano ranged far up the middle to snag the hard hopper, but his off-balance twirl and peg to first was what made the play stand out. The A’s argued briefly about the out call on the bing/bang play, and they may have had a point. But that diminishes the athleticism and glove and arm work he displayed on the base-hit bid not even a little bit.
But this win belongs to the junior class of Yankee stars for just one reason really, the “stopper” performance of hard sinker throwing Chien-Ming Wang. Wang has been inconsistent in the the ’06 campaign so far. And it bears mentioning that the A’s lineup he dominated is one that is struggling at the plate.
But the Yanks needed a pick-me-up after the depressing events of Thursday, and after much of the pen was burned in that eventual loss. Friday was the anniversary of the birth of heroine and nursing icon Florence Nightingale in 1820, who made her name attending to dying soldiers in the Crimean War. As with her ministrations on that bloody battlefield more than a century ago, Chien-Ming Wang’s performance was just what the doctor ordered for the homestanding Yankees.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!