Bronx, N.Y., April 3, 2008 — The debate goes on as the Blue Jays and the Yanks played another game Thursday where the offenses struggled. Is it that the hitters aren’t ready? Or are most of the guys who have pitched that good? Take your pick, but I wouldn’t dismiss the third school of thought on this either: It’s just too cold.
The two teams combined for 12 hits Thursday, the second 3-2 Yankee win in the three-game series. There were only 14 hits Tuesday. Melky Cabrera snuck a fly ball around the right field foul pole that night, and Vernon Wells and Alex Rodriguex exchanged long home runs Wednesday, but by and by the pitchers have outshone the offenses. Actor Leslie Howard, probably best known for having starred in Gone With the Wind, would have been 115 this night. He also fared well appearing alongside great actors Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest. Watching batter after batter flail weakly the last three nights, it seems we’ve been watching Petrified Offense.
If anyone was wondering if young hurlers could keep this trend going, the Yanks’ Phil Hughes and Toronto’s Dustin McGowan responded by retiring 18 of the first 20 batters in little more than a half hour Thursday. Both featured dominant heat and knee-breaking curve balls. McGowan survived two early walks and a Jose Molina single by coaxing three weak swings for strike outs and a double play, while Hughes was perfect: nine up and nine down while throwing just 30 pitches.
Something had to give, I suppose, and unfortunately it was Hughes who wilted first. Pesky Blue Jays shortstop David Eckstein fouled off two good fastballs and a curve leading off the top of the fourth, then fought off tight heat by flairing one down the left field line. Barely fair, the bloop got him a leadoff double. A fielder’s choice roller and Alex Rios’s fourth hit of the series, a one-out single over short, put the Jays up 1-0. Rios’s stolen base coupled with a Robbie Cano error put a potential second run at third with just one out, but Hughes stiffened, striking out Wells and DH Frank Thomas. Wells swung at and missed a nice curve; Thomas took low inside heat for strike three, complained bitterly, and begrudgingly accepted home plate ump Bill Miller’s invitation to watch the rest of this one elsewhere. You had to wonder if the additional run the Jays failed to score would haunt them before this one was over.
McGowan then allowed hits leading off the next three frames, following the one Yankee catcher Jose Molina had already stroked as the first Yankee batter back in the third. But eight pitches garnered three weak outs in the fourth, and Melky Cabrera’s double play grounder to second closed the fifth, erasing Hideki Matsui’s leadoff bingle. The 26 pitches it had taken Hughes to get through the fourth almost equaled what he threw in the first three innings combined. Now the Jays were at him again in the fifth, but only after Phil’s biggest mistake of the night, a five-pitch, two-out free pass to Marco Scutaro. His only walk extended the frame, and back to back singles doubled the visitors’ lead to 2-0. It took another 20 pitches, but Hughes finally ended that one on a Matt Stairs bouncer to second.
With his pitch count in the mid-seventies, Hughes fell behind Rios 3-0 leading off the sixth, but Alex was green-lighted and lined out to center. A fly ball out and then a grounder to short by Shannon Stewart, in for Thomas, ended the top of the sixth and Phil’s night. Although he left the game on the losing side of a 2-0 score, Hughes’s much anticipated initial 2008 start did not disappoint. He mixed 91- and 92-mph fastballs with big-breaking slow curves and harder breaking picthes that befuddled Blue Jays batters most of the night. And when challenged, he rose to the occasion. It is expected (and hoped) that Hughes’s best starts are ahead of him; he did nothing to dampen expectations. His 58/29 strikes/balls ratio was textbook, he threw 15 of 23 first pitches for strikes, and in four of his six frames, he threw just four, two, two, and four off the plate. The walk hurt him, but he notched four strike outs while allowing just four hits.
Serving as Designated Hitter for the first time in this game while Hideki Matsui played left field, Johnny Damon worked the count full leading off the home sixth. Then he doubled to the right center field gap, and a New York crowd starved for some action roared its approval. A hit by pitch and walk loaded the bases, and McGowan was in trouble with Alex Rodriguez striding to the plate. Alex started this campaign well with three hits and four rbi’s the first two games, and perhaps feeling the pressure, McGowan wild pitched all three runners up on a 2-2 count, giving the Yanks their first run. But the offensive malaise got Rodriguez this time and he struck out. A still hitless Jason Giambi lined to medium-deep right field for the second, and tying run, though an Overbay cutoff and peg to third nailed Abreu with the third out. McGowan’s night was over at 98 pitches, and at 2-2 through six innings, this one went to the bullpens.
New Yankee situational lefty Billy Traber set Overbay up and struck him out leading off the seventh, and Brian Bruney retired the next two featuring heat as fast as 97 mph. Brian Wolfe worked a one-two-three seventh for the Jays, and Joba Chamberlain retired the vistors in the eighth around a Stairs two-out single. Wolfe fell to 2-1 against Cabrera in the eighth, and Miller called a second strike on a pitch Melky clearly thought was off the plate. Harnessing his emotions, he stroked a single to left, a hit that would eventually make a loser out of Wolfe. Damon dragged a bunt down first against Scott Downs, Toronto Manager John Gibbons’s lefty answer against the portsided New York DH. Rushing to the ball and trying to pick it up and tag in one motiion, the southpaw bobbled it for an error. Though everyone in the house knew another bunt was coming, Jeter executed it so well that he beat Greg Zaun’s throw to first, but umpire Paul Emmel called him out. Abreu plated Cabrera with a bloop fly single to short left center. Despite another Rodriguez strike out, this one on three pitches, one out later we were through eight and the Yanks had a 3-2 lead.
As we’ve said, Yankee bats struggled, but aside from Cano’s miscue handling the Molina throw in the fourth, the “D” was pretty good again. Robbie made two nice plays, an over-the-shoulder catch with his back facing home vs. Vernon Wells in the second, and a quick charge and toss on an Eckstein swinging bunt in the eighth. Abreu ran a long way before catching Scutaro’s foul pop next to the foul fence in short right, ending with a short face-first dive at the stands; and Giambi made a clean stab on a Zaun shot towards first in the third.
As McGowan had done to the Yanks, Hughes worked off his deceptive 92-mph fastball to pitch six effective frames, Bruney and Chamberlain pounded heat, and Mariano Rivera notched his second save by throwing 94-mph cutters in the ninth, even if the Jays did get Wells to third against him. Vernon singled leading off, and he and Rios look ready to form a scary three/four tandem in the Toronto lineup.
But on nights as cold as the last two have been, it’s worth remembering that heat is but one weapon. Billy Traber looked the quintessential situational lefty when he set Overbay up at 1-2 in the seventh. The Jays first baseman had no chance against the hard-breaking curve that followed, and believe that that was a sight that warmed Joe Girardi’s heart on a night when warmth was in short supply. Likewise, Phil Hughes spotted his nasty bender well in dominating early. Later it was a turning point when he K’d both Wells and Thomas with a third run waiting on second base. Wells swung at and missed curves for strikes two and three, and Thomas took a strike after Phil’s nasty breaking pitches had set him up.
April 3, 2008 is the 67th birthday of Jan Berry, half of sixties rock duo Jan & Dean. These guys had some big drag racing and surf hits, including Dead Man’s Curve and Surf City. Perhaps the lesson hitters should take from Phil Hughes’s initial 2008 start is:
Won’t come back from [the] Dreaded Man’s Curve.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!