Bronx, N.Y., September 4, 2007 — Yankee lawyers had better get busy finding a case in the rulebook that allows cross-species rooting, because everyone’s favorite squirrel made a reappearance on the right field foul pole Tuesday, and the offense returned with him. If the laughably biased way major league baseball has been adjudicating wayward pitches is any guide, the game is making a case for neutralizing the happy rodent as I write.
Neither Rocky the Right Field Squirrel nor bombastic offense played any part in the Yankees’ 12-3 victory over Seattle early on though. Coming off two anemic losses to Tampa Bay and a defeat in a dominating performance from Felix Hernandez of the Mariners Monday night, Yankee bats broached the hit column in the first inning on a Bobby Abreu two-out double. And the bats continued doing so inning after inning, but five frames in they had but one lonely tally to go with their seven hits. Thankfully, catcher Jorge Posada had given them a 1-0 lead with a liner drilled over the wall in left leading off the home second, but five evenly spaced followup singles had not dented the runs column on the board again.
Chien-Ming Wang returned to his roots this night, pounding one hard sinking fastball after another. His newly refined slider was spotted and the change of pace missing, but he got the ground ball going early with three straight bouncers to second to start the game, and it never stopped. He got nine of 12 Seattle outs in frames one through four on ground balls, then put a stop to three straight mini-rallies the next three innings with double plays. To further punctuate how well he had the ground game going, he got Jose Lopez to ground to second leading off the eighth for his 17th of 22 recorded outs via the ground.
Wang had a mini-bout of wildness, not uncommon, when he walked the first two leading off the top of the fifth, but then the one time he needed his defense to rise to the occasion and thwart an attack they did so. Hideki Matsui charged and fired a perfect strike to home on an Ichiro Suzuki single to left, and Adrian Beltre was nailed at the plate trying to slide in. The run would have tied the Yanks at one on just the M’s second hit of the game, and there is no telling how the sure-to-have-been demoralized Yanks would have responded. As it was, Chien-Ming got a 5-4-3 bouncer out of Kenji Johjima on the next pitch, and Seattle’s last best chance was gone. He left then with a slightly stiff back, but looked more than ready to finish.
Still the Yanks were hovering at 1-0, ripe for a quick strike, until Alex Rodriguez doubled the margin by homering off lefty Horacio Ramirez on a deep fly to left. Yankee Stadium’s right field Tier Level, though distant, is often peppered with home runs. The eighth row in left that Alex reached can’t have been attained more than a handful of times since the Stadium was reopened in 1976. And the blast started off a rally, as three singles around a catcher’s interference call plated two more for a 4-0 lead after six.
Wang leaped to stab a Raul Ibanez high hopper to start the seventh and then Beltre reached him for the sole blemish on his magnificent outing, a 1-1 drive over the retired numbers in left to close the score to 4-1. Wang walked Ben Broussard but a Johjima 6-4-3 ended the inning. Then the right field frenzy over the return of the squirrel, last seen in a victory over Boston last week, peaked, and so did the Yankee offense. A Bombers seven-run uprising off three Seattle relievers began with an Abreu home run to right. Rodriguez and Posada singles and a Matsui walk loaded the bases, and Shelley Duncan’s hard single over the third base bag scored two. Robbie Cano doubled for two more and Melky Cabrera and Derek Jeter rbi singles scored Cano and Cabrera; seemingly attached at the hip, these two buddies crossed the plate on consecutive pitches.
Wang threw just 14 of 26 first-pitch strikes, but his 52/33 strikes/balls ratio was more than acceptable. He allowed four singles with the home run, walked three, and struck out just one, Ibanez taking in the fourth. Mariners swung and missed but three times. Wang gets out by hitting bats far more often than by missing them.
With 12 hits and 20 runs, one hopes the bats don’t go quiet Wednesday, when the Yanks take on Seattle in their last head-to-head battle, the last time the Yanks will face a fellow 2007 Wild Card pretender. With the Red Sox holding a seven-game lead in the AL East, it may be their only way into the playoffs. The hits were spread around, with Posada taking honors on four hits, four runs scored, and two rbi’s. He homered to start things in the second and then again to close the scoring in the eighth, and is having an incredible yet consistent year. Cano and Abreu had four hits apiece, and three rbi’s and one rbi, respectively. A-Rod scored twice on two hits, and the long, long homer should count for one or two more.
September 4 has been a particularly good day in Yankee history too, as Sam Jones threw the team’s first no-hitter on this day in 1923, and Jim Abbott repeated the feat exactly 70 years later. It was this day in 1996 that Andy Pettitte won his 20th game, the same day current pitching coach Ron Guidry garnered his in his fabulous 25-3, 1978 season. There is even Yankee precedence for the catcher’s interference Hideki Matsui reached on in the sixth. On September 4, 1992, Yankee outfielder Roberto Kelly tied a major league record by reaching safely on that obscure call for the seventh time.
With the Wild Card lead back up to two games, I’ll be in the Bronx Wednesday evening, as will another 50,000-strong crowd, rooting rookie righthander Philip Hughes on, as the Yanks and Mariners reconvene. And we’ll all be wondering if Rocky the Right Field Squirrel will be appearing as well … at least until major league baseball gets wind of it.
No telling.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!