Bronx, N.Y., August 5, 2007 — The hardest ball the Yanks hit off K.C. righty Gil Meche in Sunday’s second inning was the Jorge Posada tracer to dead center that David DeJesus tracked down with a fine run and catch. It gave the Yanks two outs with no one on, but Meche was rocked, and so, it turned out, was the scoreboard pitch counter.
The Royals righty followed by missing with three straight to Robbie Cano and walked him, and allowed an opposite field single to Wilson Betemit, in at third with new member of the 500-home-run club Alex Rodriguez taking his swings at DH. Andy Philips worked a six-pitch walk, driving Meche’s pitch count to a displayed 34, a number that stayed right there for the rest of the inning, as the Yankees plated four.
Melky Cabrera singled to left at 1-1 for a 1-0 Yankee lead, then Derek Jeter wasted a two-strike pitch before earning the third free pass of the frame for 2-0. Bobby Abreu took a strike, then singled up the middle for two more. The Stadium was rocking at 4-0 Yanks with Alex Rodriguez coming up, but he flied to right on a 2-0 pitch, and the two-out rally was at an end. The pitch counter still had Meche at 34, as if none of the intervening damage had taken place. But two-out Yankee thunder had struck, the four runs counted, and the Yanks were on their way.
The Yanks scored four first-inning runs behind Mike Mussina last Tuesday only to see the White Sox respond with a quick three. Moose was not about to be that generous this time out. He had allowed a first-inning, two-out single to Mark Teahen but Jeter made a nice stab on an Emil Brown bouncer for out number three, and Mussina retired K.C. in order on nine pitches in the second. He then kept the visitors off the board through five, pitching around four singles over the next three. By the time Ross Gload reached Moose for a two-run jack in the sixth, the lead was 6-0, and Joe Torre pulled Mike in favor of Brian Bruney after a leadoff Joey Gathright single in the seventh.
That was the third of four singles from the Royals speedy left fielder; second baseman Esteban German added three one-base hits, as the two would combine for seven of the 12 safeties the team would accumulate. Bruney closed the book on Moose by coaxing a 5-4-3 dp, before all too familiar control problems got the righty reliever in a bind.
Mussina may not have the hard cheese he once had, but he’s still a magician, and he kept the Royals off balance by mixing in a steady diet of not-as-fast cutters (83 mph), slower changes of pace (78 mph) and slowest curves (68 mph) with fastballs that started at 86 and rose to 90 mph just once or twice all day. With the early lead, Mike walked none while striking out three, and threw 18 of 26 first-pitch strikes with a strikes/balls ratio of 62/36.
As good as Moose was, and as Mariano Rivera would be in getting four outs to close it, the bullpen was a continuing problem. The Yanks were 8-2 up when Bruney replaced Moose and got the quick twin killing. But a walk and single followed, and Torre brought in southpaw Mike Myers to face lefty batter Teahen. The K.C. right fielder battled to 3-2 and singled for one run, with a second tally scoring when Cabrera overran the bouncer in short center in his haste. Righty batter Emil Brown bounced back to Myers to close the seventh, but Gathright reached Myers for an rbi single in the eighth swinging from the left side after a two-out walk, and Joe had to bring in Mo to close out the 8-5 win.
It was a victory for Mussina and the lately dangerous Yankee offense, which thankfully kept the pressure on after the four-run second. Left fielder Hideki Matsui led off the third with a home run to right, and A-Rod delivered fourth-inning hit-by-pitch victim Jeter with a sac fly following a minidrama starring Abreu. Bobby drilled a home run Saturday after third base ump Larry Poncino gave a late sign that he had swung on a 3-1 pitch; this time it was a home plate ump Adam Dowdy called strike at 3-1 that kept the riled Yankee right fielder from walking. Bobby promptly singled up the middle to send Jeter to third on the next pitch.
Once Gload reached Moose for the two-run sixth-inning homer to close the score to 6-2, Cabrera homered for one leading off the bottom half and a walk, single, and Matsui sac fly restored the six-run lead, which was enough to keep K.C. at bay until they ran out of chances against Rivera. Batting leadoff with Johnny Damon out so A-Rod could DH, Melky scored two and drove in two, and both Jeter and Abreu reached safely four times. Although it didn’t approach DeJesus’s play on Posada, Cabrera tracked an Alex Gordon liner to left center that was curving away from him in the fourth. And Betemit had a fine Yankee debut at third, starting two 5-4-3 dp’s, and flagging Teahen’s base-hit bid and throwing him out to end the game.
As 54,525 watched this one under a dazzling sun and the most truly cloudless sky you’ll see, there was a collective sigh of relief that the Bronx was no longer the steambath it had been for the first five games of the homestand. After yesterday’s four-hit game, second baseman Cano was basking in the honor he received Saturday evening, as the Staten Island Yankees retired his number as they had teammate Chien-Ming Wang’s earlier. And Matsui received a long ovation after his third-inning jack, as it was the 100th fence clearer of his Yankee career.
Ex-Yankee outfielder Lou Piniella also had a good day in Yankee Stadium 23 years ago this day, as the Yanks held a day in the recent retiree’s honor on August 5, 1984. The Bombers beat Cleveland 4-0 that day behind lefty Ray Fontenot, with a third-inning home run by Vic Mata getting the shutout started. Those are two names you don’t hear in the Bronx much anymore. Fontenot was traded to the Cubs four months later, and in 23 seasons, Piniella took the job piloting the team from Chicago’s north side.
As the Yanks finished off the Royals to close a 5-1 stand, the Milwaukee Brewers, with a one-game lead over those same Cubs, were battering the Phillies for a 6-1 lead. But as we were filing out of the ballpark, someone must have gotten the word to the team from the City of Brotherly Love that this was Lou’s day. They scored five in the ninth and two in the 11th to keep the Cubs close in the NL Central race. It’s nice to know that a “Day” in Yankee Stadium has reverberations that carry from city to city and last several decades.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!