Bronx, N.Y., June 7, 2009 — When a team comes from behind to win late in games, the first place you tend to look at is the offense. And the Yankees did have some terrific at bats during their three-run eighth-inning rally in Sunday’s 4-3 win. But the game ball this day, and the “W,” goes to their veteran relief.
Almost exactly one year ago, on June 8, 2008, Joba Chamberlain left his second major league start down 3-2 to the Padres in the fifth inning, and the Bombers rallied to win it 6-3 for Dan Geise. This time around Joba was better, lasting six innings, but he was down 3-1 at that point. But Alfredo Aceves gave the Yanks time, the team turned two hits and two walks into a winning rally, and Mariano Rivera closed it out. It was a key Tampa Bay error that proved critical, however.
Chamberlain retired six of seven Rays around a hit by pitch of Carlos Pena to start the game, but when Dioner Navarro singled to lead off the top of the third, the Rays eventually scored one run on a B.J. Upton double. The Yanks answered immediately when Nick Swisher worked righty Matt Garza to a 3-1 count, then blasted the next pitch into the Yankee bullpen for the 1-1 tie. Two outs later Johnny Damon doubled to right, Jorge Posada singled with two down in the fourth, and Swisher and Melky Cabrera walked back-to-back to start the home fifth. The Yanks were unable to take advantage, except that Garza was out of the game after five having already thrown 97 pitches.
The Rays rallied for the lead in the sixth, and righty Joe Nelson dominated the home team through the next two. He retired six straight on just 19 pitches, and things were looking bleak when Derek Jeter lined out to right leading off the home eighth against hard thrower Grant Balfour. But you don’t have to tell Yankee fans that each new contributor from the pen brings with him his own level of danger, and Balfour and lefty J.C. Howell were not able to follow Nelson’s success. Johnny Damon fouled off three two-strike pitches before singling to left, and Mark Teixeira scorched a 3-1 fastball into the right field corner to send Damon to third. Balfour walked Alex Rodriguez on five pitches to load the bases, and Joe Maddon brought on Howell to face lefty batter Robinson Cano.
A year ago, when Chamberlain was just becoming a starter, this move may have paid off, but Cano has batted this season with a new, patient approach, and he walked on five pitches to make the score 3-2. Then, on the very next pitch, Jorge Posada bounced slowly to third, but Willy Aybar appeared to try for the tag-up at third before he had the ball, and it glanced off him for an error, and a tie game. Good Yankee fortune continued when slow-footed Hideki Matsui bounced the next pitch high over Howell’s head. Second baseman Ben Zobrist caught the hop and placed a tag on Posada, but by the time he fired to first the Yankee DH was safe and the third run of the rally had scored.
Tampa rolled to the playoffs last year on good pitching, a solid lineup, and stellar fielding, and a battle pitting them and the smooth-gloved 2009 Yankees held promise for some slick ball this weekend, but that has not been the case. The visitors rallied for a 9-7 win Saturday in a sloppy game where they made four of six errors. And had Aybar completed the double play at the key point in today’s rally, the Yanks would still have been down one run with one frame to go.
That is not to say that the Yankees played sloppily, though, although their offense was meager. True, Posada did make a bad throw for an error on a Carlos Pena roller in front of the plate in the fifth. Teixiera almost corraled that toss into the runner. That he didn’t was a surprise because Mark was his vacuum cleaner self at first, making diving stops in the second and in the third. Jeter made a nice catch and throw to nab the speedy Upton in the sixth, and A-Rod came up big twice. He barehanded a Carl Crawford roller in the third and nailed Matt Joyce at first on a hot shot one inning later. But the best of the lot was the running, sliding grab Melky Cabrera made on a Ben Zobrist sinking liner in left center with runners on first and second in the pivotal sixth inning.
This last helped Chamberlain almost escape the sixth, a frame he began by striking out Crawford. But Aybar singled sharply off Cano’s glove and Pena drifted a soft liner to shirt right for a one-base hit as well. Joba was not as sharp as he had been over eight innings the last time out, and he did not throw enough strikes, finding the zone just 56 times in 100 pitches. He pounded first-pitch strikes to just 11 of 26 batters. But the strike out of Crawford was his third, with no walks, until Melky’s catch, that is. A five-pitch free pass to Joyce loaded the bases for DH Greg Gross, a journeyman oufielder who quickly demonstrated that his superb numbers with the bases loaded (33 rbi’s) were no fluke. He singled sharply past second for two runs before Joba closed the inning with a strike out of Navarro.
With both starters gone, it was a battle of the bullpens, and Joe Nelson had the huge crowd quietly contemplating a loss until the eighth. But Aceves made the comeback possible, once again dominating a lineup in whatever role Joe Girardi chooses to use him. Shortstop Reid Brignac reached him for a single to start the seventh, but he was out stealing during a strike out of Crawford after Upton flied out. Joba garnered nine swings and misses in 100 throws through the first six innings. In the eighth, the wily Mexican League vet got the frustrated Rays to swing and miss five times in 19 pitches, as he whiffed the side in order. When the Yanks were fashioning come-from-behind wins seemingly every day a week or two ago, “Ace” zoomed to a 3-0 win-loss record; he copped a fourth win with his work today.
Once the Yanks took the lead, of course, they still needed to “close” the Rays out, and Girardi didn’t hesitate to bring on the best ever to do so. Rivera has had a couple of tough days this season, one exactly one month ago when Crawford and Evan Longoria beat him with ninth-inning bombs, then again yesterday, when Mo issued Longoria a rare intentional walk with the game on the line. But Rivera had no such trouble this time, not in retiring Joyce on a grounder nor Gross swinging on a sharp diving cutter. He pounded pinch hitter Longoria in for four pitches, two fouls, a ball, and a slow roller to second.
The game, New York’s league-leading 20th come-from-behind victory, was saved. Boston fell to Texas, and the Yanks are back in first.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!