Bronx, N.Y., July 22, 2009 — Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. A promising Yankee team spends a long weekend on the West Coast and loses big time. Suddenly, a season filled with hope is on the brink of ruin. If you’re thinking I’m talking about a week and a half ago, and the three-game sweep by the Angels, think again. The Bombers went 1-4 to start the 1998 season in California, then came home and won 113 and lost 44 the rest of the way.
OK. Maybe I’m jumping the gun a little bit. But it’s pretty hard to deny the way this Yankee team has been playing since they got third baseman Alex Rodriguez back. Every year is different, it’s true. And the team that plays in the South Bronx has an 0-8 record against Boston and 2-4 vs. Anaheim. Only the latter stumble was one they experienced in 1998. But this team is pitching great, its hitting has been both statistically impressive and timely, and the bullpen has totally turned things around following a rocky early season. With their second straight three-game sweep via a 6-4 win over Baltimore Wednesday afternoon, the team has climbed 20 games over .500 and 1.5 games in front in the AL East. Granted, the ’98 team was 40 games over by mid-July, but they achieved that record with streaks very much like the 16-6 record the 2009 Yankees posted in May post A-Rod, and the 13-4 mark that adorns their July so far.
The Bronx had none of the rain that dominated the Tuesday night proceedings in that 6-4 win, but it may as well have, as the borough exhibited some of the steambath qualities we’ll probably see much more often come August. And the Yanks came out of the box hot and steamy, following Captain Derek Jeter’s first-pitch double off young O’s righty Jason Berken. One-out singles by Mark Teixeira and A-Rod plated one, and following a fielder’s choice and Jorge Posada walk, Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher delivered three more runs with singles of their own. At that point, a long Posada third-inning home run into the Yankee bullpen and his rbi double in the eighth looked to be piling on, but the Yanks and AJ Burnett were glad to have those runs when all was said and done.
Burnett kept the Birds off the board until the seventh, and he won nis ninth game pretty easily even if he didn’t have his best stuff. The 95 and 96 mph fastballs were there, but his hard-breaking curve was inconsistent. The visitors reached AJ for four singles in the first three innings, and an ugly Swisher error starting that third inning almost helped the Orioles break through. Nick dropped Brian Roberts’s liner to the gap, and Adam Jones singled him to third. Roberts held up on a fly to short left, but when Johnny Damon made an unnecessary throw to the plate, Jones moved up to second. Burnett struck Aubrey Huff out swinging for the second out, but Ty Wigginton followed with a liner to deep right. Swisher more than made up for his earlier gaffe, however, with a good break on the ball, a true pursuit and a leaping catch near the wall at the end. Swisher would later rob Luke Scott on a long drive to the wall in the sixth.
Burnett used a strike out an inning to navigate through five scoreless with Swisher’s help despite giving up his last two of three walks in the fourth. And a pretty good track into the hole and throw by Jeter nabbed Wigginton leading off the sixth before Swisher’s second catch. But the Orioles broke through for two runs in the seventh on two hits, though if it had not been for a curious Robert Andino pop single in front of the plate leading off, Baltimore might not have scored then either. Badly fooled, Andino broke his bat and a seemingly harmless pop drifted 10 feet or so in front of the plate and perhaps double that high. Burnett may have had a chance to catch it; Posada appeared to wave him off, perhaps thinking he would have a play at first. But once it fell in, Andino had the softest hit he’ll get this year. The one-out Jones double was legit, however, and the O’s eventually scored both guys.
It’s perhaps telling that we talk of Burnett as not being at his absolute best in yet another quality start where he went seven, got the win, and could have held the visitors scoreless if not for that bloop. Still, he allowed just the six hits, five of them singles, with three walks. His 68 strikes were almost double the pitches he threw out of the zone, and he threw first-pitch strikes to 22 of 32 batters. AJ’s pitching, the loud Yankee first, and Swisher’s defense would be the whole story if not for the interesting ninth inning Brian Bruney had in his first appearnce in almost two weeks. Both Bruney and Mariano Rivera warmed in the eighth with the Yanks up 5-2, but A-Rod singled, stole second and then broke for third, scoring easily on Posada’s ringing double to left center. With a four-run bulge, Bruney came on and struck Andino and Roberts out swinging on eight pitches to start the ninth. But Jones drilled his ninth throw to left for a home run and Nick Markakis took pitch number 11 out to right. No worry, however, as the already warm Rivera came on and saved the game while completing the three-strike-out frame by getting Huff looking.
The win keeps the Yanks safely in first, and the Bombers welcome the last-place A’s in for four tomorrow. It was just nine days ago that I received an e-mail from a Mets fan friend living in Philly (the horror!) talking about the latest buzz: the bad record the Yanks have against winning teams. I’m sure the just completed sweep of Baltimore and whatever success they manage against Oakland will play into this talk too. But, as I told my friend back then, he and the talkers are wrong.
Sure, the team continues to await an August weekend series vs. Boston holding that embarrassing 0-8 mark. And the sweep in Anaheim stands out as well. But even the ’98 team lost to the Angels. And the Yanks do have the luxury of having seven of the 10 games remaining against the Red Sox scheduled to be played in a new Yankee Stadium this team has finally learned to embrace. But even if the struggles against Boston continue (heaven forbid), the point about poor play against good teams does not stand up to scrutiny. The Yanks have won both series against Texas, a first-place team until New York dropped those three in L.A. The Rangers have been throttling Boston routinely. The Yankees have beaten first-place Detroit in five of six, and a third-place Minnesota team in the thick of the AL Central race has dropped seven straight to New York. The record against the other two third pace teams stands even with Tampa at 4-4, and they’ve beaten the surprising Mariners two out of three.
Am I predicting a 114-win season for this Yankee team? No, but they’ve won 67 percent of their games since Alex came back even with the Anaheim trip, three Boston losses and a meager interleague mark against some weak NL East teams. That is pretty close to the 70 percent regular season wins the team achieved 11 years ago. It gets you thinking about triple digit wins anyway.
On July 22, 1998, the Bombers crushed the Tigers 13-2, bringing their record to a lofty 71-25. Mariano Rivera had recorded his 25th save of that season two days earlier. But that was such a different time, right? Funny thing though. It was save number 28 that Mo copped today. And this fairly young switch-hitting catcher named Posada hit a home run and a double in the drubbing of Detroit.
Those guys look familiar.
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!