Bronx, N.Y., April 13, 2011 – The Yankee offense gave starter A.J. Burnett a huge gift Wednesday night, and if nothing else, the Yankee right-hander deserves a lot of credit for taking full advantage of the largesse. The Yankee bats jumped on Baltimore starter Chris Tillman for a 3-0 lead after one, and 6-0 two innings in, and A.J.’s game settled into automatic pilot.
The Orioles, arriving in New York in first place in the AL East largely on the strength of their pitching, got runners to third base in both the first and second innings, both times aided by the Burnett bugaboo, two of his three wild pitches on the night. But once the Yankee righty struck out Vlad Guerrero swinging on back-to-back changes of pace to close the top of first, four straight Yanks reached against Tillman on base hits in the bottom half. Tillman was fortunate that catcher Matt Wieters threw out Brett Gardner trying to steal after his leadoff hit, but only until Alex Rodriguez drilled a 2-0 fastball over the wall in right for a 3-0 Yankee lead.
A Mark Reynolds two-out double, walk, and wild pitch backed A.J. up in the second, but once he retired Robert Andino on a two-hopper back to the box, his teammates were back on the attack. Russell Martin’s one-out double got this rally started, and Derek Jeter’s second hit, a swinging bunt Tillman stumbled trying to field, delivered run No. 4. Mark Teixeira’s second hit and a walk to A-Rod set up bases loaded, one down and, when Robinson Cano doubled to the left center field gap, two scored for the 6-0 lead.
From that point, Burnett was golden. The top of the third, the lone frame where he failed to post a strike out until the seventh, was over in six pitches, and he retired 12 of 14 through the sixth on just 43 tosses, 10 less than he threw in the first and second. A.J. ran into some trouble as he passed 100 pitches in the seventh, but Joe Girardi got him out of there still in good shape. He threw just 15 of 28 first-pitch strikes, but nine of 10 immediately after the second inning when life was good. His strikes/balls ratio of 69/43 was pretty good and, interestingly, matched his great/not-so-great inning totals: He threw 69 pitches in the first, second, and seventh; and 43 in between them. The two-home-run, four-run seventh left Burnett with a line of seven hits, four runs, two walks and five strike outs, four of them swinging, though the O’s swung and missed only 10 times against him.
David Robertson notched a strike out and ground out to close the seventh, and Rafel Soriano and Mariano Rivera turned in the eight and ninth innings the Yanks drew up on the board before the season started as the 2011 Yankee path to victory. Each recorded a strike out, and the Yanks cashed in a 7-4 win. Jorge Posada accounted for the last Yankee run, a home run inside the right field foul pole and off the facing of the main level in the fifth. With an eighth-inning single Jorge slipped ast Phil Rizzuto into 14th on the all-time Yankee hit list with 1,589. And Derek Jeter’s two hits tied him with Barry Bonds on the all-time mlb hit list with 2,935.
One hopes that somewhere in the major league baseball scheduling office an official is now kicking himslef over tthe 19 home games the Yanks were lined up to play in the Bronx in April. It’s just April 13, two have been rained out, and four of the remaining seven have been played under unpleasant conditions. But even though this game was neither as cold as the frigid Opener, nor as wet as a few others, with a mist hanging over the proceedings all night, it wasn’t classic baseball weather either. The Steinbrenner family continued to show the marketing genius “The Boss” brought to the Bronx in the last few decades: They announced that attendees of this game could use tonight’s scanned tickets to redeem a freebie ticket to the terrace or grandstand seating during what’s left of the season.
Speaking of the Posada and Jeter milestones, April has been a big day in baseball history, and no more so than in its pinstriped portion. On April 13, 1921, Babe Ruth went 5-for-5 behind Carl Mays in an 11-1 win over the A’s in the Yankee opener in the Polo Grounds. And on this day in 1955, the Bombers blasted the Senators 19-1 in a game in which Whitey Ford allowed just two hits and had three of his own. On April 13, 1978, the Yanks beat the White Sox 4-2 on Reggie Candy Bar day, but exactly 20 years later on this day in 1998, a beam fell in the old Stadium before a game, an industrial accident that may finally have spelled the doom of the Baseball Cathedral.
But even more specific to this particular contest, April 13, 1954, marked the first major league baseball game played by the Baltimore Orioles, as the newly relocated St. Louis Browns dropped a 3-0 decision in Detroit. Thankfully the Yanks decided to celebrate this pivotal baseball history moment in the same exact manner: with an Orioles defeat, some 57 years later.
And finally, on April 13, 1926, comic actor Don Adams, who played the bumbling but beloved Control agent Maxwell Smart on the classic TV series “Get Smart,” was born. With this Yankee victory the home team moves into a first-place tie with the Orioles in the AL East. And A.J. Burnett?
Would you believe he’s 3-0?
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!