A.J. allowed two singles, but he threw free and easy, notched a strike out, threw 6 of 7 first-pitch strikes, and retired the side twice on 19 pitches.
Tampa, Fla., March 2, 2011 — The Yankees/Phillies tilt that opened Spring Training in George M. Steinbrenner Field four days ago, a back-and-forth battle in which the visitors ultimately prevailed, was noteworthy for how un-“springlike” it was. A one-run (5-4 Phils), crisply played game, with each team amassing nine hits, six walks total, and just one error on an infield roller initially ruled a hit. On Wednesday afternoon in the same venue, the visiting Astros and the Yanks played the antithesis of that game, a contest that was “springlike” in the extreme.
Each team had a multi-run explosion almost entirely fashioned on their opponent’s miscues. The Yanks couldn’t buy a hit for eight innings, stroking just four, two of them doubles. They scored a run after Alex Rodriguez’s ringing two-base hit off the left field wall leading off the bottom of the second, with Andruw Jones’s soft hopper to third sending Alex home. (Sad to say, I have to add that Jones looked lazy and unprepared on a single his way to left field in the fourth inning. Jason Michaels zipped to third from first base as Jones cruised to the ball.) Two of the other three Yankee safeties were erased on double plays; the other withered on the vine. But this is not to say the Yankee offense was moribund. No matter how hard it tried, it couldn’t be, what with the 10 walks, wild pitch, and two errors Houston allowed.
The Astros, on the other hand, hit all game, with two hits in the second, fourth, and seventh, and three in the fifth. Those three produced the lone Houston run until the seventh inning, when errors by the Yanks on three consecutive plays and the lone free pass pinstriped pitching did allow set the table for the four runs plated once the visitors climaxed the “rally” with a pair of hits.
Both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez greeted ex-Yankee player and third base coach Bobby Meacham warmly, with Alex conversing with him here.
The best of the Yankee offense, aside from yet another Rodriguez missile, was Derek Jeter’s two hard line drives, the second for a base hit on a 3-0 pitch in the fifth. Speedy Justin Maxwell, on first via a walk, sped around to third, only to have backup center fielder Jay Austin peg him out on a throw so perfect that it brought to mind the Greg Golson dart that nailed Carl Crawford at third in Tampa last September. The Yanks had an impressive throw too, with Melky Mesa, also from center, rifling one home from medium depth to try to prevent a runner from scoring on a sac fly, but when Austin Romine let it get away from him it became the third error of the seventh inning.
The home team pitching wasn’t bad. Both A.J. Burnett (in the second) and Joba Chamberlain (in the fourth) gave up back-to-back scratch singles; each escaped on 4-6-3 double plays. Sergio Mitre threw a one-hit third, and it seems that Sergio’s second straight one-inning outing speaks against his chances in the fifth starter battle. He won’t be stretched out one inning at a time. Boone Logan was reached for three hits in his inning, while Ivan Noesi continued to be effective across two frames. Noesi in the Yankee pen at some time in 2011 does not seem a stretch. Finally, David Phelps, who showed nothing in the opening day loss, threw an eight-pitch, two-strike-out sixth, but he was the victim of the shoddy fielding one inning later.
Melky Mesa not only made an impressive throw from medium center to the plate; it was his two-run single in the ninth inning that tied the game up.
Even though it’s so early in the baseball year, March 2 is the anniversary of some pretty memorable days. Suffering from pain, Joe DiMaggio left Yankee camp on March 2, 1949, to have his ailing right heel examined; the injury would plague him for much of the coming season. On this day in 2006, Yankee stars Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Bernie Williams, and Johnny Damon played the opener with the Bombers, then headed to their respective teams for the inaugural World Baseball Classic, Williams with Puerto Rico and the other three with Team USA. And from the extremely forgettable list of what was supposed to be momentous, on March 2, 2002, in a game against the Blue Jays, prospect Drew Henson delivered young Juan Rivera from second base with an rbi single to left. (Henson would play just three games in the Bronx that year and eight all told. He would never duplicate that rbi in the regular season.)
And in other news, March 2, 1942, was the day rocker Lou Reed, perhaps best known for the song A Walk on the Wild Side, was born. In the bottom of the ninth inning on Wednesday, the Yanks “rallied” from 5-1 down to a 6-5 win with an e-5, two singles (the first of which could easily have been an e-4), an e-6, two more singles, and three walks, the last on four straight pitches out of the zone by reliever Lance Pendleton to Yankee Russell Martin. The Yankee DH had reached on the third baseman’s bobble to start the inning, and scored the last run with his bat on his shoulder. This was, without question,
A Win on the Wild Side
BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!