April 6, 2009

Ugly opener for Yankees

Just an hour after the loss, I've already received four negative comments regarding the Yankees from my friends.  All I can say is that the ball didn't bounce our way today, and there's nothing you can do about that.

Quick recap:
The Yankees were down 3-0 early, and then fell into a deeper hole in the fifth inning.  Hideki Matsui's two-run homer shrank the deficit to 6-5 in the seventh inning.  But Phil Coke and Brian Bruney were blasted in the eighth for four runs putting the game out of reach for the Yankees.  Ful box score here.

Thoughts:
I was limited to watching the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, but I noticed a lot of unlucky things happen to the Yankees in this brief span.  Like in the fifth inning, when two balls were hit just out of the reach of Cody Ransom's glove, and then a ball was hit right to short stop but Derek Jeter was out of position covering second base for the steal attempt.  Three runs scored that inning.

Offensive notables:
- Jeter had a nice day leading off, as he singled three times.  Unfortunately, nobody behind him could bring him all the way around.  When he singled in the sixth inning, Xavier Nady was thrown out at the plate to end the inning.
- Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada both homered in the game.  Posada led off the sixth with a no-doubter to right-center field, and Matsui's was also to right-center field. 

Pitching notables:
- CC Sabathia had an awful Yankee debut - maybe a little unlucky - but still walked five batters and struck out none.

Next game:
Yankees get all of Tuesday to mull the loss.  They will return, hopefully with vengeance, on Wednesday at 7:05 p.m.  Chien-Ming Wang will face Baltimore's Japanese rookie Koji Uehara.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice recap. It was definitely an inauspicious beginning for CC, but he'll get many more chances. Two notes: (1) Jeter hit five grounders. Fortunately 3 went for hits, but he needs to drive the ball! (2) Talk about Karma - Damon reached into the stands for Izturis' homer, only to have it swatted from his hands by a fan. The replay I guess was inconclusive, hinging on whether the fan's hand was in the stands or over the edge. It looked really close to me. I was surprised there was no formal review of the play (I thought they had HR replay reviews now). But I'll tell you, it was an eerie replay of the 1996 (?) Jeter homer that I think was against the Orioles.

Lenny Neslin said...

I didn't see the Izturis homer, but I know that the 1996 play you are talking about is known as the "Jeffrey Maier Play."

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?mid=200805122685723

Anonymous said...

"I was limited to watching the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, but I noticed a lot of unlucky things happen to the Yankees in this brief span...and then a ball was hit right to short stop but Derek Jeter was out of position covering second base for the steal attempt."

How is this unlucky? Last time I checked that was the definition of perfectly executed hit and run. Even if you're running a Yankees blog if you want to appear at least somewhat unbiased you hafta give credit when credit is due and not try to save face. The Yankees were outplayed (as I personally hope they will be all season), enough said.

Lenny Neslin said...

I admit that in the ball hit to Jeter, it was a well executed hit and run (even though some would argue the second basemen should be covering with a righty up). But the two balls hit to Ransom were definitely unlucky - both hit his glove.

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