Daily Archives: April 28, 2005

Prior to last night’s game against the Angels, Kevin Brown threw his normal bullpen warm-up, then took a seat in the pen for a few minutes and did it all over again. The idea was to allow Brown to work out his first inning struggles in the pen rather than the game mound. It worked.

Despite a groundball single through to right by Chone Figgins and a four-pitch walk to Vladimir Guerrero, Brown pitched a scoreless first inning. He then pitched around a one-out double by Dallas McPherson to record a scoreless second. Brown did give up two runs in the third (due in large part to Chone Figgins’ baserunning) and one in the fourth, but then settled down to retire the last eleven batters he faced.

Altogether it was not just Brown’s best outing of the year, but the sort of performance most Yankee fans would happily take from Brown every fifth day:

7 IP, 8 H, 3 R, 0 HR, 1 BB, 5 K, 63 percent strikes

The problem was that the Yankee offense essentially repeated it’s performance from the night before and the Yanks lost 3-1.

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Well? Think ol’ Brownie can make it out of the second inning without giving up five runs?

Jay Jaffe was at Tuesday night’s game, screaming his head off as Alex Rodriguez smacked three dingers and drove in 10 of the Yankees 12 runs in their 12-4 win over Bartolo Colon and the Angels. Me? I was there last night, when the Yanks managed just one lousy run off of Jarrod Washburn (the elusive solo homer that would have made Rodriguez’s Tuesday night performance the greatest in American League history).

It wasn’t all for nothing, however. Last night I and two of my colleagues brought my 67-year-old boss, a man who has lived in New York City for nearly 40 years, to his first game at Yankee Stadium.

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When Derek Jeter was thrown out at home in the first inning last night, trying to score from first on a double, I had a bad feeling about how the game was going to unfold for the Yanks. Garret Anderson made a great throw, and Jeter came up limping after colliding with Jose Molina. Sure, it was only the first inning, but sometimes, you just get a feeling. (Luis Sojo’s aggresiveness has backfired twice in the past week.) Jared Washburn had the Yankee hitters off-balance all evening, and benefitted from three double plays. Dag. Meanwhile, Mike Mussina continues to struggle. He made several mistakes–to Vlad, Anderson and Finely, and paid the price as the Angels beat the Bombers, 5-1. Jeter, Sheffield and Rodriguez were the only Yankees to swing the bat well in defeat.