Daily Archives: May 16, 2005

. . . and rolling, and rolling . . .

The Yanks made it nine straight in Seattle last night thanks to another strong performance by Chien-Ming Wang and a seventh-inning grand slam by Bernie Williams in his first start of the road trip.

Wang coughed up a pair of runs to the Mariners in the first on an Ichiro Suzuki single and stolen base, an Adrian Beltre single and a Raul Ibanez double. He then retired eighteen straight batters before getting knocked out of the game in the seventh by a Bret Boone double (misplayed just a half inning after his grand slam by Bernie, who started in center for the first time since the big shakeup) and a more legitimate double by Jeremy Reed that drove Boone home. TanGorMo kept the M’s scoreless the rest of the way. And yes, Wang did post a season-high four strikeouts, while not walking a batter for the first time in his four major league starts.

As for the Yanks, they got runners on in each of the first five innings against Aaron Sele, but only got one of them home, a Robinson Cano lead-off double in the third that was cashed in on a pair of groundouts by Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez. Batting second for the first time (Womack sat), Cano went 2 for 5 and is now 13 for 22 with six doubles in his last five starts.

Sele struck out the side in the sixth, but the last strike was his 115th pitch, so, leading 2-1, Mike Hargrove went to his pen in the seventh. Shigetoshi Hasegawa loaded the bases with one out. Lefty George Sherrill (who replaced Joel Pineiro on the roster) got Tino (who didn’t homer, but drew an intentional walk earlier in the game with a man on second and two outs) to ground into a fielder’s choice, forcing Sheffield out at home and keeping the bases loaded with one out.

That brought up Bernie Williams, who had a walk, a groundout and a flyout on the night. Hargrove went to his top righty set-up man, J.J. Putz. Putz fired a fastball to Bernie and Bernie smacked it to dead center. Centerfielder Jeremy Reed went back, jumped and reached over the wall, the ball hit his mitt and the simultaneous impact of the ball and the wall knocked Reed’s glove off his hand. Grand slam. 5-2 Yankees.

The M’s pulled a run closer against Wang, as mentioned, but the Yanks came right back against Jeff Nelson on singles by Cano, Sheffield and E-Rod to put the final score at 6-3.

The Yankees are now one game over .500 and just a half game behind Toronto for third place in the AL East. Also, the A’s snapped their eight-game losing streak against the Red Sox, allowing the Yankees to pull within 2.5 games of the World Champs. The Yankees’ current nine-game winning streak is their longest since they won nine in late June and early July of 2001. Lastly, when the Yankees were struggling in April and the first week of May, Joe Torre repeatedly said that he was just waiting for the team to pull off nine out of ten and get going. Well, guess what?

The Yankees’ current eight-game winning streak matches their best such streak from last season. Interestingly, last year’s streak also included a 5-1 run against the A’s and got the Yanks out of an early hole and back over .500. The Yankees aren’t back over .500 yet, but they would be with a win tonight as they roll into Seattle to face a Mariner team they swept in the Bronx one week ago.

Not much has changed with the M’s since then, though they did have fun this weekend, taking 2 of 3 from the Red Sox (by comparison the A’s were swept by the Sox in between series with the Yanks). There have been a couple of roster changes in Seattle. Wiki Gonzalez, who was called up to replace Dan Wilson and promptly given the starting catching job over a severely slumping Miguel Olivo, has been placed on the disabled list with a hamstring injury. Olivo has been given the starting job back and 21-year-old rookie Rene Rivera has been called up to serve as the back-up.

Meanwhile, Joel Pineiro, who was to become the staff ace after the trade of Freddy Garcia last year only to spend the majority of that time on the DL thus far, has been sent to the minors to work on his mechanics following a rough Friday the 13th start. Reliever Julio Mateo, who has started just 12 games in his professional career, the last coming with Class-A Wisconsin in 2000, will take Pineiro’s start against the Yankees on Tuesday. He will be framed by Aaron Sele (tonight) and Jamie Moyer (Wednesday) against whom the Yankees scored twelve runs on eighteen hits in five innings last week.

Chein-Ming Wang takes the ball for the Yanks tonight. Removing his one rough outing in Tampa, he’s turned in this line in his other two starts: 14 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 0 HR, 5 BB, 3 K. Curiously, the only part of that that isn’t encouraging is the K/BB ratio, which was one of his strong suits in the minors. Expect that to correct itself. He’s already seen his strikeouts increase in all three starts, even if it has only been from 0 to 3.

On an afternoon when Randy Johnson allowed three first inning runs, and ended the game with no strike outs, Tino Martinez powered a Yankee comeback and Jason Giambi had the game-winning hit as the Bombers extended their winning streak to eight, beating Oakland, 6-4. They are now 19-19, and the win was the 1,800th of Joe Torre’s career. Johnson labored through the first four innings, and lasted through six; this was the longest outing of his career withouth recording a K.

But he was helped out by Tino Martinez, who hit two line-drive home runs to right field. Derek Jeter had three hits, and Robinson Cano had four (giving him nine for the three-game set), and Tony Womack swiped four bases for the second time this season. Though he struck out twice with men on base, Alex Rodriguez made one of the crucial plays of the game. With one out in the top of the seventh, Rodriguez walked. Tino Martinez followed and popped out to the third baseman Keith Ginter deep in foul territory. Rodriguez caught Ginter off guard, tagged up, and slid into second base safely. It was the kind of play that has made Derek Jeter an icon in New York. Next, Jorge Posada was intentionally walked, and then Giambi whacked Rincon’s first pitch into the right field corner for a run-scoring double.

Giambi did not talk to the media after the game, but he had a good day on the field. In addition to his clutch double, he hit the ball well in two other times. Sturtze, Gordon, and Rivera set the struggling A’s down in order over the final three innings, as the Yanks have finally reached even.