Daily Archives: September 20, 2005

Bubba Crosby’s game-winning home run last night just might have solved the Yankees’ right field situation, which has been in flux since Gary Sheffield injured his leg at home against the Devil Rays two weeks ago. At the time of the injury, Matt Lawton had just “hit” his way out of the line-up, having gone 4 for 25 with a homer and three walks (.160/.276/.280) in eight games since joining the Yankees. Lawton’s benching forced Bernie Williams back into center (where Lawton’s arrival had temporarily placed Hideki Matsui), and created room for Ruben Sierra at DH.

Sheffield’s injury created another opportunity for Lawton, who promptly squandered it by playing abysmal defense in right while going 0 for 12 against the Devil Rays and Red Sox. That opened the door for Bubba Crosby, who proceeded to go 7 for 20 over the next five games, starting two of them in right and one in center.

However, Crosby’s grip on the starting job was jarred loose when Sheffield returned to the line-up as the DH, forcing Torre to give Ruben Sierra a trio of starts in right in order to get his favorite 39-year-old out machine in the line-up. However, Sierra also played his way out of Torre’s rotation, going 2 for 27 with a homer and a pair of walks in the wake of Sheffield’s injury, mixing in some costly defensive mistakes in the Yankees lone loss on the just-completed road trip.

Ultimately it was Sierra’s defense that prompted Torre to start Crosby against the left-handed Erik Bedard last night, as Joe told MLB.com, “Yesterday, we may have given away too much, defensively. Bubba probably gives us our best defense, so where it may cost you a little on the offensive side, you hope he can make up for it.”

Crosby, who is clearly the Yankees best defensive outfielder, responded by going 2 for 3 against Bedard by victimizing 320-pound Oriole firstbaseman Walter Young with a hot shot down the line and a bunt, then won the game by homering off of lefty reliever Eric Dubose in the bottom of the ninth.

With that 3 for 4 night under his belt, Crosby is now hitting .379/.379/.552 in 29 September at-bats (his triple against Tim Wakefield and last night’s homer being his only extra base hits of the year), which has brought his season line comfortably above the Womack line to an almost respectable .278/.307/.347 (speaking of whom, Womack has made just one plate appearance since August 24, which is exactly what has to happen for this team to make the postseason). Last night’s game has also thrown Crosby’s splits for a loop as he’s now hitting .357/.357/.571 against lefties in a mere 14 at-bats, three of his five hits and all of his extra bases against lefties coming last night.

Crosby made the Yankees’ 25-man roster out of spring training the last two years due to his ability to get extremely hot at exactly the right time, hitting .320 during spring training this year and .357 last year. Thus it would be foolish for Torre to do anything other than ride Crosby until he runs out of gas, particularly as he is leaps and bouds better than his other options defensively. Fortunately, Torre seems to have caught on, as Crosby will again get the start in right field tonight as Aaron Small looks to extend his perfect record to 9-0.

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Yankee fans have been hollering all year about the team’s propensity for leaving runners on base. Last week, a reader wondered where the team ranks in that category. David Pinto has pointed me in the right direction, and it should come as no surprise that the Yanks lead the American League in runners left on base with 1163. The Red Sox are second with 1149, followed by Oakland (1089), Cleveland (1049) and Minnestoa (1036). However, as Pinto also mentioned to me, the Yanks and Sox score a lot of runs so it is natural that they would be at the top of the league in leaving men on. Boston currently leads the league in runs scored with 838, followed by Texas (816), New York (806), Cleveland (727) and Oakland (724). The team that looks the worst here are the Twins who are dead last in the AL in runs scored (637).

“I’ve never hit a walk-off homer, ever, in my whole life, not even in Little League,” Crosby said. “To do it at Yankee Stadium, this time of year, when it counts, it just doesn’t get any better than this.”
(N.Y. Times)

C.W. Wang pitched his best game since returning from the DL last night, holding the Orioles to two runs over eight innings. He was a little shaky in the first three innings but after that, he cruised, getting Baltimore to hit ground ball after ground ball. I can’t recall him throwing harder either. The YES broadcasters said his fastball was hitting between 93-96 mph. Wang had nine assists himself (two shy of the League record). He left the game after eight fine innings with the score tied at two. The Yankees blew a scoring opportunity in the third inning (Gary Sheffield, depleted of his power, grounded into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded) and left nine men on base in total for the night. However, they managed to score two runs in fifth (RBI single by Alex Rodriguez, RBI ground out by Sheff) to tie the game at two.

Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth. After striking out Jay Gibbons (check swing) for the first out, Javey Lopez popped out to Tino Martinez. Actually the ball was in foul territory up the first base line. Crosby raced in from right and Cano motored over from second. Cano almost collided with Tino, who was once again called on as a defensive replacement for Giambi, but Martinez held onto the ball for the out. B.J. Surhoff followed and hit the first pitch in virtually the same spot. Actually, this play was even easier for Martinez but an overeager Cano bumped into him and the ball dropped out of Tino’s glove. (Martinez shot Cano a look that said, “Now, listen here, son, lemme ‘splain something to you…”) Surhoff worked the count full before lining out to Hideki Matsui in left.

Bubba Crosby, who already had two hits, led off the bottom of the ninth and plastered a 1-0 breaking ball deep into the right centerfield bleachers. Crosby, who hasn’t hit a home run in well over a year, knew it was gone immediately, and went into style-mode. He practically froze at the plate, like he was doing a dance move, admiring his unlikely moment in the spotlight.

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