The Yankees and Angels played and ugly, sloppy game on Friday night that saw two runs score on errors, another called back when Robinson Cano missed the bag rounding third, and several other poor plays (such as missed cutoff men and third outs made at third base) on both sides of the ball and both sides of the field.
The pitching was pretty crappy as well. Bartolo Colon, who was bounced with two on and none out in the third, allowed seven runs (including both bequeathed runners, who scored on Darren Oliver’s watch). Andy Pettitte made it into the sixth, but left with none out and a man on and was charged with eight runs on the night, including that bequeathed runner, who scored with Edwar Ramirez on the mound.
Ramirez allowed an additional run of his own in the sixth to run the score to 9-9. The Yanks broke that tie in the seventh when Johnny Damon drew a leadoff walk from Chris Bootcheck, stole second, moved to third on a Melky Cabrera single, and scored when Gary Matthews bobbled Melky’s hit in center. Alex Rodriguez then laced a line-drive homer to the seats in left that put the Yankees up 12-9. Remarkably, Ramirez, Scott Proctor and Ron Villone managed to shut the door at that point, while the Yankees plated two more in the eighth against Dustin Moseley to put the final score at 14-9. Ramirez earned his first major league win despite retiring just two of the seven batters he faced against their will (one of them sacrificed).
Yesterday, following a joyous Old Timer’s Game that saw Paul O’Neill and Scott Brosius lace hard singles in their first Old Timer’s action, and Bobby Murcer make a triumphant return to the field with a hard line out, the Yankees played a game that was very much the opposite of Friday night’s circus, but was also decided by sloppy play and poor decisions. Coming off his dominant two-hit performance against the Twins, Roger Clemens held the Angels to one run on five hits and a walk over eight efficient innings (98 pitches). Angels’ ace John Lackey matched Clemens almost exactly (one run on five hits and a hit batsman over eight innings), but upped the ante by striking out eleven Yankees (including Melky Cabrera four times) and throwing 72 percent of his 107 pitches for strikes.
The Yankees got their one run in the bottom of the second on doubles by Hideki Matsui and Bobby Abreu. The Angels got theirs in the top of the third on a leadoff double by Garret Anderson and a pair of productive groundouts. With the game still tied 1-1 in the ninth, both managers turned to their bullpens, doing so exactly as they should. Mike Scioscia got three scoreless innings from his set-up ace Scot Shields, then turned to his closer in a still-tied game on the road. Joe Torre worked his bullpen backwards as he should have, starting with a pair of shutout innings from Mariano Rivera, then a scoreless frame from Kyle Farnsworth, then turning to the fully rested Luis Vizcaino rather than Scott Proctor, who had thrown 21 pitches on Friday.
Vizcaino pitched around a two-out single in the twelfth, volleying back to Francisco Rodriguez, who stranded Hideki Matsui at second base following a one-out walk and a surprising stolen base by striking out Jorge Posada and getting Bobby Abreu to ground out. In for his second inning of work, Vizcaino gave up a leadoff double to Howie Kendrick, who had been making highlight reel plays at second base all day long (mostly on balls hit by Miguel Cairo). Jose Molina then attempted to bunt Kendrick over to third, but fouled off the first attempt, then missed the second, taking off the play. After ball one and a trio of fouls, Molina grounded to the left of Miguel Cairo, who was again starting at first base in place of the stiff-necked Andy Phillips. Cairo fell to his left and smothered the ball, but bobbled it as he came to his feet, then, perhaps forgetting that a Molina was running, made a desperation throw that sailed behind Vizcaino who was covering the bag. Cairo’s throw sent Molina to second and allowed Kendrick to score the tie-breaking run. Cairo was charged with two errors on the play, giving him four at first base in two games (on Friday night he made a nearly identical play throwing behind Pettitte covering first and allowing a run to score, he also flubbed a ball in the tenth inning of yesterday’s game) and pushing the Yankees’ total to five on the day (Kyle Farnsworth threw wild to first base in the 11th, and Hideki Matsui booted a single in the fourth to putt the batter on second). Vizcaino retired the next three men in order, but the damage had been done.
The Yankees staged a rally in the bottom of the 13th. Cairo, attempting to atone for his errors, singled with one out, stole second, then moved to third on a ball that Rodriguez threw clean over Molina’s head to the backstop. Suddenly the Yankees were a productive out away from re-tying the game.
In the third inning of Friday night’s mess, with one out, the Yankees up 6-3, and runners on the corners, Joe Torre called for a suicide squeeze, which was perfectly executed by Miguel Cairo with Jorge Posada charging from third base. Now, with Cairo on third and Johnny Damon at the plate, Damon stood tall as Francisco Rodriguez threw three more balls, resulting in the same set up (runners on the corners, one out) in a sudden-death situation (extra-innings, down by one). Unlike the meaningless squeeze on Friday, a squeeze bunt here would have tied a game that otherwise could have been lost on a single double-play grounder. The man at the plate was Melky Cabrera, who already had five successful sacrifice bunts on the season. In addition to the squeeze, having Damon, who had stolen two bases on Friday night, steal second on Rodriguez (who had already allowed a steal to Hideki Matsui of all people) would have eliminated the double play and could have resulted in either a delayed double steal or a throwing error that would have gotten Cairo home without any help from the batter.
I probably don’t need to tell you what happened, or rather, what didn’t. No steal. No bunt. Melky struck out for the fifth time in the game, and Derek Jeter, who had hit into an inning-ending double play in the eleventh, grounded into a fielder’s choice to give the Angels a 2-1 win in 13 innings.
I’ve lost track of the number of times Joe Torre has failed to employ the squeeze bunt when a successful one would either tie or win a game, but I can approximate that number by saying it’s every time. According to Baseball Prospectus 2007, Joe Torre did not call for a single squeeze from 2004 to 2006 and he sure as hell didn’t call for one in the 11th inning of Game 4 of the 2003 World Series. In a lineup that includes Damon, Cabrera, Jeter, Abreu, Cano, and Cairo, all of whom will lay one down from time to time, be they bunting for a hit or, in the case of Cabrera, Cairo, and, stupidly, Jeter, sacrificing, the squeeze bunt should come in to play regularly in sudden-death situations. Instead it never does, and the Yankees are 6-14 in one-run games.
Today they try to win the rubber game behind Chien-Ming Wang who threw seven scoreless innings against the Twins in his last outing. The Angels counter with Ervin Santana, who has a 6.88 ERA over his last three starts, though he did strike out 11 Rangers in his last outing.
