Hey, they don’t need to be pretty to count, right? The Yankees left 7436 men in scoring position on Saturday while their pitching staff whiffed 632 A’s. A long, frustrating day in the heat at Yankee Stadium. And it all came down to Jose Molina batting with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th inning.
Molina entered the game as a defensive replacement for Jorge Posada who allowed two stolen bases in the ninth (Rivera was at much at fault for the swipes but Posada’s arm has nevertheless become a liability). Lenny DiNardo, Oakland’s side-arming lefty almost hit Molina with the second pitch of the at bat. A few pitches later, another slider got away from him inside, Molina froze, then carefully leaned his right knee into the ball, which grazed him, allowing the winning run to score.
“José did a good job of letting the ball hit his leg,” [manager, Joe] Girardi said.
"I was never so happy to see someone get hit," Derek Jeter told reporters after the game.
As one of the Banterites mentioned, it was a "fitting end to a maddening day." A day, incidentally, where David Cone, the YES analyst, invented a new word–"Variates." As in "He does a good good of variating his pitches." A pitcher doesn’t vary his pitches, he "variates" them. I guess Coney is really becoming an analyst after all!
Mariano Rivera gave up a run in the ninth and Huston Street blew the save in the bottom of the inning. Robinson Cano had a terrific day, collecting four hits. He’s hitting the ball squarely now, a good sign for sure. And the much-maligned Wilson Betemit got the game-tying hit against Street, lofting a single to left on an 0-2 pitch. Joba Chamberlain had another solid start too. Man, has it ever been fun watching this kid–first as a reliever, now as a starter, or what?
Gunna be another warm one today. Dude, it’s roasting right now.
