Friday night, the Yankees and Red Sox did something they’d never done before: open a game with 14 1/2 scoreless innings. Jacoby Ellsbury led off the game with a bloop hit of A.J. Burnett that fell between Melky Cabrera and Nick Swisher in shallow right center. The next Boston hit came with two outs in the top of the ninth inning when David Ortiz singled off Mariano Rivera. Burnett walked six men in between those two hits, and another man reached base on catchers interference, but none of those runners got past second base. The only Boston runner to get to third base in the entire 15-inning game was Ellsbury in the top of the first, who stole second and moved to third on a 4-6-3 double-play only to be stranded there.
The Yankees fared no better against Josh Beckett. Robinson Cano doubled to lead off the third and was followed by a Nick Swisher walk, but like the Sox in the top of the first, a double play and a groundout stranded Cano at third. In the fifth, the Yankees loaded the bases on singles by Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada and a two-out walk to Melky Cabrera, but Derek Jeter grounded to third on the first pitch he saw to end the threat. The only other baserunner off Beckett came on a leadoff Hideki Matsui single in the seventh, but he was erased when a one-out hit-and-run turned into a strike-em-out/throw-em-out double play.
Both bullpens came into play in the eighth. After Burnett walked Jacoby Ellsbury on four pitches, the last his 118th of the night, Joe Girardi brought in Phil Hughes to get the last out of the top of the eighth. With Beckett already at 115 pitches, Terry Francona went straight to his pen and Hideki Okajima in the bottom of the inning.
Hughes, Rivera, Alfredo Aceves, Brian Bruney, and Phil Coke combined to keep the Red Sox from scoring for 7 1/3 innings after Burnett left the game. Comined, they allowed just three singles and two walks while striking out eight. Aceves did the bulk of the work, striking out three in three scoreless innings and throwing 73 percent of his 37 pitches for strikes.
The Boston pen was nearly as good. Okajima, Daniel Bard, Ramon Ramirez, Jonathan Papelbon, Manny Delcarmen, and Takashi Saito combined for six scoreless innings allowing just one hit, but walking five against just four strikeouts. In the bottom of the 14th, Francona turned to the last man in his pen, 23-year-old Japanese rookie Junichi Tazawa, who thus made his major league debut. The Yankees sandwiched singles by Jorge Posada and Cano between a pair of hard outs, but Tazawa won an eight-pitch battle with Cabrera (which included a ball that was roughly an inch foul down the right-field line) to strikeout Melky swinging and push the game into the 15th.
After Coke’s ten-pitch top of the 15th, Tazawa returned to the mound and was greeted by another single, this one by Jeter. Johnny Damon failed to bunt Jeter over, fouling out to Victor Martinez on his second attempt, and Mark Teixeira struck out on four pitches. That brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate with two outs. Rodriguez had already come to the plate thrice in the game with two outs and a chance to end the game on one swing. The first time he reached on an infield single and stole second, but was stranded. The next time he struck out. The last he flied out to left. Facing Tazawa, Rodriguez took three pitches to get ahead 2-1 then broke his not-quite-career-long homerless streak by crushing the 2-1 pitch into the visiting bullpen, ending five and a half hours of scoreless baseball.
Welcome to the big leagues, kid. Yankees win, 2-0.
Some of the game totals:
15 walks
28 strikeouts
494 pitches
13 hits, six of them in extra innings
2 runs
The Yankees now lead the AL East by 4 1/2 games, their largest lead since 2006.
As for the predecessor to this game, the Red Sox beat the Yankees 1-0 in 14 innings at Fenway Park on September 24, 1969. Back then, the Yankees were a losing team with the second-worst offense in the American League and had lost to the Red Sox 8-3 the night before. Last night, the Yankees and Sox had two of the four most potent offenses in the game and still couldn’t score for nearly 15 innings the night after combining for 19 runs. The two teams hadn’t taken a scoreless game into extra innings since May 22, 1976. Catfish Hunter pitched an 11-inning, three-hit shutout in that game against the third-best offense in the AL.
I tend to watch games on slight DVR delay, both to skip commercials and to accommodate the odd hours freelancing and fatherhood insist upon. Given that the average major league game is about three hours long and the Yankees tend to play four-hour marathons, particularly against the Red Sox, I usually set the thing to record for five or six hours, both in case of extra innings, and to snag the post-game interviews. Last night I foolishly chose five hours and, much like the 2008 All-Star game, the recording stopped an inning shy of the result. So I watched five hours of scoreless baseball then still had to find a box score to get the result. Fun. It's now 4:15 am. I'm going to bed before the kid wakes up for her usual 5am feeding.
[1] i'm still up! i'd gladly feed Amelia, then sleep for a few hours, before i have to drive outta state for my gig...! : )
one of students IS an airplane pilot, and is originally from Queens, like me. i'll see if he can get me home in the next few minutes to take my "Uncle Thelarmis" shift...! : )
we've played 1 more game than boston - same amount as tampa - and we have the best Run Diff in the AL, though we're quite close w/ those aforementioned teams...
bravos beat Torre in extras, so we have the BEST record in MLB, though we've played 1 more game than LA...
speaking of L.A. (Lower Alabama), i'll miss tomorrow's game, due to the State that keeps Mississippi further away from me! ; )
i'm still baffled that the freaking Halos have scored 2 more runs than us, in 2 fewer games... : ~
IS THE GAME OVER YET?!?!?!?!??
Shamelssly stolen from a poster on the RAB site:
But here it is.
The quintessential Poster for last night's game:
http://zip.4chan.org/sp/src/1249704798978.jpg
(Is that William?)
I really hope ARod can get a day off, better if 2, sometime soon. He has not only been slumping for weeks, but he doesn't look right at the plate (even w/his walk off last night).
The dude is talented. Even playing 'poorly', he leads the team with a .390 OBP and has managed a .902 OPS. Not shabby for a bad year. Nonetheless, lets give the guy some rest. The temptation to play him regularly is awful strong, but I'd rather have a weaker lineup for 2 days and have ARod well rested... ESPECIALLY going into October.
[6] Looks tired and hurting to me too. Made a good play on the dipping liner by Drew which surprised me, but not him.
Told my wife during the game how exciting it was. She said, "knowing you, it is probably nothing to nothing."
So much for the theory that walks will kill you.
Good fielding has always been a hallmark of the great Yankee teams. Not that they were spectacular last night, but they made the plays when they had to. Lot of it had to do with positioning and Big Poopi not being able to bend his legs and get under the ball.
Sox look more like the Sea Dawgs than the Paw Dawgs, but who am I to make excuses for them.
Fell asleep at 11:00. Woke up at 1:30 for a trip to my loo and saw they won. Slept like a baby. Just terrific.
Is it me or is Daniel Bard a nasty weapon out of the bullpen for the Sux? Now I know why the Sux didn't want to give him up before the trading deadline.
A conversation from Spring Training....
Future Evil Empire: Hey I just arrived in a time machine; I've got exciting news...
Evil Empire: Really? What's the news
Future Evil Empire: We're 2-8 against the Red Sox, isn't that fucking awesome?
Evil Empire: Did you smoke crack before you got into the time machine? That sucks!
Future Evil Empire: Trust me.....it's awesome.
That "Will Weiss Factor" sure is amazing, isn't it?
: )
[10] haha yes (plus keeping flash a safe distance from the booth)
[8] yeah bard looks like a nasty weapon for sure. i can see why they would want him over masterson.
[6] [7] with pena up and hairston looking semi-comptetent, i'm hoping griradi can give reasonable rest to arod as well as jeter who also looks tired and even cano a tiny bit
time to grind the roaches today with cc vs laptop
[6] He grabbed his hip in a weird way after the celebration. Dude should sit today.
Man, this team is really in a good place right now. I know the playoffs can cause many mood swings and all sorts of nutty reactions, depending on the outcome of course, but watching a game like last night was definitely special. Plus, it saved me some money because I ended up staying home.
[11] Why do we call him laptop? (I love it, btw, 'cause it's so goofy sounding.)
[13] Indeed. Indeed.
[14] Cause he stole a bunch, was it in college or in high school? Can't remember.
[0] Just a minor correction, there were 28 K's last night.
[11] I answered your question from the game thread with post #1108, Ms October...
Looks like they've gone full circle:
A-Rod: having a relatively quiet year in the tabloids, hitting walk-off homeruns, relaxed
Papi: Tight, getting defensive with the media, holding a news conference to discuss PED positive test from '03, playing awful against their team's biggest rivalry, and, lastly, unclutch
(17) Hilarious PJ - mk would do well to land a jersey kookie :)
(18) Just wait til they run big pedi out of town
[19] It's coming! They are already "easing out" Captain Tek from the mix.
$12M plus for Ortiz to "go away"...
And to think we got rid of Giambi for a mere $5M.
It's the end of RSN as we know it, and I feel fine!
Omar Minaya is licking his chops!
: )
[18] Honestly, getting busted for steroids is the probably best thing that could have happened to A Rod. He really needed the bubble burst. I'm not gonna say he's just a normal guy now but without so much to live up to - most, of his own design - he is a lot closer to normal.
[1] That.......is a major bummer. I wonder how long this game would have been if on FOX.
8 hours? Threw my Friday night for a loop but it was well worth the effort.
[21] I agree.
I just seen the David Ortiz news conference, he sounded a bit sincere but if the news media didn’t give A-Rod a pass why then should David get one?
The news media called A-Rod's confession phony, staged and it opened up more questions then answers, maybe.
But I didn't see David’s new conference any different then A-Rod's, just shorter.
[1] Cliff, I also missed the end. I watched through seven innings live, but then had to leave. Figuring the snappy pace of the game, I set the TiVo to record to the four-hour mark. Sure, there was a fleeting thought that the game could develop into an extra-inning marathon, but what were the odds of that? My recording ran out after eleven innings, which kinda sucked.
[1] Cliff, the same thing happened to me. Luckily I have the MLB.tv out of town package, so I could catch the end of the game on my computer. I actually held the laptop while my wife breastfed our 3 week old so we could watch the end together. The little one got to experience her first walk-off!
[26] Huzzah! And congrats on the little one. I'm just seven weeks ahead of you.
[16] Fixed.