Daily Archives: April 7, 2010

Maybe it’s just too early in the season to get too worked-up but aside from my visceral dislike of the usual suspects–Youk, Dusty, Beckett, and Paplebon–I’ve found the opening series against Boston, not dull, but tepid. The first two games were close, and long of course, but I wasn’t especially stirred. Tonight saw a nice pitcher’s duel between John Lackey and Andy Pettitte but the relative lack of melodrama was evident when Kevin Youkilis and then Derek Jeter were hit by pitches. First, Pettitte tapped Youkilis in the helmet with a pitch that wouldn’t even give the slugger a headache and then Lackey plunked Jeter in the side. As Jeter approached first base, Youkilis grinned and Jeter gave him a playful shove.

Yanks-Sox–free and easy, go figure that.

The game moved along briskly. The Sox scored a run in the third on an RBI single by David Ortiz (who otherwise had a rough night at the plate), and the Yankees–who repeatedly hit the ball hard all game long–tied the score in the seventh on an RBI base hit by Nick Swisher (and an adventurous bit of base running by Jorge Posada). Daniel Bard was impressive in the eighth inning for Boston, particularly the fastball-change-up-curveball strike out of Nick Johnson, and Chan Ho Park was even better over two scoreless innings for the visitors.

So I was mildly surprised to see Park back out there in the ninth after Paplebon retired the Yanks in order in the top of the inning. Adrian Beltre flew out to deep right, JD Drew followed with a clean single up the middle, Mike Cameron skied out to deep left (Brett Gardner caught the ball a few feet away from the Monster), and Marco Scutaro lined out to left. Sox hit the ball hard to no avail.

Welp, they made it through nine innings in less than three hours. Disoriented and confused, they just had to go to extras.

That set the stage for the new guy, Curtis Granderson, who led off the tenth with a long solo homer to right. Hot dog. Paplebon recorded an out but then walked Brett Gardner, who stole second after many throws to first, and walked Jeter too. That was it for him and Paplebon was replaced by Scott Atchison who walked Nick Johnson same as he did last night. Mark Teixeira followed with a soft ground ball to short, driving home an insurance run which was more than enough for Mariano Rivera who gave Yankee fans that peaceful easy feeling we know and love so well, setting down the Sox in order and giving the Yanks the series win.

Final score: Yanks 3, Sox 1.

And we is heppy kets.

[Photo courtesy of ESPN]

Andy Pettitte and John Lackey are guys you could easily call “Meat” or “Hoss.” The two big fellas square off tonight at Fenway Park in the final game of the opening series of the season between the Yanks and Sox. The Yankees’ bullpen botched the first game and an error by Marco Scutaro helped blow the second game for the Sox. Think we’ll see more of the pens tonight or will one of these starting pitchers put up a commanding performance?

It’s Big John Red Sox debut. I suppose we should gear-up for another long one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

Baseball illustration by E. W. Kemble

Okay, so while we’re talking battle rhymes why not take a moment to acknowledge perhaps the greatest battle MC of ’em all, KRS-ONE. Dig this freestyle from Tony Touch’s classic Power Cypha mix tape 50.

1-09 KRS-One

I rocked the 917 when it was 718…

The Library of America is set to release a nifty new edition of John Updike’s classic piece on Ted Williams’ final game. The book comes out at the end of the month and it is sure to be a great gift idea for any baseball fan, not just those who root for the Red Sox.

There’s a fun piece in the Times today about food bloggers who like to take pictures of what they eat:

Dig ‘um (smack).

[photo credit: Edith Zimmerman]

I met Pete Dexter last fall when he was in New York promoting his seventh novel, Spooner. Dexter was a wonderful newspaper columnist and is now one of our greatest novelists. First thing I noticed about him was that he was wearing a pink Yankees cap. So when I had a chance to interview him the Yankees were the first thing we talked about.

Here is our chat, which covers a lot more than the Bombers.

Enjoy.

Bronx Banter: I had no idea you were a Yankees fan.

Pete Dexter: No, it’s true. I’m a big Yankee fan. It started out as a way to irritate Mrs. Dexter who is a Yankee fan from way back. And so when they’d win I’d get into it just because it irritated her so damn bad, but then I started to look at them and–

BB: When was this, during the ’90s?

PD: Yeah. So when I found out that it irritated Mrs. Dexter I did it more and more. There have been a lot of teams in my life that I’ve rooted against, but I have never rooted for a team in my life before I rooted for the Yankees, including teams I played on.

BB: And the Yankees of all teams.

PD: Yeah, strangely enough. I didn’t even like baseball until the mid-’90s. And I enjoy it more every year. We get all the games on the cable. It’s the only thing that’s worth all the money I spend on cable.

BB: So can you deal with Michael Kay?

PD: Is he the “See Ya” guy?

BB: Yup.

PD: He’s okay, it’s the other two guys from ESPN that drive me crazy.

BB: Joe Morgan and Jon Miller.

PD: Jesus, the go on for hours and hours. Morgan was one of the most exciting players I ever saw and just absolutely the most boring human being on the face of the earth.

BB: Just goes to show there’s no correlation.

PD: Yeah, none at all.

BB: So, did you want to be a writer when you were growing up?

PD: No, never. I took two writing classes at the University of South Dakota but it was just because I found out that I didn’t want to be a mathematician. I started looking through the student book there and saw Creative Writing and figured if I can’t bullshit my way through that then I don’t deserve to graduate, even from the University of South Dakota. But I never took it even semi-seriously. I mean I didn’t read anything until…it’s a true story than when I wrote Deadwood [Dexter’s second novel], my brother Tom called me up and said, “You’ve now written a book longer than any book you’ve ever read.” And that was absolutely true. I stumbled into a newspaper office in Fort Lauderdale. I was 26 or 27 years old and in those days you could actually stumble into a newspaper office and get hired as a reporter. But I don’t have to tell you what it’s like now.

BB: Did you take to reporting pretty quickly or was it just another job?

PD: I hated it. They had me doing–I thought it was a joke actually at first–they came over the first day and gave me a list of seven or eight things and said, “These are your beats.” And I thought it was some kind of initiation rite. You know, juvenile court, the hospital district, poverty programs and tomatoes. There was agricultural products—tomatoes was a separate category. But there were literally seven or eight of them, none of which interested me even remotely. Hell, they gave me a county health thing and there was a doctor who ran the county health department. He was a nice guy and I’d call him up every Sunday night when I came in and ask him if he could stretch something into an epidemic. And he’d say, “Well, we’ve got four cases of measles…you could call that an epidemic.” So every Monday I’d have a story in the paper about a new epidemic. The bigger paper down there was the Fort Lauderdale News. It got the big guy there fired because I kept coming up with new epidemics and he couldn’t come up with any.

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For all the interest in how A.J. Burnett was going to handle his return to Fenway or how the Yankees were going to handle Jon Lester, the starting pitchers ultimately proved to be irrelevent in Tuesday night’s game as both lasted just five innings and left a 4-4 tie in their wake. Burnett struck out five Red Sox against just one walk, but also gave up seven hits including a two-run homer and an RBI double, both by Victor Martinez. Those runs added to the one manufactured by Jacoby Ellsbury and a Jorge Posada throwing error in the first.

Lester looked dominant at times, but was lucky to escape the second with only one run scoring. After Nick Swisher doubled in Robinson Cano, Lester walked Marcus Thames (who drew the start in left field against the left-handed Lester), but struck out Curtis Granderson, who was batting ninth against the lefty, on a weak check swing and got Derek Jeter to ground out to end the threat. Granderson and Jeter got their revenge in the fifth when they started the inning with singles off Lester, who then drilled Nick Johnson in the ribs to load the bases. Granderson scored on a Mark Teixeira fielder’s choice that erased Johnson. Jeter scored on an Alex Rodriguez double to left, and Teixeira scored on a sac fly by Robinson Cano. That gave the Yankees their first lead of the game, but Martinez’s double in the bottom of the fifth tied it up and handed the game to the bullpens.

The Yankees immediatly mounted a threat against Manny Delcarmen when Nick Swisher led off with a double and moved to third on a Brett Gardner pinch-hit groundout. Granderson followed by creaming a ball to the right side but almost directly at Kevin Youkilis, who caught the sinking liner to hold Swisher. Jeter then grounded out to end the threat. Alfredo Aceves answered that goose egg as well as one from Daniel Bard in the seventh, passing the tie on to Hideki Okajima in the top of the eighth.

Okajima is legitimately one of the better set-up men in the league, but he has struggled against the Yankees in his brief major league career. In 23 1/3 career innings against the Bombers prior to last night, Okajima had allowed 14 runs (not counting inherited runners who have scored), good for a 5.40 ERA. Curiously, though he’s blown saves against the Yankees, he’d never taken a loss against them prior to last night, a night when he didn’t actually pitch all that poorly.

Okajima started the eighth by getting ahead of Jorge Posada 0-1 and 1-2, but Posada battled back and yanked a ground rule double into the seats behind the Pesky Pole in right. Nick Swisher followed by fouling off a bunt attempt and taking strike two only to hunker down and engage Okajima in an 11-pitch battle that the Red Sox lefty ultimate won via a groundout to short that kept Posada at second with two outs. Okajima then got ahead of Brett Gardner 0-2, but Gardner, too, battled back to 2-2 before fighting off a single into shallow left field beyond Marco Scutaro’s outstretched glove. Because he wasn’t sure if Scutaro had a play, Posada held yet again. Okajima then threw a first-pitch strike to Jeter and got him to ground to shortstop, but Scutaro pulled his throw and Youkilis was unable to come up with it, loading the bases and giving the Yankees another chance. With that Okajima imploded, walking Nick Johnson, who never took his bat off his shoulder, on five pitches to walk in the go-ahead run. Scott Atchison, who spent the last two years pitching in Japan, then came on and got Mark Teixeira to fly out to deep right to end the threat.

Joe Girardi played matchups in the bottom of the eighth. David Robertson was brought in to face righty-swinging Kevin Youkilis, but gave up a single that put the tying run on base. Girardi then brought in Damaso Marte to face David Ortiz, who was still looking for his first hit of the season, but after throwing ball one, Marte threw a limp-wristed changeup to first base to check Youkilis. If you’ve ever tried to play catch with a four-year-old you know exactly how Mark Teixeira felt as Marte’s weak throw dove, bounced, and ultimately skipped by him allowing Youkilis to get to second base. Marte recovered to get Ortiz to fly out just shallow enough in center to hold Youkilis (Curtis Granderson has shown a half-way decent arm; I’m guessing Youkilis would have move up had Johnny Damon or Bernie Williams caught Ortiz’s fly). Girardi then called on Joba Chamberlain to pitch to the right-handed hitting Adrian Beltre.

Per the scouting report I linked to regarding Sunday’s game, Beltre is a first-ball, fast-ball hitter, and Chamberlain and Posada started him off with a curve that dropped into the zone for strike one. Chamberlain then just missed low and inside with a 95 mile-per-hour heater and came back with another curveball that Beltre fouled off for strike two. Chamberlain came back with the fastball, but put it low and away, well outside Beltre’s weak hack for strike three. That pitch hit 96 on the YES gun. Chamberlain stuck with the fastball against J.D. Drew, burrying one low for ball one, then beating Drew in the zone on a 95 mph pitch down the middle that Drew fouled off well down the left-field line.  After a 96 mph heater well outside seemed to get away from him, Chamberlain whipped out the slider, breaking off a good one, an 87 mile-per-hour pitch that dove as soon as it reached the plate. Drew, protecting against the fastball, was unable to check his swing in time, giving Yankee fans flashbacks of how foolish hitters looked against Chamberlian in 2007. A second, identical slider struck out Drew swinging and stranded Youkilis, handing the game to Mariano Rivera, but not before Robinson Cano crushed a Scott Atchison pitch into the right field seats to inflate the Yankee lead by a run.

Rivera gave up a one-out double to left to old nemesis Marco Scutaro, but against the other three batters he faced he threw just seven pitches, all strikes, resulting in one strikeout and two fly outs. With that, the 2010 Yankees recorded their first win, beating the Red Sox 6-4 to set-up a rubber game in the series finale Wednesday night. What do you think the chances are that one’s decided by the bullpens as well?

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