Game 65 Recap

[WE data via FanGraphs]

This game was pretty much the inverse of last night's. The biggest hit was an second inning triple by the center fielder and the losing pitcher gave up six runs before being yanked. Each game was close for about two-thirds of a second later on but was pretty much decided by the end of the third. The difference was that last night A.J. Burnett wasn't getting unlucky, and unlike Roy Halladay, had to be pulled from the game in the fourth.

There's no sugar coating it, Burnett was terrible last night. Just about half of his pitches were out of the strike zone - 39 of them in 3 1/3 innings, to be exact. He allowed more men to reach base (11) than he retired (10) and gave up a triple and two homers. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with his curveball.

A.J. dug his own grave in the second inning as he walked two guys and gave up two singles before running the count to 3-1 on Shane Victorino. Since Burnett's aforementioned Uncle Charlie didn't show up, he ended up and feeding Victorino a meatball smack dab in the middle of the plate, about dinner table-height. All that was missing was a fork, some spaghetti and some spicy tomato oil and some bread to mop up after it.

The coupe de grace came during the fourth inning when Chase Utley smoked a ball down the first base line that Mark Teixeira fielded and got ready to toss to first - except Burnett wasn't there to cover the bag. The crowd erupted in a loud chorus of boos and Burnett was yanked before he had a chance to face another batter.

There were some good pitching performances last night as well. The only baserunner Boone Logan allowed in his 2 2/3 innings was an intentional walk to Jayson Werth, which was a direct result of him having to clean up A.J. Burnett's mess. Chad Gaudin was just as good, pitching perfect 7th, 8th and 9th innings.

Of course, Jamie Moyer was excellent as well. He gave up only three hits and a single walk in eight innings, but two of the hits were solo homers by Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada, so it doesn't look quite as dominant in the box score as it actually was. The Yanks brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the ninth against Brad Lidge but Posada struck out on a slider to end the game.

Andy Pettitte faces Kyle Kendrick tonight as the Yanks try to salvage a series victory and forget about the turd A.J. Burnett just laid.

Game 14 Recap

1. The Yankees jumped out of the gate as Derek Jeter ripped a single to right-center and Nick Johnson followed with a walk. Ben Sheets went to 3-0 against Mark Teixeira but eventually got back to 3-2. With the count full, the runners went and Teix took a fastball over the outer half of the plate for a called strike three (his 10th backwards K already this year) and Jeter got gunned down at third. The Yanks were one pitch away from loading the bases, a questionable managerial decision from having two on and one out but instead had just a man on second with two out when A-Rod came to the plate. He flew out to center to end the inning.

It doesn't show up as much of a spike in terms of WPA since it's in the first inning, but a run in the first inning is worth the same amount as one in the 8th, technically speaking, and it was a costly turn of events.

2. Robinson Cano singled to lead off the second inning and advanced to second on what was nearly another strike 'em out, throw 'em out DP and got to third on a Curtis Granderson grounder. Randy Winn then tapped one down the third base line that Sheets fielded cleanly and fired to first just in time to keep the Yanks off the board.

3. The Yanks finally broke through in the 4th inning with back-to-back(!!) triples by A-Rod and Cano. Ryan Sweeney misplayed A-Rod's ball and it rolled past him while Cano ripped a shot down the line that rolled around in the corner. It was the first time the Yanks have had consecutive three baggers since Melky and Damon did it in '07. Cano then scored on a ground out by Posada to put the Yanks up 2-0.

4. Through 7 innings, Phil Hughes had pitched masterfully. He took a no-hitter to the top of the 8th and had struck out every batter in the A's lineup except for Mark Sweeny. He'd struck out 9 batters and threw 63 of his 89 pitches for strikes, whiffing 9. Eric Chavez broke up the no hitter leading off the 8th with a liner back up the middle that deflected off Hughes' glove, arm and landed just in front of the mound. He probably still had time to turn the play but lost the ball once it hit him, but he couldn't locate it, and Chavez reached on an infield single. I think it's pretty much official that Phil Hughes has now had two no hitters broken up in the most fucking annoying ways possible, but at least he didn't get hurt this time.

After Chavez's cheapie, Hughes struck out Kevin Kouzmanoff for his 10th K of the night (a new career high) then walked Gabe Gross in a tough 9 pitch at bat. Girardi summoned Joba Chamberlain, who retired Adam Rosales on a fly ball to right field but blew the shutout by allowing an RBI single to Jake Fox. He escaped with the lead by retiring Cliff Pennington on a grounder to first. 2-1 Yankees.

5. The Yankees added an insurance run in the top of the ninth as Curtis Granderson scored on a single to left by Brett Gardner. 3-1 Yankees.

6. Mariano Rivera came in to close out the game but wasn't as effective as usual. Ryan Sweeney knocked a single to center field and Mo hit Kurt Suzuki with a pitch. With Marco Scutaro flashbacks raging, the AB ended in a strangely similar fashion to the ball he threw into the OF in Arizona in 2001 as Chavez chopped it back to Mo, but this time he converted the out. Continuing with the '01 WS theme, the game ended on a broken bat flare to center, but this time it landed in Curtis Granderson's glove.

IFs, ANDs & BUTs

• It's tough to understate how good Hughes looked tonight. Aside from the wacky hit and hard fought walk in the 8th, he really made it look easy. He commanded both his fastballs and pounded the strikezone relentlessly, throwing 40 of his 55 4-seamers and 22 of his 32 cutters for strikes. He spun off just 14 curves and no change ups and only one of his strike outs came on his hook (7 on the FB and 2 on the Cutter).
  
  
• Derek Jeter swung at the first pitch and put it in play three times tonight. In a related story, he worked his second walk of the year in the top of the ninth inning.
  
  
• Nick Johnson should get an endorsement from Johnnie Walker. Two BB's tonight, adding to his league-leading total.
  
  
• A's reliever Jerry Blevins walked off the mound in the 8th inning after striking out Nick the Stick on three straight fastballs. Tyson Ross, the right hander who replaced him, had an very odd motion, keeping his arm unnaturally close to his body and kinda slinging it in an exaggerated fashion. He could pitch, though, and struck out Mark Teixeira before getting out of the inning unscathed.
  
  
• If you didn't stay up until the end, you missed a really awesome game to watch. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it was the Yanks' sixth game in a row and locked up their 5th series victory as well, but there were a lot of enjoyable aspects of it. It wrapped up in a tidy 2:47 and even that was backloaded (generally speaking, I want the exciting part of the game to take a long time, not the early innings). There were the triples, and the no hitter chase and... well that's about it, but it was plenty. As far as early season tilts go, this one was the tits.

We are getting westcoasted as tomorrow's game will be at 12:30 PM Pacific Time, 3:30 Eastern. CC Sabathia makes a start in his hometown against fellow lefty Dallas Braden.

Double Triples

Good morning, Fackers. We're going to start off this Friday with some fun stuff we found by digging through Baseball-Reference's Play Index. Basically, we are going to go Jayson Stark on your asses for a moment.

Last night, Curtis Granderson notched the first and second triples of his young Yankee career, the first down the right field line off Scott Kazmir in the 4th inning and the second a deep fly to right center off of Brian Stokes in the following inning.

• Granderson led the league with 23 triples during his monster 2007. That year he became the 6th member of the 20-20-20 club, by collecting more than 20 doubles and 20 homers as well.
  
  
• Two triple games are nothing new to Granderson, as the one last night was the 5th of his career. He had two of them in 2007 (one against the Yankees) and two more in 2008. One of those '08 games was against the Rangers in August, and like last night, he did it in back to back ABs in consecutive innings. Unlike last night though, he drove in 4 runs in the process.
  
  
• The last Yankee to have two triples in one game was current Angel Bobby Abreu in 2008, but that happened in the Metro Dome. The last Yankee to do it at home was Enrique Wilson back in 2002 against the Indians.
  
  
• Twenty years and two days before Wilson did it, Ken Griffey Sr. pulled off the same feat against the Brewers at the Stadium. Like Granderson, Griffey did it in consecutive at bats (his 1st & 2nd) in back to back innings (the 1st and 2nd) off of two different pitchers (Moose Haas & Jerry Augustine).
  
  
• The only Yankees ever to collect three three-baggers in one game were Joe DiMaggio back in 1938 (who somehow only scored one run in that game) and Earle Combs in 1928. The Yanks happened to win both of those games by a score of 8-7. Furthermore, they blew one run leads in the top of the ninth inning in both of them and came back to walk off with the win in the bottom half.
  
  
• There were at least 32 multiple triple games by Yankee batters in the pre-renovation years of Yankee Stadium and likely more because the Play Index isn't totally complete. Conversely, there were only 4 from 1973 to 2008.
  
  
• Now there is one in the first 84 regular season games in the new joint, a park which suppresses extra-base hits that aren't home runs.
  
  
• On Wednesday night Nick Swisher had a triple as well, giving the Yanks 3 of them in 2 games, something that hasn't happened since 2007. Before that though, you have to go back to 1998, when the Yanks hit four triples in the same night against the Rangers in Arlington (two by Bernie Williams and one each by Derek Jeter and Tim Raines). That game was a 15-13 battle during which the Yanks and Rangers each had a 7 run inning.

They say triples are the most exciting play in baseball and I can't argue with that. Granderson is going to have a tough time legging out too many of them in Yankee Stadium but if he can pick up 10 of them, he'd be the first Yankee to do it since Jerry Mumphrey in 1982. Keep chuggin', Curtis.

Feel Good Story Of The Morning

From the Post (of all places). Meet the only person in the world who thought Brett Gardner would hit a home run last night:

"I met with several different children, probably 15 or 20, and one little girl, she gave me a bracelet," Gardner said of his pregame trip to Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital at New York Presbyterian yesterday, before he went out and played a huge role -- including delivering an inside the park home run -- in the Yanks' 5-4 win over the Twins. "I asked what it was for and she said it was for me and she told me that if I kept it I would hit a home run and she said I'd hit a home run tonight."

He kept the gift in his locker. He hit a home run. He did lots more. He met so many kids, he doesn't remember the little girl's name -- but he remembers her face. And he'll always remember last night.

This girl clearly does not have access to Baseball-Reference in her room. It took Gardner 222 Major League plate appearances to hit his first home run and two games later, when he wasn't even in the starting line-up, he rips around the bases for an inside-the-parker, which single-handedly brought the crowd back into the game. What are the odds?

I don't think anyone thought it was a good thing when Johnny Damon got ejected, but stepping into the #2 spot, Gardner singled in the fifth, hit the inside the park home run in the seventh and tripled to lead off the ninth. Not a bad night to catch a game in the Bronx.