CC Deals, Teix Rakes, Yanks Win

[Photos]

The night after the Yankees' third largest offseason acquisition seemed to right the ship, the two most expensive and important pieces added over the winter continued pay dividends, combining to shut down the Mariners and beat them up.

CC Sabathia picked up where A.J. Burnett left off, dominating the M's, allowing six baserunners on 4 hits and two walks while striking out 8. He gave up only one (unearned) run in the fifth inning when the Yankees were leading 6-0, but that was the least of their concerns at the time.

With two outs, CC threw a 1-1 curveball to Franklin Gutierrez, who lined it directly back up the middle. With no time to react, Sabathia tried to block it, but the ball hit him directly in the top of his chest, missing his throat, collarbone and pitching hand by a couple of inches each. The ball deflected to A-Rod at third base who didn't have a play, and the whole infield rushed in to see if their stud pitcher was okay. CC was momentarily stunned but after catching his breath and stayed in the game. Not too many guys could shake that one off. As Joe Girardi said after the game, “He’s a strong man, he took it and he kept on pitching.”

The next batter was Jose Lopez and Sabathia got him to chop to thrid, but A-Rod made a throwing error which took a huge hop, got past Mark Teixiera and rolled around behind first base in no man's land, allowing Gutierrez to score from first. It didn't faze Sabathia, as he retired the final seven batters he faced. The bullpen, despite allowing 4 baserunners in the final 2 innings, didn't allow a run.

It was Sabathia's 9th quality start in a row, but saying that alone sells him short. He's thrown under 7 innings just one of those times and allowed two or more runs only twice. His ERA over that span is 1.79, his record 7-0 and the Yankees have won all 9 of those starts, dating back to August 8th.

Mark Teixeira was the driving force behind the Yanks' offensive effort last night. He notched his third triple in five games, knocking in Johnny Damon in the first inning. He added a three run homer in the 5th, all but ending Doug Fister's night. He singled in the 7th and came to the plate in the ninth in search of the Yankees second cycle of the year in the 9th. Teix blasted one into the gap in left-center but hit it too well, blasting his 37th HR of the season and adding his 118th RBI.

That dinger was off of lefthander Luke French, making it the third time this year that Teix has left the yard as both a righty and lefty in the same game. The Yankees have done that six times in 2009 while all other teams in baseball combined have done it once.

Hideki Matsui also homered and is hitting .439/.511/.659 over his last 12 games, homering thrice and driving in 12.

The Red Sox won and the Angels lost, putting the Yanks up 6.0 and 6.5 games up on those two teams, respectively, with 13 left to play. The Yanks magic number to clinch a playoff spot is down to 2 and to win the division and thereby homefield advantage is 9. Today's game will be played at a more reasonable 4PM but it will fall during the second slate of NFL football games. Have your remote controller handy.

Hitting The Power Switch

I came across this post at The Yankee Universe this morning about the rarest feats in baseball and started perusing the list or accomplishments.

One of these feats was hitting a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game, which has happened 246 times in the history of the game. Not as rare as a no-hitter or a cycle, but certainly uncommon. I seemed to remember Melky Cabrera doing it fairly recently and it turns out it was back on April 22nd, and I had actually written a post about his performance in that game in which he ended a 14 inning showdown with a walk-off HR (from the left side).

Another thing I did not realize was how laden with Yankees the American League side of that list is. There have been four occurrences of a switch hitter hitting a home run as both a righty and a lefty this year and all four were by Yankees (Melky, Swisher and Teixeira twice). In fact, all of the last six and 10 of the past 12 were accomplished by current members of the Yankees' normal starting line up. The top three on the active career list (aside from Tony Clark who is technically "active" but not currently on a team) all play for the Yanks: Posada (8), Swisher (8), and Teixeira (7). Had they signed Carlos Beltran (6) when they had the chance, they would have the next in line as well.

Admittedly, this stat can be a little flukey but the Yanks have 72 HRs by switch hitters this year, tops in the MLB. That is far more than the Angels with 41 and twice as many as the next team, the Rays with 36.

The presence of switch hitters with power on the Yankee roster undoubtedly makes it difficult on opposing managers. On any given day the Yanks can plug in 4 guys who can go deep from either side of the plate, making a pitching change aimed at them much less effective and pinch hitting for them virtually unnecessary.

We have been spoiled in this respect since we rarely have to sit through National League-style move/counter-moves in the late innings of games. Perhaps part of the reason I loathe to see Joe Girardi make two out pitching changes based solely on the side of the plate the batter digs in on is that opposing managers have the option to do it to the Yankees far less frequently.

In any event, the Yanks seem to have the market cornered on switch hitters with power via the additions of Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira this past offseason. And it's one of the many reasons they are on pace to score about 900 runs this year, up from only 789 in 2008.