Win shows game is never over with Yanks
NEW YORK – Besides Fenway Park, the toughest final three outs to get in all of baseball is at the ballpark located at 161st and River Avenue.
No team in sports is harder to close out than the New York Yankees.
So even as they went into the bottom of the ninth on Monday against the Red Sox trailing by two runs, there was that inherent belief that the game was not truly over.
Jonathan Papelbon is among the best closers in the league, and even the Yankees have found him difficult to hit despite having once-in-a-while success.
However, as we have seen with this Yankee team, the game is never truly over until you get all 27 outs, and in Yankee Stadium, you can leave nothing to chance.
Just ask the Red Sox.
Monday night brought another chapter of The Rivalry and when it was over, the YES Network had another episode of ‘’Yankees Classics” that they can show at any time when programming gets a little slow in the winter.
The Yankees, once leading this game 5-0 after the first inning with Phil Hughes on the mound, gave the lead back as the Red Sox mounted a furious rally, taking the lead in the eighth inning on a go-ahead homerun by Kevin Youkilis and a second blast of the night by Victor Martinez to lead 9-7.
For the second day in a row, the Yankees blew a late lead and the reeling Red Sox were on the verge of one of their most inspiring wins of their season.
The ball was now in the hands of Papelbon, the rock of the Boston bullpen to get the final three outs.
In the larger scheme, the Yankees with all of their injuries did not need the game as much as the Red Sox. Hovering around .500 with a tough schedule upcoming, they need all the wins they can get.
Brett Gardner led off the inning. His job was simple.
Get on base.
After taking a strike, he worked the count in his favor to 3-1. Looking for the walk, he took another strike, and on 3-2, lifted a fly ball to left field that outfielder Darnell McDonald tried to make a diving catch on and missed. The ball trickled away, allowing Gardner to go to second with a leadoff double.
The team had life and now they had a chance, and that is all you can ask for.
A term I came up with during the season is “clean loss”. Simply put, it is a metric determines how many losses you have had where you have not had the tying run come to the plate with six outs to go in a game.
By this measure, the Yankees have only had four games that you can consider a “clean loss” of the 13 they have lost this season. The other nine times, they have given themselves a chance to either tie or win the game.
As we have said, they have been the toughest “out” in baseball.
Mark Teixeira came up, on 1-1 pitch, got a good swing on a fastball, and drove it near the warning track before JD Drew made the catch for the first out.
Warning signs were in the air. The ball hit by Teixeira was right on the nose and if not for a little lift, it would have been a tied game.
In stepped Alex Rodriguez, who three seasons ago in Fenway Park, took a Papelbon fastball over the bullpen in right-center in the ninth inning to help the Yankees save their year when they were 13 games out.
Now he was up again. In those days, he may have been a nervous player in these situations, but the postseason from last year changed all of that. He comes to the plate these days, and the crowd expects something special to happen.
Rodriguez sat dead red. Papelbon had yet to show the lineup anything beside a fastball. His splitter was nowhere to be found so as long as the ball was in a certain area, the Yankee slugger would jump on it.
He did.
Swinging at the first pitch, Rodriguez hammered a 94 MPH fastball deep to left-center, over the wall for a game-tying blast.
The Stadium shook, as it never has this season. It shook the way it did last October when he hit several memorable blasts.
Just when The Rivalry had lost some of its touch, it is these moments letting you know the emotion and intensity of this feud not found in any professional sport.
Robinson Cano flew out to deep center for the second out and the Red Sox needed one more out to send the game into extra innings and give their resurgent offense a chance to regain the lead against a compromised Yankee bullpen.
Papelbon’s 0-1 pitch drilled Francisco Cervelli in the back of the arm, sending him to the ground. It was clear the catcher did not like what happened, but with no backup to him, and with the way he has come through this season, there was no way he was going to come out with the game in its climax stage.
Marcus Thames would come up. Had it not been for injuries to Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada, he would not even be in the lineup Monday. However, with all the injuries, his playing time has increased and he has been productive.
Many remember Thames from his first ever Yankee at-bat eight years ago, when he took the first pitch he ever saw and crushed it for a homerun off future Hall of Fame great Randy Johnson.
If there was one pitch he could take out, it would be a fastball. In the previous inning, he looked hideous attempting to swing at a few sliders from young Daniel Bard.
Now, he had one plan. He was going to sit dead red on a fastball and attempt not to miss it. If Papelbon threw anything else, he would take it.
The Red Sox closer came with a fastball down the middle.
Thames saw, took his hack and gave it a ride.
It was a no-doubter the moment it left his bat. The Yankee players in the dugout jumped out and immediately ran on the field in celebration, waiting for Thames, the hero of the night, to come around third, throw up his helmet and mob him at the plate celebrating another Yankees comeback victory.
They were five up early, two down late and then pulling the game out in dramatic fashion. Only thing left was the obligatory pie in the face given only to players who win the game with a walk-off.
Thames was the man tonight as others have been in the past.
It was a great win for the Yankees and a crushing defeat for the Red Sox.
Papelbon was now the latest victim of the “comeback magic”.
Even he was unable to get those final three outs.
The toughest to get anywhere.
NEW YORK – Besides Fenway Park, the toughest final three outs to get in all of baseball is at the ballpark located at 161st and River Avenue.
No team in sports is harder to close out than the New York Yankees.
So even as they went into the bottom of the ninth on Monday against the Red Sox trailing by two runs, there was that inherent belief that the game was not truly over.
Jonathan Papelbon is among the best closers in the league, and even the Yankees have found him difficult to hit despite having once-in-a-while success.
However, as we have seen with this Yankee team, the game is never truly over until you get all 27 outs, and in Yankee Stadium, you can leave nothing to chance.
Just ask the Red Sox.
Monday night brought another chapter of The Rivalry and when it was over, the YES Network had another episode of ‘’Yankees Classics” that they can show at any time when programming gets a little slow in the winter.
The Yankees, once leading this game 5-0 after the first inning with Phil Hughes on the mound, gave the lead back as the Red Sox mounted a furious rally, taking the lead in the eighth inning on a go-ahead homerun by Kevin Youkilis and a second blast of the night by Victor Martinez to lead 9-7.
For the second day in a row, the Yankees blew a late lead and the reeling Red Sox were on the verge of one of their most inspiring wins of their season.
The ball was now in the hands of Papelbon, the rock of the Boston bullpen to get the final three outs.
In the larger scheme, the Yankees with all of their injuries did not need the game as much as the Red Sox. Hovering around .500 with a tough schedule upcoming, they need all the wins they can get.
Brett Gardner led off the inning. His job was simple.
Get on base.
After taking a strike, he worked the count in his favor to 3-1. Looking for the walk, he took another strike, and on 3-2, lifted a fly ball to left field that outfielder Darnell McDonald tried to make a diving catch on and missed. The ball trickled away, allowing Gardner to go to second with a leadoff double.
The team had life and now they had a chance, and that is all you can ask for.
A term I came up with during the season is “clean loss”. Simply put, it is a metric determines how many losses you have had where you have not had the tying run come to the plate with six outs to go in a game.
By this measure, the Yankees have only had four games that you can consider a “clean loss” of the 13 they have lost this season. The other nine times, they have given themselves a chance to either tie or win the game.
As we have said, they have been the toughest “out” in baseball.
Mark Teixeira came up, on 1-1 pitch, got a good swing on a fastball, and drove it near the warning track before JD Drew made the catch for the first out.
Warning signs were in the air. The ball hit by Teixeira was right on the nose and if not for a little lift, it would have been a tied game.
In stepped Alex Rodriguez, who three seasons ago in Fenway Park, took a Papelbon fastball over the bullpen in right-center in the ninth inning to help the Yankees save their year when they were 13 games out.
Now he was up again. In those days, he may have been a nervous player in these situations, but the postseason from last year changed all of that. He comes to the plate these days, and the crowd expects something special to happen.
Rodriguez sat dead red. Papelbon had yet to show the lineup anything beside a fastball. His splitter was nowhere to be found so as long as the ball was in a certain area, the Yankee slugger would jump on it.
He did.
Swinging at the first pitch, Rodriguez hammered a 94 MPH fastball deep to left-center, over the wall for a game-tying blast.
The Stadium shook, as it never has this season. It shook the way it did last October when he hit several memorable blasts.
Just when The Rivalry had lost some of its touch, it is these moments letting you know the emotion and intensity of this feud not found in any professional sport.
Robinson Cano flew out to deep center for the second out and the Red Sox needed one more out to send the game into extra innings and give their resurgent offense a chance to regain the lead against a compromised Yankee bullpen.
Papelbon’s 0-1 pitch drilled Francisco Cervelli in the back of the arm, sending him to the ground. It was clear the catcher did not like what happened, but with no backup to him, and with the way he has come through this season, there was no way he was going to come out with the game in its climax stage.
Marcus Thames would come up. Had it not been for injuries to Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada, he would not even be in the lineup Monday. However, with all the injuries, his playing time has increased and he has been productive.
Many remember Thames from his first ever Yankee at-bat eight years ago, when he took the first pitch he ever saw and crushed it for a homerun off future Hall of Fame great Randy Johnson.
If there was one pitch he could take out, it would be a fastball. In the previous inning, he looked hideous attempting to swing at a few sliders from young Daniel Bard.
Now, he had one plan. He was going to sit dead red on a fastball and attempt not to miss it. If Papelbon threw anything else, he would take it.
The Red Sox closer came with a fastball down the middle.
Thames saw, took his hack and gave it a ride.
It was a no-doubter the moment it left his bat. The Yankee players in the dugout jumped out and immediately ran on the field in celebration, waiting for Thames, the hero of the night, to come around third, throw up his helmet and mob him at the plate celebrating another Yankees comeback victory.
They were five up early, two down late and then pulling the game out in dramatic fashion. Only thing left was the obligatory pie in the face given only to players who win the game with a walk-off.
Thames was the man tonight as others have been in the past.
It was a great win for the Yankees and a crushing defeat for the Red Sox.
Papelbon was now the latest victim of the “comeback magic”.
Even he was unable to get those final three outs.
The toughest to get anywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment