The Genius Maker #3

First play of the game, Ellsbury hits a blooper that drops in between Jeter and Thames that would have been easily caught by Gardner. Ellsbury then steals 2nd and goes to 3rd on a bad throw by Posada. He ends up scoring…Gardner would have stopped it. For contrast, later in the game, Tex broke his bat and Ellsbury made the catch; end of rally.

Burnett made good pitches to Victor Martinez who fouled off a good fastball and did not swing at two good breaking balls to work a walk (he is a solid hitter). Martinez continued his excellent AB’s with a 2 run homer later and another hit. His defense is very bad, but he can hit.

Granderson had a bad AB against Lester (a lefty) with bases juiced and one out when he struck out waving at two bad pitches. Granderson did get a hit later in the game against a lefty which led to a great AB by ARod. Twice Lester beat ARod on fastballs inside and then ARod made the adjustment and doubled to tie up the game.

I still think Granderson will end up being platooned and Gardner will probably be a better hitter against lefties than Granderson.

Every reader of this blog knows I am a huge Posada fan, but I think when he hit into a DP it had be the slowest double play in history; I can’t believe they turned 2 on such a slow grounder to SS.

I think Boston swung the bats very well because Burnett pitched well and the Red Sox swung at good pitches and showed good control on the bad ones.

Great game by Ace! Aceves put up 2 perfect innings. I keep saying it but I am a big fan of his; he is a rare crafty righty.

Nick Johnson is an on base machine!

In the 8th Girardi did the right thing starting Robertson, although he did not get the job done. He then did a good job going to Marte and then it was great to see Joba with 2 k’s and hitting 96. When he can get up to 97 consistently I will be very happy, but he had a very good breaking ball showing great downward movement on his slider against Drew.

Cano’s solo homer was a big insurance run!

And we have a sighting! The Genius Maker comes in and closes out the game. I thought Scutaro was out on strikes and the ump blew the call, but Rivera still got the job done. Great to see his first save of the year.