Man, very rough weather
to play in. The worst baseball weather; windy, cool and wet. But,
it made for a very enjoyable game to watch.
Because of the weather,
I don't want to take too much out of the game; but here goes.
1st inning - Ellsbury
walked and then got picked off, but I thought it was a balk. Clearly
there was movement before the throw to first, but the umps missed it.
BTW, I thought the ump behind home plate did a great job; very
consistent. ARod K'd on a questionable pitch, but he might have been
right and that was my only complaint...great job)
Pineda started out very
well in full control even breaking out a beautiful 2 seamer that he turned over
that moved into a righty. It was such a strange pitch that Ken Singleton
asked what it was. It wasn't his change as it came in at 90 but it was a
fastball he took a little off of. But, that is something Pineda can do.
He has a good feel on how to pitch. He cut a few into lefties, he
threw a 4 seam fastball and then he threw his slider. As the game went on
his breaking stuff was just spinning (no break) and that caused him to use the
changeup which he used masterfully getting two huge k's back to back keeping the
Yankees in the game. Because it was cold nobody was throwing high 90's,
but Pineda was throwing mostly 91 and with guys on base sometimes less.
After a leadoff double
by Tex (who batted righty against the righty knuckleballer) McCann did a poor
job not moving the runner over. Headley did what McCann needed to do (at the
minimum), but now with 2 outs that didn't help much (although with a knuckleballer
it does put more pressure on the catcher). Unfortunately, ARod K'd on the same
pitch he took for ball 3.
In the 3rd,
the Jays had a chance to break it open again with 1 run in and 1st and 2nd
nobody out but they decided not to bunt Reyes. I think this was the
turning point of the game. A fast guy at the plate and a sac that moves
two bases is so logical, but instead Reyes made an unproductive out and Pineda
used his changeups to K Martin and Bautista. That was the key to the game
if you ask me...poor managing by Gibbons.
There was an odd play
where Tex jumped for a ball and it deflected off of his glove (not Tex's fault)
that I would have liked to see Drew catch. He got a lot of glove on it
but couldn’t line it up and it cost us a run because it would have been an easy
DP. Good pitching kept us in it.
In the 6th Gardner's
speed saved at least one run with a nice running catch.
Chris Martin (he is 28
and has 16 innings in the majors with Colorado) came in to pitch the 7th for us
and he did a really nice job. He was impressive in that he worked both
sides of the plate showing a nice cutter going into a lefty but also being able
to run the fastball into righties. I don’t remember seeing a breaking ball,
but his control and movement were very good.
Headley made a nice
heads up play getting into scoring position on a fly to LF by ARod, but we
stranded him.
Betances came in for the
8th but his control was off walking two guys.
McCann made a terrible play trying to throw behind the runner for a few reasons.
The pitch was a bad one and I give McCann credit for picking it clean,
but he was lucky he did pick it clean (a run would have scored if it got by
him. I assume he felt the runner would take too much of a lead, but he
threw low to Tex (for the 2nd time and Tex didn't block the ball. I write
it that way because the previous low throw by McCann had Tex lift up his glove
to scoop it and I thought Tex got a little lucky as his entire goal is to block
the ball from going into RF and left the "5 hole" open but the ball
came up so he was a little lucky. This time he did the same thing and
lifted the glove and the ball went under into RF for a run. Tex always
lifts his glove high to make it look spectacular and I wish he would just make the
play (which I think he only does about average compared to others). To be
fair, Tex made a good scoop to end the game and did get another one earlier as
well.
Into the bottom of the
8th down 3-1. After a bloop leadoff double from Chris Young (who pinch
hit for Didi), we mount our comeback with a line bullet single by Ellsbury (on
base every time tonight) and then a HBP, a walk, another HBP and then Headley
hit a soft line one hopper off the pitcher that went toward SS and somehow
Reyes couldn’t corral it either and it went by him scoring 2 runs and giving us
our first lead of the game (and the year).
Miller came in for the
first save opportunity post the genius maker and in terrible conditions looked
excellent. His fastball was spotted perfectly and his sharp slurve was
very effective with nobody getting a solid look or piece of it. Miller threw 10
pitches, 8 for strikes, got 1 K and the rest was clean!
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