Yanks In (More Than) A Sentence: Yankees 4, Angels 3 (13 innings)
1. The for-dummies take on this one is “what an epic!!! The ghosts of old Yankee Stadium have relocated across the street!!! This Yankee team has the grit and refusal-to-lose moxie that recent editions have lacked!!!” But really: it comes down to the fact that a supposedly elite reliever made a horrendous pitch at the worst possible moment and that the Angels couldn’t get a hit in any of the 374 situations where they needed one. The Yankees didn’t find a way to win; the Angels found a way to lose.
2. When Brian Fuentes had A-Rod down 0-2 in the 11th, I pronounced the game over. The Yankees had their elite ninja pinch-running dyad set to hit next and, at least to me, it was clear that A-Rod wouldn’t see another pitch near the strike zone. And then Fuentes goes and gives him something he can drive. Wow. Unforgivable.
3. The sloppiness afield will likely be attributed to the weather - cold and rainy at the end, but nowhere near as biblical as the forecasters had led us to expect - but it’s not like Jeter and Cano were impaired by the cold/rain/wind when they punted grounders hit right at them. As for the Izturis gaffe in the 13th, that was just poor judgment. In that situation, and with the Yankees running out of players, you take the damn out at first.
4. The Angels’ runt squad finally performed with gnat-like brio. It sure would’ve helped if any of the boppers made solid contact, though. Bobby Abreu in particular looks psyched out: he had one terrific at-bat (nine pitches?), but swung at 5 or 6 outside the zone in his other appearances. That’s the kind of thing he usually only does once a week, if that. Meanwhile, his first-pitch-fastball heroics against the Sox notwithstanding, Vlad Guerrero looks like a fraction of the hitter he once was.
5. I was critical of the decision to pitch Joe Saunders, who looks to me like the team’s fourth-best starter, but he kept the Yankees lunging at his ankle-high junk. Bully for him.
6. A.J. Burnett was unhittable for four innings, average for one and possessed by the demon spirit of Daniel Cabrera for the other. The strategy against him, clearly, is to sit back and wait for the implosion. It happens in one inning per game. In the other six or seven innings, forget it. When the guy is on, hitters have no chance.
7. Mariano Rivera made Joe Girardi look way smart with those 2-plus innings of work. The Angels tensed up when he was in there, offering at pretty much anything near the plate. As for the rest of the Yankee pen, they have three hard-throwing righty relievers in Hughes, Chamberlain and Robertson who dispatch good hitters with relative ease. As a result, the Yankees won’t lose too many marathon-type games.
8. For the love of God, Molina, these pitchers aren’t four. Enough with the mound visits. After all that, I don’t see how anybody can say that the Yankee pitchers communicate better with him than with Posada. Nobody’s communicating with nobody.
