Yanks in (More Than) A Sentence: Yankees 7, Phillies 4
1. Johnny Damon has been a frustrating guy to watch over the last two months of the season. He flails flat-footedly (is that a word? it is now) at anything over the far half at the plate and his defense in left field has devolved from bad to laughable (as witnessed by the Phillies sending Ryan Howard home from second on a line-drive single that Damon gloved on a single hop). And then he reminds you of why you hated playing against him with that dink single at the end of a nine-pitch at-bat and the unexpected rush to third base after stealing second. Obviously you put that extra base on either Lidge or Ruiz, one of whom should’ve been covering. Still, Damon’s dash made it so that neither Teixeira nor Rodriguez would see Lidge’s slider, which he couldn’t risk throwing in the dirt with a half-fast runner on third. Just a tremendous, wonderfully instinctive play.
2. For those keeping track at home, A-Rod now counts three absurdly double-reverse-ninja super-clutch postseason hits to his name this year.
3. Jayson Werth will be the guy who takes a fastball to the ribs tonight as payback for the Phils throwing at A-Rod. Unless the Yankees are either far behind or far ahead, in which case it’ll be Utley.
4. The Yankees were more lucky than good, really. Until the ninth, most of their hits were bleeders: Melky’s grounder up the middle that Utley couldn’t convert into a force out, Jeter’s roller between short and third, Damon’s bloop into short right, etc. On the pitching side, Sabathia was again more workman-like than sharp, plus Joba served up a twinkie at the worst possible moment after looking untouchable for the 10 pitches before it. You’ll hear a lot of cliches today about how the Yankees “grinded one out” and “dug deep.” Nah. They just got some nice bounces and made a play when they had to.
5. Along those lines, if you can’t get Pedro Feliz out, you don’t deserve to win. News flash: the guy likes inside fastballs. That is the single pitch with which he is capable of making contact using a bat-like apparatus. Throw him something else. Anything else.
6. Chase Utley: baseball’s fourth-best player? The only guys I’m 100 percent sure I’d rather have are Pujols, Hanley Ramirez and Joe Mauer. It’s not a coincidence that Jimmy Rollins won an MVP hitting in front of him and Ryan Howard won one hitting behind him.
7. I’d love to see transcripts of those 37 conversations between Sabathia, Posada and Eiland. Given how often they convened, you have to figure that they were talking about something more interesting than the need to throw first-pitch strikes.
8. I survived. Thanks for askin’.
