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Yanks' Ninth-Inning Rally Falls Short
Close but no cigar.
Chien-Ming Wang never got on track, Nick Markakis homered and drove in three and a ninth-inning rally fell short when Hideki Matsui popped out with a runner on second to end the game as the Orioles downed the Yankees 7-5 in Baltimore. The bullpen trio of Edwar Ramirez, Jonathan Albaladejo and Jose Veras held the O's hitless through the final 4 1/3 innings and Mark Teixeira collected his first hit as a Bomber (an RBI-double in the ninth), but it wasn't enough.
Koji Uehara, Baltimore's 34-year-old rookie right-handed pitcher from Japan, wasn't dominating but he allowed only one run through five innings to pick up his first big league win.
The Good:
Derek Jeter. The Captain looks fairly comfortable in his new role as the team's leadoff hitter. Jeter continued his hot start as he reached base via a walk and an infield single in his first two at-bats and then pulled the Yankees to within 7-4 with a two-run bomb in the ninth. Not bad for a guy on the downside of his career. Jeter finished 2 for 4 with a walk, a run scored, a stolen base and 2 runs batted in.
The Bad:
Chien-Ming Wang. You can usually tell within the first few innings if Wang is headed for a good outing. Three consecutive doubles in the first inning was a clear sign that it was going to be a clunker. Wang couldn't keep the ball down and the Orioles made him pay. Cody Ransom cut the O's lead to 2-1 with an RBI-double in the top of the fourth, but the Wanger imploded in the bottom of the frame as he gave up five runs before hitting the showers. It wasn't a pretty night for Wang. The final tally: 3.2 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 3 BB, 0 K, 1 HR. Disappointing.
The Ugly:
Trouble brewing? The talk in Yankee Land before Wednesday's game was about Monday's starting pitcher -- CC Sabathia. Oh, everyone knows he didn't have a good outing in his pinstriped (or grayed) debut, but his low velocity and use of a heating pad between innings raised some eyebrows. "When I'm watching him pitch and see the heat pad and then see him throwing 88-89 (miles per hour), it's almost like he's protecting something and pitching at 70%," Yankees YES analyst John Flaherty said. But GM Brian Cashman was quick to squash any injury concerns. "I can honestly tell you there is nothing bothering him, other than maybe the way he pitched. There is no health issue that we're hiding. If there was something that was troublesome, we'd do something about it tucked away where no one would see anything. He wouldn't be doing it in the dugout," Cashman said. I see. I guess we'll just have to watch how Sabathia pitches the next time out.
The Yanks will try and salvage the final game of the three-game set Thursday afternoon. A.J. Burnett (18-10, 4.07 ERA) will go against Alfredo Simon (0-0, 6.23 ERA). Simon appeared in four games for the Birds last season. The 27-year-old right-hander gave up three runs on seven hits in 7 2/3 innings against the Tampa Bay Rays last season in his only start. This will be his first look at the Yanks. Burnett finished 2-1 in three starts against the Orioles last season, but his ERA was a bloated 9.82. Still, the hard throwing right-hander is 7-1 with a 4.97 ERA in nine career starts against the Orioles and is 3-0 with a 3.91 ERA in four career starts at Camden Yards.
Time to get into the win column, fellas.
Chien-Ming Wang never got on track, Nick Markakis homered and drove in three and a ninth-inning rally fell short when Hideki Matsui popped out with a runner on second to end the game as the Orioles downed the Yankees 7-5 in Baltimore. The bullpen trio of Edwar Ramirez, Jonathan Albaladejo and Jose Veras held the O's hitless through the final 4 1/3 innings and Mark Teixeira collected his first hit as a Bomber (an RBI-double in the ninth), but it wasn't enough.
Koji Uehara, Baltimore's 34-year-old rookie right-handed pitcher from Japan, wasn't dominating but he allowed only one run through five innings to pick up his first big league win.
The Good:Derek Jeter. The Captain looks fairly comfortable in his new role as the team's leadoff hitter. Jeter continued his hot start as he reached base via a walk and an infield single in his first two at-bats and then pulled the Yankees to within 7-4 with a two-run bomb in the ninth. Not bad for a guy on the downside of his career. Jeter finished 2 for 4 with a walk, a run scored, a stolen base and 2 runs batted in.
The Bad:
Chien-Ming Wang. You can usually tell within the first few innings if Wang is headed for a good outing. Three consecutive doubles in the first inning was a clear sign that it was going to be a clunker. Wang couldn't keep the ball down and the Orioles made him pay. Cody Ransom cut the O's lead to 2-1 with an RBI-double in the top of the fourth, but the Wanger imploded in the bottom of the frame as he gave up five runs before hitting the showers. It wasn't a pretty night for Wang. The final tally: 3.2 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 3 BB, 0 K, 1 HR. Disappointing.
The Ugly:
Trouble brewing? The talk in Yankee Land before Wednesday's game was about Monday's starting pitcher -- CC Sabathia. Oh, everyone knows he didn't have a good outing in his pinstriped (or grayed) debut, but his low velocity and use of a heating pad between innings raised some eyebrows. "When I'm watching him pitch and see the heat pad and then see him throwing 88-89 (miles per hour), it's almost like he's protecting something and pitching at 70%," Yankees YES analyst John Flaherty said. But GM Brian Cashman was quick to squash any injury concerns. "I can honestly tell you there is nothing bothering him, other than maybe the way he pitched. There is no health issue that we're hiding. If there was something that was troublesome, we'd do something about it tucked away where no one would see anything. He wouldn't be doing it in the dugout," Cashman said. I see. I guess we'll just have to watch how Sabathia pitches the next time out.
The Yanks will try and salvage the final game of the three-game set Thursday afternoon. A.J. Burnett (18-10, 4.07 ERA) will go against Alfredo Simon (0-0, 6.23 ERA). Simon appeared in four games for the Birds last season. The 27-year-old right-hander gave up three runs on seven hits in 7 2/3 innings against the Tampa Bay Rays last season in his only start. This will be his first look at the Yanks. Burnett finished 2-1 in three starts against the Orioles last season, but his ERA was a bloated 9.82. Still, the hard throwing right-hander is 7-1 with a 4.97 ERA in nine career starts against the Orioles and is 3-0 with a 3.91 ERA in four career starts at Camden Yards.
Time to get into the win column, fellas.
Another ninth-inning tease. Good work from the pen today. Two games, less than 8 innings total from the starters. Awesome.
I know it's a long season but not for Girardi. Nobody cares that it's only two games. We're tired of slow starts. There is no guarantee that this team can bounce back from anything.
Girardi is definitely on the hot seat this season, but it's just two games. It's hard to win when your starting pitcher can't give the team at least five solid innings.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not jumping to conclusions. I just think a fast start is a little more imperative this year. We can't have another 11-19 start. The Yankees are also dealing with Tampa, along with Boston, so the race will be that much harder to keep close.
Fair enough, but slow and steady wins the race.
How you're not mentioning Cano in the good is beyond me! He looks like his re-tooled swing is here to stay. Jeter was better but I'm just saying....
Also, the YES gun is totally off. Over at RAB they had the real MPH for Sabathia and he was sitting at 93-95 all day. Though I was somewhat troubled by his MPH during the game, the gun showed yesterday sporadically a 55 MPH pitch that I'm pretty sure doesn't exist, I don't put more than 60% faith in it.
Did you hear what they said yesterday about Cano and his lack of plate discipline? They said all of last year, he only had one game where he walked twice, and only 13 times in his entire career. Bobby Abreu had 11 two-walk games last year alone! Same with Giambi.
Cano's looked more patient through the first two games. Let's hope he stays that way
Where did the RAB guys get their gun readings? Any reason we should trust theirs over YES's, other than the fact they showed him throwing harder?
I don't think it was "their" gun, it was from some baseball reference-esque site.
Link: http://riveraveblues.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/fastball-velocity.jpg
Brian, they use MLB.com's gameday to track the pitches. It gives all the movement of a pitch a long with a more accurate velocity. Apparently, the YES gun has been off by a couple mph's as long as they've been using it. They had CC in the mid 90's most of the night.
OK, but wasn't Coke throwing 93MPH + on YES's gun in the same game? Does that mean that on an "accurate" gun he was at like 98MPH?
Not sure, I was kind of just reaffirming what Alex had read because I've read that a few times. I think Pete Abraham has also mentioned in the past that the gun is off. Hasn't Coke been known to throw hard though? I'm not sure if it's 93 hard or 98 hard though.
Alright, so I decided to try and find the gameday from the other day and I did. If you go to mlb's homepage, on the left side where they show you the scores, you can choose which day to see scores from (which redirects you to another page) then click on the gameday link within that boxscore. Then, once you're there, you can click on any matchup throughout the game and it shows you pitch by pitch speed and break.
They had Coke at 92 average on his fastball. And going back to the first inning with CC, they had him around 92/93 with his fastball, topping out at 95.
Odd. I just think if CC was throwing 95 he might have missed a bat once in a while.
It was a toss-up between Jeter and Cano. The homer in the ninth clinched it for the Captain. But Cano sure looks good so far.
I'm not a huge fan of the radar gun, but the fact that CC didn't record a strikeout was surprising.