Yankees take Game One behind Nova and Cano

The New York Yankees defeated the Detroit Tigers by the score of 9-3 on Saturday night. It was a strange game one in that it started on Friday night and after it started pouring the game had to be suspended and resumed on Saturday night. The game picked up in the bottom of the second inning, it was strange to see the Yankees hitting first and Jorge Posada leading off the game but that is what happened. Ivan Nova started the game or relieved depending on how you look at it, he pitched extremely well in his first postseason action. He ran into trouble in his seventh inning which was the ninth inning and the Yankees had to use two relievers to get the final two outs. The offense was led by Robinson Cano who tied a team record with six RBI in the game.
CC Sabathia started the game on Friday night pitching two innings and giving up one run on one hit. He didn’t walk a batter and he struck out four. Nova pitched 6 1/3 innings giving up two runs on four hits. He walked four and struck out five. Luis Ayala pitched 1/3 of an inning giving up two hits and Mariano Rivera faced one batter and struck him out on three pitches.

Derek Jeter had two hits, Curtis Granderson had a hit and two walks and Cano had three hits and six RBI. Cano shares a record for most RBI in a Yankees postseason game with Hideki Matsui, Bobby Richardson and Bernie Williams. Alex Rodriguez had an RBI, Mark Teixeira had a hit and a walk and Nick Swisher had a hit. Jorge Posada had a hit and a walk, Russell Martin had a hit and Brett Gardner had a hit and two RBI.

The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the first on Friday night on a Delmon Young solo homerun. The Yankees tied it in the bottom of the first on a Rodriguez RBI groundout. The Yankees took a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning with an RBI double that just missed being a two run homerun. The Yankees had a big six run sixth inning to break the game open and take a 8-1 lead. Gardner had a two run single and Cano hit a grand slam. The Yankees added a run in the eighth on another Cano RBI double. The Tigers scored a couple of runs in the ninth and made it a 9-3 game but that is how it would finish.

The Yankees took a 1-0 lead in this best of five first round series. The second game will be on Sunday afternoon at 3:07PM at Yankee Stadium. The pitching matchup is the crafty veteran Freddy Garcia against Max Scherzer. Scherzer is a fly ball pitcher and much better at home so this may benefit the Yankees. The Yankees also have their whole bullpen to pitch in game two since they only used Ayala and Rivera but very limited. The Yankees could have Garcia pitch five or six innings on Sunday and turn it over to the bullpen. The teams lost their travel day and will play game three on Monday in Detroit and if Game four is necessary it will be on Tuesday in Detroit.