Here are the postgame notes from Friday night courtesy of the Journal News Chad Jennings. He also runs the Lohud Yankees Blog. I also put my own thoughts into the mix as usual.
Mark Teixeira said he wasn’t really paying attention to the bullpen. He was
standing on deck watching Andrew Miller fire upper-90s fastballs at Robinson
Cano.
“This guy’s a big lefty, throws 97, just struck out Cano,” Teixeira said. “So
I wasn’t even thinking that they were going to bring in somebody else. I was
getting into my right-handed mode to think about how I was going to hit against
Miller. I was very surprised they brought in Padilla.”
When you see Robinson Cano hug David Ortiz pregame, you know that a lot of
the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is for the fans. It’s built for prime time. Stirs
excitement. The Teixeira-Padilla rivalry has nothing to do with hats and
t-shirts. Tex and Padilla go back a long way since they were playing together and that is where it started because Tex would get thrown at because of him and then he started hitting Tex when he came to the Yankees.
“The guy throws at people, fact of the matter,” Teixeira said. “I’m not
saying anything that’s news. It is what it is. I’ve always been someone that
wants to play the game the right way. You play hard, but you don’t’ play cheap.
… No one else does (what Padilla does). That’s the thing that’s unbelievable to
me. No one else in baseball does this. Whether he’s changed his ways, I hope he
does. The guy’s a good pitcher. He’s got really good stuff. It would be nice to
just talk to him as a baseball player, not someone who throws at people.”
Padilla is third among active pitchers in hit batters, and he’s hit Teixeira
three times. Their head-to-head dislike for one another extends to when they
were teammates in Texas. Teixeira doesn’t get heated very often, but he does
when he talks about Padilla.
With two on in a one-run game, though, Teixeira knew Padilla wouldn’t try
anything crazy. This was going to be a legitimate at-bat, hitter vs. pitcher,
and Padilla threw nothing but fastballs. It was a 3-2 pitch that Teixeira drove
to center field — very nearly out of the park — for a go-ahead triple.
“Almost every at-bat, he tries to throw at your head, does a throw behind you
or something screwy,” Teixeira said. “With first and second and the game on the
line, he’s not going to do it then, so I could actually dig in and look for a
good pitch to hit. … Game-winning hits always feel good, but that one definitely
felt real good.”
Hiroki Kuroda said the long wait in the top of the first had nothing to do
with it. He simply didn’t have his stuff today. “Not just in the first inning,
but the whole outing,” he said. “I didn’t have most of my pitches.” I would think it had something to do with it but yeah he didn't have it in this game. He has been so good for so long you just shake this one off.
Girardi, though, thought the long wait might have played a part. After that
first inning, Kuroda allowed two runs through 4.2 innings. It was actually huge
that he was able to pitch fairly deep into the game, especially with a
doubleheader tomorrow. “If you’re off tomorrow you might (use the bullpen) a
little bit different,” Girardi said. “But for the most part, I did what I
thought it was to win the game tonight. I wasn’t worried about tomorrow. We
always talk about, worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”
Big, underrated play by Derek Jeter to get the out at third and keep the
Red Sox from loading the bases. Jeter said, whenever there’s a runner at second,
he gives the third baseman a heads up that he might throw over there. “I was
basically thinking if he hit the ball that way I was going to go to third,”
Jeter said. “I thought it was the only play I had. … We work on it. I don’t
think it was that hard. You catch it and throw it to third. It can be difficult
if you’re throwing on the run, but if you don’t get caught off guard, I don’t
think it’s too difficult.” Jeter is just a smart baseball player, always has been and that is what people love about him.
Jeter is hitting .385 in the first inning this
season.
After blowing a few middle-of-the-inning, runners-on-base situations
recently, Dave Robertson got a huge strikeout to end the seventh. He was pulled
with an out to go in the eighth, but he didn’t disagree with the decision. His
command wasn’t great today. “I was able to get a couple of outs and at least
make it a little easier for Sori,” Robertson said.
Alex Rodriguez stole two bases tonight, giving him nine steals for the
year. That’s his highest total since 2009. He’s 9-for-9 on stolen base
attempts. It seems odd that he can do that but not hit homeruns. It just doesn't seem like he has the power anymore, maybe he will have a big second half though.
Russell Martin is now hitless in his past 30 at-bats. It’s the most
consecutive at-bats without a hit by a Yankee since 2004 when both Jeter and
Jason Giambi went hitless in 32 straight.
Darnell McDonald made his Yankees debut as a defensive replacement. His
brother Donzell played in three games for the Yankees in 2001. They are the
eighth set of brothers too play for the Yankees in franchise history.
Final word goes to Teixeira: “I don’t hit a lot of triples. I had a triple
and a stolen base today. I don’t know if that’s ever happened. We’ll have to
look at the Elias Sports Bureau for that one. It was just a big hit. It doesn’t
matter who it was off of. Long game, so when you have a chance to win the game,
it’s always a good feeling.”
Anniversaries and Ballots
5 years ago