The New York Yankees get back on the winning track with home win over the Baltimore Orioles

The New York Yankees defeated the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday night.  The game took place at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York and the final score was 4-3.  Nathan Eovaldi started for the Yankees and pitched ok.  Alex Rodriguez had a couple of hits and RBI and Mark Teixeira had a couple of hits and RBI.  Rodriguez hit his 661st homerun to become fourth on the all-time homeruns list passing Willie Mays. 

Eovaldi pitched 5 2/3 innings giving up six hits and three runs with three walks and three strikeouts.  Eovaldi won his third game of the season.  Justin Wilson faced four batters and retired them all, Dellin Betances pitched a perfect inning with a strikeout and Andrew Miller picked up his 12th save of the season.  Miller walked a batter and struck out two. 

Chris Tillman lost his fourth game of the season pitching 5 2/3 innings giving up ten hits and four runs with three walks and three strikeouts.  Tommy Hunter pitched 1 1/3 innings giving up a hit and striking out two and Brian Matusz pitched a perfect inning with a strikeout. 

Jacoby Ellsbury had two hits and drew a walk, Brett Gardner had two hits and Rodriguez had two hits and two RBI.  Teixeira had two hits, two RBI and drew a walk.  Chase Headley had a hit, Stephen Drew had a hit and drew a walk and Didi Gregorius had a hit.  Gardner, Teixeira and Drew each hit a double.  Rodriguez hit a homerun and the Yankees were 2-8 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base.  Eovaldi had a pickoff. 

In the first Paredes hit a solo homerun to give the Orioles a 1-0 lead.  The Yankees tied the game in the first on a Rodriguez sac fly that was a three run homerun that Young brought back.  Teixeira hit an RBI single to give them a 2-1 lead.  In the third Joseph hit a solo homerun to tie the game at two.  Rodriguez hit a solo homerun in the seventh to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead.  Joseph hit an RBI double in the fifth to tie the game at three.  Teixeira hit an RBI double in the fifth to make it a 4-3 game and that would be the final score as the Yankees bullpen shut down the Orioles.  The two teams will play game two of four on Friday night.  Adam Warren will start for the Yankees against Miguel Gonzalez of the Orioles. 

Yankees postgame notes from Boston

Here are the Yankees postgame notes from Thursday night in Boston.  The Yankees finally won two in a row and won a series.  It has been a while since they did either. Jeter tied Mays on the all-time hits list and kept the Yankees tied for first.  The Lohud Yankees blog has all the information and I add in some thoughts. 

There are absolutely times when Derek Jeter’s intangibles are blown out of proportion. In fact, there are times when that storyline does a disservice the tangible player he’s been. But there are other times when Jeter’s quiet brand of leadership deserves a turn in the spotlight. It’s cliche to write a Captain Jeter story, and it feels silly to suggest he’s able to will this team to win simply by being himself.
But Jeter has that reputation for a reason.

In no way was Jeter the Yankees best player tonight — this game belonged to Phil Hughes in ever which way — but wouldn’t you know it, the Yankees had just one hit with runners in scoring position tonight, and it was Jeter who floated that RBI single into center field. And wouldn’t you know it, that hit just happened to be No. 3,283 for his career, tying Willie Mays — Willie Mays! — for 10th place — 10th place! — on baseball’s all-time hits list.

“It’s pretty special if you think about it,” Jeter said. “But it’s kind of hard to think about it now because we’re trying to win games.”  This is so Jeter, if they had a bigger lead he may talk about it more but would still say the goal is to get to the postseason then win a series. 

Of course he said that. Of course Jeter said the most perfect thing anyone could say in a situation like this. Did you expect anything different?  The answer is no of course not, does he ever say the wrong thing. 

“He was playing on probably about one ankle tonight, maybe one-and-a-quarter,” Joe Girardi said. “That’s who he is. He’s a fighter, and he finds a way. He gets the big hit tonight, and it’s impressive. … There’s no doubt that he’s a leader and he leads by example. He’s done that his whole career.”

Did the Yankees win this one for Jeter? No, I don’t think so. That RBI single was his only hit in a 1-for-5 night, and it was technically Andruw Jones’ sacrifice fly that brought home the winning run, but nights like this have helped build Jeter’s legacy. You could see him limping when he ran, but there was no doubt that he’d downplay the injury in the clubhouse and shift the focus to things much bigger than his left ankle. And he did exactly that. He did exactly what the Yankees have come to expect him to do.

“You cannot change anything that’s happened,” he said. “We’re in first place for a reason. We’ve played pretty well for the majority of the season. You’re going to go through up and downs, and obviously we would’ve loved to have won all the series leading up to this point but it wasn’t the case. All we can control is how we’re playing now, and we played well here.”  He is right about that and then you move on and try to get a lead in the division. 

This was only Hughes’ second career quality start at Fenway Park, and his first scoreless start in this stadium. He held the Red Sox hitless until two outs in the fourth, the deepest he’d carried a no-hitter since September 15, 2010 when he took one into the fifth inning. His seven strikeouts matched his highest total against Boston.  I know it is a depleted team but this should be a confidence booster, it should make him feel good.  Hughes has pitched well lately which the Yankees have needed. 

Hughes’ giving a blunt assessement of the crowd here in Boston: “To be honest, the atmosphere was a little dull in here for the first time in a long time because of the way the Red Sox season has gone this year. If anything, it just felt like a normal game. We just had to go out and win. We got two out of three here, we have to go home and have a tough series against the Rays. We have to get it done.”

Hughes really leaned on his fastball tonight, and he was aggressive with it. He said he tried to use his new slider early in the game, but the Red Sox weren’t really offering at it, so he decided to stick with the fastball. “I think I had nine or 10 pitches through three or four outs,” he said. “To get off on a good start like that really helps your pitch count later on in the game. That was the case tonight. I was pounding the strike zone early and forcing them to either get into bad counts or swing early and hit themselves into outs, so it’s a big day.”

This was career start No. 100 for Hughes. It was also his 29th of the season, matching his career-high set in 2010. He threw 95 pitches, his fewest ever in an outing of at least seven innings.  This is the thing people forget, he has been durable this year, taking the ball every fifth day and he has won 15 games. 

 Rafael Soriano got his 38th save of the season. It’s the first time he’s saved games on consecutive nights since July 16-17.  That seems crazy with this team but it is true, he has been great for them though. 

Girardi said he would have liked to have stayed away from Boone Logan and Dave Robertson, but he knew he could use them for a handful of pitches if necessary. In a two-run game, it was necessary. “In your mind, you say if you can stay away from them, you stay away from them,” Girardi said. “Boone didn’t throw a lot of pitches the last two days, even today we didn’t ask him to throw a lot. Robby, I was a little more concerned about, but I knew I wasn’t going to ask him to throw a full inning. I figured I’d have him for one hitter. Again, he came to me and said he was great.”  This time of the year that all kind of goes out the window. 

Alex Rodriguez scored his 1,888th career run in the fourth inning tying him with Lou Gehrig for ninth on baseball’s all-time scoring list. He went 2-for-5 tonight and has a hit in 15 of his past 16 games.

It was a good night for Eduardo Nunez who had two hits and no errors. In his first game back at shortstop since rejoining the team, the Red Sox first ball in play was hit to him. Of course it was.  That is the way baseball is. 

This was the Yankees ninth shutout of the season, and their first since August 14 against Texas. Last time they pitched a shutout at Fenway was July 25, 2008.

According to Elias, the last player to be in the Top 10 career hits list while an active member of the Yankees was Paul Waner in 1945. There’s your totally random fact of the night.  That is a cool stat though. 

The Yankees have won back-to-back games for the first time since August 15.

Final word goes to Jeter: “Now we’re on a winning streak, so were good again, right? It was great to win this series, it really was, but we start all over tomorrow when we get home. Tampa always plays us tough. They’re a handful, so we have to be ready to play, because the teams we’re playing want to beat us.”

Yankees weekend notes

Joe Girardi didn't see anything good out of Freddy Garcia on Saturday but he didn't want to make any rash decisions.  He went home and had a good nights sleep.  He decided on Sunday that Garcia would be moved to the bullpen and that David Phelps would be moved to the rotation.  I don't think this was too hard of a decision and one the Yankees had to make.  D.J. Mitchell was also called up from AAA on Sunday and will be in the bullpen as the long man.  Garcia will see mop up duty I would say and that is about it.  I would guess that when Petitte comes back he could be released but we will see.  Here are some other notes from the weekend.  A lot of these are courtesy of the Lohud Yankees blog by Chad Jennings.  I also have my own insights as always. 

Although Garca said he physically feels fine, Girardi said it’s entirely possible that the Yankees will send him for medical tests. Garcia’s fastball velocity has dipped, and his split — an effective put-away pitch last season — has been cutting. It was an 0-2 split that Andy Dirks hit for a three-run home run in the first inning.

“I don’t see the crispness in his pitches,” Girardi said. “If we didn’t see it in spring training I’d say, well, maybe it’s not going to be there. But it was there. He threw great in spring training. He threw harder than he did last year. For whatever reason it’s not there right now.”

Garcia seemed baffled, frustrated and uncertain following the loss. He said he’d like to make his next start, but acknowledged that he’s not sure the Yankees will send him back out there.

“I’m just struggling, man,” he said. “For me, it’s really hard. I like to compete and I’m not competing right now. It’s frustrating. … My velocity is down. We work hard last week on a couple of things and things are not going in the right way right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

For the first time, Girardi called David Phelps a candidate to move into the rotation. “Any time you have a long man, he’s a candidate to be a starter,” Girardi said. “Your long man is someone who is a sixth starter all the time in the bullpen.”

After three hitless innings today, Phelps ERA is down to 3.57. After two rocky outings, today looked much more like what the Yankees saw out of Phelps in the first two weeks of the season. “My last two outings I was just trying to do a little bit too much instead of staying within myself,” he said. “I kind of got back to that today.”

The bullpen allowed one run through 7.1 innings. Cody Eppley gave up a solo homer to Miguel Cabrera, but that was the extent of the damage. Despite Garcia’s awful start, the Yankees had a chance because of the pen. “It just speaks volumes to the quality of arms we have in our bullpen, the job that we’ve done all year,” Phelps said. “You saw tonight, we were 10 or 15 feet away from having a tie ballgame. It’s what we’re supposed to do, go in and give our team a chance to win. We’ve been doing a great job of it so far.”

Those 10 or 15 feet came on Eric Chavez’s fly ball to end the game. A three-run ninth got Chavez to the plate as the tying run with two outs in the ninth. He gave the ball quite a ride, but it was caught short of the wall.

Nick Swisher homered from both sides of the plate for the 11th time in his career, tying Eddie Murray and Chili Davis for the second-most such games all time behind Mark Teixeira. This was the first time Swisher had homered at home this season. He has six home runs.

Curtis Granderson hit his seventh homer of the season. It was his first home run off a left-hander this season.

Garcia has allowed nine first-inning runs this season.

This is the first time in Garcia’s career that he’s gone back-to-back starts without pitching out of the second inning. Last time it happened to a Yankees starter was Chien-Ming Wang in 2009. That’s not exactly the comparision he wants right now.

 It’s worth noting that D.J. Mitchell last started on Tuesday, making Sunday his regular day to pitch.  He was called up on Sunday but he will be in the bullpen along with Freddy Garcia for now.  I couldn't imagine a situation other then a blow out where Garcia would pitch. 

Speaking of minor league starters: The Yankees confirmed that Andy Pettitte’s next start will be with High-A Tampa, not Double-A Trenton. They don’t want him pitching in the cold.

It’s easy to look at CC Sabathia’s past three starts and believe that he’s been the exception to the rule. The rest of the rotation might have struggled, but surely not the Yankees ace. Not the guy who just beat the Rangers and Tigers in back-to-back starts and has pitched into the eighth inning three times in a row.

But slow starts are nothing new to Sabathia, and his first few outings this year weren’t particularly ace-like. What makes Sabathia an exception to the rule is that there’s never any doubt he’ll get it turned around and get on this kind of roll.

“I think we’ve seen him do it time and time again,” manager Joe Girardi said. “When we signed him, in spring training, we talked about that this is a guy who has notoriously got off to slow starts, let’s not evaluate him the first month of the season. And if I remember, that start was a little bit slow. You talk about a guy that you signed for a long time and expect good things, but that’s kind of his history. So that gives me confidence that he does get off to a slow start that things are going to turn around, because I’ve seen it time and time again.”

Sabathia’s ERA has dropped with each start. He was better than the numbers showed in Texas, but today was a legitimately dominant performance. Prince Fielder took him deep, and Miguel Cabrera hit an RBI double, but Sabahtia allowed only two other hits and struck out eight.

“You always feel confident that you can go out and hold a team down,” Sabathia said. “I felt pretty good today. Moved the ball around and made some pitches. … (Fastball command) has been getting better in the bullpens and in the games. I’ve been able to command it. I think that really makes my offspeed stuff that much better. When I can do that, I feel pretty good.”

On a day the Yankees took a proactive step to try to improve the back of their rotation, the best thing they could do to sort out the top of the rotation was to leave Sabathia exactly where he is.

“He’s a guy that we’ve come to rely on, going out there and battling and keeping us in games,” Derek Jeter said. “He’s a guy that doesn’t want to come out, and especially when we’ve been using out bullpen a lot lately, he was exactly what we needed.”

Girardi confirmed after today’s game that David Phelps will take Garcia’s spot in the rotation on Thursday in Kansas City. That’s about four hours from Phelps’ family home in St. Louis. “They were coming out regardless,” Phelps said. “But they were going to come Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Now I’m sure they’ll come on Thursday. It’s nice for the family too, to know exactly which day I’m going to pitch.”

Although Girardi says it’s not a personal catcher situation, Chris Stewart has caught Sabathia’s past three starts, and Sabathia said he hasn’t shook once in the past two starts. “It feels good,” Sabathia said. “To believe in what he’s calling, he’s been calling great games, catching great games. I’m just excited about being able to work with him for however long it works out.”

Stewart has at least one hit in each of those past three starts, and today’s single led to a run on a close play at the plate in the seventh inning. “We talk about it with all our catchers, your first job is defense,” Girardi said. “You talk about saving runs. I know that doesn’t go on the back of a bubblegum card, but it’s really really important, and he does a tremendous job doing it. I tell our catchers, offense is second. Save runs for me. And they understand that.”

 Dave Robertson picked up right where Sabathia left off today, striking out two in a dominant ninth inning. Through 10 innings this season, Robertson has allowed seven hits and struck out 15. He’s the last Yankees pitcher — except D.J. Mitchell, I guess — who has yet to be charged with a run.

Alex Rodriguez drove in two runs today and moved ahead of Willie Mays for sole possession of eighth place on baseball’s all-time RBIs list. He has 1,904.  I don't think a lot of people realize where he is numbers wise.  It isn't just homeruns, he is up there in hits as well.  When his career is all said and done he will be in the top five most likely in hits and RBI and he will probably have over 3000 hits. 

Just a little bit behind Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson picked up his 500th career RBI today.

Granderson said he had to watch a replay to realize how close Austin Jackson came to catching Granderson’s fourth-inning home run to center field. “I didn’t see what happened right away,” Granderson said. “When I heard the crowd make the noise that they did, I knew something good happened, I just didn’t know on which side. Then the umpire told me it went over the fence.”

Jeter snapped an 0-for-9 with a 2-for-3. He now has 36 hits, his most ever for the season’s first month. He leads the team with 12 multi-hit games this season.

Andruw Jones was hitless in his past 19 at-bats but went 2-for-2 with a home run after replacing Nick Swisher, who left with a hamstring injury.

The Yankees drew a season-high nine walks and scored their first run on a bases-loaded walk. Tigers starter Max Scherzer had seven of those walks. “We’re not supposed to do that,” Jim Leyland said. “Major League pitchers are not supposed to do that, walk that many.”

The Triple-A rotation has lost D.J. Mitchell, but it’s getting Manny Banuelos back from the disabled list on Wednesday.

The Yankees take the series behind a sharp CC Sabathia

The New York Yankees defeated the Detroit Tigers 6-2 on Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. This was the third game of the three game series and the Yankees won two out of three. CC Sabathia started for the Yankees and pitched really well, his best game of the season so far. Alex Rodriguez passed Willie Mays on the all-time RBI list, Robinson Cano had a couple of hits and Curtis Granderson and Andruw Jones each had a homerun. Nick Swisher left the game early with a low grade strain of his hamstring. 
Sabathia pitched eight innings giving up two runs and four hits. He walked two and struck out eight. Sabathia leads the American league in strikeouts. Dave Robertson pitched a perfect inning with two strikeouts. Sabathia gave the Yankees just what they needed as they had a worn out bullpen from the last couple of games. Max Scherzer took the loss his third of the season for the Tigers. He pitched 4 2/3 innings giving up seven hits and three runs with seven walks and four strikeouts. The Tigers used two relievers who pitched 3 1/3 innings giving up four hits and three runs with two walks and a strikeout.

Derek Jeter had two hits and drew two walks, Curtis Granderson had a hit and two RBI and drew a walk and Alex Rodriguez had a hit, two RBI and drew a walk. Cano had two hits and an RBI, Swisher drew a walk and Jones had two hits, an RBI and drew a walk. Raul Ibanez drew two walks, Eric Chavez had two hits and drew a walk and Chris Stewart had a hit. Granderson and Jones each had a homerun. The Yankees didn’t have any doubles or triples. They were 3-13 with runners in scoring position and left 15 men on base.

Brandon Boesch had two hits for the Tigers. Miguel Cabrera had a hit and an RBI, Prince Fielder had a hit and an RBI and Gerald Laird drew a walk. Danny Worth drew a walk, Boesch and Cabrera each had a double and Fielder hit a homerun. The Tigers were 0-4 with runners in scoring position and left four men on base.

In the second Granderson walked with the bases loaded to make it a 1-0 game. Rodriguez hit an RBI single, it was an infield single and it made it 2-0 Yankees. In the fourth inning Fielder hit a solo homerun to make it a 2-1 game. In the bottom of the fourth the Yankees got the run back on a Granderson solo homerun that made it 3-1 Yankees. In the sixth a Cabrera RBI double pulled the Tigers within one at 3-2. In the seventh Rodriguez reached on a fielders choice and a run scored to make it 4-2, Cano hit a sacrifice fly to make it 5-2. The final run of the game came in the eighth inning on a Jones solo homerun.

The Yankees took two out of three in this three game series. The Yankees are now 12-9 on the season and the Tigers are 10-11. The Yankees will remain at home for a three game series with the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles are playing good baseball and are in first place in the AL East.