August 30, 2011

G134: Yankees 5, Red Sox 2

Yankees - 010 210 100 - 5  9  0
Red Sox - 000 200 000 - 2 13  0
Sabathia (6-10-2-2-10, 128) finally tamed the Boston bats in his fifth start against the Red Sox this season, although he needed to throw more pitches than he had in any of his previous starts as a Yankee (by innings: 17-33-13 21-25-19).

The Red Sox came up short all night long, leaving 16 men on base and hitting only 2-for-13 with RATS:
2nd inning: With one out, Jarrod Saltalamacchia fanned with runners at 1st & 2nd and Jacoby Ellsbury grounded to second with the bases loaded.

3rd inning: Leadoff batter Marco Scutaro was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.

4th inning: Boston scored twice (Carl Crawford HR, Scutaro RBI double), but Adrian Gonzalez struck out to end the inning, stranding runners at 2nd and 3rd. (He also whiffed in the first and third.)

5th inning: With runners at 2nd and 3rd and one out, Crawford lined to second and Salty struck out.

7th inning: Bases loaded with one out: Boone Logan struck out Salty and Darnell McDonald.

9th inning: David Ortiz doubled to start the inning against Mariano Rivera. Two outs later, Salty was hit by a pitch, but pinch-hitter Josh Reddick lined out to left to end the game.
Boston has left as many as 16 men on base in only one other nine-inning game this year: April 10, a 4-0 win over the Yankees. The Red Sox's LOB high this year is 17, set in the 16-inning, 1-0 victory over Tampa Bay on July 17. ... In 2010, the most Red Sox left on base in any game was 13.

New York chipped away at Lackey (7-7-5-4-3, 119), scoring in four of his seven innings. Nick Swisher went 3-for-3 (with a walk), Eric Chavez had two RBI singles, and Robinson Cano singled, doubled, walked, and scored two runs.

There was some drama after Francisco Cervelli hit a home run over the Wall in the fifth. After his trot, he stomped on the plate and clapped his hands together with extreme exuberance. Cameras caught Lackey (with a barely noticeable smirk on his face) watching Cervelli all the way to the dugout. When the MFY catcher led off the seventh inning, Lackey drilled him in the back with his first pitch. Cervelli barked towards the mound and the benches emptied, though nothing happened. To my dismay, Lackey did not dramatically clap his hands together towards Cervelli. In the bottom half of the seventh, after Logan struck out McDonald to strand three Boston runners on base, Cervelli ran off the field, yelling and pumping his fist about five times (video here). This would appear to be, as the news stations say, a developing situation.
Example
CC Sabathia / John Lackey
Ellsbury, CF
Scutaro, SS
Gonzalez, 1B
Pedroia, 2B
Ortiz, DH
Lowrie, 3B
Crawford, LF
Saltalamacchia, C
McDonald, RF
The Red Sox are 10-2 against the Yankees this season. New York has hit .225 in those 12 games, with a team ERA of 5.98. ... Alex Rodriguez had an MRI on his sprained left thumb yesterday and may miss the series.

Earlier this month, YFSF asked: Is The Rivalry Dead? Paul SF said it's "languishing". I don't know if I'd describe it that way - though the division/playoff set-up has certainly sapped a lot of intensity from any pennant race this season. The relationship between fans of the two teams changed forever in 2004 and I suspect, as Paul does, that the intensity of the late 70s and mid 00s may be a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, the classy Yankees - who have sold more than $1,000,000,000 in merchandise in the last decade - are threatening to take Tracy Coyle, who has been selling Evil Empire t-shirts out of her garage, to federal court.
The Yankees ... argued that the Baseballs Evil Empire mark would cause confusion and "deceive" the public into thinking the T-shirts and caps were Yankees products.

"How could it create confusion for their fans?" says Coyle. "It has a devil face, there's horns and a pitchfork. It doesn't say Yankees."
If the Yankees are claiming that their fans could be confused by the design, then they are freely admitting their fans are morons.

Wednesday: Phil Hughes / Josh Beckett, 7 PM
Thursday: A.J. Burnett / Jon Lester, 7 PM

Game thread here.

19 comments:

Patrick said...

This is the matchup I expected to us to lose last round, and we crushed Sabathia like he was John Lackey.

Let us bring the big man to tears.

Jeremy said...

Some further analysis about the Yankees and the guy making Evil Empire shirts:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110817/21362615567/ny-yankees-its-insulting-to-call-us-evil-empire-its-also-trademark-infringement.shtml

allan said...

Thanks for the TechDirt link. That looks like a very interesting site.

Jere said...

I never know what people are talking about when they say the rivalry is dead or whatever. It happens every time the teams play each other. I turned on the FAN for 5 minutes today and heard the same old question asked when they were interviewing Nick Cafardo. I can't even figure out the motive behind it. Even now with first place on the line and the two teams possibly headed for an ALCS against each other, instead of saying, Okay, let the fun begin, media people (and now Paul SF for some reason) nonchalantly ask "is the rivalry dead?" Over and over.

Go to a Yanks game at Fenway and then see any other team there and see the difference. What other team has their assistant trainer booed there? What other team has it's own special schadenfreude posts at Joy of Sox?

When we beat the Royals, it's just a win. When we beat the Yankees, it's a crowbar to the shin of every single self-righteous, fake-class obsessed, arrogant Yankee fan and has me beaming for the next 24 hours. Do people really need to look hard to find reasons to hate the Yanks? Pop on Suzyn and Sterling or Kay for thirty seconds and you'll remember why you hate them.

And Yankee fans are mad as ever, living in this horrifying world where the Red Sox have actually won the World Series in recent memory. They want to beat us again and again and we want to beat them again and again. Is there any other team either one feels that strongly about? Or strongly at all even?

Again, I wish I knew where this came from. Because then I could say, Oh, these people just wish the rivalry was dead because they.... But I really have no idea why we have to hear this every time the teams play. And it seems like every series something will happen on the field that gets the fans/players all fired up and I think about all the people who wrote their "rivalry dead" articles going, Oh shit, that's right, this IS different, why do I keep forgetting??

allan said...

But you do agree that it is different since 2004?

***

And Yankee fans are mad as ever

Where they ever really mad before October 2004? They mostly laughed at us, in my opinion.

laura k said...

Where they ever really mad before October 2004? They mostly laughed at us, in my opinion.

I concur.

****

If people are saying the rivalry is dead (I'll take Jere's word for it, I don't listen to or read venues where I'd see that, so I wouldn't know), I think it could only be for one reason. They conceived of the rivalry as a one-way street: Red Sox fans grinding their teeth, punching the walls, seething, broken hearted, always on the losing end. NYY fans strutting, obnoxious, always winning. I'm not saying this reflected reality - merely that millions of people thought of the rivalry that way.

As that is no longer the case, the rivalry as they imagined it is, in fact, over.

Obviously I have no way of testing that theory or backing it up. But after I read Jere's comment, it's the first thing I thought of.

allan said...

Where they ever really mad before October 2004? They mostly laughed at us, in my opinion.

I concur.


And she ought to know.

The rest of L's post rings true, as well.

The first time I ever saw MFY fans get seriously mad at me was G2 of the 2005 season. It was the Jeter HR walkoff game and some fans were naturally giving me shit on the way out. I said nothing, and opened my jacket to show them my 2004 Champs t-shirt. They got seriously angry, for real.

Amy said...

Oh, goody, a trademark case brought by the Yankees. Can't wait to read more about it.

Kyle said...

Can anyone explain why Francona didn't pitch hit for McDonald in the 7th with bases loaded? I know our bench options are slim but McDonald? Come on.

laura k said...

Can anyone explain why Francona didn't pitch hit for McDonald in the 7th with bases loaded? I know our bench options are slim but McDonald? Come on.

Who would you have put in?

tim said...

PHing for McDonald vs. Logan (LHP):

Your options are:
a) McDonald (Aug OPS .697)
b) Reddick (Aug OPS .585 and OPS of .387 in his last 10 games)
c) Aviles (Aug OPS .698)
d) Varitek (not really an option but was on the bench so hes on this list)

I'm taking McDonald. Aviles would have been the only other option, he is 1-4 vs. Logan. McDonald was 0-1 vs. Logan prior to that AB. As far as I'm concerned, the tradeoff is negligible. Up to that point last night, McDonald was 1-2 with a BB, so a decent game for him. When Reddick did PH for him in the 9th, I'm sure Tito was just looking to build off of Reddick's last walk-off vs. MFY (which wasn't even off Mo). He has really hit the shits lately and I look forward to him being left off of the postseason roster.

Tom said...

"self-righteous, fake-class obsessed, arrogant Yankee fan"

Jere - care to explain what "fake-class" means? Both my parents are Yankees fans, and I'm a Sox fan, so I'm curious.

laura k said...

Guys can no longer be happy when they hit one out or get a big out with the bases loaded?

"No longer?" As if this is new? The former players in the broadcast booth were amazed that a hitter blatantly showed up the pitcher that way. It may be "a joke" to you, but right or wrong, it's the way the game is played - not recently, but always. The only difference is these days it doesn't always end in a fight, only occasionally.

and while we are at it, can we enforce the rules so that we don't have 4 hour 9 inning games? 4 hours! Who has tmie for that?

Someone is forcing you to watch the game?

I don't know about you, but my plans for yesterday evening was baseball. I wasn't waiting for the game to end so I could do a stock trade or buy groceries. When the game ended, I went to sleep.

Who has time for that? Millions of baseball fans. If you're not one of them, your loss. Why you're coming here to complain is anybody's guess.

allan said...

I am a Red Sox fan, I don't "hate" the Yankees

You lost me.

Baseball players are such pansies.

Please make an attempt to expand your vocabulary if you plan to comment here in the future.

Baseball's 'unwritten code' is a joke.....

Some unwritten rules are stupid, some are less so.

can we enforce the rules so that we don't have 4 hour 9 inning games? 4 hours!

There are no rules mandating 4-hour games.

Who has tmie for that?

Me.

If you like games that are 2.5 hours, then stop watching after 2.5 hours. It's all quite simple. When you trun on a game, MFY/Sox or otherwise, you generally have an understanding what you are in for, right?.

I'd say fans who can't get through a four-hour game are pansies, but I try to avoid using homophobic insults.

allan said...

Note: L and I replied to a comment which has been deleted.

Amy said...

I saw the post. I assume he deleted it himself? Weird.

laura k said...

Note: L and I replied to a comment which has been deleted.

Good call.

laura k said...

Amy, Allan deleted it.

Amy said...

OK, good enough for me.