New York Yankees Coverage With A Bronx Bias
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The Squirrel Excites, But Wang Wows
By Dan McCourt, NYYFans.com
September 5, 2007
Yankee lawyers had better get busy finding a case in the
rulebook that allows cross-species rooting, because
everyone's favorite squirrel made a reappearance on the
right field foul pole Tuesday, and the offense returned with
him. If the laughably biased way major league baseball has
been adjudicating wayward pitches is any guide, the game is
making a case for neutralizing the happy rodent as I write.
Neither Rocky the Right Field Squirrel nor bombastic offense
played any part in the Yankees' 12-3 victory over Seattle
early on though. Coming off two anemic losses to Tampa Bay
and a defeat in a dominating performance from Felix
Hernandez of the Mariners Monday night, Yankee bats broached
the hit column in the first inning on a Bobby Abreu two-out
double. And the bats continued doing so inning after inning,
but five frames in they had but one lonely tally to go with
their seven hits. Thankfully, catcher Jorge Posada had given
them a 1-0 lead with a liner drilled over the wall in left
leading off the home second, but five evenly spaced followup
singles had not dented the runs column on the board again.
Chien-Ming Wang returned to his roots this night, pounding
one hard sinking fastball after another. His newly refined
slider was spotted and the change of pace missing, but he
got the ground ball going early with three straight bouncers
to second to start the game, and it never stopped. He got
nine of 12 Seattle outs in frames one through four on ground
balls, then put a stop to three straight mini-rallies the
next three innings with double plays. To further punctuate
how well he had the ground game going, he got Jose Lopez to
ground to second leading off the eighth for his 17th of 22
recorded outs via the ground. He left then with a slightly
stiff back, but looked more than ready to finish.
Wang had a mini-bout of wildness, not uncommon, when he
walked the first two leading off the top of the fifth, but
then the one time he needed his defense to rise to the
occasion and thwart an attack they did so. Hideki Matsui
charged and fired a perfect strike to home on an Ichiro
Suzuki single to left, and Adrian Beltre was nailed at the
plate trying to slide in. The run would have tied the Yanks
at one on just the M's second hit of the game, and there is
no telling how the sure-to-have-been demoralized Yanks would
have responded. As it was, Chien-Ming got a 5-4-3 bouncer
out of Kenji Johjima on the next pitch, and Seattle's last
best chance was gone.
Still the Yanks were hovering at 1-0, ripe for a quick
strike, until Alex Rodriguez doubled the margin by homering
off lefty Horacio Ramirez on a deep fly to left. Yankee
Stadium's right field Tier Level, though distant, is often
peppered with home runs. The eighth row in left that Alex
reached can't have been attained more than a handful of
times since the Stadium was reopened in 1976. And the blast
started off a rally, as three singles around a catcher's
interference call plated two more for a 4-0 lead after six.
Wang leaped to stab a Raul Ibanez high hopper to start the
seventh and then Beltre reached him for the sole blemish on
his magnificent outing, a 1-1 drive over the retired numbers
in left to close the score to 4-1. Wang walked Ben Broussard
but a Johjima 6-4-3 ended the inning. Then the right field
frenzy over the return of the squirrel, last seen in a
victory over Boston last week, peaked, and so did the Yankee
offense. A Bombers seven-run uprising off three Seattle
relievers began with an Abreu home run to right. Rodriguez
and Posada singles and a Matsui walk loaded the bases, and
Shelley Duncan's hard single over the third base bag scored
two. Robbie Cano doubled for two more and Melky Cabrera and
Derek Jeter rbi singles scored Cano and Cabrera; seemingly
attached at the hip, these two buddies crossed the plate on
consecutive pitches.
Wang threw just 14 of 26 first-pitch strikes, but his 52/33
strikes/balls ratio was more than acceptable. He allowed
four singles with the home run, walked three, and struck out
just one, Ibanez taking in the fourth. Mariners swung and
missed but three times. Wang gets out by hitting bats far
more often than by missing them.
With 12 hits and 20 runs, one hopes the bats don't go quiet
Wednesday, when the Yanks take on Seattle in their last
head-to-head battle, the last time the Yanks will face a
fellow 2007 Wild Card pretender. With the Red Sox holding a
seven-game lead in the AL East, it may be their only way
into the playoffs. The hits were spread around, with Posada
taking honors on four hits, four runs scored, and two rbi's.
He homered to start things in the second and then again to
close the scoring in the eighth, and is having an incredible
yet consistent year. Cano and Abreu had four hits apiece,
and three rbi's and one rbi, respectively. A-Rod scored
twice on two hits, and the long, long homer should count for
one or two more.
September 4 has been a particularly good day in Yankee
history too, as Sam Jones threw the team's first no-hitter
on this day in 1923, and Jim Abbott repeated the feat
exactly 70 years later. It was this day in 1996 that Andy
Pettitte won his 20th game, the same day current pitching
coach Ron Guidry garnered his in his fabulous 25-3, 1978
season. There is even Yankee precedence for the catcher's
interference Hideki Matsui reached on in the sixth. On
September 4, 1992, Yankee outfielder Roberto Kelly tied a
major league record by reaching safely on that obscure call
for the seventh time.
With the Wild Card lead back up to two games, I'll be in the
Bronx Wednesday evening, as will another 50,000-strong
crowd, rooting rookie righthander Philip Hughes on, as the
Yanks and Mariners reconvene. And we'll all be wondering if
Rocky the Right Field Squirrel will be appearing as well ...
at least until major league baseball gets wind of it.
No telling.
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