Bananas for a Split

Pardon the bad pun. We're back after a little R & R, which in this case stands for lazy & listless. Okay, so they aren't "R" words, but who cares. Just needed a little time away from the blogosphere. But boy do we have a lot to talk about now.

Let's start off with the Yankees-Red Sox games of the last 2 days. A remarkable set of games that enabled the Yankees to split the 4-game series. And it was a HUGE split after losing those first two.

We'll work our way backwards starting with last night. Yankees got jump started in the 2nd inning when Alex Rodriguez took Sox starter Tim Wakefield deep for a 1-0 Yankees lead. It was home run number 536, tying Mickey Mantle for 13th place on the all-time home run list. The fans went crazy, even Madonna, who shall be known as Mad-Rod from this day forward.

The Red Sox countered with 3 off Joba Chamberlain in the 5th inning. The little gnat Dustin Pedroia delivering a 2-run single to put Boston ahead. We don't often (as in never) agree with Joe Morgan, but he hit the nail on the head last night. With the game tied 1-1, two and two out, Chamberlain had a full count against Jacoby Ellsbury. He twice shook off Jose Molina, who wanted him to throw a fastball. Instead Chamberlain threw a breaking pitch for ball four and one of the hottest hitters in baseball, Pedroia, had an ideal hitting situation. Chamberlain is way too inexperienced to be shaking off a veteran like Molina. That last part is our theory not Morgan's, but we'd bet he'd agree.

The teams exchanged runs, which put the Yankees down 4-2 entering the 7th inning. A-Rod led off with a single and one out later, Jorge Posada singled off reliever Javier Lopez. That brought up Robinson Cano, who hit ripped one to right. The ball kicked around a bit allowing both runners to score and Cano to pull into third with a game tying triple.

We take issue a bit here with Joe Girardi here for not having Melky Cabrera try to squeeze home Cano. Melky's swung the bat better the last few games, but he's still nowhere close to firing on all cylinders. Melky put the ball on the ground and Cano, running on contact, was easily out at the plate. Molina then struck out to end the inning.

Mariano Rivera walked the tight rope in Saturday's save- more on that later- but was back on target last night. He did have to face Manny Ramirez in the 9th with two out and the go ahead run on 3rd base, but Manny never took the bat off his shoulder, looking at three straight called strikes. Mo mowed them down in the 10th and then it was the Yankees turn to face the Sox closer.

Jon Papelbon has been good, but not as good as last year. Cano took him back up the middle for a lead off single and Melky laid down a perfect sac bunt. Papelbon blew fastballs easily past Wilson Betemit for the 2nd out, but then got into a battle with rookie Brett Gardner. The kid finally hit one back up the middle, just off the glove of a diving Julio Lugo and past Pedroia, who was backing up on the play. Cano raced home with the winning run and the Yankees had themselves a mighty fine win.


Back to Saturday's chaos. A magnificent performance from Mike Mussina, who was screwed out of an All-Star selection, but more on that later. He was great once again, throwing six shutout innings, allowing 4 hits, one walk, and striking out 5.


The Yankees had scored in the 2nd on an RBI single by Melky Cabrera and a sac fly in the 6th by Brett Gardner (not a bad weekend for him). Jose Veras and Kyle Farnsworth pitched a stellar inning each, which brought things to the 9th and Mariano Rivera. And that's when things got a little crazy.

J.D. Drew started the 9th with a single back up the middle. Rivera then hit Manny Ramirez, and just that quickly, Boston had the tying men on base. Mike Lowell poked a single to right to cut the lead in half, with pinch-runner Brandon Moss stopping at 2nd base. Mo then hit Kevin Youkilis, which nearly caused us to spit our shrimp francese across the restaurant (made sure to get a seat with a view of the bar TV), to load the bases with no one out.

"Moose doesn't deserve not to win this" played over and over in our minds. But then Mo went back to being Mo. Coco Crisp took a weak hack and struck out. Jason Varitek, AL All-Star, yeah we'll get back to that later too, popped up to first. So it came down to Julio Lugo and he was no match for "The Great Ree-Vare-uh", as John Miller likes to say. Strike 3, ball game over, Yankees win...yeah, you know the drill.