There was a time when the Yankees would stroll into Arlington and run the place like it was their own ballpark. Those days are long gone, unless somehow the steroid pioneers of Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro comes out of retirement to rejoin the Rangers again. The Yanks dropped into Texas to face another team off to a great start, the Rangers. No, not the hockey ones.
The highlight of the match-up was going to be the Yanks first look at the prized Japanese import Yu Darvish, who signed a 6-year $60 million dollar contract this past offseason, but the first game was CC Sabatthia vs. Derek Holland. The Yankee bats picked up from where they left off in Fenway and tagged Holland for 7 earned runs in 6 innings, with the biggest exclamation point coming from Alex Rodriguez's massive 3-run homer to left-center. Sabathia actually looked like Sabathia for most of the game and went 8 innings before passing the ball to Mo for his 4th save of the early season.
On deck was the game to decide which team has the better Japanese pitcher as Hiroki Kuroda and Yu Darvish fought to the death, and unfortunately for the Yanks, Darvish was the ruler of the dojo that night. The Rangers had to shell out $51 million just for the rights to negociate with Darvish, then signed him to a $60 million dollar contract. The Rangers risk certainly paid off as Darvish sparkled for 8.1 innings with no runs and 10 strikeouts, to up his season record to 3-0. Kuroda wasn't actually bad himself, only giving up 2 runs, but he certainly picked the wrong day to run into Darvish. Yanks will have to hope Darvish gets a serious case of the Dice-K and burns out by July.
The rubber game brought a twin billing of bad news to the Yankees as first it was revealed Micheal Pineda's sore shoulder turned out to have a tear and will require season-ending surgery. Pineda came over from Seattle in a deal for Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi, in which Seattle must be grinning ear-to-ear about. The other piece of bad news was Phil Hughes regressed from the positives he displayed in his last start against the Twins and was slapped around for 4 runs in 2.2 innings of "work". During spring training the Yanks were actually faced with a dilemna of too many starting pitchers, now with Pineda gone for the year, Hughes hasn't look good, Garcia hasn't looked good, and Pettitte still hasn't thrown a major league pitch since 2010; starting pitching is turning out to be a Hughes, I meant huge, problem.
At 10-8 the Yankees will bow to the Rangers head back home to face a new murderers row lineup in Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder for the Detroit Tigers....
The highlight of the match-up was going to be the Yanks first look at the prized Japanese import Yu Darvish, who signed a 6-year $60 million dollar contract this past offseason, but the first game was CC Sabatthia vs. Derek Holland. The Yankee bats picked up from where they left off in Fenway and tagged Holland for 7 earned runs in 6 innings, with the biggest exclamation point coming from Alex Rodriguez's massive 3-run homer to left-center. Sabathia actually looked like Sabathia for most of the game and went 8 innings before passing the ball to Mo for his 4th save of the early season.
On deck was the game to decide which team has the better Japanese pitcher as Hiroki Kuroda and Yu Darvish fought to the death, and unfortunately for the Yanks, Darvish was the ruler of the dojo that night. The Rangers had to shell out $51 million just for the rights to negociate with Darvish, then signed him to a $60 million dollar contract. The Rangers risk certainly paid off as Darvish sparkled for 8.1 innings with no runs and 10 strikeouts, to up his season record to 3-0. Kuroda wasn't actually bad himself, only giving up 2 runs, but he certainly picked the wrong day to run into Darvish. Yanks will have to hope Darvish gets a serious case of the Dice-K and burns out by July.
The rubber game brought a twin billing of bad news to the Yankees as first it was revealed Micheal Pineda's sore shoulder turned out to have a tear and will require season-ending surgery. Pineda came over from Seattle in a deal for Jesus Montero and Hector Noesi, in which Seattle must be grinning ear-to-ear about. The other piece of bad news was Phil Hughes regressed from the positives he displayed in his last start against the Twins and was slapped around for 4 runs in 2.2 innings of "work". During spring training the Yanks were actually faced with a dilemna of too many starting pitchers, now with Pineda gone for the year, Hughes hasn't look good, Garcia hasn't looked good, and Pettitte still hasn't thrown a major league pitch since 2010; starting pitching is turning out to be a Hughes, I meant huge, problem.
At 10-8 the Yankees will bow to the Rangers head back home to face a new murderers row lineup in Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder for the Detroit Tigers....
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