It was only fitting that the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Texas Rangers in Arlington in the new one-game Wild Card format, setting up a long-awaited standoff with the New York Yankees, the team they were hot on the trail for during the second half of the season. Both teams played each other evenly down the line at nine games a piece in the regular season, and the playoffs would follow suit, prompting one of the narrowing and exciting postseason match-ups in recent Yankee history.
Also as part of these new playoff rules implemented by MLB to spice up baseball in 2012, the number one seeded team (Yankees) would have to start on the road for the divisional series, which means the first two games would take place at Camden Yards. CC Sabathia, who has been shaky in his last two playoff stints in pinstripes, was on the mound trying to get back into his 2009 mode when he was absolutely dominate. For the Orioles, Buck Showalter pulled Jason Hammel out of his hat to pitch, despite the fact he hadn't made a start in several weeks. The Yankees grabbed an early lead thanks to an Ichiro double, with Jeter running on a full-count, which made the score 1-0 Yankees and placed Ichiro on second base with no outs. Instead of a big rally with Alex Rodriguez at the plate, Ichiro attempted to steal third with no outs and was caught (a big no-no in baseball), then Hammel came back to strikeout Rodriguez. The Yanks would only get one run that inning when it looked like the inexperienced Hammel was about to be on the ropes. Sabathia cruised through the first two innings, and in wasn't until the 3rd that he experienced some issues. He would find himself in a bases loaded jam and facing Nate McLouth. Sabathia hung a slider and the hot-hitting McLouth smoked it into right to give the Orioles a 2-1 lead. The Yankees would tie it an inning later thanks to a RBI single from Mark Teixeira, and from there both starting pitchers locked in. The Orioles best chance against Sabathia came in the bottom of the 8th when JJ Hardy lead off with a double. Sabathia got tough; striking out Adam Jones next, getting Matt Wieters to pop up, and then finally retiring Mark Reynolds to end the threat. With the score tied 2-2 in the 9th inning, the home team Orioles brought out their mega closer, Jim Johnson, who had an amazing season with 51 saves, to pitch the inning. Apparently the Yankees weren't impressed with the closer's stats because Russell Martin greeting him with a solo homer to left that gave the Yanks a 3-2 and stunned the crowd at Camden Yards. Other Yankees joined the fun such as Raul Ibanez, Derek Jeter, and Robinson Cano's double off knocked Johnson out of the game and secured the Yanks with a mighty 6-2 lead. Girardi let Sabathia come out in the bottom of the 9th with a 7-2 lead, but after retiring two batters, but failing to get the third, Sabathia was lifted after a great 8.2 inning performance of two-run ball and David Robertson got the final out for the 7-2 Yankee win.
The Yankees sent their other lefty, Andy Pettitte, to the hill for the second game in search of his 20th postseason win against the inexperienced Wei-Yin Chen. The Yankees, just like the night before, had a chance to do damage early, but only got one run out of it. Jeter and Ichiro lead off with singles, giving A-Rod an opportunity to finally make some noise in the postseason since 2009. He lined a shot up the middle that was looking to be a RBI single, but Oriole second baseman Robert Andino snared it in mid-air and toss it to second to double up Jeter. The next hitter, Robinson Cano, then smoked a double to right that scored Ichiro from first on a bizarre play at the plate in which Wieters tried to Ichiro twice around the plate, but missed and the Yanks were up 1-0. Like Sabathia, Pettitte was doing fine until a two-out rally surfaced in the bottom of the third. A bloop hit, followed by a solid single from McLouth, and then a walk to JJ Hardy, put Chris Davis at the plate with the bags juiced. Instead of getting out of the jam, which the crafty Pettitte usually does, Davis ripped a pitch into right and the Orioles took a 2-1 lead. The Yanks had their best chance to either tie it up or even take a lead an inning later in the 4th. With the bases loaded and only one out, Eduardo Nunez came to the plate and popped a weak fly ball to shortstop. Derek Jeter followed that up with a ground out to third and the rally was officially over. The Orioles padded up their lead in the 6th after a Matt Weiters double, Mark Reynolds hit a single to the opposite field in right which scored Wieters for a 3-1 Orioles lead. The Yankees struck back in the 7th, Nunez finally hit the ball, a bloop double, and Jeter got him home with a RBI single and the Yanks were only down 3-2. The bats for both teams took the rest of the night off, allowing Pettitte to go 7 innings, taking the hard luck loss, while Chen went 6.1. Jim Johnson was back on the mound in the 9th for a save this time, looking to put the meltdown the night before behind him, and he did just that, sitting down Jeter and Ichiro very quickly, then getting (of course) A-Rod to strikeout (of course) to end it 3-2 in favor of the Orioles. The save by Johnson tied the series at a game a piece, heading into New York for the final three.
Being the top-seeded team in the AL was finally going to have some payoff with the next three games occurring at the homer-happy Yankee Stadium that benefits the pinstriped club. Hiroki Kuroda was picked to pitch game three and he was going to lock horns with the young Mike Gonzalez, who has had alot of success against the Yanks in 2012 going into this game. Unlike the previous two games, the Orioles struck first in the top of the 3rd from a Ryan Flaherty solo homer. That lead didn't last long, in the bottom of the frame with Russell Martin on base, Derek Jeter hit what looked like an ordinary fly ball to center, but Adam Jones took a step in and soon found himself trying to catch up (while blowing a bubble from his bubblegum). The ball dropped in at the warning track, allowing Martin to score to tie it up 1-1, and putting Jeter at third with two outs. Naturally the Yanks couldn't get a hit to get Jeter in, so it was left tied at 1. The Orioles second blow (as in homer) came in the 5th when 20-year old Manny Machado crushed a ball to left that made it 2-1 Orioles. Other than that, Kuroda was great, going 8.1 innings and only giving up the two runs. Unfortunately for the Yankees at the time, Gonzalez was even more stingy and the Yanks went into the bottom of the 9th trailing 2-1. The 51-save man Jim Johnson came out to pitch, and this is when a monumental substitution in Yankee history occurred. Manager Joe Girardi sat Alex Rodriguez down, who looked terrible trying to hit all night plus struck out against Johnson the night before, and brought up Raul Ibanez to pinch-hit. Ibanez had a number of key homeruns and hits during September, most of which came in a pinch-hitting role. Rodriguez had slumped in postseasons in the past and boos from the Yankee Stadium crowd is nothing new, but this is the first time its been admitted by the Yankee hierarchy that he's simply not a superstar anymore.
The move paid off big time when Ibanez was clutch again and sent a Johnson pitch to right field, tying the game 2-2 with A-Rod watching from the bench. The Yankees couldn't win it in regulation, so it went into extra innings. Jeter too would see bench time, but this was injury related when he was taken out after limping around all night on his bad foot that he fouled pitches off of. In the bottom of the 12, that man again, Raul Ibanez lead off the inning against lefty Brian Matusz. On the first pitch he saw, Ibanez blasted it into the night and the ball went far over the right field wall for a dramatic walk-off 3-2 Yankees win!!
With the dramatic win the night before and the old lefty Joe Saunders on the mound for the Orioles, the Yankees had to have felt the clinch at the tips of their fingers in this best of five series. Jeter was back on the field, sort of, taking the DH spot for the night to rest his aching foot. Girardi started A-Rod at third base and he finally delivered a hit, to the surprise of the crowd. The Yankee bats were quiet yet again in this game, and they failed to put a dent into the veteran Saunders. The Orioles got on the board against Phil Hughes in the 5th after the Yankee rightly danced a tight rope in the previous innings, Nate McLouth lined a solo homer to right that gave the Orioles a 1-0 lead. Cano came up in the 6th with runners on the corners, and his weak ground out to second was to too to turn a double-play, so Jeter scored to tie the score at 1. Cano, along with Swisher, Granderson, and A-Rod, were absolutely brutal in trying to make any sort of contact, and the Yankee crowd was letting them know it. There would be no Raul Ibanez magic this night, Girardi used him only once, with two outs as a substitute for Jayson Nix, and Ibanez came up empty. The move didn't make much sense since Nix was hitting the ball well all night and had two hits to show for it. The night before was a 12-inning affair, this one did one batter with the 13th. In the top of the inning, and with Girardi and Showalter unloading their bullpens, it was left up to Pedro Strop versus Davis Phelps. It would turn out Phelps being the one who would finally buckle. His double to JJ Hardy brought Machado home to score and the Orioles had a 2-1 lead. In the bottom of the inning, Showalter's last man standing, Jim Johnson came on for the save and didn't blow it this time. Girardi once again went to the bench for Alex Rodriguez again Johnson, this time selecting Eric Chavez, but he fared no better and Johnson was able to lock down the 2-1 Orioles win, pushing the series to decisive 5th game to move onto the next round to face the Detroit Tigers.
When Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman restructured CC Sabathia's deal after the pitcher opted out of his original deal before start the season, it was to come up big and wins important games such as a deciding Game 5 of the ALDS. The Yankees ace came up big in Game 1 with a strong 8.2 inning performance for a win, he would need to do the same in order to get the Orioles out of the Yankees' hair. Girardi, seeing the writing on the wall with his crop of slumping hitters in the middle and bottom of the lineup, sat Alex Rodriguez (and his $30 million a year contract) in favor of Eric Chavez for third base, and inserted new fan-favorite Raul Ibanez as the DH. Jeter was back at shortstop after his one day off as a DH. Sabathia and Hammel both picked up from where they left off in Game 1 and were stingy through the first four innings. It wasn't until the bottom of the 5th when the Yankees struck. Mark Teixeira innocently lead off with a single, then with the first baseman not holding him on, actually bad calf and all stole second base to get himself into scoring position. Raul Ibanez would bring Teixeira home on a bleeder up the middle for a 1-0 Yankee lead that seemed so huge for the fact runs were hard to come by during this series. In the top of the 6th, there was a little controversy thanks to a foul ball hit by Nate McLouth that seemed to possibly nick the right field foul pole. Replays weren't conclusive enough to show that the ball changed any direction as a result of it hitting the pole, so after going to check the Instant Replay, the umpires ruled it foul, and Sabathia finished off McLouth with a strikeout. The Yanks would strike again in the bottom of that inning, an Ichrio Suzuki double to the wall in front of the Yankee bullpen brought home Jeter and gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead. There would be more Yankee bat-awaking. Curtis Granderson, another candidate for worst Yankee hitter this postseason, finally connected on a pitch and blasted it to the second deck in right that now had the Yankees up 3-0 with CC Sabathia in complete control. The Orioles finally made it interesting in the top of the 8th after Matt Wieters lead off with a single. Manny Machado took a walk next, but Sabathia was able to come back from a 3-1 count to strikeout Mark Reynolds. The official Sabathia-killer, Lew Ford, came up next and singled under the diving glove of Jeter to bring home the first Oriole run of the night. Andino was next and he chopped an infield single that Sabathia wasn't able to field smoothly, and his throw to second to nail a runner was too late. So the bases were loaded and the Orioles trailing 3-1, with their best hitter of the series, Nate McLouth, batting. This is where Sabathia got into ace-mode; he struckout McLouth, then got Hardy to ground out to short on a fantastic running throw by Jeter. The threat was gone and Sabathia was back out on the mound for the 9th inning with Soriano taxed from the previous two nights, and Game 1 of the ALCS looming the next day. There was no threat this time from Baltimore and CC sat them down 1-2-3 in the 9th for a complete game 3-1 Yankees victory to send them into the next round.
For two teams with big offensive weapons, it came down to very stingy pitching (with the help of batters on both sides being cold as the chilly October weather), but one team had CC Sabathia and the other team didn't. It was good to see Girardi/Cashman stand up and admit finally that A-Rod isn't a superstar player anymore through the moves they made pinch-hitting for him, but A-Rod wasn't the only bat lacking; Cano, Swisher, Granderson, and Teixeira really need to wake up during the next round or else the Yankees will not be going to the World Series....
Also as part of these new playoff rules implemented by MLB to spice up baseball in 2012, the number one seeded team (Yankees) would have to start on the road for the divisional series, which means the first two games would take place at Camden Yards. CC Sabathia, who has been shaky in his last two playoff stints in pinstripes, was on the mound trying to get back into his 2009 mode when he was absolutely dominate. For the Orioles, Buck Showalter pulled Jason Hammel out of his hat to pitch, despite the fact he hadn't made a start in several weeks. The Yankees grabbed an early lead thanks to an Ichiro double, with Jeter running on a full-count, which made the score 1-0 Yankees and placed Ichiro on second base with no outs. Instead of a big rally with Alex Rodriguez at the plate, Ichiro attempted to steal third with no outs and was caught (a big no-no in baseball), then Hammel came back to strikeout Rodriguez. The Yanks would only get one run that inning when it looked like the inexperienced Hammel was about to be on the ropes. Sabathia cruised through the first two innings, and in wasn't until the 3rd that he experienced some issues. He would find himself in a bases loaded jam and facing Nate McLouth. Sabathia hung a slider and the hot-hitting McLouth smoked it into right to give the Orioles a 2-1 lead. The Yankees would tie it an inning later thanks to a RBI single from Mark Teixeira, and from there both starting pitchers locked in. The Orioles best chance against Sabathia came in the bottom of the 8th when JJ Hardy lead off with a double. Sabathia got tough; striking out Adam Jones next, getting Matt Wieters to pop up, and then finally retiring Mark Reynolds to end the threat. With the score tied 2-2 in the 9th inning, the home team Orioles brought out their mega closer, Jim Johnson, who had an amazing season with 51 saves, to pitch the inning. Apparently the Yankees weren't impressed with the closer's stats because Russell Martin greeting him with a solo homer to left that gave the Yanks a 3-2 and stunned the crowd at Camden Yards. Other Yankees joined the fun such as Raul Ibanez, Derek Jeter, and Robinson Cano's double off knocked Johnson out of the game and secured the Yanks with a mighty 6-2 lead. Girardi let Sabathia come out in the bottom of the 9th with a 7-2 lead, but after retiring two batters, but failing to get the third, Sabathia was lifted after a great 8.2 inning performance of two-run ball and David Robertson got the final out for the 7-2 Yankee win.
The Yankees sent their other lefty, Andy Pettitte, to the hill for the second game in search of his 20th postseason win against the inexperienced Wei-Yin Chen. The Yankees, just like the night before, had a chance to do damage early, but only got one run out of it. Jeter and Ichiro lead off with singles, giving A-Rod an opportunity to finally make some noise in the postseason since 2009. He lined a shot up the middle that was looking to be a RBI single, but Oriole second baseman Robert Andino snared it in mid-air and toss it to second to double up Jeter. The next hitter, Robinson Cano, then smoked a double to right that scored Ichiro from first on a bizarre play at the plate in which Wieters tried to Ichiro twice around the plate, but missed and the Yanks were up 1-0. Like Sabathia, Pettitte was doing fine until a two-out rally surfaced in the bottom of the third. A bloop hit, followed by a solid single from McLouth, and then a walk to JJ Hardy, put Chris Davis at the plate with the bags juiced. Instead of getting out of the jam, which the crafty Pettitte usually does, Davis ripped a pitch into right and the Orioles took a 2-1 lead. The Yanks had their best chance to either tie it up or even take a lead an inning later in the 4th. With the bases loaded and only one out, Eduardo Nunez came to the plate and popped a weak fly ball to shortstop. Derek Jeter followed that up with a ground out to third and the rally was officially over. The Orioles padded up their lead in the 6th after a Matt Weiters double, Mark Reynolds hit a single to the opposite field in right which scored Wieters for a 3-1 Orioles lead. The Yankees struck back in the 7th, Nunez finally hit the ball, a bloop double, and Jeter got him home with a RBI single and the Yanks were only down 3-2. The bats for both teams took the rest of the night off, allowing Pettitte to go 7 innings, taking the hard luck loss, while Chen went 6.1. Jim Johnson was back on the mound in the 9th for a save this time, looking to put the meltdown the night before behind him, and he did just that, sitting down Jeter and Ichiro very quickly, then getting (of course) A-Rod to strikeout (of course) to end it 3-2 in favor of the Orioles. The save by Johnson tied the series at a game a piece, heading into New York for the final three.
Being the top-seeded team in the AL was finally going to have some payoff with the next three games occurring at the homer-happy Yankee Stadium that benefits the pinstriped club. Hiroki Kuroda was picked to pitch game three and he was going to lock horns with the young Mike Gonzalez, who has had alot of success against the Yanks in 2012 going into this game. Unlike the previous two games, the Orioles struck first in the top of the 3rd from a Ryan Flaherty solo homer. That lead didn't last long, in the bottom of the frame with Russell Martin on base, Derek Jeter hit what looked like an ordinary fly ball to center, but Adam Jones took a step in and soon found himself trying to catch up (while blowing a bubble from his bubblegum). The ball dropped in at the warning track, allowing Martin to score to tie it up 1-1, and putting Jeter at third with two outs. Naturally the Yanks couldn't get a hit to get Jeter in, so it was left tied at 1. The Orioles second blow (as in homer) came in the 5th when 20-year old Manny Machado crushed a ball to left that made it 2-1 Orioles. Other than that, Kuroda was great, going 8.1 innings and only giving up the two runs. Unfortunately for the Yankees at the time, Gonzalez was even more stingy and the Yanks went into the bottom of the 9th trailing 2-1. The 51-save man Jim Johnson came out to pitch, and this is when a monumental substitution in Yankee history occurred. Manager Joe Girardi sat Alex Rodriguez down, who looked terrible trying to hit all night plus struck out against Johnson the night before, and brought up Raul Ibanez to pinch-hit. Ibanez had a number of key homeruns and hits during September, most of which came in a pinch-hitting role. Rodriguez had slumped in postseasons in the past and boos from the Yankee Stadium crowd is nothing new, but this is the first time its been admitted by the Yankee hierarchy that he's simply not a superstar anymore.
The move paid off big time when Ibanez was clutch again and sent a Johnson pitch to right field, tying the game 2-2 with A-Rod watching from the bench. The Yankees couldn't win it in regulation, so it went into extra innings. Jeter too would see bench time, but this was injury related when he was taken out after limping around all night on his bad foot that he fouled pitches off of. In the bottom of the 12, that man again, Raul Ibanez lead off the inning against lefty Brian Matusz. On the first pitch he saw, Ibanez blasted it into the night and the ball went far over the right field wall for a dramatic walk-off 3-2 Yankees win!!
With the dramatic win the night before and the old lefty Joe Saunders on the mound for the Orioles, the Yankees had to have felt the clinch at the tips of their fingers in this best of five series. Jeter was back on the field, sort of, taking the DH spot for the night to rest his aching foot. Girardi started A-Rod at third base and he finally delivered a hit, to the surprise of the crowd. The Yankee bats were quiet yet again in this game, and they failed to put a dent into the veteran Saunders. The Orioles got on the board against Phil Hughes in the 5th after the Yankee rightly danced a tight rope in the previous innings, Nate McLouth lined a solo homer to right that gave the Orioles a 1-0 lead. Cano came up in the 6th with runners on the corners, and his weak ground out to second was to too to turn a double-play, so Jeter scored to tie the score at 1. Cano, along with Swisher, Granderson, and A-Rod, were absolutely brutal in trying to make any sort of contact, and the Yankee crowd was letting them know it. There would be no Raul Ibanez magic this night, Girardi used him only once, with two outs as a substitute for Jayson Nix, and Ibanez came up empty. The move didn't make much sense since Nix was hitting the ball well all night and had two hits to show for it. The night before was a 12-inning affair, this one did one batter with the 13th. In the top of the inning, and with Girardi and Showalter unloading their bullpens, it was left up to Pedro Strop versus Davis Phelps. It would turn out Phelps being the one who would finally buckle. His double to JJ Hardy brought Machado home to score and the Orioles had a 2-1 lead. In the bottom of the inning, Showalter's last man standing, Jim Johnson came on for the save and didn't blow it this time. Girardi once again went to the bench for Alex Rodriguez again Johnson, this time selecting Eric Chavez, but he fared no better and Johnson was able to lock down the 2-1 Orioles win, pushing the series to decisive 5th game to move onto the next round to face the Detroit Tigers.
When Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman restructured CC Sabathia's deal after the pitcher opted out of his original deal before start the season, it was to come up big and wins important games such as a deciding Game 5 of the ALDS. The Yankees ace came up big in Game 1 with a strong 8.2 inning performance for a win, he would need to do the same in order to get the Orioles out of the Yankees' hair. Girardi, seeing the writing on the wall with his crop of slumping hitters in the middle and bottom of the lineup, sat Alex Rodriguez (and his $30 million a year contract) in favor of Eric Chavez for third base, and inserted new fan-favorite Raul Ibanez as the DH. Jeter was back at shortstop after his one day off as a DH. Sabathia and Hammel both picked up from where they left off in Game 1 and were stingy through the first four innings. It wasn't until the bottom of the 5th when the Yankees struck. Mark Teixeira innocently lead off with a single, then with the first baseman not holding him on, actually bad calf and all stole second base to get himself into scoring position. Raul Ibanez would bring Teixeira home on a bleeder up the middle for a 1-0 Yankee lead that seemed so huge for the fact runs were hard to come by during this series. In the top of the 6th, there was a little controversy thanks to a foul ball hit by Nate McLouth that seemed to possibly nick the right field foul pole. Replays weren't conclusive enough to show that the ball changed any direction as a result of it hitting the pole, so after going to check the Instant Replay, the umpires ruled it foul, and Sabathia finished off McLouth with a strikeout. The Yanks would strike again in the bottom of that inning, an Ichrio Suzuki double to the wall in front of the Yankee bullpen brought home Jeter and gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead. There would be more Yankee bat-awaking. Curtis Granderson, another candidate for worst Yankee hitter this postseason, finally connected on a pitch and blasted it to the second deck in right that now had the Yankees up 3-0 with CC Sabathia in complete control. The Orioles finally made it interesting in the top of the 8th after Matt Wieters lead off with a single. Manny Machado took a walk next, but Sabathia was able to come back from a 3-1 count to strikeout Mark Reynolds. The official Sabathia-killer, Lew Ford, came up next and singled under the diving glove of Jeter to bring home the first Oriole run of the night. Andino was next and he chopped an infield single that Sabathia wasn't able to field smoothly, and his throw to second to nail a runner was too late. So the bases were loaded and the Orioles trailing 3-1, with their best hitter of the series, Nate McLouth, batting. This is where Sabathia got into ace-mode; he struckout McLouth, then got Hardy to ground out to short on a fantastic running throw by Jeter. The threat was gone and Sabathia was back out on the mound for the 9th inning with Soriano taxed from the previous two nights, and Game 1 of the ALCS looming the next day. There was no threat this time from Baltimore and CC sat them down 1-2-3 in the 9th for a complete game 3-1 Yankees victory to send them into the next round.
For two teams with big offensive weapons, it came down to very stingy pitching (with the help of batters on both sides being cold as the chilly October weather), but one team had CC Sabathia and the other team didn't. It was good to see Girardi/Cashman stand up and admit finally that A-Rod isn't a superstar player anymore through the moves they made pinch-hitting for him, but A-Rod wasn't the only bat lacking; Cano, Swisher, Granderson, and Teixeira really need to wake up during the next round or else the Yankees will not be going to the World Series....
