Too close for comfort

             With the Orioles bumper-to-bumper behind the Yankees, the last trip of 2012 to Fenway Park against a watered down Red Sox was a great way to try to put some more room between themselves of those pesky birds of Baltimore. The Sox officially tossed in the towel for 2012 by trading away some of their biggest names to the Dodgers including Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford (injured anyways), and a real staple of the organization, Josh "Beer Belly" Beckett.



             Still, its Yankees-Red Sox, and its Fenway Park, so it turned out to be not such a cakewalk as one would think. After splitting a four-game series in Camden and winning the final game in unlikely fashion, the Yankees were trying to turn the page of their doldrums and Hiroki Kuroda was the one of the mound to get things started. Not shipped out by the Sox was Beckett's fried chicken partner, Jon Lester, and the Yanks were primed to knock him out early. Lester had control issues early in the 1st, and after falling behind 1-0 from a Robinson Cano RBI ground out, the bases would eventually be loaded for Curtis Granderson. With a chance to put a crooked number up on the board early, Granderson would pop up and end the threat. Lester settled down and the Red Sox had their fun in the bottom of the 3rd. Two other "normal" Red Sox still left, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, hit RBI singles to turn the lead 2-1 Red Sox. Derek Jeter stepped up in the 6th with two runners on when the Captain slapped a double to the opposite field that stayed fair and went for a ground rule double. Of course, its still Yankees-Red Sox, and in the bottom of the frame Dustin Pedroia tied it up at 3 with a solo homerun over the green monster. Kuroda pitched into the 7th and needed to be lifted after one out. It stayed that way until the bottom of the 9th with one out and Yankee reliever David Robertson on the mound. The ever-annoying Pedro Ciriaco would single to get on base. The next hitter, Mike Aviles, hit a soft grounder in the hole at shortstop that Jeter wasn't able to make a play on. This placed the speedy Ciriaco at second base, and would end up costing the Yankees the game when Ellsbury followed with a RBI single into right that scored the game-winning run at 4-3.



             Needing wins against a weak Red Sox squad in a tight division race, the pressure was on for rookie Yankee starter David Phelps to come through. The game was scoreless until the top of the 4th when the Yankee hitters finally got to Aaron Cook. Curtis Granderson got it started with a solo homerun to right field, and soon after, Robinson Cano when yard with a 2-run shot over the green monster that made it 3-0. The Red Sox did get to Phelps for a run in the 4th, but the young starter was brilliant in a near-playoff importance type of game, especially in the 5th inning when he erased the threat of a lead-off triple by getting the next three outs without the run scoring. Phelps gave the Yankees 5.2 innings and would end up getting the win. Curtis Granderson added to the Yanks' lead in the 7th with his second homerun of the night, a 2-run shot to make it 5-1 and it seemed the game was over. Dustin Pedroia's pregnant wife helped the Bombers out by going into labor during the game, causing the able-bodied Pedroia to exit the game early to be with his wife.



            Without Pedroia, the Sox kept fighting back against their New York rival and got two of those runs back in the bottom of the 7th. With a 5-3 score in the bottom of the 8th and runners on, Yankees manager Joe Girardi went to Rafael Soriano to get a four-out save. On a 3-2 count to Cody Ross, a low slider was called for strike three to the Yankees' benefit and fury spread across the Red Sox dugout which caused Ross, manager Bobby Valentine (plus two of his coaches), to get tossed from the game. The drama didn't end there; in the bottom of the 9th Jarrod Saltalamacchia homered and brought the game to 5-4. Then the very next hitter, Daniel Nava, took Soriano deep to the green monster and had the crowd in an uproar, but it wasn't hit quite well enough and the ball landed in Chris Dickerson's glove for the first out of the inning. Soriano kept his composure from there and was able to record the final two outs for the 5-4 win and his 37th save of the season. Even though the Yanks won, it was at a cost with their MVP Derek Jeter having to leave the game after re-injuring a bone bruise on his foot he's been (secretly) nursing.



             It came down to a final showdown with Phil Hughes, the Yankees best starter at the moment (sadly), and lefty Felix Doubront, who has been tough on the Yanks this season. Jeter was able to make the lineup, but as a DH, and Pedroia was totally out of the picture playing daddy. With the thin Red Sox lineup even further weakened with the loss of Pedroia, Phil Hughes did what he should do in that situation and pounded the strike zone. It looked like the Sox weren't even interested in playing by swinging early in the count and giving Hughes one easy inning after another. Doubront was good in his own right, but a bases loaded situation in the 4th allowed Andruw Jones to sac fly in a run and give the Yankees all the offense they would need at 1-0. The injured Captain, Derek Jeter, added another run in the 7th by poking a bloop-single to center off of Red Sox reliever Junichi Tazawa. Hughes was dominating in 7.1 innings of work with 7 strike outs for the night. Rafael Soriano came on in the 9th to close it out, and made it less dramatic this time for save number 38 for the season. The 2-0 win let the Yankees keep pace with the Orioles who never lose a game anymore.



            The 81-63 Yankees should be kicking themselves for letting the first game against Boston get away, next up is three games at home against the Tampa Bay Rays, who are also treading on the Yanks' AL East/Wild Card property.....
  

That's what it should look like

             A few weekends ago the struggling Boston Red Sox came into Yankee Stadium and stole two out of three thanks to late-inning heroics from Pedro Ciriaco and former-Yankee Alfredo Aceves. After a new bout of controversies concerning rumored reports that Red Sox players want manager Bobby Valentine removed from his position, the Sox make another trip to the high-flying Yankees after they just took three out of four against the Texas Rangers. If the deck wasn't stacked against Boston enough, their slugger David Ortiz was still on the DL with his Achilles injury.



             The Sox, coming up north to the Stadium after getting slapped around at Camden Yards by the Orioles, were slapped around again to start the first game with three solo homers off of Franklin Morales with Swisher in the 1st, and then Granderson and Russell Martin adding two more in the 2nd. To their credit, the Red Sox battled back and put up a crooked number in the 3rd to take a 4-3 lead. Some sloppy defense with Phil Hughes, making the start, lead to Boston's first run, and then a 3-run homer from Dustin Pedroia accounted for the 4th run of the inning. It was the Captain's task to get the Yanks back and he single-handily took care of it with a solo home run in the 5th. With the homer, Derek Jeter became the 10th Yankee with 10 or more homers on the squad. It was also Jeter's 250th homer of his hall of fame career. Jayson Nix put the Yankees ahead 5-4 with a RBI hit in the 6th, and then in the 7th Nick Swisher, filling in for Mark Teixeira the entire weekend at first base as he nurses a sore wrist again, capped off the night with one more solo homerun to make it 6-4 Yankees. Rafael Soriano worked the 9th inning and earned his 30th save of the season while securing Phil Hughes' 12th win for the 7 innings he gave against Boston.



             In what would've been a match-up of lefties with CC Sabathia vs. Jon Lester, fans instead were treated to Lester and David Phelps due to Sabathia's injury. Boston got on the board in the 1st with Adrian Gonzalez going opposite field with his power over the left field wall with Carl Crawford on that gave Boston the early 2-0 lead. Curtis Granderson cut into the lead at 2-1 with a solo jack off of Lester in the 4th, but from there Lester and the rest of the Boston pitching would be stingy. Jon Lester would put in a rare good start this season, going 7 innings and only giving up the one run to Granderson. Nick Punto added a RBI double to score Pedro Ciriaco in the 5th that made with 3-1 Boston, and in the 9th Scott Podsednik came across the plate on a wild pitch from Cody Eppley which put Boston comfortably ahead 4-1 against the slumbering Yankee bats, that seemed to have taken the afternoon off. Overall Phelps was decent and took the ball into the 7th inning, but he had no run support. Alfredo Aceves put the Yankees down in the 9th and tied the weekend series at a game a piece to the delight of ESPN executives looking for a more enticing rubbermatch for their Sunday Night Baseball program that continues to milk four-hour games from this rivalry.



              Seeing what Jon Lester was able to do, Josh Beckett must have also pondered memories of being a top-pitcher as he gunned against the red-hot Hiroki Kuroda. Jeter removed any hopes of Beckett also shutting down the Bombers in the 1st with a booming leadoff double, and he would later score on a 2-out base hit from Curtis Granderson. Derek Jeter doubled again in the 3rd, part of a 3-hit night, and scored on a wild pitch from Beckett while he was facing Robinson Cano. As Kuroda kept the Red Sox at bay, his countryman Ichiro decided to get into the action with the long ball off of Beckett; a solo shot to the second deck in right in the 4th inning, and then another solo job in the 6th deeper to the lower deck in right that made the crowd chant for an Ichiro curtain call. Kuroda's only blemish was giving up a solo homer of his own to Adrian Gonzalez in the top of the 7th that made it 4-1 Yankees, but he never lost his groove and finished the 7th and pitched the entire 8th inning with no further runs surrendered. Manager Joe Girardi didn't let Kuroda go out for the 9th to achieve consecutive complete games, instead he went with Soriano to save it. Carl Crawford started the inning with a lead off single, but that was erased on a double play grounder from Dustin Pedroia. Soriano struck out Adrian Gonzalez to end the game and served justice for the Yanks losing out to Boston weeks ago. It was the 31st save of the season for Soriano and the 12th win of the season for Kuroda who continues to throw quality innings against tough ballclubs.



             With the Japanese wing of the Yankees, Kuroda and Ichiro, going strong, the 72-49 Yankees head out to the Midwest with stops in Chicago and Cleveland...

The official new Yankee killer

             The Boston Red Sox came into town demoralized and in the absolute pits as far as the AL East standings were concerned, and instead of sending them further into the basement, the Yanks allowed a flicker of light to ignite their lamp. By the time the Red Sox left town, they were back at .500, facing an optimistic 10-game homestand, and had found themselves a new bonafide Yankee nemesis.



             With the return of Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedrioa and big-contract bust Carl Crawford to the Red Sox lineup, they still weren't at full strength with DH David Ortiz on the 15-day DL. They had to face Phil Hughes in the first game, and beside three solo homeruns, the Yankee right-hander deprived Boston of any prolonged rallies. The same couldn't be said of Boston starter Aaron Cook; the Yankees smacked him for 3 runs in the 1st inning after Boston had seized a 1-0 lead, capped off by a Raul Ibanez line-drive homer into the right field stands. The next blow came from Russell Martin, a 2-run shot in the 4th that made it 6-3 at that point. David Robertson worked a clean 8th inning and held the game for what would've been a save situation in the 9th, but Curtis Granderson gave Soriano the night off by crushing a grandslam in the bottom of the inning off of former Yankee farm hand Mark Melancon. Hughes went 7 innings and struck out five while only walking one batter. With the win, Hughes became the fourth Yankee starter with double-digit wins.



             It was a battle of the hard-throwing lefties in the next game between Jon Lester for Boston and CC Sabathia for New York. For the second straight outing Sabathia wasn't his razor-sharp self and fell behind 3-0 in the 1st inning courtesy of RBI doubles from Will Middlebrooks and Adrian Gonzalez. To the amazement of all, Chris Stewart poked his first homerun of the season (and likely forever) to left off of Lester in the 3rd to cut it to 3-1 Boston. The joy was short-lived as Sabathia served up a 3-run homer to Gonzalez in the 5th to make it 6-1 in favor of the Sox.


             With a homer-happy park and the Yankee lineup, they're never out of a game. In the second amazement shot of the night, Jayson Nix responded with a 2-run homer to cut the lead in half at 6-3, and after adding another run to make it 6-4, a huge moment came in the bottom of the 8th with a man on and Mark Teixeira up to bat against his hated former-teammate Vicente Padilla. Teixeira once again got the better of Padilla and hit a 2-run bomb to tie the game at 6-6 and cap off the Yankee comeback. The Yankees weren't able to tack on any more runs in the inning and it would haunt them soon enough. In the top of the 9th, as per the usuality of baseball, the homefield closer Rafael Soriano was brought into the tied game and committed the sin of walking the lead off hitter. Then, Pedro Ciriaco, who tortured the Yankees in their only loss to Boston a few weeks ago at Fenway with a 4-hit game, landed another blow by hitting a ball to center which the usually reliable Curtis Granderson misplayed and got tripped up that allowed Ciriaco to reach third base and put Boston up 7-6. Pedroia would later get Ciriaco in on a sac fly to increase the lead to 8-6. There would be no dramatic homers this time for the Yanks as they took their second loss to Boston of the season.



             Boston had .500 within their grasp and only need the take the final game in order to reach it. Felix Dubront, the young Boston lefty who stymied the Yankees in his two previous outings against them, was just as impossible to score off. Nick Swisher was back in the lineup after resting his hip, and early on his singles were the only pinstripe action. The Yankees were kept off the board until the 8th inning when Russell Martin stepped up and slapped a solo homer to the opposite field to make it 2-1 Boston. Both Red Sox runs came in the top of the 2nd thanks to a Ryan Sweeney double that the slow-footed Andruw Jones couldn't field properly that allowed both runners to score. From there Hiroki Kuroda put a clamp down on any further scoring. Martin took Kuroda off the hook by slapping a single in his next at-bat in the 8th which tied the game at 2. Despite pitching the night-before and had just given up the game tying hit to Martin, Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine stuck with Alfredo Aceves in the 9th and it nearly cost him the game as Curtis Granderson put a charge into one that made it to the warning track in right.



             With Soriano had already gone in the 9th and not given up a run this time, it was David Robertson's turn to hold down the fort, and the sin bug must be spreading in the Yankee bullpen because he too walked the lead-off hitter. A controversial play game soon after when Will Middlebrooks was hit by a pitch while attempting to bunt, at least that is what the umpires declared. This put Middlebrooks in a 0-2 against strikeout artist Robertson, but on the very next pitch after the rhubarb in which Valentine and even Josh Beckett on the bench were tossed from the game, Robertson laid in an easy fastball which Middlebrooks poked past Chavez at third for a single. Robertson would eventually get an out, but it caused a first and third situation with Pedro Ciriaco, the pest from the night before who hit the triple to put Boston ahead, at the dish. On the first pitch Ciriaco saw the ball jammed him, but he was able to bloop it into short right to burn the Yankees again for a 3-2 Boston lead. Aceves took the ball again for the bottom of the 10th, and with two outs, hit Swisher to put a runner on first and allowed Raul Ibanez to have a chance to win it with one swing. Instead of a dramatic homer, Ibanez would score a whimpering strikeout to end the game and hand the series to Boston.


            60 wins is certainly a nice accomplishment for the season, but losing two playoff-intensity games to the Red Sox in late innings is a crushing blow. Next, another AL East foe, the Baltimore Orioles spring into town and the Yankees will surely be happy Pedro Ciriaco is leaving....

Almost another massacre

             The Boston Red Sox have had a miserable start to the first half of their season which has seen a boatload of injuries and too many poor performances from whatever healthy starting pitchers they had available. The Yankees wanted to do the honorable thing before heading into the All-Star break and kick Boston hard while they're down. The injury bug helped the the Yanks do some of the work when the pesky Dustin Pedroia was sent to the DL with a thumb issue before the Bombers even landed in beantown. With infamous Yankee slaughter jobs at Fenway in 1978, and more recently in 2006 when the Yankees took five out of five games during one long weekend, the conditions surrounding both teams opened the door for another in 2012.



             Things were looking slaughterish immediately after the Yankee offense had jumped on Josh Beckett in the top of the 1st inning to put a 5-spot on the scoreboard to start things off. Gallantly, a Red Sox roster saturated with minor league call-ups to fill in the many injured holes, fought right back and put a 5-spot  on the Yankees as well in the 1st inning off of Hiroki Kuroda and like that it was 5-5. Things were shaping up to be a long weekend at Fenway Park after the 43-minute first inning of the series. Yankee-Red Sox games are infamous for taking on average four hours to complete, and a laundry list of Red Sox injuries wasn't changing that.



             Both Beckett and Kuroda settled down an little, although there were threats on each side almost every inning, and by the end of the 6th inning the Red Sox were actually a inch ahead at 7-6. Then the tall Boston lefty reliever Andrew Miller made the fatal mistake of walking the lead-off hitter in the top of the 7th, lefty-hitting Curtis Granderson. Alex Rodriguez was able to reach on an infield single to put two runners on, and after Miller struck out Cano for the first out, the second fatal mistake was Bobby Valentine's decision to bring in Vicente Padilla to face Mark Teixeira and keep the switch-hitter batting left-handed where he already had an RBI hit earlier in the game. Once teammates in Texas, Padilla and Teixeira have developed a rivalry over the years due to Padilla's knack for beaning hitters. Teixeira certainly got the latest laugh by crushing a 3-2 fastball that plated two and put the Yanks up 8-7. Raul Ibanez followed with an RBI double, and after a pitching change, Eric Chavez chipped in with an RBI single to pad the score 10-7.



             Cody Ross flicked a homer over the Green Monster in the bottom of the 7th to cut into the lead at 10-8, but by the 9th inning the score was the same and Rafael Soriano was on the mound to nail down the first of four games the team would play over the weekend. There would be no comeback for Boston as Soriano breezed through the inning for his 20th save of the season, causing a certain shirt to be untucked.



             Due to a rainout when the Yanks were visiting Boston earlier in the season, a make-up game was needed, and it would be a day-night doubleheader on Saturday with Freddy Garcia getting another start after pitching well in Tampa and going against Boston's Franklin Morales. Instead of scoring five runs in the 1st inning like they did the night before, the Yankees only scored four this time thanks for a 3-run homerun from Nick Swisher that went over the Green Monster from hitting right-handed. Then Andruw Jones, in to play against the lefty Morales, followed that up with his solo shot also over the Monster for an early 4-0 lead. Freddy Garcia didn't choke it back and was a delight over his 6.2 innings of work in which he only surrendered one run. With the strong start, Garcia puts himself in line to take Pettitte's spot in the rotation until the veteran lefty returns sometime in late August. In the 4th inning Andruw Jones launched his second solo job, and then the usually quiet Jayson Nix cracked a bomb of his own over the Monster to increase the Yankee lead 6-0 and the game ended at 6-1.



             The nighttime task was handed to Phil Hughes to keep the Yankee avalanche going over the Red Sox and more 1st inning magic continued with Mark Teixeira's 3-run homer over the centerfield wall off of Felix Doubront. The newly acquired former Red Sox Darnell McDonald helped his old team out when he was playing right and distracted Curtis Granderson enough to drop a routine fly ball that helped Boston climb back at 3-2. Another thing the Yankees weren't counting on was a career day for minor league call-up Pedro Ciriaco who took Dustin Pedroia's role in being pesky. The Youngster went 4 for 5 at the plate, including the RBI double past the glove of third baseman Jayson Nix which gave Boston a 5-3 lead. The Yankee hitting hero earlier in the day, Andruw Jones, popped yet another homer over the Green Monster to bring the Yanks back closer at 5-4. Cory Wade was recalled from the minors thanks to a rule concerning extra pitchers for doubleheaders, but apparently he didn't learn a thing down there as he relieved a bad Boone Logan performance and ended up getting belted for three earned runs of his own that eventually put the game out of reach at 9-4. Eric Chavez did homer in the top of the 9th to make it 9-5, but Boston closer and former Yankee Alfredo Aceves was able to stop it there and finally helped put a Boston win up against the Yanks in 2012.



              With a chance to tie the series and hold onto some shred of dignity before the halfway point of the season, Boston sent their tough lefty Jon Lester to the mound against Ivan Nova who was searching for his 10th win of the season. The Yankees scored in the 1st inning of each game, so why would this one be any different? A Mark Teixeira RBI double and Nick Swisher RBI fielder's choice grounder gave Nova a 2-0 cushion to work with. In the bottom of the 3rd inning, a rare error on a pop-up by Derek Jeter put the really-annoying Pedro Ciriaco on base and he would eventually score on a David Ortiz double that made it 3-2 Yanks. As Nova kept Boston off the board after that, the Yanks were able to tack more runs on in the 5th from an RBI triple from A-Rod and then an RBI single from Andruw Jones. Speaking of Andruw Jones and the three homers he hit in total the day before, number four of the weekend came in the 7th with Swisher on base to make it 7-2. The bullpen for the Yankees wasn't sharp after relieving Nova, racking up six walks and giving back one run that took a 7-3 lead into the bottom of the 9th. Although not a save situation, getting outs in Fenway isn't easy, so Joe Girardi called on Soriano to put the exclamation point on the series. Things were looking a little dicey with two runners on, but Sory fanned Jarod Saltalamacchia, who had a horrible strikeout marathon all weekend, to end the game and give Ivan Nova his team-leading 10th win of the year.



           After the poor starting pitching in April and May, the poor hitting with runners in scoring position most of the first half, losing Mariano Rivera for the season, losing Andy Pettitte for the next couple of months, with hardly seeing Brett Gardner at all, and David Robertson down for a few weeks in the middle, the Yankees have displayed championship caliber mettle with a terrific 52-33 record, only one game shy of being twenty games over .500. The Yankees sport the best record in baseball and sit a lucky seven games on top of the AL East. The main concern now just has to be Robinson Cano not hurting himself in the upcoming homerun derby.....