• RT @Ledger_Yankees: CC using Cano's bat in BP. Wants to use bats with hits in them. #
• Jays catcher John Buck just took a bounced pitch right in the nuts. Broadcasters looked at replay and were silent a long moment… #
• Then finally Bob Lorenz said, "Well, the video speaks for itself." Flaherty: "Glad I'm up in the booth instead of catching right now." #
• @BloggingBombers looks like Buck agrees with you there. #
• @Ledger_Yankees Bob Lorenz is a bit dry, and he and Flaherty are too similar to be a good team. Both bland and same manner of speaking. #
• Pettitte pitched so well! But leaves with a 2-2 tie with 107 pitches after 7& 2/3 innings. Only two mistakes were two homers. No win for him #
• Joba throws 6 sliders in a row to AL hr leader Bautista… Full count. #
• Then finally drills a 97 mph fastball on the inside corner for called strike three! Bautista slams the bat, but inning is over. 9th next! #
• 9th inning, 2-2 score. This would be a great time for Posada to rediscover his power stroke. #
• Unfortunately Posada has the hat trick. Third strikeout of the day. Up to Cervelli now. #
• Bah. Yanks do not score. Joba to pitch bottom of the 9th and try to prevent a Jays walkoff. #
• Teixeira with five strikeouts today. Wow. To the bottom of the 13th. Who is left in the bullpens? #
• Maybe we need Teixeira's wife to wear Giambi's thong. #Yankees #nyy #
• To the 14th inning. Chan Ho Park has been good, to the shock of most in the press corps. Mitre, Gaudin, and Mo only bullpen guys left. #
• Cano having a rough couple of days. Ohfer. #
• Ramiro peña in to pinch run. Cmon Cervelli. #
• Peña steals second. Can Gardner cash him in? No. Flies out. Chad Gaudin's turn to try to hold the Jays in the bottom of the 14th. #
• Gaudin walks the leadoff man on four pitches. This does not bode well. #
• Sac bunt works. Hill up with a man in scoring position. #
• There it goes. Base hit on a hung slider brings in the winning run for the Jays. Get em tomorrow. #

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I’ve been feeling very spoiled lately watching Derek Jeter and thinking about how much we’re going to miss him when he’s gone. He’s be “The Man” for so long, it’s hard to remember what it was like in the days before he arrived, since when he arrived in 1996 he and Joe Torre and a World Series win transformed the franchise out of a very moribund phase.

Two media pieces have come up recently worth noting about Jeter. First, Michael Hoban points out at Seamheads.com that ranking Jeter by Win Shares and Core Value (win shares for a player’s top ten seasons), Jeter is #6 on the shortstops since 1920 list. (A-Rod is number one.)

Jeter moved up from 8th to 6th thanks to his outstanding 2009 season. Not too shabby. He still has a way to go though to surpass Cal Ripken:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Arky Vaughan
3. Robin Yount
4. Cal Ripken Jr.
5. Luke Appling
6. Derek Jeter

See the full article here: http://www.seamheads.com/2010/04/21/just-how-good-is-derek-jeter/

The other is MSG Networks TV show “The Lineup” in which a panel of experts pick the best player from New York baseball history at each position. Jeter was selected number one, beating out Peewee Reese, Phil Rizzuto, Travis Jackson, and contemporary Jose Reyes. The five judge panel unanimously selected Jeter.

Chip Greene wrote a wonderful article comparing Jeter to Lou Gehrig for this season’s YANKEES ANNUAL, as well. If Jeter keeps this up, we’ll need another article about him next year!

I’ve been at every home opener since 2000 except 2009, which got rained out and so I drove back to Boston in tears instead of staying in the city another day to go to the make-up game.

Today made up for it.

My two favorite Opening Days of the past decade were in 2001, seeing the actual raising of the Championship Banner and the “ceremonial golf cart ride” to Monument Park, and in 2003, when after the game was delayed one day by snow, Matsui finally took the field in pinstripes for the first time and hit a grand slam.

Today might top both of those.

First of all, it’s not every day that I cry before we even get to the National Anthem. The ring ceremony began with a tearful Gene Monahan receiving his first off, and the players hanging back to honor him for all he has done. Gene-o, as he is called, has been Yankees trainer for my entire life, and for longer than the Steinbrenners have owned the team (by one year). He has throat and neck cancer, had his tonsils removed in January, missed spring training, and had his 30th radiation treatment today. He also received a standing ovation, much deserved.

Yogi and Whitey handed out the rings, along with Joe Girardi, who has changed his number from 27 to 28 to reflect his next goal for the franchise, their 28th championship. Jerry Hairston, Jr. was there, in a suit, to receive his. And then they worked their way through the Yankees’ roster, from the highest number (91, Alfredo Aceves) to the lowest. Alex Rodriguez received one of the loudest ovations from the fans when things got to him, about the same loudness as Mariano Rivera received. I got a little teary watching how happy Alex looked. And of course #2, the captain, Derek Jeter, came last, to thunderous applause.

Except he wasn’t last. There was one ring box on the table, and it was for the World Series MVP, Hideki Matsui, who was in the third base dugout, wearing the uniform of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Matsui received the loudest cheers of all, including chants of MVP! MVP! and his name. He looked a bit teary eyed, too, as he stood on the top step, waiting to come out.

The Yankees broke ranks as soon as Matsui had shaken hands with Joe Girardi, all gathering around him for a group hug/mass congratulations. They looked excited and happy, and it reminded me of the 1999 All Star Game at Fenway Park where the players gathered all around Ted Williams. I cried. My friend Lori cried. Another friend of ours who had come along to the game but who doesn’t know baseball (isn’t from the USA), was flabbergasted that we got so emotional. Then she looked around and saw that all the guys in our section were crying, too. Once again we proved the Game of Their Own adage wrong. Matsui was one lone red hat in a sea of pinstripes.

Oh, and then there was a game to play. How fitting that Andy Pettitte took the mound today, and that Mariano Rivera got the save, even though it looked for a while like no save situation would be required.

Pettitte was frisky, meaning he was leaving the ball up, but pitching with some extra oomph, so he got a lot of fly balls (harmless) and strike-outs, rather than his usual ground balls, although he escaped a two-men on jam with a ground ball, pop up and strikeout in the fifth, and then in the sixth escaped men on the corners one out with a nice 6-4-3 double play. That was probably the turning point of the game for me–if he gives up a 3-run bomb or walks Howie Kendrick to load the bases, the whole game could have fallen apart, but instead, quite near to his pitch limit, he got the big twin-killing when he needed it.

The Yankees scored early and often. Every Yankee starter reached base at least once, Teixeira twice by the walk, Gardner once, the rest with hits. Nick Johnson homered in the first, Jeter in the third. They threatened in every inning.

They took a 5-0 shut out into the eighth inning, when Chan Ho Park gave up his second homer of the year to Kendry Morales. The batter before him was Matsui, whom the crowd kept expecting to do something great like hit a home run. If he had hit one then, he would have been cheered. Instead, I think he was humbled by the moment. He grounded to second base–another usual Matsui outcome.

The Yankees tacked on two more runs in the 8th, so it was 7-1 going into the ninth inning, and David Robertson came on to finish the job. Kendrick led off with in infield single on a ground ball deep in the hole that Jeter snared but couldn’t get to the bag in time. Then Mathis followed with an infield bunt single, putting two men on. Typical pesky Angels. Brandon Wood, the #9 man, followed with a fly ball to the wall in right, almost caught by Randy Winn (who came in as a supposed defensive replacement?), but ending up a single to load the bases.

Robertson gathered himself to strike out Erick Aybar, but then came Bobby Abreu, and blam, one swing, four runs, and all of a sudden it was a save situation.

Mo didn’t mess around, striking out Torii Hunter to bring that man again, Hideki Matsui, to the plate. Many in the crowd oohed and aahed… would Matsui do it this time? Nope. Mo popped him up and the game was in the bag, 7-5 Yankees.

(Photos to come…)

The 2010 baseball season kicked off on Sunday night with a gala ESPN debut. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Neil Diamond, and Pedro Martinez were on hand to lend star power to the evening, which featured the Yankees and Red Sox facing off at Fenway Park on a pleasantly warm April evening.

Unfortunately, the game turned into something more like a dress rehearsal, as both teams had their star turns, but also their lapses, duds, and missed cues.

I had made the mistake of booking a flight from Atlanta to Boston for tonight, which meant I watched the first two innings of the game from a bar in Hartsfield International Airport (augmented by corwin’s texts from Boston, where the game was on NESN), listened to the next six innings on in-flight XM Radio with the WEEI broadcast, and then caught the ninth in the car from the WCBS broadcast (also via XM) after corwin picked me up. I kept score, managing to follow the game with very few drop outs or blanks due to pilot announcements or other interruptions.

My improvised scorecard on the airplane…

The curtain went up on the first inning and both Josh Beckett and CC Sabathia looked as expected, dominant and untouchable. But Beckett was the first of the players to start looking shaky, giving up back to back homers to Jorge Posada and new Yankee Curtis Granderson in the second. Though the Sox got one of those back in their half of the inning, Beckett coughed up three more hairballs in the fourth, on a leadoff double, then a two-out walk, then back to back singles by Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter… setting up another miscue. With Gardner, one of the fastest men in the majors on third, Jeter (who swiped 30 bags last year but was caught only five times) on first, and Joe Girardi in the dugout, I figured the Yankees would be thinking about upstaging Victor Martinez. That’s just the sort of thing you can expect Girardi to do to any catcher with less than a perfect defensive reputation.

And that’s what they did. Jeter ran toward second, stopping short of the bag to draw the throw, which Scutaro then cut off hoping to get Gardner at home, allowing Jeter to get to second. There was no chance to get Gardner even on the delayed double dip. The NESN camera crew was caught napping, too–they didn’t even have a camera on Gardner.

Sabathia got shaky himself after that, though, and then both bullpens allowed far too many inherited runners to score, though the worst blows were when first Chan Ho Park served up the game0tying bomb to Dustin Pedroia, and then Damaso Marte allowed the go ahead run to score by virtue of a pair of cross-ups, one scored a wild pitch and one a passed ball, which brought Youkilis in from second base. This after a nice star turn by the Teixeira-Alex Rodriguez tandem in the seventh had put the Yankees up 7-5 after the Sox had evened the score off Sabathia & David Robertson in the sixth.

Jonathan Papelbon, at least, was ready for his close-up, giving up only a harmless two-out single to Posada. Final score, 9-7 Red Sox, in a game that lasted 3:46, and although it featured no errors definitely had other moments of sloppy play, like a bad throw to the infield from gardner, Nick Swisher taking a bizarre route on Youkilis’s RBI triple, and Robinson Cano seeming to get in his own way on a play.

Even venerable radio veteran John Sterling had some head-scratching moments in the postgame, as did his crew, as John fumbled his signoff from the game broadcast to the postgame, and the crew then failed to provide him the turning point of the game and lost their audio on the “sounds of the game” playback.

Everyone gets a day off tomorrow, as other teams will start their seasons, and then the Sox and Yankees get to try it all again on Tuesday night. I think maybe everyone could use one more day of practice.

Title: 2009 New York Yankees: The Official World Series Film
Produced by: Major League Baseball

The first thing I noticed about this DVD is that it’s really good to be the winner. The clips you see that cycle through in the menu while you wait for your boyfriend to finish folding his laundry so you can watch the DVD together? They are all of the Yankees. The only Phillies player you see is the hapless schmuck chasing Damon from second to third. Even Damaso Marte gets a full slo-mo clip, which is better than you can say for Cliff Lee, Ryan Howard, or Chase Utley. This is probably a reflection of the fact that MLB Productions knows darn well that these DVDs are bought by the fans of the winners, and they cater to them. These are the fruits of victory, after all, and I plan to enjoy them all winter.

Yes, in many ways this is less a “World Series film” than it is a Yankees celebration, and given the title of the “film,” and watching the actual DVD, it’s no surprise that it’s very Yankee-heavy. Not only is there a much longer and more extensive recap of the Yankees’ regular season than the Phillies’, but the Yankees’ ALDS and ALCS exploits are sketched in somewhat more fully than the Phils’. In fact, the names of the Phillies’ opponents aren’t even given and the highlights shown from the NLDS and NLCS are more of a montage, not even giving the scores of the games.

I didn’t mind this as an entertainment experience, but part of me feels like if you gloss over too much, the DVDs really can’t serve as much of a historical record. (Well, not to worry, one of the OTHER gifts I got under the tree this year was the 2009 Yankees World Series set, which includes the complete game broadcasts of Game 6 of the ALCS and all the World Series games. My favorite feature of the DVD set? You can choose which audio track to listen to. At last, the perfect synchrony between Fox HD tv and the John Sterling/Suzyn Waldman broadcast.)

But back to the single WS DVD. Ultimately it is the story of the Yankees’ coronation and I feel this may have worked against the entertainment value of the disc ultimately, because it didn’t create much of a sense of suspense. Granted, suspense is limited since anyone watching the DVD in the first place knows that the Yankees won. But if the DVD isn’t going to serve as a historical record because of how much it leaves out, then shouldn’t it at least attempt to recapture the excitement of the games? It was fun to revisit the games in the presentation the producers chose, but it didn’t succeed for me as drama.

Perhaps part of that is the fact that nothing can compare to being there, which I was for every postseason game at Yankee Stadium except two. Or perhaps 2009 just didn’t have the same level drama that the 1996 or 2001 World Series had, the two in recent memory that I automatically compare each year to. But I feel the lack of drama in the DVD is more caused by the fact that they chose to present it less as a tension-filled drama and more as a fait accompli.

My favorite of all the World Series films I’ve seen so far is still the 1996 one, which managed to capture both sides’ points of view, and incorporated a lot of really good footage (Cone walking by himself down the tunnel to the field) and fun stuff of fan interest. And the writing did a great job of really slowing down and capturing the turning point moments in the games (Jeter’s pop fly that wasn’t caught because the umpire was in Dye’s way).

My favorite parts of the 2009 DVD actually are all the time-lapse sections they have of action around Yankee Stadium. Cooking sausages, fans going through turnstiles and up the ramps, et cetera. Really nice touch. But there’s no mention of the fact that Nick Swisher changed his batting stance drastically partway through the series, nor of Matsui’s cortisone shots in his knees during the season, nor of the Posada/Molina flap. For a two hour presentation, it felt like a lot was missing. The best segment in it is actually the recap of the Yankees’ 2009 season at the beginning.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t buy it, of course. The fait accompli style of reporting is fine for evoking nostalgia, and probably when I watch this again in five or ten years, I’ll enjoy it more. And don’t get me wrong. I like it now. I just would have made different choices about the presentation and the writing. Lucky for me I can always re-read my own gamers from here in Why I Like Baseball.

FTC Disclosure: I was not given this DVD to review, nor do I receive any monetary compensation for its mention UNLESS you count the small kickback I could receive from people purchasing the DVD through the Amazon affiliate purchase box below:

The Yankees’ road to their 27th World Championship was a little like what I went through today to finally witness their crowning, requiring all the resources of technology and media at my disposal in order to follow the game.

When the first pitch was thrown, I was somewhere above 30,000 feet, probably over the Washington DC area. I was hoping it would be a typical postseason game, with lots of slow pitching, visits to the mound, hitters taking pitches and working the counts, because then maybe by the time I could get a signal there would still be plenty of game left.

We landed early! I flipped my phone out of airplane mode the moment the wheels touched down and as we taxied I saw on the MLB “At Bat” app that there had been no score, and it was only the second inning!! Unbelievable. Matsui was at the plate facing Pedro with a man on and no one out. I quickly swapped to Safari to open MLB.com’s Live pitch-by-pitch for mobile devices. Matsui looked like he was putting up a battle. On pitch-by-pitch it looks a lot like FOX Trax, where the pitches appear as little circles in a box that represents the strike zone. Green circles are balls, red circles are strikes and fouls.

Blue circles are balls hit into play. Every 15 seconds the browser refreshes and one or two new circles appears. The screen went blank as it refreshed, then BLAM, the blue circle appeared right in the middle of the strike zone. 89 mph fastball… I had to scroll down just a little to see the results: “Hideki Matsui homered. Derek Jeter scored.” corwin and I began fist pumping. Then it was time to actually deplane.

I made my way out to the concourse area and turned on my portable XM radio unit. It took a while to get the wires untangled and by the time I did, it was a commercial, but the score was clearly 2-0 Yankees. Then the dulcet tones of John Sterling accompanied me through the airport. I had changed into my lucky Mike Mussina pinstriped jersey while in the airport in Boston and now Yankees fans were giving me the thumbs up as we went through the airport. The host at one of the sports bars in the Charlotte airport even called out the score, and another guy who had heard the score asked me if I knew how they got the two runs.

Then we went down to baggage claim and unfortunately we lost the signal down there. Even the WiFi wasn’t working right and pitch-by-pitch wouldn’t refresh. A few minutes later we were picked up in a car by a friend of ours to drive to the healing arts conference we’re attending in Columbia, SC (I am a part-time massage therapist as well as baseball writer).

Out came our OTHER portable XM radio unit, this one made for automobiles. I hooked it up to the car stereo, but we didn’t get a signal again until we got out from under the arrivals ramp. Only to discover the Phillies had gotten a run. I see-sawed from being convinced at seeing the Matsui homer that surely this was the night and nothing could stop them, to intense worry that the Phillies were going to rise up and ruin it all.

Matsui sent me right back to feeling like there was no stopping the Yankees. After Alex was called out on strikes (and on pitch-by-pitch it didn’t look like a strike at all, by the way…), Matsui didn’t waste much time connecting again for a base hit and bringing in two more runs. I still remember how in 2003 he didn’t get a hit off Pedro all year, and then in that epic game (the “Grady Little” game) Matsui finally doubled off him. That was six years ago but it’s like Matsui’s bat still remembers.

In the fifth the Yankees were at it again. Pedro wasn’t sent back out again, but it didn’t seem to matter who was on the mound. (It was Chad Durbin, though, for the record.) Jeter led off with a ground rule double. Hairston, who was only in the game because Damon had left with a pulled calf muscle, bunted him to third, and Teixeira cashed him in with a base hit. We were passing the giant baseball on Route 77 then. It’s actually a water tower painted to look like a baseball, and we see it every year on the way to this seminar in Columbia.

We were hungry but didn’t want to stop to eat because it would mean missing the game. What’s good when there’s a championship on the line? The rally continued. A-Rod Walked. Another pitcher came in. Matsui didn’t care who it was (although it was J.A. Happ). He doubled off the wall, only a foot or two from being another home run, driving in his fifth and sixth RBIs of the game and tying the World Series record for most RBIs in a game with former Yankee great Bobby Richardson.

We finally arrived at the hotel. I ran in and checked us in during a pitching change. We hurried up to our room and put on FOX. At last! We ordered room service and settled in to watch the last three innings or so, hoping to also catch all the postgame celebrations… hoping there would be celebrations.

The Phils wouldn’t roll over and die, though. Ryan Howard hit a two-run homer off Pettitte in the sixth, ending Pettitte’s night and finally producing something after his bat had been shut down since Game 1, but it would be too little, too late. His next time at the plate, Howard would strike out for the 13th time in the Series, setting a new record for most Ks in a single series, surpassing Willie Wilson of 1980. Joba Chamberlain would get three men out, but when it looked like the Phils were mounting a rally against him, on came Damaso Marte to retire the red-hot Chase Utley, who lived up to his name, chasing a Marte slider to strike out on three pitches. Then to start the 8th there was the K of Howard, aforementioned, and then it was Mariano Time. I had a plate of chicken wings and a cup of the soup of the day, room service had sent up hot rolls and butter, too, and so basically at that point I definitely felt I had it made. I was exchanging texts with my brother and my friend Lori, who were at the game with the tickets I couldn’t use.

And still the Phils didn’t go down easy, not like in Game 3 when Mariano only threw 5 pitches, or Game 4 when he retired the side on 8 pitches. Tonight, it took Mo 9 pitches just to get Raul Ibanez out of the batters box and unfortunately he doubled. But again, each time the Phillies tried to cash in, the rally was stopped short by Yankee pitching. In the ninth, with a man on, Shane Victorino did not want to go home. He battled Mariano in a ten pitch battle, but ultimately, Mo, and the Yankees, prevailed.

Lori texted me to say she was buying me a 2009 Champions shirt. Ah, how sweet it is, even if I couldn’t be there.

I’m now in bed in my pinstripes, typing this in the dark. corwin’s already asleep. We indulged ourselves switching back and forth between FOX, ESPN, the Yankees radio postgame, and then at 1am our favorite Yankee fan on the radio JT the Brick on FOX Sports Radio. A complete binge of interviews, but hey, you have to enjoy it while you can, right? Now I’m going to post this and then go to sleep, and sleep the sleep of the fulfilled.

So, I’ve been sitting here for more than half an hour staring at the computer screen instead of writing my game recap. It isn’t that the Yankees lost tonight, it’s… well, yeah, okay, it is. They lost.

No, I’m not having flashbacks to them losing four in row to the Red Sox in 2004. No, I’m not terribly surprised that Cliff Lee was better than A.J. Burnett. The offense had lots of fight in them.

It’s just, plain and simple, they lost. And I know if they lose twice more, this is going to be a really long winter.

I told myself after the Game Seven loss in 2001 that “it wasn’t that bad.” That I should be proud of all they did in the face of adversity. That that World Series had been a great, unbelievable, amazing experience to be part of, win or lose. The latter two things were true, but that first one? It really was that bad. I cried for a week.

I’m older and tougher now, aren’t I? No. Baseball makes perpetual ten-year-olds out of all of us. It’s not over yet. It’s not over yet. Tomorrow Andy Pettitte will have a mound session at 4pm and they will decide whether he takes the ball on Game 6, or whether they go to Plan B. (As far as I know, Plan B is something like have Phil Coke pull his hamstring in the shower and then activate Ron Guidry. What? He’s not available? How about Wang, then? Or maybe Chad Gaudin finally gets a shot?)

Here are some numbers to put just how bad Burnett was in perspective. He was the first Yankee pitcher not to go at least six innings in the postseason. Fine–someone had to spit the bit at some point, I guess. But it’s only the eighth time in history that a pitcher in a World Series allowed nine or more baserunners in 2 or fewer innings pitched. (The last one to do it? Livan Hernandez in 2002’s Game 7.) And only two pitchers in all of postseason history have worked 2 innings or less while giving up at least six earned runs and four walks, Fausto Carmona in the 2007 ALCS and Todd Stottlemyre in the 1993 World Series (in Philadelphia!).

In a lot of ways the game was a deja vu of Game 5 in Anaheim, when Burnett had a chance to end the Angels’ season, and instead they jumped all over him in the first inning. There were three differences here. One, it was only a two-run deficit after one inning this time, thanks to the opposing starter, Cliff Lee, also having some struggles. Two, this time Burnett did not get his act together and coughed up three more, before an early exit. Three, this time it was a different Phil who was the weak link in the bullpen. The two homers that Coke served up, one to Utley (who I just do not see why anyone pitches to him any more) and one to Ibanez, would turn out to be the difference in the game. Here’s another one of those “that was bad” stats: Phil Coke is the first pitcher ever in a World Series to allow two homers yet not record three outs. (Thanks to Fanhouse’s Ed Price for that one.)

Who would have thought that it was Jeter who would kill the rally in the ninth and A-Rod who would have the clutch hits? Hey, it happens. Damon had a hot night, on base four out of five times, and the one out he made brought in a run. A-Rod now holds the Yankees franchise record for RBIs in a postseason with 18! If something happens Wednesday like he hits a walk-off home run, I think he probably wins Series MVP. If not, even if the Yankees win the series, Utley probably gets it. If it goes to a Game 7 (please god no) and Sabathia wins that one, Sabathia probably gets it.

All right, maybe I have made myself feel a bit more chipper thinking about all the good things that might happen. It also helps that Dan McCourt of the TakeHimDowntown website and one of my contributors to the Yankees Annual (the pre-season magazine on the Yankees that I edit for Maple Street Press), just sent me a piece for this spring’s issue which recaps the history of walk-offs in the Yankees franchise. Reading it was quite a pick me up. Yes, it’s not over yet. This really could be our year. We’ll find out before the week is out, one way or the other.

If it weren’t for Chase Utley’s ownage of CC Sabathia, the Yankees might have been going for a sweep of the Phils tonight. As it is, they now hold a 3-1 lead in the series, and in all eight previous World Series in which the Bombers took a 3-1 series lead, they won the whole shebang.

The game got started off hot for the Yankees as Jeter singled and Damon doubled, and it looked like all the dire predictions made based on about how bad Blanton’s career numbers were against the Yankees were going to come true. Teixeira grounded out for an RBI for first blood, bringing A-Rod the the plate.

A-Rod took a fastball right in the back, incensing the Yankees bench. It was A-Rod’s third plunking in two days, and he said to the umpire “I think that was pretty obvious.” (Teixeira has now been hit twice, too… more on that later.) The umpires then warned both benches against retaliation, although Sabathia was told he could pitch inside and that the umpires “could tell” if he had intent to hit a batter. I’m not sure I believe that, but in any case, the plunking became a non-issue. Jorge Posada then hit a deep sac fly to bring in a second run, but Blanton had sent his message and settled down.

Blanton would retire the next ten men in a row while hardly seeming to break a sweat. He was helped by an oddly shifting strike zone that MLB.com’s Pitch f/x showed was skewed in his favor. Many of Blanton’s balls just off the strike zone were called strikes, while many of Sabathia’s strikes were called balls.

Sabathia got nicked in the first inning, too. With one out, Shane Victorino laced a double, bringing up Chase Utley, the man who had hit two homers off Sabathia in Game One. Utley once again got a hold of a Sabathia pitch, but it was a foot or two from being a home run, a double off the wall, scoring Victorino. Sabathia then settled down, too, striking out Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez (on three pitches) around an intentional walk to Jayson Werth. He had a perfect second and third, but then gave up the tying run with two out in the fourth. Ryan Howard, determined not to set a new World Series strikeout record, hit a single, then stole second. Howard is not exactly a speedster. Before this season he had never gotten more than two steals in a whole year, but he’s apparently been working with a coach and this year he had 8 of 9 stolen. So there he was in scoring position. CC got two outs and was working on Pedro Feliz, trying to strand him there. But Feliz was hot and cashed Howard in with a base hit.

Blanton finally blinked again in the fifth. Nick Swisher, who finally broke out of his postseason slump last night with a homer and a double, regained his batting eye tonight and worked a leadoff walk. Walking the leadoff man was like putting raw sirloin into a shark tank. The Yankees began stirring around. Melky Cabrera followed with an infield hit. Sabathia then came to the plate, under orders to bunt, and ended up bunting foul on two strikes for a strikeout. I have to wonder if the weak attempts to bunt were CC secretly saying “Dammit, I’ve hit three career homers! Let me swing!” One unproductive out, but then came Jeter who cashed in Swisher with a hit, followed by Damon, who cashed in Melky. 4-2 Yanks.

But the lead didn’t quite last. Sabathia faced Utley with two outs in the seventh. Utley was definitely going to be his last batter no matter what. And he put Utley down 1-2 on two sharp called strikes and got a foul… but then Utley squared one up and sent a ball deep into the right field seats. That ended Sabathia’s night and cut the lead to a single run.

Marte finished the inning, getting Howard to pop up, and then Joba came on for the eighth. He looked like the Joba of old, striking out Werth on a sucker pitch (high fastball), and then getting Ibanez to swing and miss at the fastball away. He had Pedro Feliz, who was two for three and even the out had been hit hard, down 1-2 then. But he put a 97 mile per hour fastball on the inside half of the plate and Feliz raked it into the seats to tie the game. I don’t think that pitch was where Joba wanted it. He came back to strike out Chooch Ruiz, though, sending the game to the ninth with the score 4-4.

So on came Brad Lidge. Lidge whose struggles this season (11 blown saves) have been well documented and analyzed. But he has been three for three in save situations in the post.

This, however, was not a save situation. If anything, it was even more crucial than a save. Lidge needed to give his team a chance to swing their bats against the Yankees bullpen and not hand a lead to Mariano Rivera.

He faced pinch hitter Hideki Matsui first–Matsui who hit a pinch homer last night. Lidge induced an easy pop-up to short. Then he faced the vaunted Mr. November, Derek Jeter, who had already been on base three out of four times tonight. Jeter guessed fastball and got the slider, looking silly, but he worked the count full before finally fanning. Two outs and it looked like Lidge was going to shut the door when he went 0-2 on Damon, who looked as silly as Jeter on the slider.

But Damon decided to sit on the slider, just fouling off the fastball to stay alive. Lidge kept throwing fastballs, and Damon worked the count full, and then on the ninth pitch of the at bat got another fastball and just managed to line it into left. The sharks began to circle in the Yankees dugout again. Mark Teixeira was up next. Damon wanted to get into scoring position so that he might score on a base hit, and he stole second, only to find when he made his pop-up slide that third base was free for the taking. The Phillies had the infield shift on for Teixeira, and as Jeter did when Jason Giambi was a Yankee, he took the opportunity to grab the extra base. Pedro Feliz took the throw from the catcher behind Damon, and Damon took off. In his postgame press conference, Damon described it as if his 25-year-old legs had suddenly come back. So there he was, perched on third, and a wild pitch or a bloop would make it Mariano Time.

Then Lidge lost Teixeira when he hit him with a pitch. (And was not ejected.)

So it was up to A-Rod. Lidge started him with a fastball on the inside corner, strike one. Then he came back with another fastball, but it was up from the inside corner, just like Joba’s was to Feliz, and Alex didn’t miss it. He ripped the pitch into left for an RBI double, plating Damon and sending Teixiera to third.

Lidge then had Jorge Posada down 0-2 before throwing two that weren’t even close to even the count. The fifth pitch wasn’t a bad one, painting the black on the outside corner, but Posada laced a two-run single, then was out at second trying to stretch it or draw the throw. 7-4 Yankees, and Mariano was coming in.

The FOX broadcasters has earlier shown Mariano huddling up with a heating pad on his ribs, but perhaps it had been just for warmth. It took him only eight pitches to sit the Phils down one-two-three and send the series up 3-1 in the Yankees favor.

The Yankees are hungry now to win tomorrow against Cliff Lee. Lee dominated them in Game 1, but A.J. Burnett dominated the Phillies in Game 2, so we could have a matchup for the ages as the two pitchers go head to head. Can’t wait. Can’t wait.

More Game Notes:

Ryan Howard has joined the ranks of World Series strikeout leaders. Willie Wilson holds the number one spot with 12 Ks in the 1980 series, and it took him 26 at bats to get there. Howard now has 10, and it took him only 14 ABs to do it. Here’s the rest of the list:

Rank Player            SO   PA   Series/Year
1.   Willie Wilson     12   30   1980 WS
2.   Wayne Garrett     11   36   1973 WS
     Eddie Mathews     11   31   1958 WS
     Luis Gonzalez     11   30   2001 WS
     Damon Berryhill   11   24   1992 WS
     Damian Miller     11   23   2001 WS
7.   Devon White       10   36   1997 WS
     George Kelly      10   33   1921 WS
     Vince Coleman     10   30   1987 WS
     Rich Gedman       10   30   1986 WS
     Del Crandall      10   29   1958 WS

Joba Chamberlain vultures the win after giving up the tying run. After the big rally in the ninth, several players were seen hugging the big kid. They really picked him up.

Mariano has thrown a total of 13 pitches in two days. I would say if the Yankees have a lead in the ninth inning tomorrow, he’s available.

Melky Cabrera strained his left hammy and left the game partway through. Hopefully Gardner and Hairston are ready to step up. Remember, Luis Sojo had the series-winning hit against the Mets in Game 5 in 2000. It isn’t always the big horses (or centaurs) that do it.

Thanks to Ed Price of Fanhouse & the Star-Ledger for this factoid: “Last player to battle for 9 or more pitches and get a hit in 9th inning or later of a tied WS game: Derek Jeter, Game 4 ‘01, HR off B.Kim.” Myself, I was reminded of Paul O’Neill doing something similar, too. Follow Ed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ed_price.

And this one from Sweeny Murti of WFAN: “From the All-Star break thru Game 4 of the WS, CC Sabathia made 20 starts. The Yankees went 17-3 in those starts.”
Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/YankeesWFAN.

Pete Caldera of the Bergen Record: “Into the Fall Classic lexicon, we nominate ‘Damon’s Dash.’”
Follow him at http://twitter.com/pcaldera.

Well, sometimes predictions in baseball pan out. Citizens Bank Park was advertised as a homer haven, and six balls left the yard tonight, three from each team. Sometimes they don’t, as who could have predicted that Andy Pettitte would have the same number of RBIs in the World Series as Ryan Howard?

For a while it looked like Pettitte might not even last long enough to get an at bat. Through two innings he had thrown 52 pitches and struggled with his control.

When Pettitte has his stuff, he induced a lot of ground ball outs. He ended the night with 7 strikeouts and 8 in the air, only 3 real ground ball outs. In the second inning he labored, and the Phillies scored three starting with a Jayson Werth solo homer to lead off the inning. With two on and one out, Phils pitcher Cole Hamels then laid down a perfect bunt for a base hit to load the bases. Pettitte then walked in a run, and gave up an RBI sac fly to Shane Victorino. Getting out of the inning having given up only three runs seemed like a great escape at the time, and indeed as the game went on Andy’s performance only cemented that impression. Other than another solo homer to Werth in the sixth, he was largely untouchable after that, finishing six innings with 104 pitches, four earned runs. After the second, everyone was predicting we would findlly see Chad Gaudin, while Cole Hamels seemed to have found his control and was shutting the Yankees down. But when Pettitte left after six, Hamels was already gone, replaced by J.A. Happ, and Pettitte left with the lead.

Yes, the lead. The Yankees had their hitting shoes on, as Teixeira walked in the fourth, followed by a dinger off the bat of Alex Rodriguez that at first was ruled a double, but upon umpire replay was ruled a homer. The ball had actually hit the lens of a TV camera that was hanging over the right field wall. As one of the baseball writers whose Twitter feed I was following during the game wrote, “It’s Halloween and Jeffrey Maier came dressed as a camera.” (Thanks, Joel Sherman, @nyp_joelsherman) Thanks to the two-run shot (the only multi-run homer hit so far in the World Series; the other 8 shots have been singletons.) it was then 3-2 Phillies.

But not for long. In the next inning, the fifth, Nick Swisher busted out, as he had confidently predicted he would in a FOX rain delay interview prior to the game. He led off the inning with a double, and then scored the tying run when Andy Pettitte, of all people, drove him in with an RBI hit. Jeter followed with another hit and then Johnny Damon stroked a two-run double, scoring Pettitte and Jeter and putting the Yankees up 5-3. Hamels then walked Teixeira for the second time on the night and his night was done.

The Yankees would keep tacking on runs, one each in the next three innings, with a Swisher solo shot, a pinch solo shot from Hideki Matsui, and after walking in the seventh, Johnny Damon stole a base and scored on a Jorge Posada RBI hit. Every Phillies reliever except for Ryan Madson was nicked for an earned run. What had been a rowdy, loud Philly crowd was quieted enough that the “Let’s Go Yankees” chant was easily audible on the FOX tv broadcast.

Meanwhile, Nick Swisher wasn’t the only struggling Yankee to find a bit of redemption in the game. Joba Chamberlain pitched a perfect inning, and then Damaso Marte followed suit. Phil Hughes then came on to start the ninth with an 8-4 lead, and went right after the first hitter, Pedro Feliz. He induced a ground out and then attacked Chooch Ruiz. Yes, it was good to see Hughes be aggressive, but he got a little too aggressive, giving Ruiz one down the middle and up, which left the ballpark in a hurry.

With the score 8-5, Joe Girardi didn’t hesitate to pull Hughes and put in Mariano Rivera. Five pitches later, Game 3 was in the books, an 8-5 Yankee win.

More Notes:
Pettitte’s performance ensured that every Yankee starter so far this postseason has gone at least 6 innings. It also gives him his 17th postseason win, two better than the next closest man, John Smoltz.

A-Rod now has 6 homers this postseason, tying him with Bernie Williams for the franchise lead.

Alex was the first person in the regular season to hit a contested home run reviewed by instant replay, and he is now the first to hit one in the postseason, too.

From Sweeny Murti of WFAN: “Before tonight Yanks had won 22 World Series games since 1996. Rivera had appeared in all but 4 of them.”

Well, tonight’s game can be summarized in two words. Cliff Lee.

There, quickest game recap ever!

Well, okay, I suppose I can tell you some other things. There was soaking rain all day in New York, but it stopped around four o’clock and both teams were able to take batting practice outdoors. Worry about the weather pushed the planned Jay-Z/Alicia Keys duet to Game Two. I sought out Freddy the Fan and banged the pan for luck, but ultimately it was for naught.

The crowd was fired up at the start of the game, with the loudest, most intense Roll Call I have ever heard. Definitely the Bleacher Creatures have stepped up their game for the postseason. And the flashbulbs for the first pitch were positively blinding.

It was pretty much downhill from there, though. Lee’s complete dominance of the Yankees lineup (except for Derek Jeter, who went 3-for-4 with a double and a run scored) combined with CC Sabathia struggling with control took the crowd out of it early. So did Chase Utley’s first home run (of two), and the fact that in the bottom of the first a rather raw drizzle began to fall which kept up throughout the game. It lasted just as long as Lee, who pitched the complete 9 innings, giving up one unearned run in the ninth.

The bullpen continues to struggle. Matsui and Swisher also continue to struggle but then again so did everyone against Lee (except Jeter). A-Rod struck out three times, but hopefully that doesn’t get into his head. If he turns back into a pumpkin, the Yankees’ fairy tale is over.

I’m looking forward to a lively night tomorrow, though. No rain, and Pedro Martinez will be on the mound, which will surely rile the crowd into a frenzy. Here’s hoping for a better report tomorrow!