The Yankees jumped on James Shields early, knocking the enigmatic righty around for five runs in the first inning on their way to an 8-3 win over Tampa Bay. Believe it or not the Yankees actually do have one other five-run first inning under their belts this season, coming against Daisuke Matsuzaka in the wild 11-9 walk-off win against the Red Sox on May 17.
Any time you’re able to hang a five spot on anyone — let alone a pitcher like Shields that has really stymied the Yankees all season long despite being pretty mediocre against everyone else — you have to feel pretty good about the likelihood of your team taking the game, and indeed the Yankees had a ridiculous 88.8% chance of winning after Curtis Granderson knocked in the fifth run of the first inning.
Phil Hughes labored a bit through the first four innings before finishing strongly, going 6 1/3 and ultimately giving up three earned runs, though the third was an inherited runner Javier Vazquez allowed to score. This was actually Hughes’ first quality start in more than a month, the last one coming on August 19 against Detroit (6 IP, 2 ER). It was also his highest WPA (a game-high .163) since August 4 against Toronto (.196).
Shields wound up settling down after his messy first, keeping the Yankees off the board into the 6th inning. The Yankees got to Chad Qualls for two more in the seventh on a Robinson Cano double that was just dunked out of the reach of a diving Carl Crawford, and another off Andy Sonnanstine on a Derek Jeter double in the eighth.
That big first inning however, wound up being all the Yankees would need, and was really a thing of beauty in the way it unfolded. Nick Swisher homered to get the Yankees on the board, Mark Teixeira walked, Alex Rodriguez singled and after Cano struck out Jorge Posada singled and Lance Berkman hit a two-run double, which actually represented the biggest WPA swing of the game (.126).
The Yankees’ second straight win over the Rays increased their division lead to 2 1/2 games, and combined with yet another Boston loss to the Buck Showalters, shrank the Bombers’ Magic Number to a Ruthian 3. Additionally, the Yankees are now 4-3 against the Rays at home this season, which means the Phillies are the only team in baseball with a winning record against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium in 2010. The Yankees also improved to 51-25 at home, tied with the Twins for the best home record in baseball.
As a side note, in case you missed it since it went up late in the day yesterday, be sure to check out our American League Postseason Preview looking at the potential starting pitchers the Yankees may be facing next month.
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2 Responses to Yankees finally topple Shields on strength of rare five-run first inning as Hughes authors first quality start in a month
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Not sure why Tom removed his comment, which mentioned the idea of Hughes' being skipped for his next start, but I'm going to address it anyway.
Hughes is currently sitting at 169.1 IP on the year, and it's been widely speculated that they won't push him past 180, which means he'd only be starting two more times.
The way the rotation currently lines up, Phil's spot is only slated to come up two more times as it is, so if the Yanks want to see him get to 180 it looks like he won't be missing any starts.
Right now he's on track to face Daisuke on Sunday night, and would then face Boston in the penultimate game of the season.
If Hughes is indeed tabbed as the Yankees' third starter in the first round, he'd have a full week off before pitching on Saturday, October 10.
So as it stands the Yankees will likely send Hughes to the mound on his regular rest through the end of the season since he's going to get a ton before his first playoff start.
[...] In the first game of Wednesday’s doubleheader (1:05pm), right now Phil Hughes appears to be lined up to face James Shields. Prior to embarking on this post I had a sneaking suspicion following the Yankees finally getting to Josh Beckett and Felix Hernandez that Shields had the lowest ERA against them this season. And my suspicions were confirmed, thanks to the help of the lovely and talented Diane Firstman of Value Over Replacement Grit and Bronx Banter fame (a tip of the cap also goes to the inimitable Jay Jaffe, who also reminded me of the existence of David Pinto’s spectacular Day-by-Day Database) as Shields’ 1.59 mark against the Yankees is indeed the lowest ERA of all pitchers that have made a minimum of two starts against the Yankees this season. Believe it or not, R.A. Dickey of all people is #2 on that list, ahead of Jered Weaver. Shields also turned in a 3.35 ERA over 37.2 innings and six(!) starts against the Yankees in 2010, a figure that falls to 2.51 if you remove the awesomely surprising 5-run outburst they had against him last September 21. [...]