Go Bart, go.
So this wasn’t quite “Yankees get shut down by rookie they’ve never faced before,” but it was pretty close, given that the Yankees managed to muster up one measly run against the Orioles across the first fourteen innings of this game.
Thankfully, the Yankees finally prevailed in the 15th — their first 15-plus inning game since Alex Rodriguez‘s glorious, glorious walk-off bomb against the BoSox in August 2009 – going on to win a game they led for the first eight inning 4-1 in extras.
Before going any further, however, I’d be remiss if I didn’t chronicle the events of the 15th inning, which was quite possible the strangest inning of baseball I’ve ever witnessed.
To paraphrase Bill Hader’s Weekend Update correspondent Stefon, this game had everything:
- After the first two Yankees reached base in the 15th on back-to-back hits, Robinson Cano incredibly managed to get a hit with RISP, ripping a bases-clearing first-pitch double off Mike Gonzalez to give the Yankees the lead back.
- Three pitches later Gonzalez brained Chris Dickerson, prompting the home plate ump to toss him despite the fact that it was very clearly not intentional.
- With no one left in the O’s bullpen, Buck Showalter went to tonight’s starter, Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie three a whopping seven pitches to retire the side and is now unavailable to start tonight. Brad Bergesen– who the Yanks torched for six runs last time they saw him, though who also pitched a complete-game shutout against the Rays in his last outing — will go in Guthrie’s place tonight.
- While Dickerson valiantly attempted to stay in the game, Joe Girardi did the right thing and removed him from the game. I can’t imagine how scary it is to get beaned; I always lived in fear of getting hit by the pitch when I was a little leaguer. With a compromised Yankee bench, Joe was forced to insert A.J. Burnett as a pinch-runner. Despite being forced to watch many an Interleague game over the years, I still find it hilarious when a Yankee pitcher is on the basepaths.
- In the bottom half of the inning, the second out was recorded when a Matt Wieters grounder hit Chris Snyder, who was running from first to second. How often do you see that?
- And Hector Noesi managed to pick up his big league win in his MLB debut in about as unorthodox a situation as you could envision for a kid’s first appearance in the show. Noesi threw four shutout innings, and though it wasn’t always pretty — though he struck four men out, he also gave up four hits and walked four — he got the job done.
Anyway.
Bartolo Colon was brilliant, tossing eight shutout innings (seven strikeouts and only one walk) on only 87 pitches, which had many clamoring for him to pitch the ninth and complete the game. Joe Girardi, however, went with Mariano Rivera with the Yankees clinging to a 1-0. Second guess all you want, but I don’t see how you can fault Girardi for going to his best pitcher with a one-run lead and three outs to victory.
Unfortunately Mo couldn’t get the job done, as the O’s hit back-to-back singles and plated the tying run on a Vladimir Guerrero sac fly. Of course, the Yankees wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place had the offense bothered to score more than one run. That being said, I suppose scoring even one run against Zach Britton — considering they’d never seen him before — and heading into the ninth with a lead has to be considered some sort of moral victory.
Still, shame on the Yankees for not taking more advantage of Baltimore’s shoddy bullpen (5.03 collective ERA heading into this game). As RAB recently pointed out, the Yankees’ usual MO of wearing a team’s starter out only to feast on the bullpen has not come to fruition this season, with the Yankees une posting their best OPS+ in the first three innings of games, and a meager 106 OPS+ in the final three innings of games (sure to be lower after another nonexistent late-game showing). Still, it’s inexcusable that the Yankees couldn’t even muster up a single run off the combination of Clay Rapada, Jason Berken, Kevin Gregg, Koji Uehara, Jim Johnson and Jeremy Accardo across eight innings before breaking out in the 15th. Seriously, Baltimore’s bullpen nearly tossed a nine-inning shutout!
The story of the Yankees these last few painful weeks has been one of either absent bats or poor pitching. In the past we’ve seen a lot of Yankee teams overcome mediocre pitching, but this year’s edition — despite a very strong April — doesn’t appear to have quite the same firepower.
In any event, this was very nearly another loss due in part to the Yankees’ compromised bullpen. With David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain pitching seemingly every day, and Rafael Soriano rotting on the disabled list, Girardi was forced to turn to the likes of Luis Ayala, Boone Logan and Hector Noesi to try to keep the O’s off the board. To their credit, Ayala and Logan got the job done, but it was tough to shake the feeling that the Yankees were playing on borrowed time, especially since Noesi has barely pitched this season and was making his MLB debut in rather unfortunate circumstances, i.e., the bottom of the 11th in a tie game.
To Noesi’s credit, he persevered, and the Yankees were able to pull out a victory in a game that featured the best starting performance by a Yankee this season. Who knew Bartolo Colon would end up being the most pleasant pitcher on the Yankee staff to watch work nearly each and every time out?
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5 Responses to Yankees finally eke win out over Baltimore in extras following strangest inning ever
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Still not sure why the umpire ejected Gonzalez; that was absolutely ridiculous. Someone needs to give that guy a talking to, especially after his ridiculous excuse for a strike zone. #robotumps ASAP.
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You don’t take out your starter after he’s been dealing shutout ball for 8 innings with only 87 pitches including making a batter look like a fool to end the eighth, you just don’t.
I doubt you’d have taken out Colon if he was hurling a no-hitter or perfect game and why not take him out then? It’d still be 1-0 Yankees going into the bottom of the ninth.
Girardi wasted Rivera the night before last with that ludicrous one-batter appearance with the Yankees up 6-2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and a man on base. He wasted Rivera last night. He’s a fucking idiot who manages by formula not by feel and made a move which led to over half a game’s worth of innings being pitched after the ninth.
If he has to use Rivera tonight, he can’t use Rivera in the opening game of the series against a resurgent Mets team the Yankees MUST take two of three from or sweep after sweeping Baltimore two games again. Hopefully the Yankees beat up the O’s tonight so Mo can be used tomorrow night if need be.
Why no doubleheader today with the rainout in Baltimore a few weeks ago? That way the Yankees have only two doubleheaders to play, barring future rainouts.
The fact that people can even bring themselves to question going to Mariano Rivera in the 9th inning of a 1-0 game blows my mind. It really does go to show that no matter what Girardi does he can’t win.
Everyone can talk about 87 pitches as much as they want but Colon is no where near the caliber pitcher you leave in there, the guys has a couple of ressurgent games and all of a sudden he’s CC Sabathia.
Despite the 87 pitches Colon looked like he had more trouble putting away those last 2 batters than he had before hand in the game, the 2 seam wasn’t getting quite the same run (although it was still moving). If he sent Colon out he would’ve had to have Mo warmed and ready to go in case something went wrong, and if that’s the case you might as well bring in Rivera bases clear.
I’m also tired of hearing how he “wasted” Mariano for 1 out the night before, since when does completely warming up in the pen before the team takes a bigger lead not count? Just because we scored 2 more runs does that erase all the pitches Rivera threw in the pen? He was already to go, in essence he had already pitched that night whether he entered the game or not. Unless you are arguing that Joe should have known we were going to score in that inning and never got Mo up in the first place you have no argument. If you are arguing that then we have nothing to talk about because it’s completely hindsight, and no baseball manager can see the future.
Sometimes I feel we have to most selfish and spoiled fans in sports.
First off, I am neither “selfish” nor “spoiled” and if you’re gonna take a shot at me at least have the guts to take one directly at me. Yeah, I’m selfish cuz I want Colon to pitch a complete-game shutout which would save the bullpen including Mo for one night and put the Yankees in position to have Mo able to save all three games against the Mets this weekend if he isn’t needed for the game before it. If that’s selfish, then I am. My being bummed about Mo blowing it and almost costing the Yankees the game isn’t being “spoiled”, it’s being bummed he blew the game, like I’m sure you were. Where did I say I EXPECTED Mo to close the game? Nowhere. Thanks for putting words in my mouth.
Second (long second):
The fact that you think a guy throwing heat all night to the tune of shutout ball through eight innings and using only 87 pitches to do that should be taken out after that blows my mind.
You are reaching for it with the last two batters. That last strikeout to end the bottom of the eighth inning was as authorative as any strikeout Colon collected last night.
Colon was C.C. Sabathia last night. So you’d take out Colon after eight innings of no-hit or perfect game ball because after all, it’d still be only 1-0 Yankees? If so, you’re an idiot. You can’t say you’d leave him in because then you’re being selective. Shutout ball with hits, take him out, no-hitter or perfect game ball, don’t. It’s still 1-0 Yankees.
You have no clue how devastating a loss it would’ve been if Mo gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth and not one. If Colon put the leadoff man on to leadoff the ninth and served up a walkoff homerun, it’d still be brutal but at least you could say hey, our best that night got beat and it wouldn’t have been worse than Rivera coming in and serving up the walkoff win in as little as two pitches (first-pitch HBP/ROE/H then a walkoff HR next pitch.)
The Yankees did waste Rivera the night before. Yankees up 6-2 with two outs and man on first, you leave in Sanit! It wasn’t even a save situation! Even if Sanit served up a homerun, guess what? The Rays would still be down by two runs with no out to give to collect them. If Sanit gave up a two-run homerun, then you bring in Mo cuz it’s a save situation (two-run lead.) If Sanit gave up an RBI hit, then you bring in Mo cuz it’s a save situation (three-run lead.)2
Keep being a Girardi apologist or disciple who believes in formula over feel and the actual game in front of you, since you wanna call me “selfish” and “spoiled”.