"Oh no, a lefthanded pitcher with an 84mph fastball!" (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
Journeyman lefty Doug Davis — a pitcher the Yankees hadn’t faced since 2007 — did his lefthanded junkballer thing, giving up one measly run over 7 1/3 innings and leading the Cubs to a 3-1 victory. He walked three and also gave up three hits, but the Yankees just couldn’t get anything going against him.
In my series preview I noted that Davis had pitched quite a bit better than his ERA would indicate, though given his fairly mediocre repertoire, I assumed the Yanks would be be able to knock him around. However, between Davis being a lefthanded slop artist, along with the fact that, having not faced him in four years he may as well have been a Guy They’ve Never Seen Before™, in hindsight the Yankees probably shouldn’t have even bothered showing up to the park.
Freddy Garcia wound up settling down after a rough beginning, and ended up tossing seven innings of three-run ball — good enough to win most days. Given that the Yankees only scored one run, there’s nothing of note to report on offense other than the fact that Mark Teixeira came up with a big two-out RBI single in the eighth inning to at least keep the Yankees from getting shutout.
The Yankees have had kind of a strange season this year. Despite leading the Majors in wOBA (well, at least until the Red Sox administer their regularly scheduled beating of the opposition tonight), and having the second-best record in the AL, there have been a fair number of games where the offense just hasn’t clicked, and Friday afternoon’s affair at Wrigley Field was certainly one of them. This marked the 7th time this season they scored one run or less. Now obviously we’re not talking Padres-level futility — 21(!) games with one run or less this season — but the Yankees have spoiled us with such prolific offensive attacks over the years (they scored one run or fewer 17 times in 2010, and only 10 times in 2009) that it always seems strange when they tally such a low run total. That being said, all you can do is tip your cap to Davis for getting his job done, and move on to tomorrow.
Feel free to use this as your open thread for the evening.
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next time out davis will give up 6 runs.. yanks bats sleeping again ,two days back to back..lets see sat. 8 or 9 runs today