Sunday, June 17, 2007
6/17/07: New York Mets (37-29) at New York Yankees (34-32) - 8:05 PM ET **Liveblog**
O. Hernandez (3-2) vs C. Wang (6-4)
NY Mets
J. Reyes ss
P. Lo Duca c
C. Beltran cf
D. Wright 3b
C. Delgado 1b
J. Valentin dh
S. Green rf
R. Gotay 2b
C. Gomez lf
NY Yankees
J. Damon dh
D. Jeter ss
B. Abreu rf
A. Rodriguez 3b
J. Posada c
H. Matsui lf
R. Cano 2b
M. Cabrera cf
M. Cairo 1b
“Are you ready to step up?
A win tonight would be important, not because it would mean a series win for the Yankees against the Mets, but because it would keep the AL East deficit at 8.5 games. Wang has been pitching great as of late. There is no need to tell him to “step up.”
Pre-game chatter: RGX girl Rachel Specter is 10-1 in her RLYW appearances. That’s the best record of any body spray commercial actress when appearing in a professional sports blog.
I’m out of here for now. Hopefully someone will step in for the liveblog.
***Keith in***
Just home from Father’s Day dinner. Yanks up 2-0 after one on a home run to the Bronx County Courthouse by A-Rod.
Top of the 2nd
Wang pitches to Wright, who grounds out to Jeter.
Delgado swings on the first pitch, and A-Rod makes a fine grab to nail the slumping first baseman.
For reasons passing understanding, Jose Valentin is the DH, which is kinda like the Yankees using Miguel Cairo as a DH. But then, the Yanks are using Cairo as a first baseman, so whatever.
And Chien-Ming the Merciless strikes out Valentin looking on a nasty curve. Wang looking good…..
Bottom of the 2nd
Okay, I’m no kind of fan of the Transformers—which is heresy for someone who was a teenager in the 1980s, I know—but that trailer looked good......
Godzilla leads off against El Ducky.
I don’t blame the Yanks for letting Hernandez go, but damn, he’s fun to watch….
And a base hit on a 3-0 pitch for Gojira.
Cano up, and takes a ball. Good for him. Then he grounds out. Bad for him. But Matsui was running, so what might’ve been a GIDP become a sac bunt equivalent, which is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
Melky takes a classic El Ducky curve on a 3-2 pitch and is rung up for out #2.
Cairo gets an extra-base hit, which is roughly akin to a spotted owl sighting. His double scores Matsui to make it 3-0. Seriously, I gotta give Miggy props: that was a good at-bat, where he saw seven pitches. Cairo often doesn’t see seven pitches in a game. Bravo.
Damon up, and has hit a couple of towering foul balls. Straighten ‘em out, Johnny….
WOO HOO! Damon hits a single to left field. Cairo goes home, and Shawn Green’s throw is way offline—almost beans Jeter in the on-deck circle. Now Damon at second, 4-0 Yanks.
Jeter swings his bat in a spot that is nowhere near where the ball actually is for strike three to end the inning.
Top of the 3rd
Amusing bit of trivia: If you call up the Yankees’ hitting stats on ESPN.com, it’s sorted by OPS, and the first person listed is Tyler Clippard, whose OPS is 1.500—he’s 1-2 with a double, so his OBP is .500 and his SLG is 1.000. This amuses me.
Peter Gammons is interviewing Roger Clemens. I hate interviews with ballpleyers, generally, because 95% of the time, they don’t say anything. It’s just a string of clichés and platitudes utterly bereft of substance. That scene in Bull Durham really nailed that one….
Green golfs a ball to deep left, but Matsui catches it for out #1.
Gotay hits a Baltimore chop (does anybody use that phrase anymore?) to Cano, who throws him out.
Gomez fooled on a slider for a swinging third strike. GameDay has Wang at only 28 pitches through three, as opposed to El Ducky’s 46 through two. Me likey.
Bottom of the 3rd
El Ducky facing the meat of the order. Abreu clubs it into the left field corner. Gomez completely misplays the hop off the corner, allowing Abreu to go to third for a leadoff triple.
A-Rod torches it to deep center field, but it hangs up long enough for Beltran to catch it over his head on a dead run. Nice catch. Abreu saunters home to make it 5-0.
Posada works the count to 3-2, then swings through a good pitch for strike three. Two outs.
Matsui swings on the second pitch and grounds out to Delgado to end the inning. El Ducky up to 59 pitches, quoth GameDay.
Top of the 4th
That really was an impressive catch Beltran made. Just remember, he could’ve been a Yankee, but the team thought their money would be better spent on Tony Womack, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright. That, right there, is why truth is stranger than fiction. You put something like that in fiction, and your editor will make you change it because it makes your characters look stupid.
Reyes leads off. He needs to not be on base for the rest of the night. Wang throws a 1-1 pitch up around Reyes’s eyes, and he fouls it off. Next two pitches are too low to bring the count full.
And Reyes hits the ball up the middle. Jeter waves at it, and Reyes gets on base.
HAH! Posada calls for a pitchout, and they nail Reyes’s ass. After eighty thousand steals in two games, it’s nice to turn the tables. Boo-yah.
LoDuca then hits what would’ve been a double-play ball, except, y’know, nobody on base. Jeter actually catches this one and throws LoDuca out.
Beltran up. He really looks lost up there—I’m having Bobby-Abreu-in-May flashbacks watching him, which has to suck for Mets fans. Works for me, though, especially last night when he killed the potential rally against Mo.
And he swings over a slider for strike three. Go, Chien-Ming the Merciless!!!!!
Bottom of the 4th
Quoth Willie Randolph: “He made a mistake to A-Rod. You can’t do that.” No shit, Sherlock.
Ramon Castro is in to replace LoDuca. According to Willie, his arm is stiff from where Wang hit him in the first inning.
Cano smokes it to center, and Beltran makes another impressive catch for the first out.
Melky pops it to short right. Green makes an impressive running, diving basket catch for the second out.
Cairo grounds out to third. That was pointless. El Ducky only threw nine pitches that inning. C’mon guys….
Top of the 5th
Wright grounds a 3-1 pitch to Jeter.
Delgado strikes out. He looks as lost as Beltran. Before last season, there was a Mets billboard in my neighborhood that said: “The 2006 Mets: Two Carloses for the price of one.” Somehow, I don’t think that’s as big a draw as they’d like right now….
Valentin whacks the first pitch past Cairo for a double to right.
Green then also swings on the first pitch, and pops it to A-Rod to end the inning.
Bottom of the 5th
GO JOHNNY GO! Damon clubs the second pitch to the short porch for a homer to make it 6-0.
Cap runs the count full. Then he’s fooled on strike three.
Abreu gets hit by a pitch. Given El Ducky’s love/hate relationship with the strike zone, and given that they’re already down by five and A-Rod’s up, I’m pretty sure it’s not deliberate, despite Jon Miller’s rather tired attempts to make it sound retaliatory for LoDuca.
A-Rod draws a walk.
ESPN just showed A-Rod’s homer against Paplebon. I gotta tell you, I don’t ever get tired of seeing that, and I doubt I ever will…..
Posada strikes out. And it’s El Ducky’s swan song, as Schoeneweis comes in to face Matsui.
Matsui can’t hold up on strike three, and Schoeneweis does his job.
Schoeneweis, BTW, is a very hard name to type. Just sayin’....
Top of the 6th
Wang freezes Gotay for strike three.
Then he walks Gomez on four pitches. Grump. That was Wang’s first walk.
Reyes grounds into a 3-6-3 DP that is nicely turned by Cairo. That’s a CS and a DP from Reyes, both rarities.
Wang has only faced one more than the minimum. Only three baserunners—one was caught stealing, and one was doubled off. Valentin’s the only base runner who got to stay there.
Bottom of the 6th
Cano bounces it just over Schoeneweis’s head, and Robby beats it out for an infield hit to lead off.
Melky flies out to left. He’s been pretty useless with the bat this weekend, hasn’t he?
What Cairo giveth, Cairo taketh away. Miggy grounds into a DP to end the inning.
Top of the 7th
Wang catches Castro looking. He now has six K’s on the night, which is impressive. Looks like that slider’s working for him….
Beltran grounds out to second.
Wright swings through a slider that also bounces off Posada’s wrist to the backstop. So Wang gets his season-high seventh strikeout (according to Jon Miller), but Wright’s on first and there’s still two outs.
Delgado clubs a double to right, and Wright scores from first to kill the shutout. That is particularly frustrating in an inning that should’ve been over.
Wang then goes 2-0 on Valentin, and Guidry comes out to calm him down.
Valentin hits two foul balls, including one just a few rows into the stands near third. For some inexplicable reason, A-Rod doesn’t dive into the stands to catch it. Valentin then grounds out to Cano to end it. Little harm done, in the end.
ESPN does not show Kate Smith. I like ESPN.
Bottom of the 7th
Heilman in to replace Schoeneweis.
ESPN just showed clips of Guidry striking out 18 Angels, which was 29 years ago today. I remember watching that game on Channel 11 as a nine-year-old. Good times.
I can hear that annoying guy with the spoon and the pan in the stands. I really hate that guy. Give me Milton the Cowbell Guy in the right-field bleachers any day of the week.
Damon grounds to Gotay, who makes a very nice play.
Wright makes an impressive diving stop to just get Jeter by half a step for the second out.
Abreu grounds out to Delgado to end it.
Top of the 8th
Wang strikes out Green swinging. That’s eight. Miller says that’s a career high for him.
Gotay bounces a hit between A-Rod and Jeter.
Gomez up. This would be a wonderful time for a Patented Wang Double Play. He hits two balls that look like fair dribblers, but turn out to be foul, then swings through a sinker. No DP, but I’ll take Wang’s career-high ninth K.
Miller just called him “Taiwan Lightning.” Uh, no.
After going 2-0 on Reyes, Wang throws a perfect pitch right at Reyes’s knees for strike one. Reyes knew it, too, you could see the “crap” look on his face. Then Reyes swings so hard at a changeup, he falls down. After ball three, he strikes out Reyes.
He struck out the side, which I’m not sure he’s ever done, and now has ten strikeouts on the night. Wow.
Stealing from SG in the comments, because he perfectly sums up Wang’s performance tonight: “80 mph changeup followed up by a 95 mph sinker. That’s just unfair.”
Bottom of the 8th
Oh Christ, Miller and Morgan are starting the “Is A-Rod a true Yankee?” nonsense. *spits nails*
A-Rod slices it to the 399 ft. sign for a leadoff double. Of course, a true Yankee would’ve hit a home run or something….
Wow. Posada takes a bad swing on a bad pitch that I honestly thought was a foul to the first-base seats, but he muscled it just over the right field fence for a two-run shot. 8-1 Yankees!
Heilman out, Pedro Feliciano in to face Gorjia.
Peter Gammons is now stating definitively that A-Rod will definitely opt out of his contract. Wish I had that crystal ball…..
Matsui hits a long fly to center that Gomez catches on the run. One wonders what the score would be without the Mets’ excellent defense, which has been on fire tonight, for all the good it’s done them.
Cano grounds out to Gotay for out #2—unless you live in Delgado’s world, as he jogs toward the dugout, thinking it’s out #3. *chortlesnoot*
Melky hits a dribbler down the first base line. Feliciano grabs it before it can go foul so he can throw Melky out. Unfortunately, Delgado didn’t get the memo, as he’s not covering first, and Feliciano ran too far over the line to tag Melky. So it’s a weird base hit, as he gets on base for the first time in way too long.
Feliciano goes to 3-1 on Cairo, who then fouls a pitch off into the right-field stands. He fouls off another before Feliciano hits him on the feet to put two on for Damon.
Damon pops out lamely to Reyes.
Top of the 9th
Looks like Wang’s coming out for the ninth. Excellent!
Castro bounces it over the left-center field wall for an automatic double. Poo.
Beltran takes a ball, then hits two fouls. 1-2.
After a ball in the dirt, Beltran gets a hit to right field that stays a single thanks to Abreu getting to it fast. It scores Castro to make it 8-2. Mike Myers is up in the bullpen.
Another ball in the dirt to Wright. 1-0. Then he grounds it to A-Rod for a Patented Wang Double Play. Bravo!
WTF????? Wang’s only got to get one more out, and has a six-run lead, and Torre’s taking him out? I don’t get it.
At least he gets the VERY well deserved standing O.
Myers pitches to Delgado, and quickly goes to 0-2 on him.
And then strikes him out on the third pitch. Very very nice.
That’s two in a row, three games over .500 for the first time all year, two out of three from the Mets (and a split of the six games), and 14 of the last 17.
And ESPN just showed a preview of their The Bronx is Burning miniseries. The book it’s based on was deeply flawed on several levels, but the miniseries looks fantastic. Oliver Platt is perfect casting as Steinbrenner.
Anyhow, that’s it. Happy Father’s Day everyone!
***Keith out***
***Cutter in***
Love ya, babe.
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