Thursday, October 29, 2009
Yankees.com: Behind Burnett, Yanks even World Series
A sixth-inning homer by Hideki Matsui Thursday turned a duel in the Yanks’ favor, sparking a 3-1 win over the Phillies that tied the Fall Classic and ended with six outs by Mariano Rivera.
As one of the few bloggers who didn’t ridicule the A.J. Burnett signing, I feel vindication for one night. For all the crap I see about him being a ‘head case’, I’d ask, would a head case be able to pitch as well as Burnett pitched tonight in the most important game of his career and his team’s season?
Burnett was awesome. With better defensive support he shouldn’t have allowed a run, and you can probably make a case that this was the best start by a Yankee pitcher this postseason. I was dreading the Burnett vs. Ryan Howard matchups, and Burnett struck out Howard three times.
Burnett pretty much had to be awesome, because the Yankee offense once again was not. Granted, a lot of that should be credited to Pedro Martinez, but the fact of the matter is the Yankee offense in the 2009 postseason has made a lot of pitchers look really good.
I never really liked Pedro, but I always respected his ability and his talent. I think I respect him even more after watching how he pitched tonight minus his peak velocity. He essentially matched Burnett for most of the game.
As far as the Yankee offense, they weren’t great, but a couple of HRs by Mark Teixeira and Hideki Matsui and a pinch-hit RBI single by Jorge Posada got them enough runs to back up Burnett’s seven innings of one run ball.
When Derek Jeter showed bunt after Posada drove in the third Yankee run of the game, I didn’t have a problem with it. As I’ve mentioned before, the decision on whether to bunt or not is not binary, and there are a lot of factors involved in determining if it makes sense or not.
With a two run lead, and with no outs and runners on first and second, I can see the logic behind a sacrifice bunt to increase the odds of tacking on at least one run.
That being said, once the count went to two strikes, there iS NO excuse for trying to bunt. Jeter’s a smart player, but that was a STUPID play and basically handed the Phillies a free strikeout. Another blown call by the umpires ended the inning anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter, but it was still stupid.
After the seventh, the Yankees turned to Mariano Rivera to get six outs. In the eighth he got an out then walked Jimmy Rollins and allowed a single to Shane Victorino, which brought up Chase Utley as the go-ahead run. Rivera got Utley to ground into what was called an inning-ending double play, although the replay showed Utley probably beat the throw to first. Unlike the inning-ending bad call by the umpires in the Yankee half of the seventh, Fox did not gloss over this one for whatever reason.
Mo quickly got the first two outs in the ninth, but a Raul Ibanez double to left center brought up Matt Stairs as the tying run. Mo’s 39th pitch of the game, a 2-2 cutter down got Stairs swinging, and the Yankees leveled the Series at 1.
Maybe these guys don’t suck after all…
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