The Captain's Blog

Randy Winn burst from the shadow of relatively obscurity with a game winning three-run blast that broke a 1-1 deadlock in the fourth inning. Winn’s homer was only his second hit of the season, but could go along way toward garnering him more playing time in the absence of Curtis Granderson. More importantly, it was the climax of the Yankees only run scoring rally and provided all the runs that C.C. Sabathia would need.

Despite throwing 67 of 106 pitches for strikes, Sabathia wasn’t as sharp as usual in the early going. In the second inning, he gave up an impressive opposite field home run to Matt Wieters on a fastball up in the zone, but was still able to keep the Orioles’ hitters off balance with a nice mix of all of his pitches. Thanks to an effective slider and change, Sabathia continued an early season trend of keeping his infielders busy. Including double plays, 16 of the 24 outs recorded by Sabathia were on the ground. Coming into the game, Sabathia’s ground ball rate was a career high 53% of balls put in play, so tonight’s effort will only add that.

Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira were presented with their 2009 Gold Glove awards in a pre-game ceremony.

For the first three innings, Jeremy Guthrie was actually outpitching Sabathia by using the same approach of mixing his entire arsenal of pitches (and notably hitting his spots instead of Yankee batters). In the fourth inning, however, he ran into trouble, thanks in large part to a sure double play ball off the bat of Jorge Posada that was mishandled by Ty Wigginton. Although not an easy play, a more experienced second baseman would have easily turned the twin killing against the slow-footed Posada. Forced to get an extra out, Guthrie gave up the lead on a long single by Nick Swisher that just missed clearing the right field wall. Brett Gardner then followed with a single before Winn wrecked Guthrie’s night by sending a 1-0 fastball deep into the right field seats.

Once he was given the lead, Sabathia relied more heavily on his fastball to plow through the Orioles’ lineup. In fact, the only real opposition he encountered from that point forward was from home plate umpire Bill Hohn. Sabathia’s game long frustration with Hohn’s strike zone temporarily came to a head when the big lefty visibly gestured toward Hohn during a seventh AB against Lou Montanez. Sabathia wound up walking the hitter on what YES analyst Al Leiter termed an “angry fastball”, but the big man quickly regained his composure and breezed through the eighth inning.

Despite the win, tonight’s game was not without its dark clouds. Before the top of the sixth inning, Jorge Posada was removed the game with what was called tightness in his right calf. Posada was sent to the hospital for an MRI, but no further details were disclosed. Also raising an eyebrow was the use of Joba Chamberlain to close out the 4-1 victory. After the game, it was revealed that Mariano Rivera has been suffering from minor tightness in his left “flank”. In a post game interview, Rivera did not seem concerned by the injury, but the absence of Enter Sandman in a save situation must have been very discomforting to Yankee fans.

C.C. Sabathia’s Pitch Breakdown By Inning

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The Orioles come into the Stadium flying high after a rare weekend sweep of the Boston Red Sox. The first game of the series features a rematch of last Wednesday’s game in Baltimore, when C.C. Sabathia bested Jeremy Guthrie.

An interesting subplot to the game will be Guthrie’s command, or lack thereof when pitching inside to Yankees hitters. In 12 career starts against the Yankees, Guthrie has plunked nine Yankee batters, more than three times the amount of any other team and nearly 40% of his career total. After last week’s game, Girardi admitted that he was frustrated by Guthrie’s wildness, which also reared its head in a spring training game back in March. Should Guthrie hit another Yankee batter, perhaps that frustration will boil over?

After a mini controversy concerning the health of his knee, Arod is back in the lineup at 3B. Randy Winn also makes a rare start in LF as the Yankees aim to fill the void left by Curtis Granderson’s groin injury. Girardi hasn’t committed to a strict Winn/Thames platoon, but that is likely to be the modus operandi in the near term.

• Before the game, MLB announced that Robinson Cano was named American League Player of the Month for the second time in his career. He was previously honored with the award in September 2006.
• Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira will be presented with their Rawlings Gold Glove awards in a pregame ceremony.
• Alex Rodriguez remains one HR behind Frank Robinson for 7^th place on the all-time list, while Derek Jeter needs one 2B to bypass Don Mattingly for sole possession of third place on the franchise leader board.
• Sabathia is 10-1 lifetime against the Orioles, including victories in his last five starts against them. Conversely, Guthrie has lost his last five starts against the Yankees.

A day after the Kentucky Derby, everything came up roses for the Yankees. Phil Hughes busted out of the gate with the same mid-90s fastball that has allowed him dominate in the early going. Once again, Hughes pounded the strike zone by throwing 69 of his 99 pitches for strikes. He mostly used a well located fastball and sharp cutter to breeze through 7 innings with only four hits allowed. Hughes also mixed in a handful of change-ups for the first time all season, but as in his past starts, the efficiency of his fastball didn’t require too much further development of that pitch. 

Phil Hughes improved to 3-0 with a dominant performance against the White Sox (Photo: Daily News).

In the early part of the game, it looked as if Mark Buehrle would match Hughes in a pitcher’s duel, but Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner combined to pull the Yankees into a comfortable lead. In the second inning, Cano doubled and then scored on an RBI single by Gardner that bounced off Paul Konerko’s glove and trickled into right field. In the fourth, Gardner turned on the power and deposited his first HR of the season into the first row of the right centerfield stands. Following Gardner’s unlikely blast, the Yankees broke open the game with HRs in the next two innings. In the fifth, Cano belted his ninth home run of the season, a three run shot off Buehrle, and then in the sixth, Nick Swisher added a two-run shot off reliever Tony Pena. 

In total, the Yankees plated 12 runs, their highest tally of the season. Mark Teixeira continued his month of May transformation by cranking out four hits, while Swisher doubled his hit output at Yankee Stadium by recording three safeties. Even Nick Johnson showed signs of breaking out of his season long slump. After hitting the ball hard for outs earlier in the game, Johnson finally broke through with a two-run double in the eighth inning. 

While everyone was all smiles on the Yankee side, frustration could be seen across the White Sox faces. Several misplays in the field combined with impatient at bats made the White Sox seem like a team going through the motions. The frustration for Ozzie Guillen eventually boiled over in the seventh inning when he was ejected from the game while intervening in a disagreement between A.J. Pierzynski and home plate umpire Dan Iassogna. One bright spot for the Sox continued to be the year long resurgence of Paul Konerko. In the ninth, Konerko belted his league leading 12^th home run of the season off Mark Melancon, who was making his 2010 debut after being recalled from Scranton. 

After the game, the New York Post’s Joel Sherman challenged Joe Girardi about the injury status of Alex Rodriguez. Earlier in the afternoon, Sherman reported that Brian Cashman stated Arod had missed the game because of soreness behind his right knee. Girardi responded to Sherman’s confrontational question, which was asked with a tone of condescension, by firmly stating Arod was fine and would be in the lineup tomorrow. In an ESPNNewYork article, Cashman refuted that Arod was experiencing any knee-related discomfort, instead clarifying that the issue was more “muscle related”. 

• The Yankees have now won seven of the eight series they have played this season.
• Phil Hughes joined AJ Burnett and Andy Pettitte with 3-0 records. The Yankees are the only team in baseball with three undefeated starters who have at least three victories.
• Robinson Cano and the Diamondback’s 2B Kelly Johnson lead all left-handed hitters with nine HRs. Six of Cano’s nine HRs this season have been hit off of lefties.
• Cano and Jeter added yet another multi-hit game this season. Jeter’s 13 multi-hit games lead all of baseball, with Cano right behind at 12. Since 2009, Jeter and Cano have had at least two hits in 79 games, trailing only Ichiro, who has 85.