YANKEES ARE IN A STATE OF MORNING
After pulling all-nighter, they need to wake up soon
No one was quite sure what six hours, 49 minutes and 627 pitches of baseball in the Bronx the night before would beget Saturday, other than a whole lot of weary souls and Yankees-Red Sox in Zombie Land.
As it turned out, however, it was the visitors who showed far fewer ill effects from the longest game in Red Sox history, taking advantage of a plethora of Yankee boots, blunders and errant throws to carve out a second straight win at Yankee Stadium, only a few hours after the first victory. As for Joe Girardi’s troops, well, how do you spell EMBARRASSING, other than it starts with an “E”? We should have gotten an idea as to where this one was possibly going by the sound of that “clank!” in the third inning when Alex Rodriguez, making his major-league debut as a first baseman, allowed Chase Headley’s throw on Mike Napoli’s leadoff grounder to third to bounce off the heel of his glove for an error. After Adam Warren retired the next two batters, Daniel Nava hit a double to left — which Brett Gardner misplayed — bringing home the first of four unearned Red Sox runs on the day.
Mind you, A-Rod wasn’t even supposed to be starting at all, much less at first base, but had to be pressed into duty on his previously designated first day off because, as a DH the night before, he wasn’t on his feet all night. And if there was one thing Girardi said he was sure of before the game, it was that his emergency, makeshift first baseman could make the routine plays.
“That’s not what we expected to be difficult . . . catching it,” Girardi said.
But let’s be fair here. Just about everyone on the field for the Yankees Saturday had trouble catching the ball . . . or throwing it, and Adam Warren, who gave the bullpen a welcome lift with 5.1 solid innings, punctuated by an inning-ending strikeout of David Ortiz with a runner on third in the fifth, on his 94th pitch, deserved a better fate. Warren’s punchout of Big Papi sure had the near sellout crowd pumped, but it was obviously lost on his Yankee teammates, who went down tepidly 1-2-3 in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh against Joe Kelly, who, because of a biceps strain, had not surpassed 75 pitches in any of his spring starts. Kelly wound up giving Red Sox manager John Farrell seven innings of one-run ball, striking out eight.
But embarrassing as the Yankee hitters have been so far (.193 BA), their glovework was even worse Saturday.
The fatal seventh began with Justin Wilson, one of the much-heralded “power arm” relievers brought in by GM Brian Cashman over the winter, issuing a leadoff walk to Nava. Chris Martin, another of the new bullpen operatives, relieved and got Xander Bogaerts to ground into a forceout of Nava at second. But then, with Ryan Hanigan batting, Bogaerts stole second and advanced to third when Yankee catcher John Ryan Murphy’s throw sailed into center field. The night before, it was a passed ball by Murphy in the 19th inning that allowed Bogaerts to get to third base and in position to score the winning run on Mookie Betts’ sac fly.
Further embarrassment for the Yankees was Bogaerts subsequently scoring surprisingly easily on Hanigan’s high chopper to third, ahead of Headley’s throw. Martin then proceeded to give up a single to Brock Holt and Dustin Pedroia’s two-run double to center over the head of Chris Young in center to break the game open. But there was more — Nava reaching on a two-out throwing error by Headley in the eighth, and Garrett Jones (what is he doing on this roster?) later butchering Holt’s fly ball to right that allowed two more Sox runs Ato score. fter the game Friday night-into-AM Saturday, Pedroia was overheard joking in the Red Sox clubhouse that any players seen talking to the writers should be fined. “It’s 2 a.m.!” And no one was surprised that he was the first player in the Red Sox clubhouse Saturday morning, nearly two hours ahead of the rest of the team. Weary as they were, the Red Sox took their lead from their unofficial team captain and came to play the morning after. For the 1-4 Yankees, their play has been mostly awful, to the point Girardi was almost at a loss for words to explain it. “We’re a much better team than we’ve played,” the manager said, adding: “You play like this, you won’t win many games but I think we’re much better.”
They sure couldn’t be much worse — with Masahiro Tanaka’s second start Sunday night now looming larger than ever for what is ominously looking like one of the worst Yankee teams in decades.