WHY THE YANKEES DID 9-11 JUSTICE

On the way to today's game, I actually couldn't think of anything other than how excited I was to be seeing Jesus Montero catch for the first time in his big league career. For a little while, I totally forgot what day it was.

You may have noticed that of all the regular writers here, I'm the only one who has not put up a 9/11 piece. I wanted to wait until now. I was younger and I don't remember much. I do remember my dad who worked about 30 blocks from the World Trade Center and I called to make sure he was OK. Thank God he was.

But I wanted to write my post today because there were a combination of things happening. Today wasn't just a baseball game, it was symbolic of rebirth. The Yankees snapped a 4 game losing streak, plus, I got to see both Jesus Montero and Austin Romine's first time behind the plate in the Bigs, and the Yankees just snapped back into form. There wasn't a much better day to do it on than 9-11, a day when America changed and was reborn itself. Initially, that rebirth manifested itself as fear, but soon we grew stronger as a Nation. People can say whatever they want about these tragic events, and on the surface, it may appear that it tore the Nation apart, but everyone became more patriotic that day and I feel we're closer than ever.Now, I'm not trying to say a Yankees' losing streak is similar to one of the worst disasters in the history of mankind, no. What I'm saying is it really felt good seeing the Yankees come together, regrouping and jumping back to life just in time to honor 9-11, it was almost symbolic. Perhaps it serves as just a tiny reminder that we can all recover from struggles, whether it's in baseball or in life.
Today's recap goes like this. The Yankees dug themselves into an early hole when Freddy Garcia served up a 2 run-homer to Howie Kendrick in the 1st with none out, but Robbie Cano and Eric Chavez pieced together a run to bring them within one with a pair of singles and a wild pitch in between.

The Yankees coughed that run right back up when Freddy threw a wild pitch by Montero, who predictably had trouble blocking Freddy's splitter, scoring Bobby Wilson. Freddy did a good job of working out of a 2nd and 3rd, 1 out jam to limit the damage, and given the final result, it turned out to be a huge escape.After Tex struck out, Cano drilled a solo shot into right field, one that didn't even seem like it was going to make it to the track off the bat. That brought the deficit down to 1. The Yankees loaded the bases with 2 outs for Brett Gardner, but he couldn't capitalize and the inning ended with no further damage.Peter Bourjos opened the game up to 5-2 Angels with a 2-run shot into left field, but the Grandy Man fired right back with his own 2-run blast, driving in Derek Jeter, to make the game 5-4.

Freddy then proceeded to give me a heart attack by loading the bases with one out, but he masterfully got Mark Trumbo to pop up and Callaspo did the rest for the Yanks by grounding out.

After a pair of 1-2-3 innings for each team, the Yankees jumped into action with back to back singles by Gardner and Jeter. The Angels brought in Scott Downs, who struck out Curtis Granderson, and then Mark Teixeira lifted a sac fly into center field which I assumed would have tied the game... but that's when Peter Bourjos made perhaps the most pathetic fielding error I have ever seen. He seriously closed his glove before the ball was even there and it just bounced off. I've seen guys lose balls in the sun or the Tropicana Field dome and I see guys misplay line drives all the time, but I have never seen a guy camp under a ball and just close his glove right in front of it. This actually gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead, which Rafael Soriano and David Robertson held onto for Mo, who recorded his 599th career save and his 40th of the season. Man, I was so close to seeing 600, it would have been sweet.

A few additional highlights:

• Montero played behind the dish for the first time today, and threw out his first attempted base stealer with a bullet to Cano. He went 0 for 3 with an intentional walk. While Montero didn't dazzle, he has already built up a big enough reputation to get walked intentionally.

• Austin Romine replaced Montero in the 7th inning and guided Soriano, Robertson, and Mo through three shutout innings. He allowed one stolen base when Torii Hunter stupidly walked right in front of him as he was trying to throw out Bobby Abreu, which the umpire failed to acknowledge.

• Granderson is now one homer short of the 40 home run milestone, and Cano is at 25, looking to make a run at 30. Granderson also brought his RBI total to 111. He may be hurting his MVP case with his slump lately, but if he can get his average back to .270 and his OPS back to about .950, he'll be hard to vote against. Just needs a few great nights.

• Jeter upped his average to .297 with a 2 for 5 day. In other news, the media remains silent on anything and everything related to Jeter as he continues to tear it up.

• Cory Wade took the win today, bringing his season record with the Yankees to 5-0. What a gift he's been.

• Freddy wasn't sharp at all (5.0 IP, 5 ER), but as he always does, he made sure things didn't get out of hand and kept the game within reach. Gotta love a veteran.

• David Robertson lowered his season ERA to 1.19 and continues to earn the title of best relief pitcher in baseball this year, even better than Mo. It'd be a shame if DRob didn't get a few votes for the Cy Young Award. Justin Verlander has certainly earned the award so I'm not saying to give it to him, but the kid has had a better statistical season than Mariano ever had (outside BB/9). Let that process for a moment...

• The Rays completed a 3 game sweep of the Red Sox, closing the Red Sox' wild card lead to 3.5 and increasing the Yankees' lead to 3.5. Can you say “September choke”? I can.

Final Score: Yankees 6 - Angels 5

Just a perfect day of Yankees baseball with the assistance of one horrible error. Got to see a couple of potential legends in the making catching for the first time (Trust me, I'll be telling this story in a few decades) and watched Mariano's march to the Saves record. They couldn't have possibly done a better job of lifting our spirits on this sad day.

--Grant Cederquist, BYB Staff Writer



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