YANKEES WIN BIG OVER ORIOLES

2 Recaps tonight on BYB.  In case you missed it earlier, here's Frank Gentry's recap titled IT'S ALIVE!. And here's mine...

The Yankees had to go to bed with a bad taste in their mouth last night as first base ump Jerry Meals cost the Yankees the game. There were other reasons why the Yankees lost that game, but that doesn’t erase Meals’ gaffe. Either way, the Yankees had to move on. The AL East was tied going into the fourth game of the set, but the offense and bullpen carried the Yanks to a huge 13-3 win on Sunday afternoon.

The offense seemed to be clicking of late since the return of Alex Rodriguez. Coming into this game they had scored at least five runs in three out of their past four games. (It would have been four straight if not for the missed call be Meals on Saturday) But on Sunday, the Yanks capitalized for 13 runs on 14 hits. Six of the nine starters had one hit each except for Nick Swisher, Steve Pearce, and Andruw Jones. Six different players had at least one RBI including Curtis Granderson who went 3-for-3 with five RBI.

He was a triple short of the cycle and he entered the game in the sixth as a pinch hitter for Andruw Jones. My favorite of the day, Derek Jeter, the captain, had a homer and 3 RBIs.  You can't beat it, the Captain is King!

The bullpen had to pick up 17 of the 27 outs thanks in part to another ineffective start by Freddy Garcia. (Though in fairness, he cruised through the first three innings, allowing just one hit before imploding for three runs in the fourth) The game was 5-3 at the time when Garcia was pulled, and the bullpen did marvelous, combining for 5.2 innings of one hit, no run, nine strikeout, and two walk ball. Joba relieved Garcia and he looked fantastic as he struck out four batters in a scoreless 1.2 innings. Boone Logan followed with a scoreless inning before Cory Wade (remember him?) pitched two scoreless, no hit innings while punching out three. Derek Lowe pitched a perfect ninth to seal the deal.

Some additional thoughts:

With Ivan Nova now healthy I can only help but wonder if this is in fact Freddy Garcia’s last start with the Yankees. As we’ve seen for weeks now, the guy just runs out of gas in the middle innings. I like him as a multi-inning reliever out of the ‘pen, but not as a starter. These games are important and the Yankees need length out of their starters. Maybe the couple of weeks Nova had off helped him. If he can pitch anywhere near what he did in the second half last season it would be a huge lift to the team.

I thought Joe Girardi did a really good job of managing this game. Last week I criticized him pretty heavily in my post titled YANKEES OUT MANAGED IN BAD LOSS TO ORIOLES. But in this game there is really no need to critique him. I thought pinch-hitting Curtis Granderson for the ultra-slumping Andruw Jones was the right move, as well as how he handled the bullpen. Good job, skip.

Final was Yankees 13- Orioles 3.

Thanks to this win the Yanks are back on top in the AL East standings by one game over the Orioles and two ahead of the Rays. The Bombers will get a much needed day off on Monday before playing a three game set in Boston. Hiroki Kuroda (13-10, 3.14) will oppose Jon Lester (9-11, 4.99 ERA) in the opener on Tuesday.



--Jesse Schindler, BYB Lead Staff Writer
Follow me on Twitter @SchindlerJesse



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