Game 125 – Yankees drop the ball

Great start from Burnett and the offence woke up late to give Burnett another win. Burnett allowed just 1 run (coming in the 1st) over 8 innings. Burnett’s lone walk was to lead off the game and that ended up being the only runner to score. He gave up 5 hits and struck out 13. The first 4 outs were all via strikeout and he struck out at least one batter in every inning but the 8th.

Only Abreu and Cano did not strikeout, while Giambi struck out 4 times (3 against Burnett, 1 vs Ryan) and Alex Rodriguez struck out 3 times.

The Jays did little offensively in the 1st part of the game. Thanks to a Damon dropped fly ball in the 1st the Jays had 2nd and 3rd w/1 out but could not score. They didn’t get another runner to 2nd until Lind’s solo HR tied the game in the 7th and they hit into 2 DP’s along the way. However, in the 8th after a 2-out 1B by Inglett, Scutaro hit a fly ball to the track in CF and Damon dropped another one. This time it was scored a 2B but that was mainly b/c Damon did a little jump and official scorer’s rarely give errors if you jump for a ball even though the ball clearly should have been caught (it looked like it went off the heal of his glove). Since there were 2 outs Inglett was running all the way and was able to score to put the Jays ahead.

You have to wonder if the Yankees regret sending Melky Cabrera down. At this point in his career Damon is one of the worst defensive outfielders. His range is greatly diminished and I think he has the worst OF arm in baseball.

I was surprised to see Scutaro not in motion on the 3-2 count to Rios in the 1st. Then again in the 4th w/Wells on 1st and a 3-2 count on Lind, Wells was not in motion. I don’t get why Cito wouldn’t send them. I know Cito doesn’t like the hit and run but this isn’t a straight hit and run as you have a 3-2 count and you are not forcing the hitter to swing the bat no matter where the pitch. With a LH on the mound I get not sending the runner b/c you don’t want the runner breaking on 1st movement and possibly getting picked off, but if he waits until the pitcher is committed to home plate then he’ll be a dead duck at 2nd if the batter strikes out. However, Rasner is a RH pitcher so you do not have to worry about the runner getting a bad jump. Plus Rasner is not a big strikeout pitcher so you can expect the batter to put the ball in play if it is a strike. Furthermore, it is not like we’re talking about Stairs or Barajas on the basepaths, Wells and Scutaro both can run a little.

I don’t think the move by Rodriguez to try to stretch the 1B into a 2B in the 9th was a bad play. He represented the tying run and you’d love to get into scoring position so a 1B would tie the game. Plus Overbay maybe the only first basemen w/a strong enough arm to throw him out.

With Rios going 0 for 4 his hit streak vs the Yankees ended at 26 games.

I get the scoring of the Damon dropped fly ball in the 8th as a 2B based on the definition of an error but the Jeter infield single in the 6th should have been an E5.

Here are the stats:
NAdv: A. Rodriguez
P-NAdv: Burnett (17)
WG: Scutaro (10), Overbay (8)
DE: Damon