Robinson Cano and his sweet swing

The Indians home opener ended pretty much the same way as the Yankees home opener. With a loss for the home team. It was also a reunion of Nick Swisher, former Yankee with his old team, and Travis Hafner with his old team and fan base, Kevin Youkilis with Terry Francona.

~~ Yankees 11, Indians 6 ~~

Travis Hafner got some welcome home chants, then he hit a homerun, then the boos rained down. He said he kind of expected it because the fans in Cleveland are passionate. You could see that by how packed the stadium was. Both pitchers gave up 3 runs in the first inning. Kuroda however settled down and didn’t let anybody else score. Ubaldo Jimenez did not do so well. Of course Kuroda didn’t have to pitch to Robinson Cano.

Robinson Cano was hitting to the left and right, both ways, over the wall. Bringing awareness to the Indians and the people of Cleveland.

The game almost came apart in the 8th and 9th innings. Shawn Kelley gave up 3 runs and in the ninth, Joba came in and walked two. I was freaking, I told Kasey to talk to Joba, walks are going to be the death of me!

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Game 7
Yankees 3-4 (0.429)

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ALDS GAME 2

~~ Yankees 2, Orioles 3 ~~
ALDS: Yankees 1, Orioles 1

Live blogging: The Orioles game is currently in rain delay, estimated start time: 8:45 P.M.

Cards pasted the Nationals. Cardinals 12, Nationals 4

Play Ball!!
Top 1:
Jeter singles to center field; Wei-Yin Chen is throwing fast balls, Ichiro reaches on an error; 2 on, no outs; Alex hits into a double play, a weird double play (second baseman caught the line drive, then tossed to second, Alex and Derek out). Robbie hits into the corner, Ichiro comes home, avoids the tag by Matt Wieters. Nick Swisher out at first.

Bottom 1:
Fly ball to left, one out; 2nd batter grounds out to Cano, two out; 3rd batter strikes out. 1-2-3 inning for Andy. Yankees 1, Orioles 0

Top 2:
Baltimore fans boo Teixeira, he pops out to first baseman; Russell fly ball center field; Curtis strikes out.

Bottom 2:
Pop out to Robinson Cano; Ground out third base to first; Strike out. Yankees 1, Orioles 0

Top 3:
Eduardo Nunez is the DH, (WHAT? Nunez DHing?) Pops out 3rd base; Jeter strikes out looking, but he doesn’t agree, is muttering as he walks back to the dug-out; Ichiro singles; Alex singles, runners at first and second; Cano grounds out to the pitcher.

Bottom 3:
Fly out to left field; Jeter to Mark; #9 batter breaks bat, ball drops before Curtis, 1st hit for the Orioles; McLouth in a single to center field, runners on first and second. This is vintage Andy, get into trouble – gets out of trouble. Walks batter, bases loaded and a power hitter coming up. Base hit to right field, two runs score. Baltimore in the lead by one run. Base hit, bases loaded again, bad base running by Baltimore; pop-out to Cano. Yankees 1, Orioles 2

Top 4:
Swisher swings out; Lined up the middle, base hit for Teixeira; Russell walks; Base hit for Curtis, bases are now loaded with one out. Nunez pops out; Jeter hits the ball to the third baseman. RISP FAIL. Ugh.

Bottom 4:
Base hit, bad throw by Jeter and Mark has to jump for it; Strike out; Ball hit to A-Rod gets the runner out at second. Hit to Cano, get the runner at second, again. Yankees 1, Orioles 2

Top 5:
Now it is time for the Yankees to get some runs. Ichiro thrown out at first; A-Rod flies out to center field; Robbie thrown out at first. The inning took about as long to play as it took me to type this. 4 pitches, that is disgusting.

Bottom 5:
McLouth reaches on an error; Hardy called out on strikes; Davis hits a fly ball to Curtis; Adam Jones hits a fly ball to Swisher, who catches it. Yankees 1, Orioles 2

Top 6:
Swisher grounds out; Mark flies out to left field; Base hit for Russell, scratch that, reached on an error; Granderson pops up and out.

Bottom 6:
Weiters get a double; Reynolds smokes it, Weiters scores; Thome strikes out; Machado hits it to Andy, who turns and throws it to 2nd, then Robbie throws on to Mark. That was pretty boss of Andy. Yankees 1, Orioles 3

Top 7:
Nunez leads off with a double (cause he runs fast like bunny, or the road runner, or whatever); Jeter hits the ball over Hardy’s head and Nunez scores; Ichiro hits the ball to Hardy and Jeter is out at second, but Ichiro makes it to first;

Chen’s night is done, Darren O’Day comes in to face Alex Rodriguez. Alex strikes out, Ichiro steals second;

My router crapped out right here, to recap the Orioles brought in a new pitcher, Cano was walked and Swisher hit a fly ball to make the last out.

Bottom 7:
1-2-3 inning Yankees 2, Orioles 3

Top 8:
Teixeira gets on first; Russell strikes out looking on a ball off the plate 😦 ; Curtis strikes out; Nunez pops out.

Bottom 8:
Davis hits over Andy’s head, over 2nd base and he gets on first.

New pitcher for the Yankees. David Robertson – fields the ball and gets Jones at first, runner advances to second; Weiters grounds out to first. Reynolds swings at the air. Yankees 2, Orioles 3

Top 9:
Jim Johnson is in for the Orioles.
Jeter grounds out; Ichiro grounds out. One more out and it’s the end for the Yankees. Alex strikes out. Yankees lose.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Selfish Curtis Granderson

The Yankees swept the Mets. On June 8th the Yankees won 9-1, they hit 3 home runs in this game. It was the first game Johan had pitched after his no-hitter and the three home runs came one after the other against him. The next game was on June 9 and I wrote about it in my last blog post, they hit 2 home runs winning the game by 2 runs. In the game on June 10, the Mets were up 3 runs until the 7th inning then Russell hit a 2 run home run, then two more runs in the 8th put them ahead. Sori gave up a run in the top of the 9th to tie the score. In the bottom of the 9th Russell hit another home run, this was for the win, a walk off home run. Yankees hit home runs in each game.

The series against the Braves was a sweep also, and the Yankees hit home runs in each of those games. June 11, 3-0 and 1 home run; June 12, 6-4 with 2 home runs; June 13, 3-2 with 1 home run.

In some of these games, you could say they wouldn’t have won without the home runs. The game on June 10th, the winning run was a home run. On June 9th the Yankees won by 2 runs and scored 3 of their runs by way of home runs. The home run hit by Mark Teixeira was with Curtis Granderson on base, the one Curtis hit was a solo shot. Phil also pitched very well, only giving up 2 runs to the Mets, so that helped. In the game against the Braves on June 12, going into the 8th the score was 4-0 Atlanta, then with the bases loaded Alex Rodriguez hit a home run. It was his 23rd Grand Slam, tying him with Lou Gehrig (this made Lindsey sad, I was sad too, but then someone pointed out even though he tied the record, that doesn’t make Alex as great a player as Lou. I don’t know if that made Lindsey feel better, but it helped me). After Robbie got on base, Swisher hit a home run to put the Yankees up 6-4 and then on June 13, Curtis hit a two run homer in the 6th which put the Yankees ahead.

However there were other games that would have been run without the home run. Such as the game on June 11 against the Braves. First of all, Ivan pitched a shut out, and he got a hit, his first. The Yankees scored three runs, one was a home run, so without that home run the Yankees would have won 2-0 instead of 3-0.

Then there was today’s game, which the Yankees were winning going into the 9th inning with a score of 6-1, all without a home run. We were all excited, thinking “Will this be it? Will the Yankees finally win a game without hitting a home run?” Yes the Yankees have hit at least one home run in all of their winning games. Then Curtis Granderson just had to hit one out of the park. His 20th this year and the Yankees are still without a winning game without a home run. Will it never end? Curtis is just so selfish.

I managed to type that without laughing. The Yankees are getting men on base, not all their home runs are single shots, and what better way to bring your teammates home than with a home run? The Yankees have power hitters in their line ups and Curtis wasn’t going to swing for a single with a 3-1 count. Not when he got a 4-seam fastball. Joe keeps telling people, a home run is a hit. Someday they’ll believe it.

While I don’t know yet if the Yankees are going to sweep, they are off to a good start. And for the last two sweeps, fireworks are in order I think.

Frustration

Before the game last night, I was thinking I should write a post about how the Yankees swept the A’s, I was even going to use my little broom gif. However it was beastly hot and I really didn’t want to sit with my laptop making my lap hotter. So I thought I would type it after the game. In the first inning the Yankees scored 3 runs, the Angels came back and scored 4. On the surface that may not seem too bad, but the Yankees got 3 runs because the Angles committed 2 errors. The Angels got 4 runs without any errors by the Yankees. It was a sloppy inning, Phil did not have very good stuff.

At lot of times Phil gets very low run support, on May 22, a game I was at, the Yankees scored 3 runs. It was enough because Phil held the Royals to 2 runs. Last night he gave up 7 runs. The Yankees scored 8 runs, tying it up in the 7th inning. Then the Angels got a home-run in the bottom of the ninth to win it. Mark Trumbo hit it off Cory Wade. But I don’t blame Cory, as he said:

“He got paid to do just what he did with it — hit it out of the ballpark,” Wade said. “If I throw that same pitch 10 more times, he’s going to hit it out 10 more times. It was a pretty bad pitch.”

That gives the Angels 7 wins in a row, and breaks the Yankees winning streak. Tonight Andy pitches, hopefully he can shut down the Angels.

In the third inning Nick and Curtis collided. I confess, I laughed, sorry guys. They both got up, the ball went into Swish’s glove and then bounced out when they collided. Curtis was up first and scrambling after the ball.

Granderson and Swisher collide

He’s BACK!!

~~ Yankees 10, Royals 4 ~~

Yes Nick Swisher was back in the line-up after a week out with a strained hamstring, but I was referring to Phil Hughes. His outings are getting longer and his record is now up to 2-4. Yes I know that doesn’t look great, but today his line was: 6.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 walk and 7 strike outs. The main thing is how long he lasted, that is encouraging to me, looking at him he looked more at ease, more determined and less uncertain. He threw 115 pitches which means he is being smarter about his pitches. He was in KC so he didn’t get an ovation, but I clapped for him in my living room.

Coming into the 3rd inning they were tied, Yankees scored 6 runs, 4 with a grand slam by Robbie. The Swish added a home run of his own. In the 8th inning Alex hit a 3 run home run. Combination of small ball and long ball.

Three runs were charged to Phil, the last a home run so Boone came in to replace him, the last run was in the 9th inning, a nice try for a rally that didn’t happen.

Game over: Yankees win.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Catching up

Once again I am behind, I was going to write about the game I went to, by myself which the Yankees won (yay!) but I forgot, then the Yankees came back from a 9-0 game against the Red Sox which I had a great post written (in my head), which never made it to my fingertips. So just going to pick up with Saturday’s game against the Tigers.

~~ Tigers 7, Yankees 5 ~~

Tom invited me and it was him, me, his sister and nephew. Joe and Joan were also there, but he has different seats this season. They both still have tickets to the Audi Club and Mohegan Sun Sports Bar.

Freddy was pitching, he was pretty bad. He lasted less then 2 innings and 6 runs. Tigers were hitting him hard, even the outs were hard hit balls. The balls were going in the corner in right field where Swish couldn’t get them and he was scrambling after them Rapada, then Phelps and Eppley ended the game. Eppley gave up a home run. The Yankees came back to score 5 runs, it wasn’t enough. Garcia is going to the bullpen, Phelps is going to get a chance to start.

Still had fun, I like it when I’m at the game, and even in the Clubs I scream loud, like when Swish gets a home run, he hit two and Curtis hit one. And the ticket I got has Don Mattingly on it and “EIGHT game record tying home run streak begins July 8, 1987”. Little bit of trivia for you. I also got roped into invited to a barbecue at Tom’s next weekend. Kasey will be in the city, but D will be with her since it’s their anniversary. I couldn’t come up with a reason to say no, other then I despise barbecue …… more on that later.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

The next opening day

The season opener was in Tampa on Good Friday, April 6. The home opener was the next Friday, April 13 against the Angels, NY Yankees 5, Angels 0. As I have mentioned, to anyone that will listen, I was not at the game and I desperately wanted to go, I wanted to go so bad that up to the last possible minute I kept checking StubHub™ hoping a ticket would magically appear for under $100. Every time I looked up tickets, I noticed that tickets for Sunday, which was also Jackie Robinson Day were really cheap, probably because the game was at 8:00pm on Sunday. I bought two tickets, it was cheaper to get two then one, go figure. Jackie Robinson Day was going to be my opening day.

Now I had two tickets and had to think of who did I want to go with me? I put a post on this blog, I casually mentioned it on Twitter, then I saw a tweep that I’ve met a few time, that has a few times tweeted me to “Come on Down to _____ for some drinks”, so I just asked her want to go to the game Sunday? I have an extra ticket. She was thrilled, it was her birthday weekend and she loves the Yankees. In particular Phil Hughes, she wore his shirt, she squealed when his picture came up on the Jumb-o-tron.

It was also calendar night so we got this nice calendar. It has coupons from subway and the Yankees in it are: April: Derek Jeter; May: Mariano Rivera (taken the day he got his 602nd save); June: Alex Rodriguez (he looks like he just hit a home run, he’s got that happy look on his face and relaxed); July: CC Sabathia; August: Robinson Cano; September: Mark Teixeira (I probably should tear September off and send it to Kasey); October: Nick Swisher (not Mr. October but hey, my sweet Nicky! Who two years in a row hit a walk off home run on my birthday. The next year and this year, no home game on my birthday, so no walk-off); November: Curtis Granderson; December: Russell Martin (without his face mask. Very important); January: Ivan Nova; February: David Robertson (who so coolly in this game got the last out with the bases loaded {thank you Rafe you bum}); March: Brett Gardner.

~~ Yankees 11, Angels 5 ~~

Everyone was wearing 42 today, before the game when C and I were eating pizza and drinking beer at the pizza place around the corner from the stadium, I wondered why they were showing an old Yankee game, I mean #42 was pitching, but the uniforms were the wrong color …… Then during the game she showed me a tweet, “I just turned on the Yankee game and couldn’t figure out why Mariano was pitching in the 5th inning.” So I wasn’t the only one confused.

The #42 that was pitching was Ivan Nova, despite having a cold he maintained his winning streak. 6 IP, 4 ER, 8 Ks and his ERA is now down to 4.15 (He ended spring training with an ERA over 8. I guess he needs the adrenalin of regular season). Derek Jeter and Raul Ibanez hit home runs. Then in the 7th inning Rafael comes in, gets two out and then walks two, the bases are loaded, I was screaming at him “You are not David Robertson! You cannot load the bases! If you lose this game for Ivan Nova I will kick your ass!” Since Joe didn’t want to see me get in trouble he called in D-Rob. When Boone came in for the 9th inning C pouted, she wanted to see Mo, but since it wasn’t a save situation no Mo, Boone pitched a scoreless 9th. Good game.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

Those dirty orange birds

Yes we swept them, Yankees are now 3-3, this means they start Friday, the home opener with a ‘clean slate’. Whatever, I won’t be there. I’m still trying for tickets but it doesn’t look likely. I will probably be here watching from the Upper East Side instead of the Upper Deck. I don’t know if the Grandstand is actually called the Upper deck, but it sounds good for my blog.

After Nova pitched spectacularly, the next two nights the pitchers were not so good. 12 innings and 10 innings. Last night, I fell asleep while Phelps was pitching, woke up to see Raul pinch hit putting the Yankees ahead. Mariano came in, and I fell asleep again. Tonight, in the 10th inning I left the room to make ravioli so Nicky would hit a home run. He is shy and doesn’t like hitting home runs when I am watching. I ran back in to tweet that after he hit his two run home run, the ravioli burned. Oh well.

I stopped watching the game to make ravioli. You are welcome.

— Foxx in UES (@Foxx_UES) April 12, 2012

If by some miracle I end up with tickets for Friday, I will let you know. If not, I plan on ‘live blogging’ the game.

Bits and pieces, awards and football

Report: Yu Darvish bid tops Dice-K I’m not quite sure how this works, like a lot of things in the business end of baseball, as I understand it, this pitcher, Yu Darvish wants to come to play in the MLB. So the MLB teams that want him have to bid for him. Then his team (the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters) decides if they’ll accept the bid, then the team who made the bid gets to ‘talk’ to the player, to see if they can reach a deal. I don’t know if then the team has to pay MORE money to the player. I can’t find that out. However, the bidding has closed and the highest bid is a lot of money.

Greatness in Baseball Yearly Awards (GIBBYs) were announced on Friday night as the final word on Major League Baseball’s awards season. The Yankees had three: Derek Jeter for Performance of the Year, David Robertson for Setup Man and Robinson Cano for Wow Factor. Jose Valverde of the Tigers won Closer of the Year, which I was going to cry about, but it’s just for the year, and his numbers were better then Mo’s this year. However, Mo is still the greatest of all time. Speaking of Mo ….

Rivera recovering well after surgery on throat He had polyps removed from his vocal cords. We haven’t heard the results of the testing on the polyps, but this is one area where bad news usually travels faster then good news. Pretty sure he’ll be fine.

Yankees take two players in Rule 5 Draft Left-handed reliever Cesar Cabral, so if I understand this right, he was with the Red Sox, then the Royals picked him in the draft, then the Yankees paid the Royals for him (sounds a little bit like a slave auction, hmmm). So was he a Royals, or a Red Sox? The other player is a right-handed pitcher Brad Meyers, who was a starter with the Nationals.

The Yankees are keeping Hector Noesi as a starter and released Greg Golson. Good-bye Greg, I’ll never forget that throw you made from right field, it was a beauty.

Freddy Garcia will be a Yankee next year, they offered him a one year deal and he accepted. He likes playing in Pinstripes.

All eligible Yankees tendered contracts Joba, Phil, David, Brett, Boone (Boom-Boom-Boone) and Russell (HI! Russell) are all coming back next year. Russell even tweeted it. If it wasn’t so late I would find it and post a link.

Cano and Swisher are coming back, of course Cano is a no-doubter (as is Swisher in my mind). There is talk that the Yankees might use Swisher for trade, but I doubt it. If you trade Swisher, who’s going to play right field? Not only that but he can relieve Mark at first and he is good for 30 home runs a year and contributes to the clubhouse moral. Not only that, he loves New York and would cry if he had to leave.

The biggest news of all (pun intended) is that CC is coming back. So we will have our Ace, our Big Stoppa, our Great Devourer of Innings. He also let the fans know, he posted a video saying he wanted to let the fans know himself, he is coming back to New York.

However, the Yankees are not the only ones busy acquiring things during the off-season, I got these two beautiful pins.

On the subject of football, I’m not really a football fan, but I’ve been trying to keep myself occupied instead of just moping about waiting for baseball to start again. I have been a Bills fan since I lived in Buffalo, it wasn’t that hard to abandon the Bucs when I left Florida, and I still am. However, I decided I can root for two teams. I picked the Ravens for 3 reason. One is they beat the Steelers (TWICE!) and I hate the Steelers. Two is their uniforms are purple (pretty!). Third is the quarterback is a real cutie (his wife is pregnant with their first baby, how presh is that!). So I bought some cute purple stuff, a t-shirt, some fuzzy socks and a dog tag (it has an engraveable back, I don’t know what I would put there but if I ever do, ….. So I am hoping they make it to the superbowl. If not them, maybe the Giants, I can root for the Giants, they are almost a New York team.

You gotta believe

Nick Swisher released an album, “Believe” on October 11, 2011. Last Saturday, November 19, 2011 he came to J&R Music to sign copies of the CD. I went, I bought a CD, I waited in line, I shook his hand (twice- once for hello, then again for good-bye). I also took pictures.

The store is at 23 Park Row which is downtown. I got off the subway at the Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall stop and walked past City Hall and the bridge to the store. I got there about 11:30 (the signing was at 2:00), I was rather surprised to see that the line was not very long, there were maybe 20 people waiting. The man from J&R kept coming out and saying Nick Swisher would only be signing copies of his CD, so I got out of line and bought one. Then I got back in line, by now there were about 40 people in line. Nothing to do but wait and chat to people.

The couple behind me were interesting. She was a Met’s fan, just there to keep her boyfriend/husband/partner company. He was there to get an autograph for his favorite daughter-in-law who, according to him is simply mad about Swisher. Everybody was behaving themselves. Being orderly, not blocking the sidewalk, an elderly man with a walker and “OWS” button was walking down harassing people waiting to see Swisher. A YES cameraman was there, but I don’t think he got me so I won’t be on TV.

It was cold, not freezing cold but cold and they let us come inside, I think it might have been the size of the line and so that when Swish got there they could start the signing right way. The way the line was I was at the back of the room, a straight shot up from where Swish was going to be sitting for autographs. He comes in, loud and cheerful, stands up and poses next to the sign. The whole time we were waiting the people in charge were saying, only the CD’s signed and no pictures. People were standing between the CD bins taking pictures so I walked up to get this shot. The people behind me encouraged me, saying they would hold my spot, I had already told them everything I know about Swisher including the fact that Dave Robertson is WAY CUTER. I told them, that I thought they just didn’t want people taking pictures from right in front of the table. When I got up close, I saw people getting CD’s signed, stepping back and taking a picture, so then I decided, no pictures must have meant, no pictures with Swisher. One woman was told to put her video camera away.

I took this picture right before I went up to get his autograph, its a little blurry cause I took it quickly and was a little nervous, then I went up. He stuck his hand out, asked me ‘How you doing today?’ I told him my friend had asked me to say hi, that seemed to amuse him and he said, ‘Tell her hi back!’, then as I was leaving he stuck his hand out to shake again, good-bye. He’s such a doll.

So here it is, what I waited 2.5 hours for.