They lost the first game because after a shaky start from Buchholz, they had to go to an already tired-out bullpen to finish it off. The loss certainly didn't come from lack of scoring. Buchholz (and to even more of an extent, Lester) needs to keep his pitch count down so as to avoid taxing the long man-Julian.
Josh Beckett's start in the second game was nearly the polar opposite of Buchholz' start from the night before. Beckett was in control of the game and was strong through eight innings. The offensive production of Manny didn't hurt either.
Perhaps frustrated with Manny's general awesome-ness in the second game, the Yankees threw at his head. The pitch sailed wide-about half a foot behind him-and everyone was warned about behaving like adults and the game went on. And this is why I hate Yankee games. Throwing at someone's head is extremely dangerous and the crowd behind him applauded the move-they were screaming for blood. Red Sox-Yankee games are not about baseball-they're about feeding the media driven rivalry.
If the pitch was intentional (and it was Farnsworth so you can't be absolutely positive that it was), why would you do it? Manny was just doing his job. If you didn't want him to hit two homeruns, then you shouldn't have put Mussina on the mound. It's not like he was showboating-he did acknowledge the fans who were cheering on his first go around but he left the batter's box pretty quickly both times. It's asinine and childish.
I may have to give Beckett credit for being smarter than I previously thought he was. They showed him in the dugout after the attempted plunking and he was nodding as if to say "Alright. If that's how you want to play it..." But rather than go for immediate satisfaction, he put the fear of being plunked in them and it was much more satisfying than the actual plunking will be (and I've no doubt that Beckett will hit one of them at some point this season.) He came back out for the seventh inning and did nothing about it. Then he came back out for the eighth inning to face the heart of their lineup (Jeter, Abreu, and Rodriguez.) As Jeter and then Abreu went down, Rodriguez must have been quaking in his cleats, worrying about where he was going to get hit, and how much it was going to hurt. Rodriguez swung weakly and knocked a slow roller toward first base for the out and will still have to worry about being hit the next time they play Boston. Mind games, courtesy of Josh Beckett.
No comments:
Post a Comment