Wang v. Buchholz (Game 11)

Chien-Ming Wang pitched a beauty of a game. You've got to give him that. He allowed two hit in nine innings and he didn't need many pitches at all (89 in total) to do it. He only struck out three batters but got thirteen fly ball outs and ten ground ball outs.

Buchholz pitched well. He threw ninety-eight pitches, fifty-eight of them for strikes. He went six innings; struck out three, walked three, gave up four hits, and allowed one run. The first four innings went pretty smoothly for him. He gave up a base hit to Matsui in the second inning but the rest of them were 1-2-3 innings. He got into some trouble in the fifth, starting off the first two batters with walks. The first out of the inning came on a strike out by Jason Giambi. He then gave up a double to Jose Molina and the Yankees were up by one. He walked the next batter (causing quite a bit of worry on my part given his past performance with men on base) but got a beautiful double play courtesy of Sean Casey off the last batter. (See photo. Cabrera sent a line drive right to Casey who was then able to touch the bag for the second out.) He came back out for the sixth inning and got two quick outs. Rodriguez got a base hit off him and Matsui got a double but neither were able to do any damage as Posada was put out at first on the next play.

Timlin came in for the first out of the seventh inning and in his first start off the DL did not do very well. He gave up a home run to Jason Giambi and then a double to Jose Molina before getting the first out (a put out at first) and being pulled from the game. He was extremely displeased with his performance today so there's no reason to be worried about Mike Timlin (unless, of course, you're a wild boar.) Okajima came in to finish the outing and got his two outs. Javier Lopez pitched the beginning of the eighth inning and he didn't do too terribly. He got an out at first, allowed a base hit, got the force out at second, gave up another base hit, walked the lefty he faced, and was taken out. Aardsma finished off the game with an inning and a third. He got a strike out and three put outs. He gave up a double, a single, and a run.

Offensively, there wasn't too much to talk about. Pedroia probably should have gotten a base hit in the fourth but they decided it was an error on Rodriguez' part. Drew continues to hit well, he had the home run in the fifth and Coco laid down a bunt in the ninth for a base hit (he also stole second.) They were hitting the ball hard but they couldn't get anything out of the park and there happened to be Yankees in the way of where the ball was headed inside the park. And that's all there is to say about that.