Yankees win Game Two to level the World Series

The New York Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 3-1 in the early hours of this morning to level the 2009 World Series at 1-1.  A.J. Burnett was brilliant over seven innings and solo home runs by Mark Teixeira and Hideki Matsui proved to be the difference as Pedro Martinez took the loss against his old enemy.  We now have an ‘off’ day today before the series reconvenes in Philadelphia for three games in three days.  All three will be necessary and everyone who has richly enjoyed the first two games of this series will be keen for the final two potential games to be necessary as well.  This Fall Classic has the hallmarks of a seven-game epic.

When looking back over my scoresheet from Game Two, what strikes me the most are the similarities with the series opener.   

Pedro Martinez played the role of CC Sabathia, albeit with the Yankee Stadium crowd giving him a slightly less generous welcome.  Pedro gave the Phillies a solid start, but his work was undone by two pitches being driven into the seats,as happened to Sabathia in Game One.  While Chase Utley’s longballs off the Yankee ace could be seen as two mistake pitches, neither of the pitches by Martinez were particularly poor.  Mark Teixeira, batting from the left side, blasted a change-up on the outside corner over the right-centre wall.  It was generally an effective swing-and-miss pitch for Martinez on the night as the dipping action made it tail away from the left-handed batters; although this one did start a little higher than Pedro would have liked.  Still, it was a great piece of hitting by Teixeira to drive that pitch to where he did.  As for Matsui’s round-tripper, any outcome other than a home run and Yankee fans would have been screaming at him for swinging at the pitch.  Matsui turned on a looping inside curve that was below his knees, far from being a gopher ball by Martinez, and hoiked it into the short right-field porch.

That pitch to Matsui came after Martinez had struck out both Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez to begin the sixth inning and he quickly recovered by getting Robinson Cano to fly out to right field to end the inning.  He did seem to be tiring a bit and I have to admit that I was a little surprised to see Charlie Manuel sending him out there again for the seventh.  Two singles soon had Martinez heading back to the dugout and while the scoreboard says the Yankees still would have won without the extra run that was ultimately conceded, a shutdown inning by the Phillies’ bullpen there may have changed the momentum of the game and perhaps led to a different outcome.  We will never know for sure, but even so the Phillies can have no complaints with their starter.  Six innings, eight strikeouts and just three earned runs conceded was a decent effort by the veteran.

If Martinez played the role of Sabathia then Burnett definitely gave the Yankees a Cliff Lee-type performance.  He didn’t match the Philly starter in pitching the full nine innings, but there was no need for him to do so with a rested Mariano Rivera ready and waiting to pitch the final two frames.  Lee punished the Yankees in Game One with his spiked curve and Burnett had a similarly destructive breaking ball, referred to as a ‘snap dragon’ by FOX’s Tim McCarver at one point.  Not only was his curve breaking sharply, but he had excellent command of his fastball, which is often the crucial factor when it comes to Burnett either dominating a lineup or giving up free passes and allowing the opposing hitters to feed off his frustration.  The high point in Burnett’s start came in the seventh inning when he got back-to-back strikeouts on Raul Ibanez and Matt Stairs.  Both left-handed hitters were called out on glorious breaking balls that arced gracefully in the air before spinning down onto the outside corner.  If you weren’t able to watch the game, or even if you did, open up the Gameday account on MLB.com and marvel at the way Burnett worked the outside corner in those two opening at-bats in the seventh inning.  It was masterful pitching, with superb command.

One aspect of the series opener that I did not expect to see repeated was the unusual double play turned by Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard.  Incredibly they did pull off a similar trick in Game Two, although this time it came about due to a mistake by the umpires. With Melky Cabrera on second and Jorge Posada on first, Johnny Damon hit a liner towards Howard’s feet. He reached down and then threw the ball to Rollins, who tagged Posada while he was stood on top of second base with his hands in the air applauding the fact that the runners had advanced.  Posada was disgusted to be called out and the replays showed that the ball bounced before Howard caught it, meaning that the Yankee catcher (technically a pinch-hitter at the time after replacing the starting catcher Jose Molina) was right to advance and that in fact neither he nor Damon had been legally put out.  The umpires wrongly called it as a double play to end the inning. 

Now, umpires are there to get the calls right and so the mistake deserves to be highlighted, but at full speed it looked a difficult play to judge, rather than an obvious blunder that is impossible to defend.  The ball didn’t take a big hop into Howard’s glove and, after watching it again just now, I would describe it as a ‘wrong’ call rather than a ‘bad’ call. 

The old adage that ‘luck evens itself out’ came true (and that doesn’t seem to happen as often as it should for the adage to be repeated so much, but there we go) as the Yankees benefitted from an inning-ending double-play call of their own.  While I didn’t have an instantly strong take on the Howard ‘catch’, I was fully expecting the first base umpire to stretch his arms out and call Utley safe at first after Victorino had been forced out at second.  Instead he called Utley out and Yankee Stadium erupted.  Was it a ‘make up’ call?  A ‘home team’ call?  Maybe he saw Jeter’s spectacular attempt at turning the double play, brilliantly vaulting the hard-sliding Victorino before making a strong, if slightly off-line throw and got swept up in the moment?  No umpire would ever admit to any such factors influencing a decision, but I’m sure Philly fans will be tempted to think one, if not all, played a part.  They may also think that Mariano Rivera got at least two generous calls, one on Utley and the called third strike on Howard in the ninth, on his way to a two-inning save. 

Then again, the Phillies can’t feel too hard done by.  Jeter gave them a rare gift in the eighth inning, prior to the ‘double-play’, when he mystifyingly continued to try and put down a bunt once he had two strikes to his name.  Somebody has also re-found A-Rod’s postseason kryptonite: he’s gone 0-for-8 with six strikeouts and is back to being the most expensive choker of all time after his short dalliance with being the greatest clutch hitter to ever set foot on earth.  And at least Ryan Howard didn’t finish the game empty-handed: he earned himself a golden sombrero to wear on the ride back to Philly with his four strikeout performance. 

The Yankees needed to win Game Two and that’s exactly what they did.  The result sets up the next three games in Philadelphia perfectly and the first begins at 23.57 GMT on Saturday night.