{"id":5986,"date":"2009-10-30T15:25:36","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T15:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=5986"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:33:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:33:19","slug":"yankees-win-game-two-to-level-the-world-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=5986","title":{"rendered":"Yankees win Game Two to level the World Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"world-series2009\"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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 We now have an \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcoff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 day today before the series reconvenes in Philadelphia for three games in three days.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 This\u00c2\u00a0Fall Classic\u00c2\u00a0has the hallmarks of a seven-game epic.<\/p>\n

When looking back over my scoresheet from Game Two, what strikes me the most are the similarities with the series opener.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pedro Martinez played the role of CC Sabathia, albeit with the Yankee Stadium crowd giving him a slightly less generous welcome.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 While Chase Utley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s longballs off the Yankee ace could be seen as two mistake pitches, neither of the pitches by Martinez were particularly poor.\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Teixeira, batting from the left side, blasted a change-up on the outside corner over the right-centre wall.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, it was a great piece of hitting by Teixeira to drive that pitch to where he did.\u00c2\u00a0 As for Matsui\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s round-tripper, any outcome other than a home run and Yankee fans would have been screaming at him for swinging at the pitch.\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bullpen there may have changed the momentum of the game and perhaps led to a different outcome.\u00c2\u00a0 We will never know for sure, but even so the Phillies can have no complaints with their starter.\u00c2\u00a0 Six innings, eight strikeouts and just three earned runs conceded was a decent effort by the veteran.<\/p>\n

If Martinez played the role of Sabathia then Burnett definitely gave the Yankees a Cliff Lee-type performance.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Lee punished the Yankees in Game One with his spiked curve and Burnett had a similarly destructive breaking ball, referred to as a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsnap dragon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 by FOX’s Tim McCarver at one point.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 The high point in Burnett\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s start came in the seventh inning when he got back-to-back strikeouts on Raul Ibanez and Matt Stairs.\u00c2\u00a0 Both left-handed hitters were called out on glorious breaking balls that arced gracefully in the air before spinning down onto the outside corner.\u00c2\u00a0 If you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t able to watch the game, or even if you did, open up the Gameday account<\/a> on MLB.com and marvel at the way Burnett worked the outside corner in those two opening at-bats in the seventh inning.\u00c2\u00a0 It was masterful pitching, with superb command.<\/p>\n

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.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0replacing the starting catcher Jose Molina) was right to advance and that in fact neither he nor Damon had been legally put out.\u00c2\u00a0 The umpires wrongly called it as a double play to end the inning.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00c2\u00a0 The ball didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take a big hop into Howard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s glove and, after watching it again just now, I would describe it as a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwrong\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 call rather than a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 call.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The old adage that \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcluck evens itself out\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 came true (and that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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.\u00c2\u00a0 While I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have an instantly strong take on the Howard \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccatch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead he called Utley out and Yankee Stadium erupted.\u00c2\u00a0 Was it a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmake up\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 call?\u00c2\u00a0 A \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchome team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 call?\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe he saw Jeter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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?\u00c2\u00a0 No umpire would ever admit to any such factors influencing a decision, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure Philly fans will be tempted to think one, if not all, played a part.\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then again, the Phillies can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel too hard done by.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeter gave them a rare gift in the eighth inning, prior to the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdouble-play\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, when he mystifyingly continued to try and put down a bunt once he had two strikes to his name.\u00c2\u00a0 Somebody has also re-found A-Rod\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s postseason kryptonite: he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.\u00c2\u00a0 And at least Ryan Howard didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t finish the game empty-handed: he earned himself a golden sombrero to wear on the ride back to Philly with his four strikeout performance.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Yankees needed to win Game Two and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what they did.\u00c2\u00a0 The result sets up the next three games in Philadelphia perfectly and the first begins at 23.57 GMT on Saturday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553,98,99,65],"class_list":["post-5986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5986"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7249,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5986\/revisions\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}