Results tagged ‘ Josh Beckett ’
Yankees hope to spoil Moore’s record
The Yankees opposed Rays lefthander Matt Moore Saturday, which was the fifth time in the past 40 seasons that they have faced a pitcher with a season record of 8-0 or better. They won each of the past two such games: June 3, 2007 at Fenway Park, 6-5, over the Red Sox and Josh Beckett, who entered the game 8-0 and got a no-decision, and July 14, 2006 at Yankee Stadium, 6-5, over the White Sox and Jose Contreras, who came into the game at 9-0 and absorbed his first loss.
The other two times were June 1, 1994 at the Stadium, 5-4, to the White Sox and Wilson Alvarez, who entered 8-0 and got a no-decision, and June 16, 1986 at the Stadium, 10-1, to the Red Sox and Roger Clemens, the winning pitcher whose record went to 12-0.
The Yankees recalled outfielder Brennan Boesch from Triple A Scranton Saturday to replace Curtis Granderson, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list because of a fractured left pinky as the result of being hit by a pitch in Friday night’s 9-4 victory over the Rays. Boesch hit .179 with a double and two RBI in seven games and 28 at-bats after being optioned there May 13.
In Friday night’s victory, each of the Yankees last four batters in the lineup (David Adams, Lyle Overbay, Jayson Nix and Chris Stewart) had two hits and scored at least one run. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the first time the starting 6-7-8-9 hitters for the Yankees each had multiple hits and at least one run in the same game since Aug. 6, 2009, a 13-6 victory over the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. The 6-through-9 hitters in that game were Jorge Posada, Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher and Melky Cabrera.
Yanks keep Beckett winless since July 3
One night after Jon Lester got untracked for the Red Sox, Josh Beckett was hoping to do the same. The inconsistency of the two Boston pitchers has been a major reason the Red Sox have not been a factor in the American League East.
The Yankees had other ideas Sunday night at Yankee Stadium and ensured that Beckett would remain winless over his past six starts and a winner only once in his past 13 starts. The Yanks had a 4-1 lead when Beckett left the game after six innings.
Derek Jeter gave Beckett a particularly hard time of it with two doubles and a single. DJ has had success over the year against Beckett, batting .330 with four doubles and two home runs in 88 at-bats. Jeter led off the game with a double and scored on a two-out double by Curtis Granderson. Jeter doubled again in the third and eventually scored on a wild pitch by Beckett. The other two runs off Beckett were the result of solo home runs by Ichiro Suzuki, a .308 career hitter against Beckett in 39 at-bats.
Beckett’s last victory was July 3 at St. Petersburg, Fla. In six starts since then, he has pitched to a 6.94 ERA in 35 innings with four losses and two no-decisions. Over his past 13 starts, Beckett is 1-7 with a 5.77 ERA in 78 innings.
Yanks-Bosox weekend off to wild start
The Yankees-Red Sox weekend at Fenway Park got off to a wild and woolly start Friday night as both clubs batted around in the first inning and put up five spots. If that set a tone for the series, it could be a very long weekend.
The Yanks struck against Josh Beckett, who has had his way with the Yankees over the years (14-7 record) despite an unsightly ERA (5.36). Beckett has had problems with his thumb this year and by the time he got his first out of the game the Yankees had scored four runs.
Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson started the rally with singles before Beckett got unglued and hit Alex Rodriguez with a pitch and walked Robinson Cano to force in a run. That made it nine straight games with at least one RBI for Cano, the most since Jeter had a nine-game streak May 23 to June 2, 2004.
Mark Teixeira smoked a single to center field for two runs. A fly ball to right by Nick Swisher was the first out Beckett got, but it was a sacrifice fly that made the score 4-0. After Raul Ibanez singled Teixeira to third, the Yankees got another sac fly, from Eric Chavez.
Hiroki Kuroda could not have asked for a better way to start a game at Fenway, but he let the Red Sox come all the way back and tie the score. A throwing error by Chavez at third base prolonged the inning, but the big blow was a three-run home run by Jarrod Saltalamacchia. The five runs Kuroda allowed in that one inning matched the total he yielded in his three previous starts combined over 21 innings.
It marked the first time in the history of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry that both teams scored at least five runs in the first inning of a game.
The teams duplicated themselves again with one-run second innings. Granderson tripled and scored on an infield out by Rodriguez. Cano doubled but was stranded at second as Beckett caught Teixeira staring at a called third strike. Again, Kuroda failed to come up with a shutdown inning. He hit Daniel Nava to start the inning and gave up singles to Ryan Kalish and David Ortiz, the latter driving in the tying run.
As some of the names suggest, this was not your typical Boston lineup. Ortiz, Saltalamacchia and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez were surrounded by back-ups as Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carl Crawford and Ryan Sweeney are all on the disabled list and Kevin Youkilis was traded to the White Sox.
Another of those subs, third baseman Mauro Gomez, drove in a run in the fifth as the Red Sox got the lead for the first time in the game. A wild pitch by Kuroda put Gonzalez, who led off the inning with a single, in scoring position. One out later, Gomez singled him home.
Kuroda failed to pitch through the sixth inning for the first time in eight starts. He departed with two outs in the sixth after giving up seven runs (six earned) and 10 hits with a walk, a hit batter, two wild pitches and three strikeouts and having blown two leads.
Yanks can’t find knockout punch against Beckett
The Yankees had Josh Beckett on the ropes, a position they had not come close to putting him in this season, but they allowed the righthander to squirm out of it Wednesday night and ended up losing so that it is now impossible for them to leave Boston after Thursday night’s finale of the three-game series in first place in the American League East.
The Yanks found themselves in the same spot they were when they arrived at Fenway Park, 1 ½ games behind (1 in the loss column) behind the first-place Sox after a 9-5 loss that really stung. Phil Hughes failed to hold leads of 1-0 and 5-4, the second the most disturbing, and may have failed to hang on to his spot in the rotation as well, particularly if A.J. Burnett can finally come up with a big performance Thursday night, which is now decidedly necessary if the Yanks want to keep the Red Sox in their headlights.
Beckett had been lights out against the Yankees all season. The four runs they scored in the sixth inning was one more than they had scored off Beckett in 27 innings against him heading into this game. Robinson Cano and Eric Chavez came through with RBI doubles to tie the score. Eduardo Nunez put the Yankees ahead with a sacrifice fly, but that turned out to be the first of 12 straight outs by them through the end of the game as Beckett stiffened with a perfect seventh followed by duplicate efforts in the eighth by Daniel Bard and ninth by Jonathan Palelbon.
The game was there for the taking for the Yankees at 5-4, but Hughes ran into trouble in the sixth with a one-out walk to Josh Reddick, who scored the tying run on Jason Varitek’s double into the left field corner. Marco Scutaro made the second out on a scorcher to center, which had manager Joe Girardi bringing in Boone Logan to face Jacoby Ellsbury.
Logan’s stretch of 11 consecutive appearances without allowing an earned run ended as Ellsbury homered over the Green Monster to make it 7-5 Boston. That was an absolute crushing blow for the Yankees, who never recovered. Varitek struck again with a two-run home run in the eighth off Luis Ayala to complete what turned out to be an onslaught. Beckett improved to 4-0 with a 1.85 ERA against the Yankees this season and 14-7 despite a 5.36 ERA in his career.
The series is even at one game apiece, but the Red Sox’ offense has hardly been quiet. Boston has banged out 25 hits – 11 for extra bases – and probably should have won two blowouts if not for having only four hits in 22 at-bats (.182) with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox have clubbed the Yankees this year, batting .299 with a .482 slugging percentage and outscoring them, 86-56.
The Yankees are batting .226 with a .369 slugging percentage against the Red Sox, who have dominated the season series with 11 victories in 14 games. Wednesday night, the Yankees had only six hits, including two singles by Derek Jeter, who had 41 hits this August, the most in a month for him since August 2009 (46).
Back to baseball for Yankees-Red Sox
Anyone expecting a head-hunting mission in the Yankees-Red Sox game Wednesday night was sorely mistaken, at least in the early inning work of Phil Hughes and Josh Beckett.
Collars got pretty hot Tuesday night when John Lackey hit Francisco Cervelli with a pitch in the at-bat following the catcher’s home run and somewhat over-expressive celebration. CC Sabathia and Matt Albers also hit batters Tuesday night, but the Lackey-Cervelli confrontation caused the dugouts to empty, although not much came of it except heated words.
If Lackey was targeting Cervelli, and the pitcher insisted he wasn’t, he picked the wrong time, since Cervelli was leading off the inning. Putting the 9-hole hitter on base to start an inning is pretty dumb, and it cost the Red Sox because Cervelli eventually came around to score.
Wednesday night, however, it was business as usual as the Yanks and the Red Sox concentrated on baseball.
Derek Jeter moved into the top 20 of all-time hitters with singles in his first two at-bats to pass Craig Biggio and take over 20th place with 3,061. That leaves the Captain 20 knocks behind No. 19 Cap Anson. DJ’s first hit was a single off the glove of center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury to score Eduardo Nunez, who had opened the inning with a double.
Hughes gave up the lead in the third. Marco Scutaro singled and Ellsbury doubled, and a big inning appeared on the way for Boston, but Hughes limited the damage by getting Dustin Pedroia on a grounder that scored the tying run and retiring Adrian Gonzalez on a fly ball. The Yankees then decided to walk David Ortiz intentionally and go after Jed Lowrie, a strategy that backfired when Lowrie singled to drive in the go-ahead run.
It’s too bad the Yankees didn’t walk Ortiz two innings later. After Gonzalez singled (his first hit in the series in eight at-bats) with two out, Ortiz drove a 3-2 fastball to center for his 28th homer and a 4-1 Boston lead.
Beckett hit Mark Teixeira at the start of the sixth, but the pitch was a breaking ball that got the first baseman in the foot, hardly a message pitch of any sort. Now it was the Yankees’ turn to take advantage of a leadoff hit batter, and did they ever.
Robinson Cano, an absolute hitting machine at Fenway Park, doubled to left-center to score Tex. Nick Swisher worked a walk, and Eric Chavez followed with a drive into the right field corner. The ball caromed past right fielder Josh Reddick, who quizzically was charged with an error that cost Chavez an RBI for one of the two runs he drove in to tie the score. What should have been a triple was instead scored a double and an error on Reddick and one RBI. Swisher is no track star, but I doubt Reddick was going to be able to throw him out at the plate. Besides, third base coach Rob Thompson had been waving Swisher home all the way, so it was not as if the ball getting by Reddick allowed Swisher to score.
The Yankees then regained the lead on Nunez’s sacrifice fly to center. Beckett may not have sent a message when he hit Teixeira, but the Yankees sure sent a message to Beckett.
Garcia duels to draw with Beckett
At least one Yankees pitcher reversed his fortunes against the Red Sox this year. One night after CC Sabathia’s record in 2011 against Boston fell to 0-4 with a 7.20 ERA, Freddy Garcia took his 0-2 mark and 10.13 ERA against the Red Sox into Sunday night’s game and came up with five serviceable innings in which he allowed only one run.
Garcia avoided what could have been a debacle in the second inning when the Red Sox loaded the bases with none out on a walk to Kevin Youkilis, a single by David Ortiz and an infield hit by Carl Crawford for his seventh straight hit in the series. Garcia got out of the jam with minimal damage.
Rookie Josh Reddick, who entered the game batting .343, fouled off four straight pitches before striking out on a nasty splitter. Jason Varitek popped up a slider to shortstop for the second out. Garcia fell behind 3-0 in the count to Marco Scutaro, who took the next pitch for a strike before lining a hard single to right field that scored Youkilis and reloaded the bases. Garcia retired the dangerous Jacoby Ellsbury on a fly to left.
That marked the first of three consecutive times that Ellsbury made the third out of an inning and stranded a total of eight base runners. Garcia got him again in the fourth inning on a ground ball to first base with runners on first and second. Ellsbury flied out with the bases full in the sixth, but Garcia was out of the game by then. He lowered his ERA against Boston this year to 6.92.
Red Sox starter Josh Beckett failed to notch another victory against the Yankees this year. The righthander left after the sixth, one inning after giving up a game-tying home run to Eduardo Nunez. Beckett is 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA in 27 innings against the Yankees this year, but Garcia fought him to a no-decision.
Posada out as Yanks DH
For the second time this season, Jorge Posada’s absence in the lineup of a Yankees-Red Sox game on a national telecast drew attention. Posada was on the bench Sunday night despite his having decent career statistics against Red Sox starter Josh Beckett. This was more than a one-game situation, however.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi met with Posada before the game and informed him that he would no longer be the Yankees’ designated hitter against right-handed pitching. That meant Posada would no longer be the Yanks’ DH, period, since he has started against lefthanders for months.
Sunday night’s game was cablecast on ESPN. Back on May 14 on a Saturday night telecast by FOX at Yankee Stadium, Posada stirred controversy by taking himself out of the lineup after he saw that he was to have batted ninth. The story blew away a few days later when Posada started hitting with some consistency.
Posada got his average up to .240 June 29 when he hit his ninth and most recent home run. In 78 at-bats since then, Jorgie has batted .205 with three doubles and four RBI, a pretty unproductive record for the only purely offensive spot in the order. Posada has never been comfortable in the role after 14 seasons as the Yankees’ regular catcher. In 243 at-bats as the DH, Posada has hit .218 with eight home runs and 25 RBI. Interestingly, Jorgie has batted .344 with one home run and six RBI in 32 at-bats as a first baseman.
Girardi can hardly be blamed for shaking things up. Although Posada was a .267 career hitter against Beckett in 45 at-bats, Girardi decided it was time to use Eric Chavez as the DH against right-handed pitching. Against lefties, Girardi will use Andruw Jones as well as Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez when he wants to give them a break from playing the field. A-Rod is still on the disabled list at this point and working out at the Yankees’ complex in Tampa, Fla.
Frankly, what kept this move from coming earlier was Chavez being on the DL from May 6 to July 25. Chavez entered play Sunday night batting .323 in 65 at-bats. It remains unclear where Posada will fit in the rest of the way. He has only a .215 career average as a pinch hitter in 135 at-bats, including 1-for-8 (.125) this year.
Girardi could have had both Posada and Chavez in the lineup Sunday night if the manager had played Chavez at third base, which he did Saturday against John Lackey. Had that been the case, however, then Eduardo Nunez would have been on the bench, the same Nunez who homered off Beckett in the fifth inning to tie the score.
CC mounting another case for ‘Cy’
Normalcy returned to Yankees Universe Saturday at Toronto. Not surprisingly, CC Sabathia was responsible for that after two games in which the Bombers were crying “O, Canada” after being outscored, 23-8, and playing some of their sloppiest baseball all year. With three errors Thursday night and two more Friday night, the Yankees had successive multi-boot games for the first time since June 27 at Anaheim and June 29 at Seattle last year when they made two errors in each.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi expressed concern before the game that the Blue Jays may have been stealing signs, which has been rumored at Rogers Centre ever since it opened in 1989 as the SkyDome, a much better name, by the way. The retractable-roofed facility is connected to a hotel which has windows facing the plate. There has been suspicion for two decades that the Jays have someone with high-power binoculars peering in at the catcher’s signals and relaying them to the Toronto bench. Yankees catcher Russell Martin, a native Canadian, was constantly changing the team’s signs during the first two games of the series.
“Sometimes we have inclinations that certain things might be happening in certain ballparks and we are aware of it and try to protect our signs,” Girardi told reporters. “If you feel it is coming from somewhere else besides a player on the field, then I do have issues. There are parks where you need to protect your signs. I don’t want to really get into it because I’m not 100 percent sure about anything.”
The only problem with that theory is that the Blue Jays have a losing record (21-23) at home this year. So what happened Saturday when the Jays scored only one run? Did the spyglasses break?
No.
What happened was CC Sabathia for eight innings and Mariano Rivera for one. That’s a lethal combination for any team even if they think they know what pitch is coming. And in Mo’s case, everybody knows what pitch is coming; a cut fastball, but they can’t do much about it.
Sabathia certainly doesn’t seem to have any problems pitching at Rogers Centre where he now has a 6-1 record with a 2.19 ERA in 49 1/3 career innings. Overall against Toronto, CC is 11-3 with a 3.03 ERA in 101 career innings.
The Yankees had another rough game with runners in scoring position (2-for-14), but the two runs they scored in the second inning on doubles by Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner, a single by Andruw Jones and an infield out were all Sabathia would need to win his seventh straight start, a stretch in which he has a 1.68 ERA and 59 strikeouts in 53 2/3 innings. In a dozen starts since May 19, the massive lefthander is 11-1 with a 2.11 ERA in 94 innings.
The run Sabathia allowed in the first inning ended a scoreless stretch of 24 innings, the most for a Yankees starter since May 1980 when Tom Underwood did two-thirds of an inning better.
With a season record of 14-4 and a 2.64 ERA, Sabathia has put himself in the American League Cy Young Award conversation again this season, just as he was last year when he placed third to winner Felix Hernandez of the Mariners and runner-up David Price of the Rays. CC, who won the award in 2007 with the Indians, once again faces a challenge from two other quality starters, Justin Verlander of the Tigers and Jered Weaver of the Angels.
It is shaping up as another close call among three starting pitchers. At this point, Sabathia leads the AL in victories and in winning percentage (.778) and is second in innings (153 2/3), fourth in strikeouts (134) and sixth in ERA.
Verlander has the lead in innings (157) and strikeouts (153), ranks third in ERA (2.29) and has a .706 winning percentage based on a 12-5 record. He has also thrown a no-hitter among his four complete games, which has him tied with Weaver for second place in that category. Sabathia has two complete games, but unlike Verlander and Weaver CC has Rivera to finish off games.
Weaver, who was scheduled to start the second game of a doubleheader Saturday night, has a commanding lead in ERA (1.86) and is tied for fourth with a .733 winning percentage (11-4). Verlander (.192) and Weaver (.194) rank second and third, respectively, in opponents’ batting average (behind the Red Sox’ Josh Beckett’s .187), which gives them an edge over Sabathia, who is holding foes to a .239 average. Verlander and Weaver also have two shutouts apiece to CC’s one.
It may be a case once more of the number of victories (he led the AL in 2010 with 21) not being convincing enough evidence for Cy Young Award voters to lean toward Sabathia, but the value he brings to the Yankees in games such as Saturday’s 4-1 victory is immeasurable. Sabathia’s Cy Young Award candidacy is as legitimate as it gets.
Mixed results for Yanks in All-Star Game
PHOENIX – It was anything but a 1-2-3 inning for David Robertson, who got a 1-2-3 result in the second inning of the All-Star Game Monday night at Chase Field. Called on early because the Red Sox’ Josh Beckett was hurting, Robertson had plenty of support from his teammates in getting through the inning in his debut All-Star performance.
For all the heat Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez are taking for not coming here, it was good to see three Yankees on the field when Robertson came into the game to join starters Robinson Cano at second base and Curtis Granderson in center field.
Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista made a stunning, sliding catch in the right field corner on a foul drive by Braves catcher Brian McCann, the Most Valuable Player of last year’s All-Star Game at Anaheim, Calif.
Cardinals right fielder Lance Berkman, who was Robertson’s teammate with the Yankees for a couple of months last year, lined a single through the middle. Robertson needed assistance from Cano to get out of trouble. As Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday looked at a 3-2 cutter down the middle for a called strike three, Berkman tried to steal second, but he slid off the bag with Cano alertly tagging him after taking the throw from Tigers catcher Alex Avila. That completed a strike-‘em-out, thrown-‘em-out double play.
Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, still swinging for the fences the night after his close loss to Cano in the Home Run Derby, connected off Phillies lefthander Cliff Lee for a leadoff home run in the fourth inning. The American League’s first 11 batters were retired in order before Gonzo’s homer, the first in an All-Star Game since 2008 at Yankee Stadium, by another Red Sox player, J.D. Drew, in the seventh inning. Two innings earlier, Holliday, then with the Rockies, homered for the National League.
The AL jumped on Lee for two more hits, singles by Bautista and the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton, before Lee was lifted by NL manager Bruce Bochy of the Giants for Nationals righthander Tyler Clippard. Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre lashed a single to left, but a strong throw by the Astros’ Hunter Pence cut down Bautista at the plate.
Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder, who has been booed regularly here for two days, heard his first cheers when he followed singles by the Mets’ Carlos Beltran and the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp for a three-run home run in the bottom of the fourth off Rangers lefthander C.J. Wilson. It was the first All-Star home run by a Brewers player for Fielder, who was the captain of the NL in the Home Run Derby and had incurred Arizona fans’ wrath for not putting the Diamondbacks’ Justin Upton in the competition.
Three stolen bases helped the NL scratch out a run in the fifth, by which time Granderson and Cano had come out of the game. Each had grounded out twice. Yankees catcher Russell Martin was the only AL position player who did not get into the game, a 5-1 NL victory.
7th inning a bad stretch for Yanks
Since joining the Yankees, CC Sabathia had made four starts in which they were in danger of being swept in a series and had kept the broom away each time. He seemed destined to do so again Thursday night and Friday morning against the Red Sox, but his streak came to an abrupt end.
It may be hard to tell by looking at the final score – Red Sox 8, Yankees 3 – that Sabathia was working on a two-hit shutout entering the seventh inning. Staked to a 2-0, first-inning lead on Curtis Granderson’s 18th home run, CC held the Red Sox in check for six innings and put David Ortiz in his place after Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez had been plugged by Josh Beckett. The Yankees seemed on their way back into first place in the American League East by stopping a five-game losing streak to their rivals.
The Red Sox and especially Ortiz had the final say, however, with a seven-run outburst to stun Sabathia and complete Boston’s second three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium this year. And to make matters worse, the Red Sox got good news about their injured second baseman while the Yanks got bad news about their injured relief pitcher. Dustin Pedroia did not play because of a bruised right kneecap but will be back in the lineup Friday night at Toronto. Joba Chamberlain has a torn ligament in his right elbow and appears headed for Tommy John surgery.
Ortiz had two hits, a single and a two-run double, in the Boston seventh in which the Red Sox scored seven runs with eight hits. A triple by Jed Lowrie on a ball in the right field corner that eluded Nick Swisher and a well-struck double by Mike Cameron on a two-strike pitch cost Sabathia his lead, and the Red Sox kept piling on. Only a sensational, running catch by Brett Gardner in left-center to rob Marco Scutaro of an extra-base hit kept Boston from possibly going into double figures in runs that inning.
Sabathia, who had a personal four-game winning streak stopped, would have been better served had the Yankees done some piling on themselves, but Beckett gave up only three hits and hit a third batter through the seventh in running his season record against them to 3-0 with an ERA of 0.86. The two runs they got on Granderson’s jack are the only runs the Yankees have scored off Beckett in 21 innings this year.
It doesn’t get any easier for the Yankees this homestand as another first-place club, Cleveland of the AL Central, comes to the Stadium for a weekend series starting Friday night. The Indians are also likely to be better rested. The Yankees didn’t get off the field from the game that began 3 ½ hours late due to a rain delay until 1:43 a.m.
Jack O'Connell
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