Results tagged ‘ National League East ’
Yanks’ winning streak moves into double digits
The Yankees’ winning streak moved into double figures Monday night as they continued to beat National League East competition. Their 6-2 victory over the Braves at Yankee Stadium made it 10 in a row for the Bombers.
Things looked pretty grim for the Yankees over the first four innings in their first home game following the 6-0 trip through Atlanta and Washington. Not only were they trailing 2-0, but also they were hitless.
Braves lefthander Mike Minor entered the game with a 6.01 ERA, but he had pitched a good game against the Yanks last week at Turner Field before coming out of a 4-0 game one out into the eighth. That was the night Alex Rodriguez hit his 23rd career grand slam to tie Lou Gehrig’s major league record to start the Yankees on a comeback toward a 6-4 victory.
Minor was not involved in the decision, but he deserved a better fate. He seemed headed in that direction until the fifth inning when the Braves again lost the lead for good, and this time it was Minor’s fault.
Rodriguez started the rally with a line single to center, the Yankees’ first hit. A-Rod had been their only previous base runner on a leadoff walk in the fourth but he was erased in a double play. After a wild pitch and a walk to Robinson Cano, Minor got a strikeout by catching Andruw Jones looking.
Russell Martin, who was the designated hitter as Chris Stewart again was behind the plate for CC Sabathia, lined a ground-rule double down the left field line that scored Rodriguez. It was another milestone for A-Rod, his 1,860th run that pushed him past Mel Ott and into 11th place on the all-time list. Next up at No. 10 with 1,882 is another Hall of Fame outfielder, Tris Speaker.
A walk to Jayson Nix loaded the bases, which this season has not been all that favorable for the Yankees despite their five grand slams. When Stewart fouled out to first base for the second out, the Yankees’ batting average with the bags full dropped to .171.
But Derek Jeter raised it with a ground single through the middle that scored two runs and put the Yankees ahead. The Yankees kept it up on home runs by Mark Teixeira (No. 12) and Cano (No. 13), plus another RBI single by Jeter.
Sabathia pitched his first complete game of the season and 34th of his career and was in total control once his teammates got him the lead. He gave up seven hits, walked one batter and struck out 10 in raising his record to 9-3 with a 3.55 ERA.
The lefthander also improved on some other marks: he is 22-8 with a 3.04 ERA in 44 career inter-league starts, 34-13 with a 3.56 ERA in 63 career starts in the month of June and 30-9 with a 2.92 ERA in 53 career starts at the current Stadium.
The Yankee are 14-2 in June and have combined to outscore opponents, 83-38, and out-homer them, 25-9, with the rotation pitching to a 1.97 ERA. The Yankees have won 18 of their past 21 inter-league games dating back to last season, including 10 straight, the first time in franchise history that they have won that many consecutive games against teams with winning records.
This series marks the Braves’ first trip to the current Stadium, making them the 21st different opponent to play in the new yard. The Yankees are 16-5 in foes’ first games.
Yanks find NL East to their liking
If they played in the National League East instead of the American League East, the Yankees might go undefeated.
Their season-high nine-game winning streak has come at the expense of three NL East teams, and they get to play two of them again this week. The Yankees celebrated Father’s Day in the nation’s capital with a 4-1 victory Sunday that completed a three-game sweep of the Nationals and a six-game sweep of the trip that began in Atlanta immediately after they swept Round 1 of the Subway Series last weekend at Yankee Stadium against the Mets.
The Yankees get to play the Braves and Mets again this week with the Bravos coming to the Stadium for three games beginning Monday night before the Bombers bus to Citi Field for a three-game set in Round 2 of the Subway Series that starts Friday night.
Quality pitching has fueled the Yankees’ streak with Ivan Nova’s work Sunday among the best starts over this stretch. Only a second-inning home run by Adam LaRoche marred the effort by Nova, who gave up just six other hits with one walk and four strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings as he improved his record to 9-2 with a 4.32 ERA.
Nova has gone more than a full calendar year without losing on the road. Since a defeat at the hand of the Angels June 3, 2011 at Anaheim, Nova has an unbeaten string of 15 starts on the road during which he is 12-0.
One day after finally winning a game without hitting a home run, the Yanks got long balls from Curtis Granderson (No. 21) and Robinson Cano (No. 12) to negate LaRoche’s blow. They needed the homers because once again the Yankees struggled with runners in scoring position (0-for-12). That statistic grows more and more meaningless as the Yankees keep piling on victories despite folding in the clutch.
The Yankees went unbeaten on a trip of at least two teams for the first time since May 7-12, 2002 when they won three-game series at Tampa Bay and Minnesota. They also swept three series in a row for the first time since May 5-14, 2007 against the White Sox, Pirates and Diamondbacks.
Saturday’s 5-3, 14-inning victory raised the Yankees’ record in extra-inning games to 3-0, a marked improvement over last year when they were 4-12 past regulation. It was their first victory in a game of 14 or more innings since Aug. 7, 2009 when they beat the Red Sox, 2-0, at the Stadium on a two-run home run by Alex Rodriguez. They had not won a road game of that length since June 1, 2003 at Detroit, 10-9, in 17 innings.
Girardi has many reasons to savor 500th victory
Joe Girardi’s 500th managerial victory will be easy for him to remember because so many things went well for the Yankees. When two teams with six-game winning streaks collide, something has got to give, but all the American League East leading Yanks gave the National League East leading Nationals Friday night was trouble.
In their 7-2 victory, the Yankees got another strong start from Phil Hughes, they got big hits with runners in scoring position, had a hit with the bases loaded and came within one out of winning a game without hitting a home run. Curtis Granderson ruined that possibility when he slammed his 20th homer with two down in the ninth, but that was fine for Girardi.
The manager was even able to work David Robertson into the mix by using him in a non-save situation in the ninth. Robbie showed some rust by allowing a run on a pair of doubles, but it was nice to see him back in a game for the first time in more than a month.
Hughes scattered six hits and two walks with nine strikeouts over six innings to win his third straight start. It was a one-run game while Hughes was on the mound in a duel with Nationals lefthander Gio Gonzalez, who is 8-3 this season but sustained his fourth straight loss to the Yankees as his career record against them fell to 1-5.
Actually, Gonzalez was out of the game by the time the Yankees broke it open. Manager Davey Johnson lifted Gonzalez, who seemed none too happy about it, after he gave up a leadoff single to Andruw Jones in the seventh. The Yanks then roughed up relievers Brad Lidge and Mike Gonzalez for four runs.
Derek Jeter got the bases-loaded hit, a single. Another run scored on a wild throw by shortstop Ian Desmond. Granderson doubled in two more runs. The Yankees had 4-for-8 (.500) with runners in scoring position. Cody Eppley and Clay Rapada provided a shutout inning of relief apiece before Robertson worked the ninth.
The 2-1 lead Hughes worked with was supplied by RBI singles from Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher. For A-Rod, the RBI was career No. 1,924, which tied him with Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx for sixth place on the all-time list. In the fifth spot is another Hall of Famer, Stan Musial, at 1,951. And just the other day, Rodriguez matched Lou Gehrig’s grand slam mark of 23. A-Rod is running elbows with an awful lot of Hall of Famers these days.
Hughes, whose record improved to 7-5, has pitched to a 1.29 ERA over his past three starts, all victories. Going back further, over his past eight starts since May 6, Hughes is 6-1 with a 3.27 ERA and 49 strikeouts in 52 1/3 innings. The righthander has lowered his ERA over that stretch from 7.48 to 4.50. Hughes also ran his career record in inter-league play to 4-1 with a 3.55 ERA.
It was the Yankees’ first game at Nationals Park. They are 19-18 in their debut games at new stadiums in the expansion era dating to 1961.
4 Yanks have gone 50-50 in runs, RBI
The Yankees went into Friday night’s game against the Mets as the only team with more than one player who had at least 50 runs scored and 50 runs batted in – and they had three of them. Curtis Granderson had 70 runs and 56 RBI, and Robinson Cano and Alex Rodriguez had 50 runs and 51 RBI apiece.
A fourth player was added to that list in the first inning. Mark Teixeira, who doubled in two runs to raise his team-leading RBI total to 65, came around to score his 50th run this year on a double by Cano, who moved ahead of A-Rod with his 52nd RBI. Granderson scored his 71st run on Tex’s double.
The game-starting, three-run rally was cheered mightily by Yankees fans, who seemed to equal at least the total of Mets fans at Citi Field. Fans still fortify the Subway Series, which does not have the support of Mets manager Terry Collins. He sounded a lot like former Yankees manager Joe Torre, a long-time opponent of inter-league play.
Collins’ view was actually a compliment to the Yankees as a difficult opponent.
“I think everybody in our division [National League East] should have to play the Yankees six times the way we do,” Collins said. “These stinking games count.”
The inter-league schedule is based on a divisional rotation, except for natural rivalries. This year, the Mets are the only NL East team the Yankees will play. They have played NL Central teams in 2010, except for the home-and-home series against the Mets.
Collins has a point, of course. The problem with inter-league play is that it creates an imbalance in the schedule since not every club plays the same teams as others within their divisions. That matters to a lot of managers, coaches and players, but box-office receipts of the Subway Series show that fans love the concept.
Jack O'Connell
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