Rivera: “This is the way we should play.”
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- October
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On a night that harkened back to Octobers past, the Yankees won 4-1. They took advantage of three errors, scored when they could and rode eight innings from their ace and a ninth from their closer.
“I think the whole team played tremendous,” Mariano Rivera said. “This is the way we should play.”
Nobody embodied that quite like CC Sabathia, whose eight innings of one-run ball stymied the Angels and stalled their running game before it started. The 9-1-2 of Erick Aybar, Chone Figgins and Bobby Abreu went a combined 0 for 10 and none of the three reached base.
Here’s Sabathia on his night:
Mark Teixeira said Sabathia pitched as well as he had all season. It’s hard to argue. After walking 22 in his first 25 career postseason innings, Sabathia now has one in 14.2 as a Yankee.
Here’s a few non-CC notes from tonight:
• Alex Rodriguez admitted he ran through the stop sign of Rob Thomson (no relation) on Hideki Matsui’s double in the fifth. “Once I saw the go (sign), I put my head down,” Rodriguez said. “It was my mistake.”
• The double was Matsui’s 10th in an LCS, tying him with Bernie Williams for the most all-time.
• This was just the second homerless game at the new stadium. The last came in a 3-0 loss to the Nationals on June 18. That’s in 84 games. Wow. The wind obviously blew in tonight, likely costing Vladimir Guerrero (fourth) and Robinson Cano (sixth) homers.
• Figgins is now 0 for 16 in the ‘09 postseason.
• The Yankees improved to 82-4 this year when leading after seven innings. They are also now 52-1 when holding opponents to two runs or less.
• Teixeira said his foot did come off the bag in the sixth, when Sabathia made a nice play on a squibber from Torii Hunter and threw to first. Hunter and Mike Scioscia protested, but Teixeira believed his foot was on the bag when he caught the ball.
• Jose Molina played coy on whether or not he will catch A.J. Burnett in Game 2: “He hasn’t said anything to you guys, so he hasn’t said anything to me.”
• Here’s Johnny Damon, who, following a miserable September and early October, had two hits and scored two runs: “Well, you know, sometimes in this game you need to have some luck, but you also need to go out and work hard and try to figure out what went wrong in Game 3. But I also understand this game and in the playoffs. So I was just happy we won Game 3. I wasn’t too terribly upset at myself. But I also knew I had to get in and get my work in and try to get back to the way I swung the bat earlier in the season.”
• Damon snapped an 0-for-10 skid, as did Nick Swisher. They had been hitless since their second at-bats in Game 1 of the Division Series.
Before I exit, you should know the tarp is already on the field and tomorrow’s forecast calls for a 90-percent chance of rain. There is talk of an afternoon game on Sunday in the event of a postponement. An official contingency plan — nor how a Sunday Game 2 would impact the remainder of the series — has yet to be announced.
This entry was posted
on Saturday, October 17th, 2009 at 1:17 am by Josh Thomson.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Great post.
Thanks Josh.
Brandon posted a picture that showed that Teixeira had the ball with his foot on the bag prior to Hunter being even close to it.
It’s October. There are 4 teams left playing.
And the yankees clearly have the single best pitcher of any of the four teams playing for the pennant and world series.
When is the last time the yanks could lay stake to that claim?
CC Sabathia is the model for what an ace should be. Not only is he dominant – he is dominant and provides length.
He’s just amazing. He toyed with the Angels tonight. It never felt like the yankees were in jeopardy of losing this game because CC was so utterly dominant from the start that you could just see he was going to out pitch Lacheye.
He is just a great pitcher. And he put the team on his back tonight and dominated. You could see it from the start – he just had great stuff.
That game against the Twins he had a great slider but didn’t quite have his real good fastball.
Tonight the fastball was just phenomenal. On a cold night where it’s brutal to hit, CC was aggressive and kept throwing his fastball.
And along with great life on his fastball he had great command. He was down in the zone all night.
Last winter CC was an absolute must sign because he was going to be a franchise altering player.
And tonight, once again, we saw why.
Abreu didn’t do too well tonight. CC showed the way, now AJ has to follow suit.
Just back from the game and the stadium seemed to be about as full as usual during the season. Been to 25 games this year and I sure as hell didn’t look around (even at the box seats) and say, ‘where is every one’? Not even close.
Then somehow I stumbled on this, the first piece I’ve read of his since he left for The Globe. I thought he was better than this. I was wrong. And I’m embarrassed for him:
http://www.boston.com/sports/b.....ll#addComm
Thx josh. Great job to all u guys.
miggs, awesome ticket score, must’ve been great to have been in the house for that game. Happy for you.
CB, great post. I am pumped to (potentially) be seeing CC Tuesday night in Anaheim. My one Yankee game this season was CC vs. the A’s in Oakland in August. He was touched up a bt early but buckled down and gave the A’s nothing and he’s pitching better now. This is what we (the fans) signed up for and wanted.
I was at the game tonight…it just didn’t seem like the Angels showed up tonight…I think the weather + CC had something to do with it and all in all the weather could have been a LOT worse than it was…hope they get the game in tomorrow…go Yanks!!
CC…CC…CC…CC…CC…CC
Nick,
Scosia can make all the snarky comments he wants.
Bottom line – CC makes 3 starts in this series if needed and the angels are in big trouble.
They have to hope it rains tomorrow.
Otherwise it’s going to be mid-90’s fastballs low in the zone, vicious backfoot sliders, and beautiful fading changes thundering down on the Angels.
Given the nature of post season baseball, CC Sabathia may be the most valuable baseball player still working in the playoffs.
He’s just a beast. The angels had no change tonight at all. You could just see it coming in the first few innings.
Hmmmmm… if tomorrow is washed out…. makeup game on Sunday…. would they push back the start time to the Monday game? This would be very good to know!
CB: even if it rains tomorrow, wouldn’t CC still be going on 3 days’ rest on Tuesday night? And then be available on regular rest for a game 7?
Nick,
You’re thinking more clearly late at night than I am.
The angels really needed tonights game rained out or Tuesday nights game rained out – which isn’t going to happen in anaheim.
The angels are in trouble and they know it.
They are going to have to play perfect baseball in everygame, but they are going to have make sure they take advantage of every opportunity in the games CC doesn’t throw.
CC got 24 outs tonight. 18 were either strike outs or ground balls.
When you can do that out on the mound, both bad weather and bone headed plays by your defense have a way of getting neutralized.
I found it strange that the Angels offered Abreu a garbage deal on the eve of the ALCS.
I’m just more focused because I will be attending the first two games in Anaheim and I have a strong preference to see CC pitch game four.
I have to take off, but great to see you posting. Have a good night.
Buddy: that’s master motivation, OC style.
Burrito time, see you later!
Early game 5-star. OVER TX/OK. 53.5
-dennis
CB, Bombers have taken 4 of the last 5 from The Angels…Cetainly the tables have turned…Also the Yanks winning he last 2 games in Anaheim also chipped away with the stigma of not being able to win in Disneyland myth…..2009 is going to be a very special season in the Bronx
If any players were cold, the bats were not, literally. When Derek Jeter put his bat in the rack, it became the warmest thing in the first-base dugout. The bat racks are heated so that the wood stays toasty. Whatever modest amount that feature added to the Stadium’s $1.5 billion price tag, the players said it was worth it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10.....ngels.html
Pat M.,
Up to this point in time it does appear that the yankees are systematically better than any other club.
They have so many ways to beat the opposition.
They hold the second best offense in the AL to one run and do so without even using Phil Hughes, who has been one of the 5 best relief pitchers in baseball this season.
Moving forward CC is a huge advantage both in the ALCS and (knock on wood) the Series. Not only is he the best talent of any starting pitcher still throwing, he has the most stamina.
In a short series, to have a guy how can throw that many dominant innings is just an unbelievable luxury.
In a seven game series CC might throw 23-24 innings out of the 63 played. That is just a bludgeoning for the opposition.
I dont understand why some people are complaining that Joe should of took CC out in the 7th. CC was pitching every start on an extra day or two rest basically for the entire month of september that is why Girardi rested him in the regular season. So he can rely on him heavy during the postseason. He just had I think 8 days of rest and only threw 113 pitches he should be fine going on 3 days rest for game 4.
is the bat rack also heated in the visitors’ dugout?
I think there will be no baseball tonight
CC was a bad, bad man tonight. Let’s keep is rolling tomorrow!
Loved the comment one RS fan made in response to Pete’s blog:
“Always hilarious to read articles like this in the cold, bitter, empty, baseball-less Octobers in Boston where anything is grasped at – no matter how patheticly obssessive – to try to help rationalize the failures of the Olde Towne Team….funny thing, I just checked a few minutes ago and found that – “ahem” – there are about 37,000 empty seats available at Fenway tonight.”
Anyone get a chance to look at petes game updates tonite, he called the strike out call on abreu brutal when it was clearly a strike to everyone except for Pete and abreu…hell even McGarver said that was a great pitch…he also took a cheap shot at arod and a cpl at the stadium, i miss Pete and was always hoping he’d come back, but now…I don’t want him back, Sam and Chad are doing a great job, keep up the awsome coverage guys! See u all tomorrow…
Something interesting:
I went to a bar in downtown Manhattan tonight at around 2 AM. The bar was empty besides for one table, where none other than Phil Hughes sat with a few friends from California. I ended up buying him a drink and congratulating him on the win. He’s really a nice guy, and its cool to know that he can just go out and grab some beers with some friends even in the middle of a playoff series.
Pretty cool.
Jordan-
In which part of manhattan?
Game 2: Burnett v.s. Saunders
It is highly likely that Molina catches at the game.
I definitly prefer Matsui to Posada as DH.
Don’t change the present good pace of the team.
TB
The thing about Pete Abe’s blog post that annoys me is this:
“The Yankees trumpeted their postseason ticket prices a few weeks ago, proudly saying they had held the line on prices. But apparently they didn’t go far enough.”
Way to do your research Pete. The Yankees actually WANTED to go lower on their postseason prices… but MLB wouldn’t let them. MLB sets a minimum and maximum price for postseason tickets, and they wouldn’t let the Yankees charge less.
The attendance at the game was 49,688. I don’t think the stadium can hold much more than that without selling standing room tickets. Just as an example, game one of the Division series against the Twins was 49,464. I don’t think there’s room for much over 50,000, so I don’t think Pete really knows what he’s talking about. There are always going to be some unoccupied seats because there are last minute things that people can’t anticipate that could cause them to miss the game. Some people also were probably hiding back in various lounges or whatever to avoid the ridiculous cold as some people literally can’t sit in that kind of cold for an extended period without health issues.
It just feels like another needless shot at the Yankees to attempt to endear himself even more to Sox fans – all 12 that are still reading boston.com’s blogs.
I always found it rather unprofessional and strange the way he’d defensively lash out at any comments that didn’t kiss his buns, and it’s VERY refreshing to have some writers blogging on Lohud now who don’t feel the need to do the immature “fighting back” at comments that they don’t agree with.
I hope he’s enjoying writing about all the exciting games the Sox are playing now. I’m sure there were a few close golf matches these past few days.
Pete doesn’t work here anymore
Yes, Pete is gone from this blog and let’s leave it that way.
The Yankees are playing aggressive, but smart. Even the missed stop sign for Alex was a good play, (and he was never tagged out), because it forces the Angels to rush their plays. It is what the Angels aggressive bath path running does to other teams, but they had a tough time dealing with it being done to them.
The Yankees did it during the season with Gardner and they saw how it shook the Angels players.
I’m a little miffed at Padillia being chosen the “Clutch” player late night. CC went deeper in the game, had more strike outs, and they had the same number of ER.
I also didn’t understand one of the MLB talking heads saying that CC didn’t dominate. What game was he watching? Abreu, who they were praising all over the place for his plate discipline was held hitless. The whole Angels lineup couldn’t get anything going against him. Isn’t that being dominating? And with the cold weather it was a far more difficult thing to do for CC (or any pitcher).
Why do people keep brining up Pete ?? The dude is a writer. The way people talk on here its like Posada was traded to the Red Sox or something.
Abdababdaserser,
We as Yankees fans just have to be grateful for the crumbs they decide to throw our way. It stinks, though. The beat writers usually get it right, though, at least, so the morning papers today are a joy to read.
Tex held the bag.