In the 1996 World Series, the Yankees were facing an Atlanta Braves team that was the defending world champions and looking to repeat. The Braves had a power-hitting lefty first baseman and featured multiple former Cy Young award winners on their pitching staff. Yet they came into the Bronx for Game 1 seemingly as the underdogs (maybe because of their erratic closer that sometimes got hanging sliders hit out of the ballpark...?). The Yankees threw their ace lefty on the mound. And the Braves blew the Yankees out of the house that game. They made it look easy.
About as easy as the Cliff Lee catch shown to the right (picture from Twitpic). John Smoltz and Cliff Lee both pitched as well as you could want in Game 1 so even if the opposing lefty (Andy Pettitte in 1996 or CC Sabathia last night) had been a little tighter, they may still not have won. Last night, the Yankees bats--outside of Derek Jeter--went silent. A-Rod didn't look like the guy who had crushed pitching throughout the playoffs, Nick Swisher, Mark Teixeira, Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano and others who had struggled at times in the ALCS, went back to struggling again. The Yankees need to get a better effort all around, but if they don't pick up the hitting, they're not going to win squat.
Cliff Lee pitched brilliantly. You have to tip your cap to him. He had the first 10 K, 0 BB game in the World Series since the first World Series in 1903.
Sabathia's obvious problem was two pitches to Chase Utley that he left over the plate. Chase Utley is one of the best hitters in baseball (probably one of the more underrated all-aroudn players in all of baseball) and you cannot give him two fat fastballs. The other players to hit two home runs in Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees? According to Jesse Spector it was Andruw Jones in 1996 (there's that year again), Greg Vaughn in 1998, and Davey Lopes in 1978. The Yankees won all three series.
But Sabathia's bigger problem was that he wasn't getting ahead of hitters or putting them away. The first inning was a microcosm of his game in that way. He got out of trouble that inning, but he threw way too many pitches and let too many guys get on base. The hefty lefty wasn't locating well at times and didn't seem comfortable out there until after Chase Utley hit his first home run.
Sabathia leaving early opened the floor gates to the ineffective bullpen. Phil Hughes was once again awful and has seemed to have lost his regular season mojo. Brian Bruney is not a good baseball player and the fact that he is even on the roster has to be classified as "overmanaging". This was not mop-up duty, Joe; there was no reason to bring in Bruney with the game still within reach. Brian Bruney right now can't be relied on for more than just cleaning up a blow-out; last night he contributed to one. Damaso Marte was the one bright spot for the Yankees out of the bullpen, but--correctly--Joe Girardi only uses him against lefties.
David Robertson wasn't great either but got a bit unlucky. Although he seemed to have a hard time locating pitches, he got hosed on a couple of calls. Check out this pitch-by-pitch for his walk to Jayson Werth from Brooks Baseball:
Um...ump, where was pitch 2 and 3? I don't meant to pick on the umpires, but a couple of strike calls against the Yankees and balls called for their pitchers, and especially the check swing strike call against Robinson Cano were not good calls. The veteran crew did a little bit of a better job, but there's still work to do.
There's also still work to do for the Yankees. Like in 1996, they face another former Cy Young award winner in Game 2. But unlike Greg Maddux that season, Pedro is past his prime. The Yankees need to show him who his daddy truly is and send this series back to Philadelphia tied at one. The Yankees showed in 1996 that it is possible to win all three games in the visiting ballpark after dropping two at home. But I don't think the Yankees want to take that chance again. It's on to A.J. Burnett for Game 2.
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