The Yankee Clipper: Game 1

Starting in 2010, we'll be doing a new feature on the blog where we talk about the game from the night before with 5 key points. Why 5? Because of the guy who wore #5, Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper (not to be confused with the other Yankee Clippers). And it's also the number of rings that the "Core 4" have on their fingers. So in our quest for #28, we'll give you 5 key observations from the night before...and then one more point for good luck. Here's from Game 1 last night.

Red Sox 9 - Yankees 7

1. Repeat after me: it's only one game. Despite what some may say, it really is on game out of 162. The Yankees lost the first game last season and the first 8 vs. the Red Sox and went on to easily win the division on their way to winning the World Series. There was some panic in people's voices last night. Let's just sit back and relax. You can get worried in May. Maybe.
2. With that in mind, I agree with ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor who said that Joe Girardi went too far with CC Sabathia. Since Opening Day of 2007, Sabathia has thrown 724 regular season innings (most in Majors over that span) and another 55.1 in the playoffs. Did Girardi really need to push him last night? Was it that important. Sabathia looked gassed and instead of going to one of his many bullpen arms (isn't that the point of having so many freaking guys out there?), he stuck with Sabathia and it didn't work in the end. Girardi gets a ton of leeway for guiding the Yankees back to the promised land last year, but you can't kill your ace on Day 1.
3. Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada did not look good in the field or on the bases. I'm half joking saying this, but you wonder if Cano misses his buddy Melky there. Cano misplayed a few ground balls and, as David Brown of Big League Stew wrote, Cano's lack of hustle out of the box hurt him when J.D. Drew made a great defensive play and held Cano to a single in a big spot. Also, as ESPN's Buster Olney wrote, it didn't take long for Posada's glove to become a question mark. And, although it wasn't a big issue in the game, Curtis Granderson looked a little shaky in CF in his first game with the Yanks. I know it's one game, but after I've heard from multiple people that he was shaky last year and shaky all Spring, it worries me a bit. I know that some felt that his catch on Adrian Beltre's sac fly was a great one, but I just felt it was a case of him misjudging the ball. Maybe I'm wrong there.
4. The bullpen had an off day. So that was the "reliever mentality" everyone referred to with Joba, right? Just checking. The one tough pill for me to swallow was that the 4 guys who are going to be pitching at the back end of this bullpen (Joba, Damaso Marte, David Robertson and Chan Ho Park) were not good. The Yankees had a terrible bullpen early on last year and came through so I'm not all that concerned, but you don't like to see them get roughed up so badly. Park was rudely welcomed to the rivalry in a "trial by fire"--as Mike of River Ave Blues writes--and Park didn't deliver last night.
5. There were some really positive points: Curtis Granderson and Jorge Posada's home runs, Brett Gardner's hitting and the speed in the lineup. Posada and Granderson went back-to-back (and belly-to-belly!) and Granderson's was a bomb. Good to see him get off to a good start with the bat. I also am glad to see Gardner get off to a good start. He needs to hit to play on the Yankees so last night's start was exactly what I was looking for. His AB against Beckett in the fourth was a gritty one and something you like to see from Gardner at the plate. And the double steal with Gardner and Jeter showed the power of having speed in the lineup. The reason Gardner was at third in the first place was because he raced around 2nd on a shallow single to center. I was disappointed the Yankees didn't try to run more against Victor Martinez, but I was glad to see they're using the speed well.

Final thought: I'm glad to have baseball back and I'm excited for this column. It won't be every day but it'll be here often enough. I'm of course talking about both baseball and "The Yankee Clipper". Even though it was a long, long, long agonizing loss, I enjoyed thoroughly watching baseball return to my life again. Play ball! (picture from NY Mag)