(Web Gem? Courtesy of Getty Images)
The only way I could think of to ruin a "
Carl Pavano in Yankee Stadium" outing would be to lose to him, and unfortunately for the Yankees that's exactly what happened last night.
Freddy Garcia wasn't very good, Pavano surprisingly was, and the Bombers find themselves back at .500 for the moment.
Game Notes:
- Freddy Garcia had problems finding and keeping the ball anywhere near the strike zone in his first start in Baltimore. Tonight, it was the exact opposite. Too often, Freddy was leaving pitches right in the center of the zone last night and the Twins hitters capitalized on it, especially with 2 outs.
- Freddy's outing was a reverse poop sandwich, with the poop as the bread in the 1st inning and late 5th-early 6th innings when he gave up 5 earned runs on 9 hits and the meat in the middle being the 2nd-4th innings when he retired 9 in a row, 6 on groundballs. His control was better tonight than in his first start, but he wasn't commanding anything where he wanted to in the zone.
- Carl Pavano certainly looked up the challenge of matching Freddy hit for hit when he opened the bottom of the 1st by giving up back-to-back HRs to
Derek Jeter and
Curtis Granderson on 4 pitches, but he managed to settle down after that and efficiently worked his way through 7 innings, only allowing 5 more baserunners in the process and striking out 6.
- Pavano's curveball was working, but I still have to call out the Yankee offense for making it easy for him after the 1st. They only got 1 ball out of the infield after the 3rd inning, and Pavano is not an overpowering pitcher by any stretch of the imagination. You have to put some good swings on pitches.
- Little surprised to see Joe go to Rapada and not Soriano in the 9th, just to get Soriano some more work, but after
Cory Wade gave up the 2 runs in the 8th, I guess Joe decided to keep that card in the deck for a game he felt better about winning.