As it is obstensibly A.J's sworn duty to throw pies, the questions now become:
1) Will the pies stop when A.J. leaves in 2014?
2) Will Jeter ever be pied in the face?
Obviously, only time will tell on these two question, but my guess will be Yes and Yes.
Before the game I mused as to what inning we would see Bartolo this week. At the rate Bartolo is pitching, the talk is that he is moving to the rotation, and honestly he should. Hughes is not April 2009 Chien-Ming Wang bad right now, but his pitching lines look awfully (pun intended) similar to Kei Igawa right now. Wait till Saturday and make sure Freddy Garcia isn't an equally bad train-wreck and then lets make the switch. Send Hughes to the minors, wait till he starts hitting 92-93 on the gun and then call him back.
I really rag on Hughes this morning, because if it weren't for some stellar glove work behind Hughes, this game could've been over much sooner. In the top of the 4th, Mark Reynolds (who hit the 2nd longest home run of the year last year at 481 feet), barely made contact with a ball that tracked Granderson all the way to the wall in center. Can of corn so long as it stayed in the park, but good play nonetheless.
Swisher shocked the world with his play shortly after in the 5th. Hughes already with a man on, gives up an absolute rocket to Brian Roberts that in 2004, is in the 2nd deck. Swisher however makes a jumping catch to snag the ball that was over his head and take away a double (home run if it bounces off his glove) from the speedy Roberts. Saves 1 run, and two pitches later Markakis knocks Phil out of the game.
The way A-Rod is swinging the ball right now, batting .615 over the last 7 days, and the fact that he still had 4 more at bats left in this game made it very clear that this 5 run lead was clearly not enough, so every run saving play in the field or on the mound meant that much more.
The top of the 8th seemed very mismanaged from my perspective. The Yankees, expecting to tie the game with 2nd and 3rd with only 1 out down by 2, looked like they were expecting to tie the game and got Soriano up in the pen. After a Martin ground-out and a Gardner strike out, the game was still 5-4 and the door opened to the pen. 15 seconds after no one emerged from the bullpen, Bartolo lumbered out of the dugout. He looked lost as he glanced at the bullpen and at Girardi a number of times before figuring out that he was actually going to pitch the 8th. Can't help but feel he thought his night was done, and that lapse in concentration caused him to lose his stuff in the 8th. That, or he got hungry.
Once the game was tied thanks to Jorge's 5th home run of the year (7th hit), the game felt like a formality. 7 pitches from Mariano meant we would see him in the 11th, Soriano was still in the pen, A-Rod was coming up soon to get the walk-off (it was Swisher's sac fly that did the deed, but A-Rod's double was the biggest hit of the inning).
Alls well that ends well in New York. Even when it starts with Phil Hughes.
Player Note:
I wrote a detailed piece about Brett Gardner and his inability to swing the bat yesterday. My thanks goes out to Brett for not making me look foolish, as he took 7 pitches for strikes in 5 at bats last night. Why Joe Girardi chose to allow Brett Gardner to hit in the 9th inning with the winning run on second base with Andruw Jones on the bench, I don't know, but with last night's performance, Gardner has the worst RE24 and has so far this season cost the Yankees 7.31 expected runs at the plate. At his current pace, he is tracking to cost the Yankees 107.65 runs this season, or 9.9 Wins. That's the difference between 100 wins and playoff bound or 90 wins and golf bound in October.
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