Basically, it was 1996 all over again. The last time it snowed during the Yankees home opener, Paul O' Neill broke up a 1-1 tie with a 2 run single to CF scoring Jeter and Bernie Williams advancing Wade Boggs to 3rd. The Yankees scoreboard commemorated this game by showing clips of Andy Pettitte picking off then KC Royal Johnny Damon at 1st base in the driving snow. Classic baseball.
Pre-game, after some miscues involving the United States Navy fly-over of the stadium, the game got underway in under threat of increasingly worsening weather conditions.
C.C Sabathia's first three pitches of the game clocked in nicely at 905, 914, and 925 mph each before the radar gun was turned off to be re-calibrated.
Verlander struggled through the first inning, needing 31 pitches to get through the top of the Yankee order. Robinson Cano, who struggled in the field and at the plate, struck out swinging on ball 4, letting Verlander off the ropes early. After this inning, Verlander looked especially strong holding the Yankees to 3 hits over the next 5 innings, throwing just two mistake pitches to Tex and A-Rod the rest of the game.
C.C. ran into problems of his own after loading the bases on consecutive singles by Cabrera and Martinez and a walk to Ryan Raburn. To C.C.'s credit, the Victor Martinez ball was hard hit to Jeter, who was not playing in proper double play depth (too shallow) and scooted past his diving glove to his left. Properly played, C.C induces a double-play ball and has the bases empty for Raburn, rather than the bases loaded. C.C. minimized the damage with a sac fly to center, soft liner to 2nd, and a strikeout of Avila to end the inning.
Despite the Yankee attempts to gift wrap this game for the Tigers on some questionable fielding plays (Detroit tied the game thanks to a Cano error at first base, and it would've been nice to see A-Rod get dirty on the Raburn single to left), the game ended like many of our games in 2009: A Phil Coke home run. Luckily this go-round, Phil Coke was wearing a different uniform. 6-3, Yanks Win. Welcome back baseball, we missed you.
Player Highlights:
Mark Texiera - Jokingly expected him to go 4-4 for the game, since it wasn't quite April yet. 1-3 with a BB and a HR is plenty acceptable. This ball badly missed its spot high, while it wasn't crushed by any means, turning on a high Verlander fastball on March 31st to into the second deck is encouraging.
Curtis Granderson - Granderson managed his 3rd opening day home run in the last 3 years, make 2 great plays in CF in some nasty wind (his oblique probably didn't enjoy the dive in the first inning), and capture our hearts with his selection of "Friday" by Rebecca Black in his 1st at bat. If you listen closely after Posada walks off the field, you can hear the faint sound of Rebecca getting her cereal, picking which seat to ride in, and partying on the weekend. Curtis, we so excited for this season, we so excited.
Derek Jeter - The box score might show he went 0-2 and he a questionable ball get by him in the field, but 2 of his 3 outs he made were hard hit liners. Any deviation away from his 2010 where he led the league in ground ball outs, especially while hitting second in the order where ground balls typically mean double plays, is encouraging and hopefully is a trend that will continue.
Alex Avila - This kid couldn't have made contact at the plate if he was swinging a tennis racket. We tried to help him out before his final at-bat (at the 0:45 sec mark) by tipping him Mariano's pitch, ("Alex, look for the cutter!"). He struck out 3 times in 4 trips to the plate, looking truly awful in each appearance.
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