Apr. 4 - Min & NYY - New Season, Same Result

The Minnesota Twins coming to town should be a local holiday. Their ineptitude in New York has been nothing short of celebratory for Yankees fans. Here are some records that should bring a smile.

The Twins have lost 14 of their last 15 games @ NYY (old and new stadium)

In 14 games, the Twins have only won once at the New Yankee stadium. By contrast, the Yankees have only lost once at the new Target Field. Javy Vazquez was pitching.

Since 2008, the Twins are 4-22 against the Yankees.

Twins even dropped 2 of 3 at Citi Field last season.

Last night, this remarkable trend continued as Gardenhire slumped over the railing in the 2nd inning after the second Yankee HR of the night paced NY to a 4-0 lead over the struggling Twins.

However, give credit where its due, Scott Baker and the Twins did not allow the game to get out of hand. With 2 on and 2 out with the game 4-2, Scott Baker induced fly to left that would've been routine for any outfielder BUT Delmon Young. Great play.

For those of you who don't remember Delmon Young from his playing days in the Tampa farm system, here's a refresher course. He's looking rounder this year, and Twins fans may say it gives him a "Puckett-esque" appearance, but I disagree.

"Delmon! You're so fat, you look like you're about to HAVE Twins!"

He responded to our taunts by meekly grounding into a double play. According to Fangraphs, this heckle alone notched the Yankee win probability from 58% to 71%. Its only April, but the team and their fans are rounding into midseason form.

Player notes:

A-Rod - Still looks absolutely menacing at the plate. One bomb to left, one warning track fly to deep center held in by the wind, and 2 double play balls. One of the two was a hard hit, tough grab, the other was a Jeter-ian slow roller.

Jeter - Put some good swings on some balls down the line in the 3rd inning that just went foul. That's about all I have positive to say about his performance, 4 very weak at bats and an error in the field on a slow roller by Jim Thome. No panic yet, but he's looking awfully alot like 2010, and not 2009.

Nova - First 3 innings I tweeted he was breezing through the Twins lineup. 27 pitches, no hits. Then the 2010 Nova stood up, with his traditional 4th/5th inning problems, but unlike last year, was able to work through it and complete a 6th inning with the lead intact. Great 1st start for Nova but still lots of room for improvement

Joba/Soriano/Rivera - We saw the combo on opening day, but now we got to see it with a 1-run lead against a potential playoff opponent that can score many different ways. Mariano having saved 2 of our first 3 games, came in and through his first 12 pitches, all for strikes, and all cutters. There's nothing but love and admiration anyone in the bullpen not named Colon this year

Opening Day - Mar 31, 2011 - DET @ NYY

39 degrees. Cloudy. Rainy. Mix of snow.

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.