Who Let the Bugs Out?

The Yankees and Indians were battling in a tight, tense pitcher's duel yesterday evening when a Hitchcock movie broke out. Moments later the game was tied and Travis Hafner singled in the game winner in the 11th inning to give the Indians a 2-1 victory and a commanding 2 games to none lead in the ALDS.

An oustanding pitching performance by Andy Pettitte was lost in the shuffle. The big lefty had left the game in the 7th inning with a 1-0 lead, 2 on, and 2 out. Joe Torre turned to his rookie phenom, Joba Chamberlain, who quickly dispatched Franklin Guitierrez and Casey Blake to preserve the lead. But that's when the science non-fiction stuff showed up.

A swarm of "midges", annoying gnat-like creatures, swarmed the field in the 8th inning. It was difficult to watch the game so you can imagine what it must have been like to try to hit or pitch or field under those conditions. And for the 1st time in his Yankees career, something rattled the kid. Players and umpires broke out the cans of Off to try to combat the pests that were apparently drawn by the water temps and high humidity (not to mention sweaty ball players).

Chamberlain walked the lead off man, Grady Sizemore, and wild pitched him to 2nd. An Asdrubal Cabrera sac bunt moved Sizemore to 3rd and forced the Yankees to bring the infield in. Travis Hafner hit a bullet, but it was right at Doug Mientkiewicz for the 2nd out. You started to think Chamberlain would get out of it. But then he uncorked another wild pitch, which took a hard bounce off the backstop. Jorge Posada hurriedly tossed the ball to Chamberlain covering home, but Sizemore slid in safely, wiping out Chamberlain in the process.

Clearly shaken up by the situation, Chamberlain hit Victor Martinez and walked Ryan Garko. Only then, inexplicably, did Torre finally get Luis Vizcaino up in the pen. But the rookie bounced back to strike out Jhonny Peralta looking to end the inning.

Mariano Rivera threw 2 scoreless frames before turning things over to Luis Vizcaino in the 11th. Vizcaino got off to a bad start by walking Kenny Lofton. Lofton has gone 5-7 with 2 walks and 4 RBI in the series thus far. Guitierrez failed to get a sac bunt down, but then singled through the left side. Blake successfully sacrificed and the Indians were set up, 2nd and 3rd with just 1 out. The Yankees elected to intentionally walk Sizemore to load the bases to set up a force at all bases. Vizcaino made a big pitch to get Asdrubal Cabrera to pop out to Shelley Duncan at 1st for the 2nd out of the inning.

That brought up Travis Hafner who had failed in 3 previous attempts with runners in scoring position. Hafner worked the count full before lacing a game winning single into right-center and set off a wild celebration in the Jake by the buggy Lake.

More pesky than the bugs was the hard off-speed pitches thrown by Indians starter Fausto Carmona. Carmona, making his 1st playoff appearance, dominated the Yankees for 9 innings. He allowed just 3 hits, making only one mistake, a pitch left up in the zone that Melky Cabrera hit out for a solo home run. It would be about the only ball the Yankees would lift off Carmona all night.

The 23-year old threw 113 pitches, 77 for strikes. He issued 2 walks, but both were erased by double plays. In the 4th, Derek Jeter singled and moved to 2nd on Bobby Abreu's ground out, but Alex Rodriguez struck out and Hideki Matsui grounded out. A-Rod had a chance to be the hero again in the 9th, when Abreu reached on a 2-out infield single and stole 2nd, but Carmona struck out the soon to be AL MVP for the 3rd time.

Left-hander Rafael Perez gave the Yankees no breaks either, retiring all 6 men he faced to pick up the victory.

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In addition to his home run, Melky Cabrera had the defensive play of the game. He threw a strike to home plate to nail Peralta trying to score from 2nd on a single by Lofton.

The Yankees are hitting .121 as a team. That's all that needs to be said.

photos courtesy of AP

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All Wang from the Beginning

Chien-Ming Wang has been 2 different pitchers at home and on the road this season. Unfortunately last night the road Wang was on the mound. The Yankees 19-game winner, simply put, got his ass kicked. His pitches were up in the zone all evening and the Indians jumped all over them to the tune of 8 runs in 4-plus inning. In the end the scoreboard read Indians 12 Yankees 3, and we as Yankees fans went to bed pissed off.

Before we get into the game, there are only a couple of bright spots to take from this. In recent years the Yankees have been the team to do the pounding in game 1, only to lose the playoff series. The other matter is game 2 is less than 7 hours away. So hopefully Andy Pettitte makes us forget about game 1 and we go back home at a game apiece. You can't ask for more than that when you open on the road. Now back to the regularly scheduled aggravation.

Things started out well, though with a hiccup. Johnny Damon led off the ball game with a solo HR to right field off of C.C. Sabathia, but the ball was initially ruled foul by right field ump Jim Wolf. At the behest of Joe Torre, Damon, and Tony Pena, the umps got together and corrected the call. One-out walks to Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez put the Yankees in good shape, but Sabathia struck out Jorge Posada and retired Hideki Matsui on a ground out to 2nd to escape further trouble.

Wang hit Grady Sizemore with his 1st pitch of the game, but bounced back by getting Asdrubal Cabrera to hit into a 6-4-3 double play. That would be the last good (clutch) pitch Wang would make on the night. The Indians reached him for 3 runs before a base running mistake by Jhonny Peralta mercifully ended the inning. Home runs by the Tribe's Cabrera and the Yankees Robinson Cano gave the Indians a 4-2 lead entering the 5th. That would be the Yankees last chance to make some noise.

Torre decided to try to "get something going" by pinch-hitting Shelley Duncan for Doug Mientkiewicz and the rook came through with a lead off single. Sabathia struggled with his control all night and walked Damon for his 5th free pass of the game. Torre decided to bypass the bunt, but the strategy failed when Derek Jeter flied to right. Abreu, who had already drawn a pair of walks, slapped a double down the left field line to cut the lead to 4-3 and put the tying and go ahead runs in scoring position.

Indians skipper Eric Wedge then made 2 big moves. First he had Sabathia intentionally walk A-Rod to load the bases, and then he stuck with his star left-hander. The move paid off as Sabathia battled back from a 3-0 count to blow a 95-mph fastball past Posada for the 2nd out. A slumping Matsui then popped out to end the inning and the Yankees chance of winning.

The tribe, lead by Kenny Lofton's (how pissed off did that make you?!) 3 hits and 4 RBI, pounded Wang and rookie Russ Ohlendorf. The kid looked like a deer in headlights and so far the gamble to keep him on the roster has not paid off.

The Yankees bats immediately went to sleep when the game got out of hand, managing just 1 hit over the final 4 innings against 3 Tribe relievers.

Torre also gave Phil Hughes a chance to get his feet wet by throwing a couple of innings. The phenom allowed a solo HR to Ryan Garko for his troubles. Jose Veras was the only Yankees pitcher to come out unscathed, retiring the only batter he faced.

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Making the night worse was listening to TBS' coverage. It's easy to get annoyed at your own announcers when you're losing, but listening to yahoos like Chip Caray makes it much worse.

photos courtesy of AP

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Yankees Take Over Wild Card

Moments ago, the Indians Kenny Lofton walked with the bases loaded to give the Tribe a 6-5 win over the Mariners. They M's had tied the game in the top half of the 9th against Joe Borowski, but the Indians jumped on Rick White. With the bases loaded, 2 outs, and a 3-2 count on Lofton, White threw ball 4 to force in the winning run.

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Indians Bring Back Lofton

The Texas Rangers dealt Kenny Lofton to the Cleveland Indians today for minor league catcher Max Ramirez. This will be Lofton's 3rd stint with the Tribe. The 40-yr old is expected to help the Indians' running game. Cleveland has just 54 stolen bases. Lofton stole 21 while with the Rangers.

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