Not that anyone was really interested, but there was a game tonight. And a good one really. Who would have thought we could win in the new Yankee Stadium. It had everything. Good defense, homers, good pitching and Cito was thrown out. I'll repeat that, Cito Gaston was thrown out of the game. I ought to look this up, but I'm too lazy at the moment, I don't remember Cito being ejected in his second stint as manager. And boy did if there was ever a game to get thrown out of, that was the one. The strike zone for the Yankee starter Sergio Mitre was a totally different thing than the strike zone for Marc Rzepczynski. For Mark the ball had to be over the heart of the plate, Mitre, well if he was in the air it was a strike. But after Cito was thrown out it seemed to improve. Sometimes it does take umpires a bit to get the strike zone consistent at the start of the game, but it was pretty bad.
It did hurt Rzep, he gave up 3 homers in his 3.1 innings, a couple of them helped out by Yankee Stadium. But since he had to hit the middle of the zone to get a strike, and when you throw a pitch to those guys in the middle of the zone and bad things happen. Our bullpen was terrific though. Shawn Camp pitched 2.2 scoreless innings. Brandon League struck out the side around a double in his inning. Jesse Carlson pitched a perfect inning. And Jason Frasor pitched the 9th for the save.
Offensively, the 2-5 hitters won the game for us, going 7 for 15. Hill and Overbay each hit a homer and they and Lind hit 2 hits each. Joe Inglett drove in a run with a triple and Edwin Encarnacion drove in a run as well.
E5 made a couple of nice plays, as well getting an error on a throw to first. I really thought Overbay should have come up with it but Edwin got the error. Jose Bautista got to show off his amazing arm from right field, I think we'll see a lot of him out there. He does a great job defensively but he isn't batting well enough for a corner outfield spot.
Jays of the Day are Camp (.229 WPA), Frasor (.209), Overbay (.169), Carlson (.146), Bautista (.126) and League (.110). Aaron Hill deserves honorable mention. Suckage Jays are Rzep (-.321, though I still think he was ripped off on the strike zone), Marco Scutaro (-.111) and Rod Barajas (-.109 and a error on a terrible throw trying to get Jeter stealing).
In other news, it looks like Randy Ruiz is coming up from Las Vegas to fill Alex Rios' roster spot. Please Cito, anytime you feel the urge to write Kevin Millar on the lineup card use Ruiz instead. Please.
I know I'm likely wrong about this and all, but in the short term, I really think we might be as well off with Bautista in RF as we would be with Rios. Rios has more upside and potential but add Bautista's arm to some hustle and well that would be more fun to watch anyway. Yeah I know I'm wrong. But still.....
Blue Jays vs Yankees boxscore