Other than the 4 run 8th against our pen that was a fun game, but other than running into the iceberg I'm sure the Titanic was a nice cruise. Jesse Carlson pitched a good inning yesterday but today not so much. A leadoff homer by Hideki Matsui on a full count pitch, that he just crushed, tied the game. Then a Yankee Stadium special that just barely cleared the wall and Joe Inglett's glove in right gave the Yankees the lead. An out and a double later and Josh Roenicke was in the game. A couple of singles off him and we were down by 3.
Scott Richmond had a tough first couple of innings, giving up two runs in the first. that could have been much worse if Mark Teixeira hadn't tried to score from first on a double. Vernon Wells threw him out by 20 feet or so. In the second Richmond gave up another run but got of the inning with the bases loaded, so that could have been worse too. After that he pitched 4 innings allowing just 1 hit and 1 walk.
Offensively we got 5 runs on 7 hits, helped out by homers by Randy Ruiz and Edwin Encarnacion. Ruiz looked over-matched at the plate other than his homer. Lyle Overbay had the really big hit, a bases clearing double that brought us back from 3-0.
Joe Inglett made a great catch at the wall in the 5th, if he was 6 inches taller he would have had two great catches today and Encarnacion made a diving stop then threw out the runner at second from a seated position. If he keeps playing like this we are going to have to rethink the E5 nickname.
Jays of the Day are Overbay (.179 WPA), Jeremy Accardo (.110) and Richmond. Suckage Jays are Carlson (-.563) and Vernon Wells (-.099). Wells is borderline as far as the number were concerned and did throw a runner out at the plate, but trying to pull outside pitches in a park where if he goes with the ball and gets it in the air at all it can go out.
Tomorrow at 1:00 Eastern we have the rubber game of the series, with Ricky Romero (10-5, 3.66) going up against A.J. Burnett (10-5, 3.67). I don't remember a game where both pitchers had the same record and where just .01 apart in ERA before. It should be a good one.
In other Jay news they now intend to have Shawn Marcum finish the season in the minors, instead of bringing him up later this month as they earlier planed.
"He's healthy," Ricciardi said. "There's nothing wrong with him, but there's no reason to rush him. He's going to pitch next year for us. He'll be like 17 months post-op at that time. He feels good. We'll probably just keep throwing him, but there's really probably no need to get him to the big leagues at this point.
I'm glad, I don't see that anything will be gained by bringing him up now. Unless, of course, they were to release Millar to make room for him.