"An Offensive Orgy" to win an ugly game (Postgame Notes 06 August 2009)

I should explain here that the term "offensive orgy" comes not from me but from Michael Kay.

Aha!, you say, as you make your way through this post.

Basically, it's like this:

If you're going to walk twelve (yes, twelve) batters for the other team, you'd better show up to hit yourselves, and that's exactly what happened.

Every Yankee starter had a hit and only three (Jeter, A-Rod and Matsui, and yes, you read that right, too) did not have multiple hit games. Four Yankees--Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon, Melky Cabrera and Mark Teixeira--hit home runs.

The funny thing here is that going into the bottom of the fourth innning, this game looked much like its 09 Yankees-Sox predecessors: poor pitching, bad baserunning, and timely hits by the opposition.

In fact, everyone--and I mean everyone was killing Jorge Posada for refusing to slide when attempting to score. to be fair, the criticism was warranted, but as so often the case, Posada would more than make up for his blunder, ending up falling "just" a triple shy of the cycle.

In the bottom of the fourth, Posada doubled, Canó reached, and then with one out, Melky Cabrera hit an absolute bomb to right field--out in any ballpark.

That one home run may have been the defining moment that changes the Yankees fortunes against Boston this season.

The Yankees took the 5-3 lead on that home run, and that proved to be the start of an eight-run onslaught in the fourth inning. The Yankees, as you might expect, never looked back. Okay, so that's not entirely true--while the score never got to within four runs from that point, the Yankees did end up walking twelve. Boston had runners reach ever single inning.

To be fair, only Chamberlain and Anthony Claggett gave up runs, and despite the number of pitchers used today, Aceves, Hughes, Bruney, Rivera and probably Coke should all be available tomorrow.

When all said and done, the Yankees win tonight might be the most important win of the season thus far:

1) They get the 0-8 monkey off their back.
2) There's less pressure on AJ Burnett to outpitch Josh Beckett. Of course, that's not saying a whole lot, but it counts.
3) It assures the Yankees, now 3.5 in first, that whatever happens the rest of this series they will still wake up on Monday morning in first place.
4) If the Yankees can, however, they now have an opportunity to go 4.5 up tomorrow. Which could then become...you know...


So sit back, and for all of tonight's ugliness, enjoy it.

This win means just that little bit more.