And I am sure the Yankees would like to forget a lot of game one. Well at least everything on the defensive side of the ball. While Sabathia was strong early on, he never really had great command and as he tired in the middle of the game he clearly lost his stuff.
Poor defensive plays by both Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner cost the Yankees and after Sabathia, no Yankee pitcher could throw the ball where he wanted to.
The one thing the Yankees will be able to take away from the game is their solid offensive output. Little consolation I know as their bats did what they were expected to do. The hitters will cover up a lot of pitching mistakes this year and they will win games by outslugging teams. That is pretty much a standard feature every season for New York. It was nice to see the bottom half of the lineup do a lot of damage. Robinson Cano, Brett Gardner and Curtis Granderson all came through with big hits early on. It was also nice to see Joe Girardi be aggressive on the basepaths with Gardner's steal of home.
But back to the pitching for a moment. I am not worried about Sabathia and I will say I wouldn't be worried about Beckett either if I was a Sox fan. Sometimes a starter needs a couple of turns throwing the ball when it really matters to get his groove and both Beckett and Sabathia will be fine.
On the other hand you have just about everybody else who came out of the Yankee bullpen. Dave Robertson needed just one pitch to allow his inherited runner to score, Chan Ho Park was clearly in over his head from the first batter, Damaso Marte pitched around the one batter he was in to face and Joba Chamberlain pitched a lot like Joba during his last few starts of 2009.
Park was probably the most disappointing of the four relievers. You could see by his body language that he was not at all comfortable on the mound from the start. His pitches were not close and he had no business trying to sneak a fastball by Dustin Pedroia on the inside half of the plate. It was a stark contrast to his spring training performance.
The Red Sox lineup may not have big bats like in year's past, but one thing they still do extremely well is take pitches. They rarely get themselves out and Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis punished the Yankee bullpen for their inability to put them away.
In the end it is still only one game, though I am sure that New York and Boston media will thoroughly over-analyze the game and amazingly forget how little games in April and May meant in August and September. The airwaves will by overwhelmed with panic tomorrow and I'll just have to change the channel.
I do have one interesting question though: What's the over/under on Park being DFA'd or traded by July 1? I get the feeling the under is the safe bet. He has a real Latroy Hawkins feel to him.
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