Saturday, August 9, 2014

The Daily Dozen - August 9, 2014

The Daily Dozen - August 9th, 2014 Edition
(Twelve Takeaways from Today's Game vs. the Cleveland Not-to-be-named)

1. Paul O'Neill became the 29th person to get a plaque in Monument Park before the game.  "The Warrior" won 4 World Series Championships as a Yankee between 1996 and 2000 and had a very memorable moment at Yankee Stadium during Game 5 of the 2001 WS in his last game there.  Paul is originally from Columbus, Ohio, so his enshrinement is rather special to yours truly being an Ohioan myself.
Congratulations Paulie! (Photo Credit: Anthony Grupuso/USA Today Sports)

2. Of course the guy batting .174 hits a 2-run home run!  Jose Ramirez took Brandon McCarthy deep for his first big league homer to make it 2-0 in the 2nd.  He also went 3 for 4 on the day.  Here are some interesting stats about the Yankees and Native Americans when it comes to the 1st big league home runs.  Derek Jeter's first homer came off of "El Presidente" Dennis Martinez on April 2, 1996 at Jacobs Field in Cleveland.  There have been 3 other Cleveland players that hit their first homer at Yankee Stadium including Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez (from Washington Heights, NY).  I wonder if Ramirez will end up as successful as those two?

3. Kluber induces a ton of groundball outs.   The ratio of ground ball to fly ball outs was 6 to 2.  He would have had more than 6 of them if he didn't strike out so many Yankees.

4. The Native Americans got 2-out hits in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd innings.  Quite the conundrum.  If the Yankees want to make the Playoffs this year they are going to have to close out innings when there is no one on and 2 outs.

5. During the broadcast of game as seen on Fox Sports 1 by those of us in Ohio, Paul O'Neill told a great story about Joe DiMaggio.  I will paraphrase here, but basically after being traded to the Yankees from Cincinnati, he had requested the bat boy to get Joey D to sign a bat for him during the Old Timer's Day festivities in 1993.  The bat boy returned saying that Mr. DiMaggio had refused to sign one for him.  Well, Paul O'Neill won the AL batting title in 1994 so at the 1995 Old Timer's Day, Joltin' Joe shows up at Paul's locker and asked him if he still wanted that autograph.  Pretty cool.
What a weird looking bat boy!

6. Nothing like breaking up a perfect game with a HBP!  Great job Cervelli! I bet it hurt though.

7. Corey Kluber goes 3-1/3 with a no-hitter before Ellsbury breaks it up.  What's with pitchers lately and no-hitters or perfect games into the middle portion of the game?  Justin Verlander went 3-2/3 innings the other day against the Yankees.  This time however, Kluber got the win.  A few outings ago, Kluber threw a complete game against the Mariners throwing only 85 pitches total.  Today he was at 85 pitches in 4-2/3 innings.  That would seemingly show that the Yankees were getting walks, hits, and runs, but NAY...it was not so...in fact Kluber over his last 31 innings has only given up 1 earned run. Impressive!

8. #3,431 was an infield hit for Jeter.  I unfortunately watched the game on DVR so was a little bit behind everyone else in the celebration of the Captain taking over 6th place on the all-time hits list surpassing Honus Wagner, but I managed to grab a screen capture of my TV during the event.  Jeter has been entering the hallowed zone of Major League Baseball surpassing the likes of Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, etc...  One notable about Wagner is that he was one of the original inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame along with Walter Johnson, Christy Matthewson, Ty Cobb, and Herman "Babe" Ruth.
Just before the momentous occasion. (Photo Credit: ME)

9. The ball hit by Jeter was kept in play for the next batter.  Jacoby Ellsbury promptly got a bloop single.  After that I believe the Native Americans wanted to get the ball to Jeter to get rid of the luck.

10. Brandon McCarthy still pitched well.   Any other day he probably would have gotten a win...but not on a day in which Corey Kluber was pitching.

11. Why won't the Yankees listen to me and just walk Brantley????  I'm getting a little frustrated quite frankly.  He once again goes 3 for 4 with a monstrous home run that hit the top of the fair pole.  Sigh.

12. The Yankees were 0 for 9 with Runners in Scoring Position.  That's pretty pathetic.  What's even worse is that 6 of those were the way of strikeouts.  They were struck out 10 times by Kluber and 15 total.


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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)