Friday, April 6, 2012

Yankees @ Rays -- Opening Day


Hello Yankees fans and welcome to Opening Day 2012!

This season the Yankees opened the season on the road against the Tampa Bay Rays. CC Sabathia was on the mound making his fourth consecutive Opening Day start as a Yankee and faced Rays "old man" James Shields.

Carlos Pena started the season off well hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the first inning to put the Rays up 4-0 on CC Sabathia. The Yankees offense would wake up after that with a Raul Ibanez rbi ground out in the top of the 2nd for a 4-1 Rays lead. Mark Teixeira later scored on a wild pitch also in the second inning to chip away and make it a 4-2 lead for the Rays. The chipping away continued when Nick Swisher reached on a fielders choice and allowed Robinson Cano to score to make the score 4-3 Rays in the top of the 3rd. Later in the inning new comer Raul Ibanez hit a three run home run to make the Yankees have their first lead of the season at 6-4. Evan Longoria , in the bottom of the 3rd, hit a solo home run to bring it closer at 6-5.

David Robertson showed why his nick name is "Houdini" as he allowed two hits in the bottom of the 8th to have runners at first and third with nobody out and a one run lead. After 3 consecutive K's, and a thank you card sent to Jose Molina for missing a bunt sign and Joe Maddon for calling such a foolish call, and the Yankees we're out of the inning unscathed.  First off why do you suicide squeeze in that situation when a double play ball, sacrifice fly, etc gets the run home? Then why do you proceed to call a two strike bunt attempt? Again, thank you Joe Maddon and thank you Jose Molina.

The Yankees went quietly in the ninth inning which allowed the Sandman, Mariano Rivera to enter the 9th inning in possibly his final opening day. After a single to lead off the 9th and an RBI triple by Ben Zobrist Mariano Rivera logged his first blown save of the season. IBB to Evan Longoria and Luke Scott loads the bases to set up a force anywhere. After an interesting move of taking Swisher out and putting Eduardo Nunez in to bring in a 5th infielder Mariano Rivera struck out Sean Rodriguez on a full count cutter right down the middle. Carlos Pena hits a walk off single to start this season the way last season ended with the Rays celebrating after a walk off victory.

Hard way to start the season.

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