Thursday, June 19, 2014

Phelps Goes 7 Innings in Finale Win Over Blue Jays

I guess David Phelps is pretty good after all.

After shocking the A's with a scoreless 6.2 innings Friday, the struggling right-hander tossed another dominant start tonight, giving up just 2 earned runs over 7 frames as the Yankees completed a sweep over the Blue Jays, 6-4.

Aided offensively by a trio of sac flies from Jacoby Ellsbury, Kelly Johnson, and Carlos Beltran, Phelps made just one mistake in the outing, a game-tying two-run home run to Melky Cabrera in the top of the third.

Besides that, the now 3-4 hurler was nearly unhittable on the night, picking off a runner from second in the first that killed most of Toronto's momentum.

Overall, #41 struck out 7 in his 115-pitch performance, lowering his ERA to 4.13 and bringing the Yanks to within 1.5 games of first place.

In the fifth, sixth, and seventh, the bats, making sure they wouldn't blow the lead, tacked on three insurance runs, as Beltran doubled home Ellsbury, Derek Jeter grounded out, and Yangervis Solarte (hitting in place of Johnson, who left with a hand injury and is currently day-to-day) walked with the bases loaded.

On that grounder, which occurred with men on the corners and one out, a double play probably should've been turned, but due to Brett Gardner's attempting to steal he ended up reaching second, allowing Brian Roberts to jog home.

After that and the Solarte RBI, the Pinstripes had a commanding 6-2 advantage, something that wouldn't last long.

With a runner on in the top of the eighth, the struggling Shawn Kelley was taken deep to left by Edwin Encarnacion, making the contest a lot closer.

Fortunetaly for the Bombers, Matt Thornton and Adam Warren were able to record the last four outs, completing the victory.

For Warren, the save was his second of the season, completing a perfect, 2.2-inning performance in the series. 

6 comments:

  1. The last few games Jeter was hitting well...along with a different star every game. Good to see Jeter hitting a bit more!
    You believe it, Brett is the leading hitter on the team right now. Not too bad for a 4th or at best 5th out fielder...so said some of the experts. I wounder if they ever watch a player more than once, or do they go by scouting reports, most of witch are not 100% complete!
    The scouts make their report to the team, and the team gives the media most but not all of the report.
    I once sat next to a Yankee Scout back in 2006 (I think) watching the game. I had been to three games already that week, the player I was really impressed with was Brett!
    This Scout, I thought was a reporter, so I mentioned how well he was playing, and the guy says to me; 'keep your voice down there are some reporters behind us'!
    So anyhow we started talking baseball and how hard and well Brett played! The guy had about 3 or 4 sheets of stuff on Brett just from that day alone. So I doubt very much if the media people go through all that paper work on each player.
    This is not counting those four or so guys that do nothing but stat work and publish their list every year. But, even they missed on Brett.

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  2. Shawn Kelley struggling is all the more reason you absolutely cannot move Adam Warren to the rotation.

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  3. Warren is way too good to be moved. We need a starter, but I don't think we should weaken the bullpen to do it. Phelps is doing fairly well. His 7 run game recently was actually inherited runners scored from Thornton not being able to get a left hander out. Nuno has to go though. Murphy, Sanchez, Austin for Smardzia might get the job done.

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  4. Agreed Jeff. Definitely do not like the idea of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" with the pitching staff. Nuno has to go, that much is obvious. I would love to have Samardzija since we have a year plus of team control left but I think we get way overbid for him.

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    1. I think the Yankees have to outbid everybody anyways. Both in trade and free agents. I just know that without another top of the rotation starter, it will be very tough to win the division.

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    2. Always seems to be that way Jeff.

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