Last night's game was about as hard fought a win as you can have. I talked yesterday about how these games at home against Minnesota and Cleveland could give the Yankees an opportunity to get fat and win some games without killing themselves. Well on the very first night of a stretch where the Yankees will play ten games in ten days they completely emptied their bullpen, lost their first baseman for the night and almost had their starting pitcher murdered by a line drive.
It happened so quick at first you really weren't sure where exactly it caught him but then he started to bleed out like a Quentin Tarantino movie so you had to figure it was his nose. He's got a slight nasal fracture and they're not sure yet if he has a concussion so it obviously could have been a lot worse. He should just be thankful he wasn't wearing Alex Torres' helmet because he would have looked absolutely ridiculous lying on the ground bleeding out of his face with that silly hat on.
As for the game, Mitchell's departure put the Yankees in a situation where they had to piece together the rest of the game with their bullpen. Early on it looked like the Yankees were well on their way to a win with their spot starter on the mound. The 3-0 lead Mitchell was spotted came courtesy of Brian McCann. It was more of the same from him, his third homer in five games (he finished the night 3 for 5 with five RBI and threw three runners out). Mitchell was a pitch away from getting out of the second inning unscathed when the line drive took him out. That's when Caleb Cotham, the long man by default, let the Twins back in the game.
It was a bit of a lead exchange the rest of the way. McCann had another big hit, a two-run single to put the Yanks up 5-4 in the third. The Twins scored in the 4th, 5th and 6th to take a 7-5 lead before Carlos Beltran tied it up with a two-run shot in the bottom of the 6th. That score stood still until the bottom of the tenth when the Yanks loaded the bases for Headley who hit a grounder to the one guy in the world I needed that ball hit to. Eduardo Nunez is literally the worst shortstop in the history of baseball. He botched the ball and didn't even know what to do with it so he threw it to first like that even made any sense at all. Ordinarily it seems kind of anti-climactic to win a game on a walk-off error but last night definitely felt like poetic justice.
In the meantime the Yanks will head into tonight's game with a thin bullpen. Chris Capuano will probably be in the building tonight to replace Mitchell. The short term rotation issues should work themselves out with Pineda soon to return and the rosters set to expand in a couple weeks. That's a full game lead in the division for those of you keeping score at home, 2 games in the loss column. The Blue Jays are in Philadelphia tonight while the Yanks throw CC out there against Mike Pelfry.
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