Yankees pound Twins 10-2

by cmathewson on Jul 8, 2009 12:23 AM EDT

The Yankees took advantage of Twins' pitchers struggles to win a laugher at the Metrodome.

CC Sabathia held the Twins to just three hits and one run over seven innings. Twins hitters made it easy on him by swinging at pitches out of the zone. Michael Cuddyer provided the lone hitting highlight with a long homer to left center.

Carlos Gomez provided the other highlight for the Twins, robbing Alex Rodriguez of a grand slam homer. But Twins pitchers walked seven Yankee hitters and it seemed like every one of those walks scored on broken-bat hits. The Yankees had 16 hits in all against Scott Baker, Brian Duensing and R. A. Dickey.

Baker had his worst start of the year, giving up five runs on nine hits over three innings. Yankee hitters worked the count with the small strike zone to force Baker to throw 86 pitches in those innings. Duensing and Dickey were not much better, combining to throw another 108 pitches. Indeed the Yankees didn't beat the Twins as much as they beat themselves.

Studs

1. Michael Cuddyer: The only Twins hitter to figure Sabathia out.

2. Carlos Gomez: As good as robbing a grand slam was, he nearly made an even better catch to rob a triple.

3. Nick Punto: He's not hitting, but at least he was patient enough to take a couple of walks. The Twins could have used more at bats like his tonight.

Duds

1. Scott Baker: Just a horrible game from the first pitch. This guy's mechanics are all messed up.

2. Brian Duensing: Faced with a tough challenge, he only threw 28 strikes out of his 53 pitches.

3. Delmon Young: Sabathia was not throwing that many strikes either. So what does Delmon do? He swings at three pitches at his shoe tops and outside and sits down. When we needed to grind out at bats, he epitomized the Twins over-anxious approach.

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Small Strike Zone

The Yankee get that everywhere they go, and it’s probably a big reason why our pitchers struggle against them. Twins pitchers are always about control, not electric stuff, and working the zone. Yankee’s hitters get 5 strikes per at bat and tiny little zones, so they can just sit and wait all day for the Twins pitchers to go into the zone with their marginal fastballs.

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane

by AdamOnFirst on Jul 8, 2009 2:36 AM EDT reply actions

Typical Twins loss against the Cheeseburger Chomp

Swing at anything even remotely close to the strike zone. ***sigh*** I hate to keep losing to los yanquis and I especially hate to lose to the Cheeseburger Chomp.

"I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. See, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it . . ."

by Skippy tastes better than Jiff on Jul 8, 2009 2:36 AM EDT reply actions

Captain Cheeseburger ate the Twins up!

by caluofmn on Jul 8, 2009 11:08 AM EDT up reply actions

Baker

Has been around long enough and by now he shouldn’t be having mechanics problems.

He needs to get his crap together and soon.

I really want a win tonight.
really. really. really.

by clutterheart on Jul 8, 2009 8:39 AM EDT reply actions

Wow!

that was some revenge the Twins got on the Yankees last night.

Tonight the Yankees will steal their girlfriends and make them wear their letterman jackets, but look out Yankess on Thurs. the Twins might score 2 runs!

Ok I feel better now. Frustrating loss last night. Baker needs to learn to finish off batters but he doesn’t have an overpowering ‘out’ pitch. It’s a staff full of 2’s and 3’s but there is just no stopper on this staff. Pitching and Hitting have to both be on.

And at least for one night, it was awsome to see Go Go go get’em out in CF.

Go get that W tonight boys!

Win Twins

by caluofmn on Jul 8, 2009 11:14 AM EDT reply actions

Oops!

I forgot about that 2nd run last night… wasn’t really paying attention at that point…

3 RUNS! you mess with the Twins again and you’re going to get 3 runs scored on you!

I believe in committing to the joke.

by caluofmn on Jul 8, 2009 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions

I really don't like to speculate about things like this,

but it just seems like they are intimidated by the Yankees.

by Eric in Madison on Jul 8, 2009 12:18 PM EDT reply actions

Eh.

It probably was not an issue 2 years ago, but now its turned into one of those self fufilling prophesies, perhaps. Apparently Gardy’s teams have been poor against them. I don’t think it probably has anything to do with him. Perhaps his bullpen management, which is really my only knock on the guy. Otherwise I think he does a pretty good job. (And I know he would have a job 5 seconds after a potential fire)

Baseball is the soundtrack to my summer.

by FoulJack on Jul 8, 2009 6:09 PM EDT reply actions