Written by For those of you who missed last night’s non-announcement, there are only two days that the Yankees and Twins have in common for off-days to make up yesterday’s game: Sept 8th & 15th. Can’t imagine what it will be like to make a one game appearance in NY in the final month of the regular season but that’s definitely a change in the scenario.
More follow-up to the lost game last night: Liriano is still pitching today because they wanted to keep him on regular rest – totally makes sense since he’s one of those who overthrows when he’s too strong – like Blackburn. The change will be that Pavano will now start tomorrow’s home opener since he missed last night. I assume then we’ll follow the regular schedule just a day behind. We’ll see what they do.
** Special Note: Happy Birthday to TallDrinkoWater!**
| Minnesota | @ | NY Yankees |
| Span, CF | Jeter, SS | |
| Nishioka, 2B | Swisher, RF | |
| Mauer, C | Teixeira, 1B | |
| Morneau, 1B | Rodriguez, A, 3B | |
| Thome, DH | Cano, 2B | |
| Cuddyer, RF | Posada, DH | |
| Kubel, LF | Jones, An, LF | |
| Valencia, 3B | Martin, C | |
| Casilla, A, SS | Gardner, CF | |
| Liriano, P | Burnett, A, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Minnesota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 1 |
| NY Yankees | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | x | 4 | 5 | 1 |
This was a frustrating loss simply because we had so many opportunities to take the lead and couldn’t pull it together. Liriano didn’t have a HORRIBLE outting but he’s really gotta be able to go more than 5 innings. He’s still trying to do too much when he gets frustrated. And whether it was fair or not, the homeplate umps strike zone was getting to him.
The other news is that Nishioka left the game after a hard slide into 2B. From all accounts, it was a clean play that just caught Yoshi flat footed and took out the knee. I think that sounds especially bad but we haven’t gotten any official word from the club yet on the details… I’ll put up an update when I hear more. At any rate, for now, the Yanks are ahead in this series. I will wait for the “makeup” game before I award a series victory.
[update] The news is very bad – Nishioka has a broken left fibula (that’s one of the shin bones) and he’s officially on the DL. Luke Hughes has been called up and will play in the opener tomorrow. Sadly, it was rumore that Tsuyoshi’s parents were flying in for the opener to see him play tomorrow – I hope they are still coming because sometimes parents are good to have in a situation like this even when you’re an adult. Our prayers and good wishes go out to him for a speedy recovery. We’ll have a better idea on the time table for his return after he sees the Twins doctors tomorrow.
Looks like Frankie’s having some trouble finding the strike zone, just from glancing at GameDay.
This has been a rough outing for Liriano. Typical: patches of brilliance and then patches of baseball that makes your hair thin.
And a 5-inning performance for Liriano. Gotta do better.
I will make one observation, from following on GameDay. If the pitch tracking program they use is accurate at all, it appears that the plate umpire has not been giving the knee-high strike to any pitcher. That certainly wouldn’t be helpful for a pitcher like Liriano that works low in the zone.
What happened to Nishi????
Nishi took a slide into the knee with his foot planted at 2B – looked a bit dicey but they haven’t made any official announcements from the trainers yet. My guess is that won’t come until the postgame reports so watch Twitter.
Apparently they don’t play that kind of baseball in Japan. Damnit.
yeah he really didn’t do the ‘jump’ thing they teach 2Bs to do here. Really feel bad for him, in addition to the Twins as a team. That said, I would imagine a broken bone might be something easier to come back from than if it had been some kind of structural damage to the knee or ankle.
Hope Hughes can provide a little offense. I hoped he would get a chance before too long, but this is not the way I wanted that to happen obviously.
Not a good night (as day games are) for us in Japan.
M7.4 aftershock before midnight, then wake up to the Nishi shock. I was just getting used to having virtually every Twins game on NHK.
(I know you know I didn’t mean anything by that JC).
SeNDai, I’m wondering what all of these Japanese reporters are going to do for the next few weeks!
Hmm… maybe I need to figure out how to find a Japanese proxy server so I can watch some Twins games.
Sorry to hear about the further aftershock… you and everyone else over there have already endured far more than anyone should ever have to. Hang on tight, my friend.
Maybe Luke Hughes will walk away with Tolby’s job when all is said and done? Luke was my utility crush during spring training.