Mariano Rivera falls victim to Toronto's mystique and aura, and the Jays notch their second walkoff of the season.
Jays 6, Yankees 5, before a fairly impressive-looking crowd of 25250. No lead is safe at the Dome. The Jays threw together a two-run rally off Mariano Rivera, punctuated by a game-tying John McDonald safety squeeze. The next inning, ice-cold Travis Snider, who entered the inning 0/5 with three strikeouts, was the walkoff hero with a two-out double off Ivan Nova that scored Edwin Encarnacion. Hopefully this will loosen Snider up a bit. Encarnacion is on a roll – he went 3/5.
Kyle Drabek pitched 5.1 innings and allowed four runs. He wasn't fooling many hitters, but he fought his way through five decent innings before Mark Teixeira touched him for a two-run homer. After four starts, Drabek has a 3.00 ERA. He's averaging exactly 6 innings a start, and he's faced 101 batters, struck out 19 and walked 15. On paper he's faced one good lineup (New York), two decent ones (Minnesota and Anaheim), and one bad one (Seattle). Any thoughts on where Drabek stands and what we can expect from him the rest of the way?
Tonight, Brett Cecil will try to build on his effort in Boston last week. His counterpart will be portly veteran Bartolo Colon, making his first start of the year. Colon has pitched 11.1 strong innings cleaning up Phil Hughes' messes to earn a place in the Yankees' rotation. I figure Colon will probably be on a 90-pitch leash at most, which is inconvenient for the Yankees, whose four best relievers all pitched last night.
Ivan Nova pitched the tenth and took the loss. It's telling that Joe Girardi decided he'd rather hang a starting pitcher out to dry than throw Boone Logan, Hector Noesi or Lance Pendleton into the fire. You only have four guys in your bullpen capable of pitching extra innings? Okay then. (In all seriousness, Girardi says he went with Nova because he was the most experienced righthander available. Which basically means the same thing, except it allows for the possibility that Logan might be trustworthy against 8-9 hitters who aren't righthanded.) Running up Colon's pitch count will be a worthwhile goal tonight. It won't be easy – Colon will probably just pump fastballs on the outside corner, which is his usual MO. (Pencil Yunel Escobar in for a homer into the Yankees' bullpen.) Colon tends to throw more than 80% heaters, and since 2003, he's thrown 3.60 pitches per plate appearance, well below the usual league average of 3.8.
Cecil and Colon, 7:07, pick 'em.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20110420074830300