By TYLER KEPNER
Published: April 12, 2008
BOSTON — He has never thrown a no-hitter, like Clay Buchholz, or had a shutdown performance in the World Series, like Josh Beckett. He never captured the imaginations of Yankees fans as an electrifying rookie, like Phil Hughes, and he is not as accomplished as Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte or Curt Schilling.
But there is no pitcher in the majors with as many victories as Chien-Ming Wang since the start of the 2006 season. He is efficient and dependable for the Yankees, a quiet, stoic and steady presence in their rivalry with the Boston Red Sox. When the teams met at Fenway Park on Friday for the first time this season, it was Wang who took over.
Wang pitched a two-hitter in a 4-1 victory before 37,624 fans, the largest crowd at Fenway Park since World War II. Jason Giambi homered for the Yankees and José Molina doubled twice, but Wang was the star.
“He’s become the ace of our staff, there’s no doubt about it, and tonight he pitched as well as anybody could pitch,” Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said. “He seems to be refining his repertoire on how to attack hitters, and that’s a great thing. Right now, he’s at the top of his game.”
Wang used 93 pitches to silence the Red Sox, who had seen 212 pitches Thursday against Detroit. He faced two batters over the minimum, and for eight and two-thirds innings, Boston’s only hit was a fifth-inning homer by J. D. Drew that just eluded Bobby Abreu at the wall in right-center field.
Coco Crisp added a bunt single with two outs in the ninth, but Dustin Pedroia lined to left to end the game. It was the fourth career complete game for Wang, who is 3-0 so far and 41-13 over the past three seasons. He called this start the best of his career.
“I feel especially good about this one because I threw it in Boston, and before, I didn’t do very well in Boston,” Wang said through an interpreter. “So I think this is my best game so far.”
The Yankees and the Red Sox are known for lengthy games, with pitchers nibbling at the corners of the strike zone, hitters swatting fouls and managers churning through bullpens. On Friday, though, Wang neutralized the Red Sox by pounding the zone with sinkers and four-seam fastballs.
“They just didn’t look comfortable,” Giambi said. “Boston is almost an exact mirror team as us — guys who take a lot of pitches, take their walks and do a lot of damage by hitting home runs. He threw a lot of strikes and caught them off-guard.”
Wang came into the game with a 6.17 earned run average at Fenway, largely because of the sluggers Manny Ramírez and David Ortiz, who had combined for a .538 average off him. Because of that — and because of the playoff beating he took from the Cleveland Indians last fall — Wang had vowed to change his approach this season.
He worked on his slider and changeup in spring training, and though his results were poor then, he used the slider effectively Friday, striking out Ramírez with it in the seventh inning.
Wang said he also used more four-seamers than usual, attacking Ortiz with that pitch in the first inning, when Ortiz struck out. His next time up, Ortiz swung at a first-pitch sinker and bounced into a double play.
“We didn’t take anything away from him,” the pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “We just added some things to complement him.”
Buchholz, who pitched a no-hitter last September in his previous Fenway start, held the Yankees to one hit through four innings. But he walked three in the fifth, and Molina’s first double drove in a run.
It was a long half-inning, and when Wang returned, he was not sharp. His pitches flattened as his arm angle dropped, and the Red Sox smashed four fly balls. Drew’s came with two out and backed Abreu to the warning track.
Abreu is rarely smooth around walls, and when he leaped, his right shoulder hit the padding on the fence. That brought down his glove a few inches, and Drew’s ball grazed the fingertips before landing in the Red Sox bullpen.
Abreu said he should have made the catch, and he felt bad for missing it. The feeling grew worse as the game went on, the “1” staying stuck in the Red Sox hit column until the very end.
“I saw the innings going and going,” Abreu said. “A lot of things went through my head.”
The Red Sox, meanwhile, rued their missed opportunities in the fifth. Ramírez and Kevin Youkilis had also flied out to Abreu, and Jason Varitek mashed a ball to the warning track in center. But only Drew’s went out.
“There were times in the game when he threw his two-seamer middle, and then it went away and we just got it not quite off the barrel,” Red Sox Manager Terry Francona said. “The game plan was to get it up and stay in the middle of the field, and we did at times. We had nothing to show for it.”
Buchholz left after six innings with the score tied, 1-1. His replacement was Mike Timlin, who had missed the first 10 games with a lacerated right ring finger. Giambi — 1 for 20 this season, 2 for 17 in his career against Timlin — was the first hitter he faced.
“I just tried to hit it hard, nothing special,” Giambi said. “I was just trying to put it in play, because I knew he had good success against me.”
With a full count, Giambi did much better than he hoped. He launched a fastball onto a platform next to the center field cameras, breaking the 1-1 tie.
It put a lead in the hands of Wang, a pitcher the Yankees are thrilled to have at the front of their rotation, with no apologies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/12/sports/baseball/12yankees.html?_r=2&ref=baseball&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
NY proves too much for starters
By Michael Silverman | Saturday, April 12, 2008 |
http://www.bostonherald.com | Boston Red Sox
Since 1901, the Red Sox [team stats] and Yankees franchises have been duking it out.
In the 107th resumption of hostilities last night that felt as if it was beginning about a month too early, the Yankees got the better of the Sox.
The main story of the 4-1 victory by New York was an absolutely dominating two-hit start from Chien-Ming Wang (3-0), who needed just 93 pitches and allowed only three Red Sox baserunners in the complete-game victory.
On the flip side, Mike Timlin [stats]’s 2008 debut was a debacle, with Jason Giambi’s seventh-inning leadoff home run breaking a 1-1 tie. Timlin was also charged with the third Yankees run in his one-third of an inning.
Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz held the Yankees to just four hits and one run in six innings. But with Wang on a roll and Timlin flat, Buchholz’ quality start was not going to get the job done.
With 17 games to go in 2008, the Yankees lead the all-time series 1,087-890.
Although it feels as if Timlin has appeared in the bulk of the post-World War II games, that has not been the case.
“It was terrible, absolutely terrible,” Timlin said. “That was not how I was looking forward to opening up 2008. I just made bad pitches. You can’t get major league hitters out with pitches down the middle.”
With a fair amount of rain falling steadily for much of the game, the Sox had no problem making contact against Wang. Usually a ground ball pitcher because of his heavy sinkerball, only 14 of the Sox’ 27 outs came on the ground.
Dustin Pedroia [stats] reached on a fielding error by third baseman Alex Rodriguez with one out in the fourth to dispell any thoughts of Wang throwing a perfect game. An inning later, J.D. Drew [stats] hit a home run that could have - and probably should have - been caught by Bobby Abreu. The right fielder, however, backed up against the wall in front of the Red Sox bullpen too early and the contact jostled his glove enough so that he missed making the catch.
That was it for hits until Coco Crisp [stats] laid down a bunt single with two outs in the ninth.
A Pedroia lineout ended the game with the potential tying run, David Ortiz [stats], on deck. Ortiz (0-for-3, strikeout) has not had a hit in his last 13 at-bats and is now at .077 for the season.
This was not a night meant for slump-busting.
“We went through a period in the middle of the game where we squared up on four or five, the right-handers hit the ball right, J.D. (a lefty hitter) hit his ball and we had nothing to show for it,” manager Terry Francona said. “We didn’t get anything started; (Wang) rarely pitched out of the stretch. In a game where it’s tight, 1-1, we never got anything going.”
For Buchholz, his first start against the Yankees was “what you dream about doing, you dream about pitching in the big rivalries when you’re growing up.
“It was something that I wanted to do and they gave me a shot to do it tonight,” he said. “I felt good overall but I guess they had a little bit better night than we did.”
This afternoon, Sox ace Josh Beckett [stats] matches up against the Yankees’ Mike Mussina in the middle game of the weekend series.
An old-time rivalry awaits a fairer contest.
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=1086596
WANG BIG WIN FOR YANKS
BOSOX TAKE IT ON CHIEN FROM ACE’S 2-HITTER
By GEORGE A. KING III
April 12, 2008 -- BOSTON - Chien-Ming Wang annihilated two schools of thought last night at Fenway Park when he toyed with the Red Sox.
Because the Red Sox have spanked Wang during his short big league career and the Indians, another muscular lineup, punished him last October, some believed the right-hander’s turbo sinker wasn’t enough to handle good hitters. Because the Yankees beat him at the arbitration table, others thought Wang would be angry after posting the most wins of any big league pitcher across the past two seasons.
After watching Wang dissect the Red Sox on the way to a 4-1, two-hit, complete-game victory in front of 37,624 nobody will ever accuse him of not being able to handle the elite lineups. Even with World Series MVP Mike Lowell out, the Red Sox are more than dangerous.
How good was Wang? Until Coco Crisp’s two-out bunt single in the ninth, Wang threw one pitch from the stretch. He needed only 93 pitches to post his fourth career complete game. And he came within inches of having a no-hitter in play when Crisp surfaced in the ninth.
Depending on whom you talked to, Wang had several reasons for the dominating performance that upped the Yankees’ record to 6-5.
”The key was he spotted his fastball on both sides of the plate,” flu-ridden pitching coach Dave Eiland said of Wang, who is 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA.
”I threw a lot four-seamers [fastballs] and sliders,” said Wang, who retired the first 10 batters until Dustin Pedroia reached on a questionable throwing error by Alex Rodriguez. ”I changed speeds and threw more inside.”
The only inning Wang seemed vulnerable was the fifth - and it was more than J.D. Drew’s homer to right that glanced off Bobby Abreu’s glove and into the Red Sox bullpen to tie the score, 1-1. Manny Ramirez hit a ball to deep right for the first out. Kevin Youkilis sent Abreu to the warning track for the second out. Drew then homered and Jason Varitek sent center fielder Melky Cabrera to the track for the final out.
”I dropped my arm and the slider was flat,” Wang said of the home-run pitch. ”The pitching coach told me to get back on top.”
Wang responded by retiring the next dozen hitters.
While Wang was carving the Red Sox hitters up, he was locked in a dual with right-hander Clay Buchholz, who allowed only Jose Molina’s RBI single in the fifth.
Jason Giambi’s first homer and Melky Cabrera’s sacrifice fly upped the Yankees’ lead to 3-1 in the seventh against reliever Mike Timlin and Abreu’s two-out, infield single scored Alberto Gonzalez in the ninth.
Nursing a three-run bulge, Wang retired the first two batters in the ninth before Crisp reached on the bunt single. With Mariano Rivera poised to enter the game to face Ortiz, Wang sealed the victory by getting Pedroia on a liner to Hideki Matsui in left.
”People want to make a lot out of a couple of playoff starts but sometimes it happens to pitchers, you are not going to be as sharp at that time of the year,” Joe Girardi said of the Indians raking Wang last October. ”Tonight he was as good as I have seen him. The sinker and slider were excellent.”
Is it too early to call him Cy Wang? Of course. It’s only April 12. However, chew on this. Last year he won 19 games and didn’t win his third until May 21.
Yanks’ Wang brilliant in 4-1 victory over Red Sox
BY KAT O’BRIEN
kat.obrien@newsday.com
11:46 PM EDT, April 11, 2008
BOSTON
Joe Girardi’s managerial entry into the Yankees-Red Sox furnace went off without a hitch, and he can thank Chien-Ming Wang for that.
Wang was nearly perfect in the Yankees’ 4-1 win over the Red Sox Friday night in front of a Fenway Park-record 37,624, throwing a two-hitter and walking none to lift his record to 3-0.
Only three Red Sox hitters got on base against Wang, who needed only 93 pitches: Dustin Pedroia reached first on Alex Rodriguez’s throwing error, J.D. Drew hit a home run that Bobby Abreu could have and probably should have caught in the fifth, and Coco Crisp bunted for a hit with two out in the ninth.
”He was as good as I’ve seen him today,” Girardi said. ”His sinker and slider were excellent.” Wang agreed, saying: ”This is the best game so far.”
That’s saying something, given that he won 19 games each of the previous two seasons.
Wang, who lowered his ERA to 1.23, pitched like the ace the Yankees expect him to be, and then some. The first hit off him came with two out in the fifth, when Drew’s fly ball to rightfield brushed Abreu’s glove before landing in the Red Sox bullpen for a home run. Abreu got back to the fence well but appeared to hit the wall as he made a slight jump.
Abreu was all ”mea culpa” after the game, saying his right shoulder hit the wall as he jumped and threw him off the arc of the ball. ”It’s a ball I should catch,” he said.
For the next four innings, as Drew’s drive remained the only hit, Abreu kept thinking that his miscue might have cost Wang a no-hitter. Said Abreu: ”I feel bad. It had a chance to be a no-no there ... Oh, man, a lot of things were going through my head.”
Wang just missed becoming the first Yankee to throw a one-hitter since Mike Mussina, who beat the Red Sox, 1-0, at Fenway on Sept. 2, 2001, when Carl Everett’s two-out single in the ninth broke up a perfect game.
It was a particularly impressive outing for Wang given the opponent and the locale. He entered the game with a 5-5 record and a 4.56 ERA in 11 starts against Boston. At Fenway Park, however, his ERA was more than double what it was at Yankee Stadium (6.17 vs. 3.00).
Fenway and the Red Sox proved no problem for Wang this time, though. Even the two Sox hitters who have generally clobbered Wang -- David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez -- did little Friday night. Ortiz, who is 3-for-39 (.077) this season, and Ramirez went 0-for-6 with three strikeouts.
”I think Chien-Ming Wang sometimes might be overlooked a little bit around baseball,” Girardi said, ”because he doesn’t have the big strikeout numbers.”
Red Sox rookie righthander Clay Buchholz, 23, who threw a no-hitter against the Orioles last Sept. 1, pitched well in his sixth major-league start. Buchholz gave up one earned run in six innings, allowing four hits and three walks.
The Yankees got on the board in the fifth. Buchholz walked Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada to start the inning, struck out Jason Giambi and then gave up an RBI double to Jose Molina.
Drew’s homer tied the score, but after throwing 99 pitches in six innings, Buchholz was replaced by Mike Timlin.
On Timlin’s sixth pitch, Giambi crushed a drive just to the right of the Green Monster that hit the top of the centerfield fence and deflected into the seats to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. Giambi was 1-for-20 this season entering the at-bat.
Molina followed with his second double of the game and advanced to third on Alberto Gonzalez’s sacrifice. Hideki Okajima replaced Timlin, and Molina scored on a sacrifice fly by Melky Cabrera.
The Yankees tacked on a run in the ninth in much the same fashion. Gonzalez led off with a double to left-centerfield, moved up on Cabrera’s sacrifice bunt and scored when Abreu beat out an infield single.
Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.
Wang overpowers Sox with two-hitter
Yanks righty loses bid for no-hitter with Drew’s home run in fifth
By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com
BOSTON -- Chien-Ming Wang may never receive the kudos generally lauded upon the game’s top hurlers, his high winning percentage overlooked as a result of pitching toward contact instead of the league lead in strikeouts.
Yet for those who doubt Wang’s status as a so-called ”true ace,” his supporters now have a trademark performance to point to. Wang hurled a two-hitter on Friday in what he called his finest game for the Yankees, defeating the Red Sox, 4-1, in a complete-game effort at Fenway Park.
”He had everything today,” Yankees catcher Jose Molina said. ”He got them off balance -- inside, outside -- and everything for a strike. When Wang is on, he’s on. Today was one of those nights.”
Wang faced the minimum until J.D. Drew connected for a solo homer in the fifth inning, when the ball tipped off Bobby Abreu’s glove in right field and landed in the Red Sox’s bullpen. Unrattled, Wang cruised the rest of the way, allowing only Coco Crisp’s bunt single with two outs in the ninth before finishing his masterpiece.
”I feel especially good about this one because I threw the ball very good here in Boston,” Wang said, noting the Yankees’ rivalry with their classic American League East foes.
Wang has flirted with perfection before, most recently falling five outs shy of a perfect game last May against the Mariners. The Red Sox have given Wang trouble, however, as batters usually dig in and sit on his bowling-ball sinker. Partially with Boston in mind, Wang focused this spring on expanding his repertoire to keep hitters honest and move them off the plate.
”He’s worked very hard at making his slider better, his changeup and his split,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. ”It starts with the sinker, like it always did. When you have a couple of different pitches to go to, he got some strikeouts with some sliders, and it helps. Then they can’t sit on one area or one pitch.”
”He was electric tonight,” said Jason Giambi, who homered for New York. ”You could tell the ball was moving a lot. He looked comfortable, and he threw a lot of strikes. Boston is almost the exact mirror team -- guys take a lot of pitches and do a lot of damage by taking walks and hitting home runs. I think he just pounded the strike zone so much that it caught them off guard.”
Mixing his pitches and creating more fly-ball outs (14) than usual, Wang retired the first 10 batters before Dustin Pedroia chopped a hard shot down the third-base line in the fourth inning. Alex Rodriguez made a stab but was charged with a throwing error on a questionable scoring decision.
David Ortiz, batting .500 (15-for-30) against Wang coming into the game, then grounded into a 5-4-3 double play, keeping Wang’s no-hit bid intact. Ortiz finished 0-for-3, as did Manny Ramirez, who had punished Wang to a .591 (13-for-22) mark.
”I was hoping he got a no-hitter, so I didn’t really care,” Rodriguez said. ”Obviously, I thought it was a hit, but any questionable call, I was hoping they’d give him an error. I didn’t want to be responsible for history.”
With Wang cruising, the Yankees scored the first run of the 18-game regular-season slate between the rivals in the fifth inning, as Molina touched right-hander Clay Buchholz with the first of his two doubles, scoring Hideki Matsui.
Given the lead, Wang saw his mechanics get a little sloppy in the fifth. Ramirez and Kevin Youkilis flied out to deep right for the first two outs of the inning, but Drew launched a deep drive that Abreu appeared to have a bead on. Abreu jumped at the wall but jarred his right shoulder against the fence, tipping the ball into the Boston bullpen and spoiling the no-hit bid.
”I felt bad,” Abreu said. ”It could have been a chance to no-no there. We try to do the best we can do.”
Wang would recover, getting Jason Varitek to fly loudly to center before pitching coach Dave Eiland corrected a flaw in Wang’s mechanics, telling him to get more on top of his pitches. Armed with that, Wang retired the next 11 before Crisp reached on his two-out bunt in the ninth. Pedroia flied out to left for the final out, and Wang’s two-hitter was complete.
”I had good defense catching the ball for me,” Wang said. ”I could control the ball inside and outside today. Sometimes the slider would run, but the sinker was good.”
”When you have a sinker like he does, and you’re throwing it down like he was tonight, not many people are going to hit it,” Molina said.
In the fifth, Buchholz walked three and surrendered Molina’s run-scoring double, but the right-hander escaped when Melky Cabrera lined to first for a double play. Facing the Yankees for the first time in his career, Buchholz walked three and struck out three, leaving after six innings tied in an eventual no-decision.
Tied at 1 with the defending World Series champs after six innings, the Yankees took the lead in the seventh when Giambi -- with just one hit in 15 at-bats before Friday -- greeted reliever Mike Timlin with a solo home run, just over the 379-foot mark in left-center field.
The ball hit near a television camera platform as Crisp waited for a rebound bounce that never came. Later in the inning, Molina stroked his second double of the game, moved up on a bunt and then scored on Cabrera’s sacrifice fly, providing a healthy cushion to help back Wang’s economical 93-pitch effort.
”The team looks awfully good when a guy can go out there and throw nine innings and be great,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez, Matsui and Molina each had two hits for New York, who added a run in the ninth on Abreu’s broken-bat infield single. The Red Sox and Yankees will meet 17 more times this season, including twice more as they complete the weekend series in Boston.
April 12, 2008 -- BOSTON - From the beginning, Jose Molina could see what no one else in the Fenway Park crowd of 37,624 could see, because he had the best view, squatting only 60 feet and 6 inches away from Chien-Ming Wang’s fingertips.
Everyone else could see that Wang was awfully damn good last night.
Molina knew he was even better than that.
”Put it this way,” the Yankees’ backup catcher told a couple of friends outside the Yankees clubhouse, before facing the usual Bosox-Yanks media scrum. ”Tonight was a night I was glad to be catching him, and not hitting against him.”
Wang is already off to a beautiful start to the season, with a 3-0 record and a 1.23 ERA. Yet it’s entirely possible - likely even - that he could go the rest of the season, no matter how many games he wins, and never approach the dominance and the craftsmanship he threw at the Red Sox last night. Wang went the distance in a 4-1 victory, throwing only 93 pitches and was literally one eyelash and one backside away from possibly throwing a perfect game.
”He was at the top of his game,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, ”and when he is, that’s something to see, it really is.”
It really was. Yanks-Bosox is always a marquee matter, and the first meeting of the year always has something of a secular holiday feel to it - even if the Sox were missing Mike Lowell and the Yankees were minus Derek Jeter, even if the Yankees have spent the last week scuffling against the upstart likes of the Rays and the Royals and the Sox have been spinning their wheels while waiting for David Ortiz’s painful wheels to turn him back into the old Papi.
Nobody believes the newspaper this morning, which shows the Orioles still clinging to first place in the AL East, which shows the Bosox in last place, behind the Rays and the Jays in addition to the O’s and the Yanks. It’s early. It’s early. It’s early. That’s all anyone says in April. That’s all anyone is supposed to say in April.
Still.
文章定位：
人氣(333) | 回應(0)| 推薦 (
0)| 收藏 (
0)|
轉寄
全站分類:
不分類
