Dustin Pedroia had a chance for an early extra-base hit yesterday when he singled to left and tried to take second. But Brett Gardner gunned him down.
It was a fine effort from the rookie, who filled in well for the injured Johnny Damon in the Yankees’ tight 2-1 win over the Red Sox. Gardner, in fact, later added a critical sixth-inning sac fly and caused Joe Girardi to say, “I liked his at-bats all day.”
Gardner replaced Damon in the field Friday when the left fielder hurt his shoulder, and figures to get quite a bit of playing time for as long as Damon’s out.
“I don’t know what to expect,” he said. “I just show up every day expecting to play and come prepared and once I get here, I find out what the lineup is and I prepare myself for the game.”
After grounding out twice and popping up his first three times up yesterday, Gardner delivered in the sixth. He came up against Justin Masterson with the bases loaded, one out and the Yanks up 1-0. He then lofted a sac fly to left, making it 2-zip.
“I got a pitch up in the zone and was able to drive it a little bit,” said Gardner, who’s 1-for-16 as a Yankee. “Thank goodness we got that one because we needed it.”
For the soon-to-be-25-year-old Gardner, yesterday’s Sox-Yanks game sounded like a pretty good rush.
“I told somebody coming off the field today, I asked him, ‘That’s about as crazy as it gets, huh?'” he said. “That was pretty intense right there.”
Additional reporting by George King