As long as they hold Opening Days in the new Yankee Stadium the Yankees will be hard pressed to put on the show they did last night in the final Opening Day in their soon-to-be-gone digs
Granted, the pulsating 3-2 win over the Blue Jays in front of a sold-out crowd of 55,112 is the first of 162 overall and there are 80 tilts remaining to get weepy about The Bronx Baseball Cathedral closing.
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Yet, when Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera pitch brilliantly, Melky Cabrera makes two sensational catches and sneaks a homer into the right field corner and Jason Giambi uses his legs and arm to help win a game played with the red, white and blue bunting hanging from the decks, it’s very difficult to see it as just another game. And if it needed anything else it was Joe Girardi’s first win as Yankees manager.
“It’s awesome,” Girardi said of the victory that was delayed a day by rain but took only two hours and 31 minutes to complete. “I have been looking forward to this day since I signed. You do all the preparation and I saw it pay off. You saw a guy (Bobby Abreu) score from first and you saw a guy (Johnny Damon) hit a triple. It was unbelievable, you finally get to play for real.”
Wang (1-0) out-pitched Roy Halladay (0-1) by limiting the Blue Jays to two runs and six hits in seven innings. Halladay gave up three runs and seven hits in seven frames. The difference was Wang’s defense was splendid and Blue Jays second baseman Aaron Hill couldn’t handle Hideki Matsui’s hard-hit ground ball in the seventh that should have been an inning-ending double play. Instead, Alex Rodriguez (2-for-3; RBI) scored the eventual game-winning run from third.
“We were fortunate they couldn’t catch the ball cleanly,” Damon said.
In addition to Hill’s bobble, the Blue Jays killed themselves by going 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
“That’s the game you dream for,” said Rodriguez, whose two-out double in the first scored Abreu with the season’s first run. “Joba and Mo and timely hitting.”
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Wang (1-0) allowed at least one runner in six of the seven innings but just two runs and six hits.
With Hill on second and two outs in the seventh, Girardi went to the mound to check with Wang.
“Joe asked me if I could get (David Eckstein) out and I said, ‘Yes,’ ” said Wang, who proved it by getting the leadoff hitter on a routine grounder to Rodriguez.
Chamberlain started the eighth and added drama with a one-out walk to Alex Rios who stole second. But Chamberlain caught cleanup hitter Vernon Wells looking at a 2-2 slider and blew Frank Thomas away with an 0-2 fastball that was clocked at 97 mph. From there it was Rivera for a perfect ninth.
When Girardi approached Rivera to congratulate him, the future Hall of Fame closer gave the ball to his former catcher.
“As soon as the third out was made I knew I had to give the ball to the manager,” Rivera said. “It was special today.”
So was Cabrera. He robbed Marco Scutaro of an extra base hit in the seventh with a leaping catch into the wall in right-center with Hill on second and no outs. With two outs he made a lunging grab of Eckstein’s drive to left-center. Those catches were made one-half inning after he scraped the back of the right-field wall and the 314-foot sign with a leadoff homer in the sixth that tied the score, 2-2.
No more Opening Days in The House That Ruth Built. And it will be a long time before an Opening Day across the street tops last night’s.
Yankees 3 Blue Jays 2