So I know Curtis Granderson's first season in pinstripes hasn't gone quite the way many of had hoped/expected, but it's hard to deny the man's had something of a flair for the dramatic, between blasting a home run off Josh Beckett in his first Yankee at-bat, hitting the game-winning home run off Jonathan Papelbon in the third game of the year, cracking the go-ahead bomb in the second game of the Mets series at home and pumping the go-ahead shot against Arizona in the desert, nearly half of Curtis' 2010 home runs have been very memorable.And so Curtis once again bailed the Yankee offense out with a mammoth go-ahead two-run jack in top of the eighth, leading the Yankees to a 3-2 victory. Jake Westbrook had somehow allowed only three hits at that point, and so it wasn't terribly surprising that the Yanks were down by one. Still, it was Jake Westbrook, and it almost seemed comical that the Yankees were once again barely mustering any runs for Javier Vazquez, who also pitched quite nicely himself -- sign me up for 7 innings of two-run ball all day every day. If not for Grandy's home run there's an excellent chance we'd all be grumbling about how on earth the Yankees could only muster one measly run against the Indians. Nick Swisher knocked in the Yankees' other run on a solo blast, his fifth of the month.
The bullpen also acquitted itself nicely, with David Robertson tossing 0.2 scoreless innings, Boone Logan retiring the one batter he faced and Mariano Rivera picking up his 21st save. Interestingly, Joe Girardi did not go to Joba Chamberlain in the eighth inning in this one. While I'm sure many Yankee fans breathed sighs of relief, Joba's going to need meaningful work of some kind to be an effective option down the line, although he obviously hasn't done much of late to be trusted with a one-run lead.
On a side note, congratulations to Matt Garza on throwing the first no-hitter in Tampa Bay history. Incredibly that's the fifth no-hitter of the season, and it must be nice for Tampa to finally not be in the receiving end of a no-no.
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
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