Larry Mahnken and SG's

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April 5, 2005


April Fistpumps
by SG

Game 2 of the 2005 season continued in the vein of many of the Yankee vs. Red Sox matchups of the past few season. New import Carl Pavano was very impressive in his Yankee debut, mixing a variety of pitches and hitting his spots well, and even striking out 7 batters. MVP-Zilla™ added another big HR in the 3rd inning, keeping on pace to hit 162 this season. With Tom Gordon cruising through Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, and Kevin Millar in the top of the 8th, everything looked good for another Yankee victory. Unfortunately, Jason Varitek temporarily put a damper on the festivities with an HR off Mariano Rivera, which tied the game at 3 and put the Yankees in a position of having to score off Keith Foulke, a task they had plenty of trouble with last year.

Leading off the ninth was the much maligned Derek Jeter. Jeter took a high and outside pitch for ball 1, took a low slider for ball 2, took another one for ball 3, then took two strikes to work the count full. On 3-2, he fouled a pitch off towards the first base side of the stands. Then came an outside fastball.



Jeter did what he does when he's at his best, working his inside-out swing towards right field. As the ball sailed out over Trot Nixon's head, Jeter pumped his fist and began circling the bases.



Jeter continued around the bases, rounding third and heading home where his teammates greeted him.



Most of the readers of this blog are aware of Jeter's limitations. He's a fine hitter for a SS, if a bit overrated, and a wildly overrated defensive player who did improve fairly significantly last year. However, he gets savaged by most sabermetric types unfairly, because he is overrated by the conventional media. On this day, he was worth his paycheck and more.

I am loving the 2005 season so far.