Mar 26, 2007

Best AB of Minky's spring

Today's game showed how solid a hitter Dmint can be. In the 5th inning, with runners on 2nd and 3rd and no outs, he fell behind 0-2. He fouled off several close pitches, working the count to 3-2 before lining a fastball into the RF corner for a two-run double. It gave the Yanks a 5-1 lead. It's at-bats like his that make the difference between a win and loss. A phenomenal situational at-bat. The idea was to at least get a sac-fly/grounder, but Dmint didn't like the first two pitches, and had enough bat control to foul off the close ones to force a hitter's count (3-2), and find a hittable pitch to not just get the sac RBI but to get the XBH RBI.

Igawa pitched well again: 5 ip, 1 er. Again, not a great ball-strike ratio, but I'd wager without seeing the stats that he threw the most first pitch strikes today than any game to date.

The big blow was Arod jumping on a first pitch fastball and destroying it over the LCF scoreboard. The inning was set up when Jeter reached on an error and Abreu worked a walk (surprise, surprise).

Matt Smith showed how the Yanks will be vulnerable to lefty specialists. He pitched 1.1 perfect innings - he struck out Arod and Matsui, and induced weak pop-ups from Abreu and Giambi.

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