Yanks enjoyed Wednesday night drama, too
Boston Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia reacts in the dugout in the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles. (Sept. 28, 2011) Credit: AP
The Yankees were on the losing end, in the strictest sense of the phrase, but overall, they were happy to be part of the show.
Though the Yankees were in all-out preparation mode for Game 1 of the ALDS, which starts tonight at the Stadium, there still was talk Thursdayabout the remarkable events of Wednesday night that bled into Thursday morning.
"Great night for baseball,'' Mark Teixeira said.
Game 1 starter CC Sabathia flew ahead of the team from Tampa on Wednesday and had a chance to watch the games -- all of them -- at home.
"It was a cool night,'' Sabathia said. "I was at home watching it with my son. We have a little setup so we were able to watch all the games at one time. It was a cool night, seeing what happened.''
Like most of his veteran teammates, Jorge Posada spent the later innings in the dugout watching the Yankees-Rays game unfold and went into the clubhouse between innings to watch the Orioles- Red Sox game.
"I don't think I've ever seen baseball in that nature,'' Posada said. "And we were right in the middle of it. It was fun to see.''
One offshoot of the night, one in which the Red Sox completed their historic collapse and the Rays seized the wild card within four minutes of each other just after midnight, was some criticism of how Joe Girardi used his bullpen. Lost in some of that, however, was that three pitchers expected to make the Yankees' postseason roster -- Boone Logan, Luis Ayala and Cory Wade -- blew the 7-0 lead.
For obvious reasons -- or what should have been obvious, given that the game meant nothing to the Yankees -- Mariano Rivera, David Robertson and Rafael Soriano were not available.
"My first responsibility is to our team,'' Girardi said. "We did everything we could to win that game. It wasn't like I stuck a rookie in there and just left him in there for seven innings. He [rookie starter Dellin Betances] got through the two innings and then I went to work mixing and matching the rest of the game. So we did everything we could to win that game.''
With Kimberley A. Martin
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