The New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers by a score of 12-3. Starting for the Yankees was A.J. Burnett and he got the win. A.J. Burnett started off the game strong. He was throwing his fastball up in the zone but getting away with it because he had great movement and great velocity. He was missing all of Jorge Posada’s targets however. His stuff early was so electric that he was missing his location and targets and still getting the Ranger hitters out. He was also running his two seamer on the inside part of the plate to left handed batters and it was very effective. He worked quickly and had a great rhythm. Then the third inning started and his fastball lost it’s sink and was flat across the plate. His fastball was rising high and tailing. He couldn’t get his curveball over and became a one pitch pitcher. He couldn’t get the batters out with his curveball and had to rely only on his fastball. After the Yankees scored seven runs in the fourth inning, Burnett seemed to relax and pitched a much better game. It was a tale of three different games for Burnett. A great first and second inning, a terrible third inning and then a much better fourth to seventh inning. For the rest of the game Burnett got the sink on his fastball back but only threw his fastball because he had no command of his curveball. It was mostly all fastballs from there on out. He was throwing 92-94 mph on his fastball. That’s good velocity. The turning point of the game is when Mark Texeiria got beaned for a second time in the fourth inning and he slid hard into the Texas Ranger’s second baseman. That fired and the Yankees up and energized them because they went on to score seven runs. Mark has great Yankee spirit and he reminds me of Tino Martinez. This is how I like to watch Yankee baseball. When an opponent hits a Yankee batter the Yankees retaliate with a hard slide or a rising fastball to the upper region of the opposing batter without hurting anyone. Player of the Game: Mark Texeira. I know some people might say that Jorge deserves player of the game but Mark got it all started with his hard slide into second.
