Subway Shutout

The Yankees nine game winning streak came to an end tonight as the find themselves on the bad end of a two to zero shut out in the Bronx at the hands of the cross town rival New York Mets.
Roger Clemens pitched well enough to get a win in the ball game as he pitched 108 pitches (67 for strikes) over six solid innings in which he allowed two earned runs and struck out 8 batters.
But Oliver Perez pitched a master piece as the 25 year old former Culiacan Tomato Grower threw 117 pitches through 7 and a third shut out innings to earn his seventh win of the 2007 season.
The six foot three inch lefty from Mexico worked in and out of trouble all night as he struggled with his command at times as he threw almost as many balls as he did strikes --- but in the end was effective enough to earn a victory and resourceful enough to make the pitches he needed to make when he needed to make them and get the outs that he really needed most when he needed them most.
And Oliver Perez, a guy that I pretty much regarded as a lack luster Pirates castoff when the Mets first picked him up, is slowly developing into a Yankee killer this season...
If you add his May 18th game with tonight's game Oliver Perez has pitched in two games against the Yankees in the span of the past four weeks and has got two wins.
He also has an ERA of 1.20 over 15 innings to show for it.
The Yankees had opportunities to get a big hit several times in the game and just could never seem to break through.
Perhaps their biggest opportunity came in the bottom of the fourth inning when Miguel Cario came to the plate with one out and with Robinson Cano on first and Hideki Matsui on second base.
Cario hit a high fly ball in fair territory to the deep left corner that was high enough to go over the wall for what could have been a three run home run.
However, to the Yankees dismay, Mets outfielder Carlos Gomez made a leaping catch to haul the ball back in and then wheeled and fired the ball into second to force Matsui into a inning ending double play.
I guess Hideki thought the ball was gone --- otherwise I have no idea why he didn't wait a little longer to take off or why he didn't stop between second and third and wait to make sure the ball wasn't caught.
If it goes over the wall or drops and is misplayed --- you'll score anyway.
But the way our offense was going it probably wouldn't have mattered that much anyway.
Either it was a homer or we probably don't score with runners on second and third with two outs and the 0 for 4 free swinging Cabrera due up.
The catch sort of reminded me of Hideki Matsui's catch back in the second inning off of Kevin Millar in the 2005 Yankees home opener.
Remember that one?
With Randy Johnson on the mound in his Yankee stadium debut and with the Red Sox already ahead one to nothing, thanks to Big Papi, Kevin Millar drilled a deep drive to the left field corner that just looked to all the world like a solo homer?
Then at the last moment Matsui timed his leap perfectly and robbed him of the homer with a spectacular catch?
The Red Sox never got over that and it proved to be a back breaker for their momentum in the ballgame.
They went on to lose the game and although the circumstances were completely different in tonight's ballgame --- it felt like such a back breaking play to us in this game more than two years later.
Especially when Matsui got doubled up.
Interesting to me that it was Matsui that robbed the BoSox 2 years ago and it was Matsui that made the last out on this play tonight.
Anyway, there were some bright spots for us in the game...
Clemens pitched well enough to win again and proved he can still be a strike out pitcher and is capable of throwing 100-110 pitches per game and give us at least six innings and a quality start.
If he can get at least two or three runs in support of his pitching we should be in each ballgame.
But aside from that --- the Red Sox won their game and now we're 8.5 games back again and right now we're 4 games out of the wild card.
I hope that young Tyler Clippard can pitch a beauty tomorrow because we'll need the pick up.
He's set to go against Tom Glavine at the stadium tomorrow afternoon in a day game that will start at 1:05 PM EST at the stadium and will be available on YES and on WCBS radio.
Tyler Clippard has a 3-1 record with a 5.32 ERA so far this season and Glavine comes into the game at 5-4 with a 4.15 ERA.
In Tom Glavine's last start against the Detroit Tigers he gave up nine runs and 11 hits in 4 1/3 and got saddled with the loss in Detroit this past Sunday.
Glavine started this season with 290 wins and looking for at least 10 wins this season with the Mets to reach the magical 300 win plateau.
Once he reached the half way point in that journey he started to slide a bit and he has lost three straight decisions and has been stuck at 295 for his past four starts.
On the Yankees side of the pitching mound Clippard has been a serviceable fifth starter for the Bombers this season and has had good stuff.
However in his last start he avoided a loss that would have sat him at 3-2 due to a offensive outbreak by the Yankees after he was lifted from the game.
In the game in question, last Sunday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Clippard exhibited poor control and allowed six runs in just 3 2/3 innings before being pulled from the game.
Clippard walked two batters that directly led to runs being scored and had to throw 90 pitches in the short time pitched.
Hopefully he's been working with Guidry diligently since then with his control issues in preparation for tomorrow's start against the Mets.
If he doesn't have better control and he's not able to keep the ball down and his pitch count down he could be in for a long afternoon against the Mets offense and base-running.
That's all for now...
Until tomorrow...

LETS GO YANKEES !

Mike