Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
After playing in front of more than 53,000 in the afternoon, the Yankees and Marlins performed in front of less than 7,000 last night. Now that's a kind of crowd the young Marlins are familiar with. It almost seemed as if the Yankees themselves forgot there was a second game yesterday as they fell to the Marlins, 5-0. The Bombers are the last team in the majors to get shut out this season. Jason Giambi made two errors which led to three runs, nobody could get anything going offensively, and to make matters worse, Robinson Cano came up lame with a hamstring problem in his left leg. Early reports do not tell us how serious the injury is, but it was the most remarkable event of the game for the Yanks. Cano has been exceptionally durable so far this year and it would be a tough loss if he is lost for an extended period of time.
Anibal Sanchez, the former Red Sox who went to Florida in the Josh Beckett deal this past winter, made the most of his major league debut for the Marlins and successfully kept the Yankee hitters off-balance. (The Bombers scored two runs over both games.) With runners on second and third and one out in the sixth, Bernie Williams ripped a line drive to the right side of the infield. It was snagged by the first baseman and was the last batter Sanchez would face. It was also the closest the Bombers would come to staging any kind of rally. It was a dream come true for Sanchez, who was called-up just for this one start.
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