great game
great recap
glad baseball is back!

The most remarkable thing about yesterday's game was how well it was played by both teams. Usually, openers are a bit sloppy as teams transition from Spring Training to games that count, but last night's game could have been pulled out of June or July.

A few other notes:

1) Who would have thought that Jason Giambi would be a big contributor to the win, but not with his bat. Instead, he used his glove AND his baserunning. Not only did he make three very nice plays (a shovel throw, a scoop and a snare of a liner while playing in), but avoiding the double play in the 7th inning was crucial. If Giambi can be more of an all around player and stay healthy, he'll be a huge contributor.

2) After the game, Giambi attributed the team's good defense to being in better shape out of the box. As we all remember, the Yankees early season struggles over the past few seasons have involved shoddy defense. If Giambi is right and being in better shape will help avert that, then Girardi has already had a positive impact.

3) Although his velocity was down a little and he lacked complete command of the slider, Joba looked very comfortable back in the 8th inning role. I was interested to see if Girardi would bring him in a tie-game, but am glad I'll have to wait another day to find that. One thing, however, that I would like Joba to control a little is his inning ending celebration. As David Cone mentioned in the post game, he gets a pass for Opening Day, but as the season progresses, I think Joba needs to be more Mariano and less Papelbon/FRod.

4) According to Kay, Halladay barked something at Melky after his curtain call, but I haven't seen any comments from him. Either way, this is something the Yankees probably need to tone a little going forward.

5) Watching #42 over these past 14 seasons has been a pure joy. I am glad the Yankees gave him the contract and think he deserves every penny…regardless of how well he is pitching by age 40.

1) while i certainly can't complain about the outcome, i must admit that it seemed as though wang was wasting a lot of pitches and often pitching behind in the count - especially early on in the game.

2) while the stadium (and the bleachers in particular) were surprisingly subdued (especially for opening day), the crowd reaction to joba's entrance was nothing short of electric.

3) so stoked for melky. big night on both sides of the ball.

4) 1 , ditto on baseball being back. things are now right with the world.

LET'S GO YAN-KEES!!!

Does anyone have any updates on Bret Gardner since his foul ball off his mouth? Only reason I am asking is, seems like Melky is throwing his body out there more freely. I'm not against it, but definitely scary when he falls back on that wall like he did last night. Ouch.

Moose and company can been seen on ESPN2 tonight at 7PM. See ya all there.

4 Gardner played yesterday, and Melky's young enough to sustain the wall-banging grind. I'm more concerned how Air Giambi is feeling this morning after his Mary Lou Retton impersonation.

2 I hear ya, re: Joba's theatrics. He'll probably be advised at some point to curb his enthusiasm, but he might be able to mitigate any hard feelings against him if he explains that he's not trying to show up the hitters, just blowing off steam. Unlike Papelbon, Joba might be able to pull it off without looking like an a-hole.

Fantastic recap. You should be a beat writer.

As for Joba, I think the team wants him working in his other pitches more often, and he might be a little too conscious of it. After all, if he throws just two pitches over the next three months, how can he transition to being a starter?

4 Gardner played in last night's minor AAA-AA exhibition.

6 He might not be trying to show up the hitters, but that might be the effect anyway. I thought his little celebration was too much; he should take some Jeter lessons.

Ditto for Melky's curtain call. It's one thing to go to the top step and tip your cap; it's another to do that Rocky thing.

3 If I had one word to describe last night's crowd, it would be "drunk." If I had three words, they'd be "really, really drunk."

4 Thunder Thoughts reports that "Brett Gardner's lip wasn't as nasty as it once was. Was face to face with him, talking to him for something you'll see sometime this week, and he said it was feeling better…"

For the eleventy-seventh year in a row, I've been reading that this might be the year the Blue Jays make their move. What the hell team are those people looking at?

Finally, two articles from the Times.

First, a good Q&A with Bill James. (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/) He certainly doesn't come across as a Yankee-basher. My favorite exchange:

"Q: How important are good-hitting pitchers to the success of an offense in the N.L.?

A: Exactly as important as good-fitting underwear on a long drive. "

Second, a remarkably brain-dead article, even for the Times sports section. Honestly, I don't understand the point of it at all. What's the article supposed to be about? http://tinyurl.com/345unu

No offense to the many fine beat writers out there but what Cliff and I--or any other bloggers for that matter, can do in the confines of a blog is provide a far more detailed game re-caps than newspaper writers can. We don't have word counts, don't have to hype any particular parts of the games. We can do what we please. And fortunately, when in the hands of someone as talented as a veteran like Cliff, well, you know you are getting the goods.

Nice win. Two and a half hours? Nifty. How many times will that happen this year?

Will I be the only one watching Moose tonight through both hands?

12 true, the Yanks beat writers do very solid work, but we have to come here for headlines like "Beauty, eh?" (appropos of the game itself, and the Canadian opponent). And Cliff's single paragraph breaking down Joba's performance offered more than I found in some of the Joba pieces in the papers, which were mostly filled with quotes (that I heard during the postgame show), and hype.

re: the 2.5 hour thing. Wang's our best and perhaps only hope (among the starters) for a consistently early bedtime. Hughes will get there, but I figure Moose and Kennedy games will likely be 3 hour tours, and then some...

14 on the other hand, the Yankee conga line of hitters is also capable of dragging a game to the 3.5 hour mark, no matter who's on the hill for the Bombers.

Speaking of early bedtimes:
I was listening to the Planet Mikey Show on WEEI on my drive home yesterday. (New Englanders will know this is going to end badly.) Mikey starts by saying something incoherent about A-Rod and lip gloss. Then he complains about the 8:30 start of the Celtics game. "What's wrong with Chicago, why can't they start the game at 7:30 like everyone else?" His producer points out that Chicago is in the central time zone.
But don't give the producer too much credit yet. The first caller opines that Japanese pitchers stink after the first year or two, once the league has become accustomed to them. Mikey can't think of any Japanese pitchers who pitched more than two years in MLB, except for Nomo. Hmmmm. Nope, can't think of any. Then it hits him: Chien-Ming Wang, of course. The producer corrects him: Wang is Korean.

WEEI must have a special stupidity screening for its on-air employees. Seriously, the whole crew (possibly excepting Dale Holly) makes Mike and Mad Dog sound like geniuses by comparison.

God I hope this is the year Melky takes the next great step forward in his performance, on both O and D. I know we have quite a nice little logjam building with Gardner and AJax, but how amazing would it (will it!) be to see those 3 guys roaming the outfield in the new Yankees Stadium for the next 10 years?!? Talk about D!

The results were fine, but Wang still seemed to struggle with men on base.

I'm not sure that Halladay was necessarily the less fortunate of the two pitchers. Both of the Blue Jays runs came in innings when the ball barely left the infield:

Second inning:
Thomas singled to shallow left
Overbay infield single
Hill flied out to right, Thomas to third
Scutaro fielders choice, Thomas scores, Overbay out at second

Fifth inning:
Scutaro singled, stole second
Zaun singled to right, Scutaro to third
Eckstein grittily bounced a ball 60 feet down the first base line, hustled his way into getting tagged by Giambi, despite being just 4'2".
Stewart grounded out to third, Scutaro scored.

Sure, it wasn't Vintage Wang, but it wasn't hitting the tar out of the ball either.

18 which is odd because the only thing that seemed to be going right for Wang during ST was that he looked better from the stretch than the windup.

I'm not as critical of his performance last night. I thought he maintained his tradmark poise, and did a very good job. I never felt the game was going to get away from him. For me, confidence-wise, it was as if his postseason meltdown never happened.

f'ing scutaro!

16 Mike and the Mad Dog geniuses? Impossible!

18 Think so? I don't think Wang struggled much at all. There were a couple of ABs when he fell behind, but Wang looked pretty good yesterday. Because he doesn't strike out many people, he seldom looks spectacular, but he still gets the job done. Ironically, more of Wangs' outs were hit harder than the basehits. Also, keep in mind that both Blue Jay runs scored on weak ground balls.

2 One more thing I meant to add:

6) Maybe it's wishful thinking, but Jeter looked strong on defense last night. In addition to one of his trademark charge plays, the Captain also ranged up the middle for Zaun's ball in the 2nd (the Giambi pick) and made a nice play in the hole to force Rios on Wells' ground ball in the third.

Could it be positioning? Better agility training? Small sample size? Who knows...but that's another storyline worth watching.

Great game, crisp (especially for Opening Day), well played.

Interesting comment on better defense due to being in better shape. I like Torre, but based on far too early a result, it seems like a change was necessary.

16 No, Wang is Viet Namese. Or Thai. Or Cambodian. Maybe Mongolian. Glad I don't have WEEI to listen to.

2 6 8 I'm with you on the Joba "theatrics," but I'm afraid that most fans eat it up and will only encourage it. The sooner Girardi or someone nips it in the bud the better.

And as I said yesterday, while it sure is nice to see Joba come out of the BP in the 8th, it does keep on worrying me that it will become to comfortable of a routine and either Girardi et al won't want to switch him, or Joba himself will not want to/be able to prepare himself as a starter anymore, whatever that means. As Posada said last night "You get seven from Wang and one from Joba and Mariano. That's what we need to do all year."

26 Well, maybe Posada meant it more generally... we'd like 7 strong from the "Starter", a scoreless 8th from the "Set Up Man" and a scoreless ninth from the "Closer."

16 ,25

Wang is Taiwanese, born in Tainan, Taiwan, according to baseball-reference.com

28 I know, my sarcasm just didn't come through. And from what I understand Chinese & Koreans aren't exactly best buddies, I don't know how Wang would take to being misidentified as Korean.

29 Actually, Chinese and Taiwanese aren't best buddies. They have their own civil strife without involving the Koreans.*

*Meant in a political, not ethnic, context.

2 Re: #4 - I watched it 3 times - Halladay wasn't barking at Melky, he was yelling out (to no one in particular) "This F*CKING BALLPARK", meaning if it wasn't 314 down the line, the ball wouldn't have gotten out.

O'Neill in the booth caught it as soon as it happened - does Kay not listen to anything besides the sound of his own voice?

Anyway, I was extremely impressed with the Yankees last night per their fundamentals. Defense was crisp, guys had their heads in the game, everyone just looked 100% ready to play.

Except the new stadium announcer and some of the YES camera guys, however. Did I hear it wrong or was the new pitching coach annouced as "Dave Ireland"...? That and he absolutely butchered the new trainers' last names.

He also tried a little too hard to sound like Shep - especially when announcing "#2, Shortstop, Derek Jeet-uh". I actually cringed a little.

0 Re: Joba - he gets a pass for last night, but if it's June and he's still fist pumping on a weak ground ball to second, Girardi needs to school him.

I also don't know necessarily that the league is catching up to the slider - Rios was the only one who walked, and he's a pretty good hitter. ;-) IMO, you can't ask for much more than to get Wells looking and then Thomas swinging.

Great win, can't believe how short the game was. I had manually set my DVR for something like 4.5 hours to accomodate for the postgame as well. I wound up getting "The Captain's Corner" in its entireity as well.

Gawd.... I really miss this guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Tjps_-JnQ

I agree, Jeter looked very comfy in the field.
Wang was not dominant, but still very good. He could have had better luck.
It may not last even until tonight, but as a big Giambi fan, I was just jazzed by his play last night. Can it be for real?
It's taken 4 years, but I believe ARod is now accepted as a 'real Yankee', and I expect a great deal of pleasure watching him over the upcoming years.
I was relieved to see JD get that triple. Our team is just so much more dangerous when he hits well. I am afraid he will have a poor year.
That man-on-3rd, no-out situation REALLY bothered me. We must find a way (even a bunt?) to NOT let that ever happen again.

I have realistic expectations from our Trip Aces, but it's hard to believe that the 3 of them together won't be at least league average.. which should account for .550 ball or better. I see no reason why we don't win 95 games (barring ijury problems),

31 That wasn't him trying to sound like Sheppard when he introduced Jeter!
Check it out:

http://tinyurl.com/28lucm

Cool, huh?

33 I dunno, it was a little off if that was actually Sheppard. That link says it would be for plate appearances, I was referring to the introductions.

23 It seemed like there were a lot of longer at-bats with men on base. I could be wrong.

What did the replays on the stolen bases look like? The fans were outraged, of course, that the Jays were called safe but Jeter was out. It looked to me like the umps got the calls right, but that's always tough to tell from the stands.

31 Kay said he did it after the curtain call. The incident you referred to took place while Melky rounded the bases. They didn't show Halladay on screen immediately after Melky's bow, so I see no reason to doubt Kay.

31 Jim Hall is hardly "new". He has been Sheppard's back up for about 40 years!! Having said that, he did seem to slip up on a few names, especially the Cucuzza brothers, who managed the Stadium clubhouses.

35 All of the calls were correct.

31 Though I saw neither, there were two separate Halladay outbursts. 1) the complaint about the ballpark as Melky was rounding the bases and 2) the barking at Melky, who obliviously took his curtain call as Halladay was delivering a pitch (which, really, should result in an automatic strike to the batter).

33 I think the Sheppard tape was used for Jeter's at-bats ("now batting . . ."), but not for the pre-game introductions, which is what 31 is referring to, though I could be wrong about that.

35 I concur with 37 , the umps got all three right.

35 I agree with William, Jeter was out, and both Scutaro was safe. Bang bang calls, both of them, though.

36 Do I really have to explain what I meant by "new"...?

38 I think everyone just got caught up in the moment last night (Joba included) - Halladay needs to relax. Of course, Toronto hates our guts dating back to the "HA" play, so I can understand the frustration.

41 If by new you didn't mean "of recent origin, production, purchase, etc.; having but lately come or been brought into being", then yes.

By an definition, Jim Hall is not "new". Not only has he been backing up Sheppard for decades, but he did a good deal (if not most) of the games last year. Also, I don't think you meant "new trainers" names, but then again, I don't know your definition of new.

32 "That man-on-3rd, no-out situation REALLY bothered me. We must find a way (even a bunt?) to NOT let that ever happen again."

I'm with you, OYF. A squeeze bunt by Jeter (or even Abreu since he was facing a lefty) would have been nice in that situation. It was a shame to waste that leadoff triple.

BTW, it's nice to see someone else advocating the bunt... Weeping and I welcome you to the "Dark Side" that is sometimes called "small ball"...
;-)

43 The only problem with a squeeze play there is the infield is already playing in. The thing that surprised me most about the situation was Jeter and Abreu both swung at the first pitch.

43 My presence on the Dark Side is very limited. In the case of a runner at third with no outs:
1) It has to be late in a close game- down by one, tied, or up one.
2) The hitter has to be a proficient bunter.
3) A groundball pitcher is on the mound.

All three of those conditions were satisfied with Damon on third and Jeter at the plate. Downs has a career G/F ratio of 1.84, but in the last few seasons it's closer to 3.0, which indicates that it's difficult to get the ball in the air off him.

With one out, and Abreu at the plate, I'm not sure I would support the squeeze. While the difference between zero and one outs is negligible in this case, the difference between one and two is very significant. I would expect Abreu to be working the count and looking for a pitch to hit in the air. He didn't, and that's probably what was most frustrating about that inning. But to instruct Abreu to squeeze there is asking for trouble, IMO.

I wouldn't have bunted with Damon on third, especially not with Jeter and Abreu coming up. They're supposed to be able to get him in without the bunt - and I'll bet their success rate is generally at least as good as a squeeze play.

I thought about the bunt in the seventh, with two men on and none out. Thanks to Giambi's heads-up baserunning, Cano's grounder turned out to be a sacrifice (in effect) rather than a double play.

46 Ah, the other situation where I am sometimes convinced to come to the Dark Side: runners on first and second, no outs. It's the one situation that the Run Expectancy Matrix isn't so harsh about giving up the out.

1st/2nd 0 out: 1.573 runs/inning
2nd/3rd 1 out: 1.467 runs/inning

Of course, you have to factor in the chance that a slow runner at first gets forced out:

1st/3rd, 1 out: 1.243 runs/inning

or a double play:

3rd, 2 out: 0.347 runs/inning

and then also factor in the bunting ability of the guy at the plate. I'm not sure what the consensus is on Cano's bunting, but there's a good chance that Cano hits one for extra bases and the Yankees won't have to play for one run.

Honestly, I think the Yankees were swinging early in the count because