Jobu reviews the Yankees series win against the Seattle Mariners.

I was hoping for a Yankees win in this series, mostly because in the last Yankees Series Review I wrote about the relief I felt that the Yankees at least were playing the Mariners next. Luckily, the Yankees didn’t embarrass me, and they easily took two out of three. A sweep would have been nice, but it’s hard to do when you’re facing King Félix in game two. Anyway, here’s how it all went down.

Game 1: Yankees 6, Mariners 3

The Yankees sent their “Ace” to the mound in game one, as CC Sabathia squared off against the veteran, Kevin Millwood. Millwood pitched well, but CC pitched better. The Yankees got some timely hitting, for once, and won pretty easily, 6-3.

Hello, Ace!

In a season where we’ve been clamoring for Sabathia to pitch like the ace he’s being paid to be, he finally did it in this one. Perhaps the fact that Girardi finally put Russell Martin behind the plate in one of his starts had something to do with it, and perhaps not, but CC was pretty damn un-hittable in game one. The Mariners managed three runs against The Big Lefty™, but two of them came on a two-run home run in the top of the ninth by Dustin Ackley. The game was well over by then, and it really didn’t matter (the other run also came on a home run, this one a solo job by Casper Wells). Sabathia’s final line looked like this: 9 Ip, 3 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 10 Ks, 103 pitches and his 11th win of the season (11-3). Kudos, CC. Great job, good effort.

Nice and Easy

There was nothing bad to really report in this game. The Yankees put up six runs and let their Ace get them through another win. The first two runs scored in the bottom of the third inning on a two-run single by Curtis Granderson. After the Mariners pulled it to 2-1, the Yankees put up two more in the bottom of the sixth, when Eric Chavez hit one of the cheapest Yankees Stadium home runs you’ll ever see. The ball just got by the outstretched glove of Eric Thames, and bounced off the top of the concrete wall in right field before going over. Although it was a cheapy, it was a huge two-out hit, and it sealed the game. The last two runs scored in the bottom of the seventh on RBI singles by Robinson Canó and Raúl Ibañez. Like I said, nothing to worry about. The Yankees scored their runs when they needed to, and they won the game.

Notable Offense: HR – Chavez (10), RBI – Granderson 2 (62), Chavez 2 (24), Canó (63), Ibañez (46), SB – Martin (3), 2 hits for Canó, Chavez and Martin

Boxscore – 8/3/2012

Game 2: Mariners 1, Yankees 0

This was one of those games you really couldn’t do anything about. You couldn’t even get mad about the loss. Sometimes Félix Hernández is going to shut you out, and you just have to take it. As good as Hiroki Kuroda was, he wasn’t going to be good enough to beat the King on this day.

Bad Luck Hiroki

As I said, there was nothing Kuroda could do in this game. He pitched incredibly well, allowing only a two-out RBI single to Mike Carp in the bottom of the second inning. It just wasn’t better than Félix. His final line looked like this: 6.1 Ip, 7 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 Ks, 103 pitches and his eighth loss of the season (10-8). Hats off to you, Hiroki. Boone Logan (0.2 Ip), David Robertson (1.1 Ip) and Clay Rapada (0.2 Ip) finished up the game by allowing only one hit, but the Yankees lost anyway.

A Little Too Quiet

Not much to say about the offense in this one. The Yankees managed only two hits in the entire game. The first was a double by Canó in the top of the first, and the other was a single by Ichiro (he increased his one-hit hitting streak to eleven games), who was erased on a double play by Martin. Dassit.

Notable Offense: Um… Canó’s hit was a double? Ah?

Boxscore: 8/04/2012

Game 3: Yankees 6, Mariners 2

The Yankees needed a win in game three. They had lost two straight series at home, and looking at facing Justin Verlander in the first game of the Tigers series starting on Monday. They had Freddy García on the hill against Hisashi Iwakuma, who was coming off of one of the best starts of his life against the Blue Jays (13 Ks). Freddy held up just long enough and the Yankees got to Iwakuma for a big get away win.

Five and Fly Freddy

I guess the Yankees got what they needed from Freddy in this game. He gave up a run in the first on an RBI single by Jesús Montero, and was saved from more damage when Nick Swisher threw Montero out at the plate two batters later. After escaping that potential disaster, Freddy pretty much settled down, allowing another RBI single to Montero in the fifth, but nothing else. The problem with this start is that Freddy only went five innings. Like I said… it’s nice, but is it good enough? The Mariners are awful with the bats. I feel like people should be performing better against them… that’s all. Freddy’s final line looked like this: 5 Ip, 5 H, 2 R, 4 BBs, 2 Ks, 85 pitches… just enough for his fifth win of the season (5-5).

The bullpen was great in this game after Freddy left early. Logan came in in the sixth and pitched two perfect innings. That was followed by a scoreless inning by Robertson and a scoreless ninth by Rafael Soriano. In all, the bullpen only allowed one base runner in their four innings, and that was a walk by Robby. It was nice to see the bullpen kind of get their things together in this series. I hope they can carry it over for the next few weeks.

Automatic, Systematic

The Yankees pretty much took Iwakuma apart in this game, scoring runs in the four of the five innings he pitched, and five of the first six innings overall. After the Mariners took the lead in the top of the first, the Yankees tied it with a little hustle from Mark Teixeira. Tex hit a soft grounder to deep second, and beat out the throw from Kyle Seager (who was behind second because of the overshift), which allowed Derek Jeter to score the tying run. That’s the second time in the last week or so that Tex’s hustle has directly led to a run. We like to see that. In the second, an error by Ackley allowed Granderson to reach base and Chris Stewart to score the go ahead run.

The Yankees extended their lead on an RBI single by Jeter in the fourth, and a solo home run by Mr. Ibañez in the fifth. Once Iwakuma came out of the game, the Yankees didn’t stop scoring. New pitcher Josh Kinney walked Stewart to open the inning, and Stewart moved to second on a single by Granderson. After Jeter struck out, Eric Wedge brought in Oliver Pérez to try to stop the rally right there. Pérez got Canó to fly out before a passed ball moved the runners to second and third, which allowed the Mariners to walk Teixeira intentionally to load the bases for Ibañez. Ibañez came into this at bat 1-13 with the bases loaded and a .184 average on the season against lefties. Naturally, he came through with a huge two-out two-run single, and the Yankees had all the runs they would need for their 6-2 win. Huge game for Ibañez, and a big win for the Yanks.

Side Note: Ichiro extended his one-hit hitting streak to twelve games (all twelve he has played as a Yankee) with a “double” in the bottom of the seventh. In reality, it was a pop-up that center fielder Michael Saunders never saw. Luckily for Saunders, the ball landed on his foot, and not in his face. Anyway, Ichiro got a double, and tied Don Slaught’s mustache for the team record for consecutive games with hits at the beginning of a Yankees career.

Notable Offense: HR – Ibañez (15), RBI – Teixeira (72), Jeter (33), Ibañez 3 (49), SB – Stewart (1), 2 hits for Jeter, Canó, Ibañez and Stewart

Boxscore – 8/05/2012

Featured image courtesy of: Kathy Willens/AP