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| Nick Swisher hits his 200th MLB Homer - Grand Slam |
Before I went into the Stadium, I met up with the King for dinner at Burger King a few blocks away. After we ate, I stopped by the KJY Fruit Market so I could get a cold bottle of water to bring in to the ballpark since it was rather warm out and I wasn't going to splurge for one inside for five times the price.
After I exchanged pleasantries with my pal Jin Kim, the King and I continued up the block to the Stadium.
We went inside and we went to our seats in section 420B row 7 right behind home plate in the grandstand.
As for the game we saw, the Rangers broke through first as they scored a run in each of the first two innings to take an early 2-0 lead off Yankee starter David Phelps who got the rare start. The Yankees got going against Rangers' starter Ryan Dempster in the third inning as they put up a five spot. Nick Swisher hit a grand slam, his 200th Major League homer and Curtis Granderson added a sacrifice fly to give the Yankees a 5-2 lead. They extended the lead in the sixth inning as Eric Chavez hit a solo homer. They tacked on a few more runs late as they went on to beat the Rangers, 8-2 in the battle of the best in the American League. David Phelps went five innings to earn the victory and newly acquired former Red Sox' pitcher Derek Lowe wound up pitching the last four innings of scoreless relief to earn a save.
Tuesday night after work I returned to the Bronx for game two of the series. This time I met the King for dinner at the 7 Fish Market. We had some fish together before we went into the Stadium to see more baseball. Vincent Ascanio was planning to meet us there but he got delayed on the train so we wound up seeing him at the ballpark instead.
As for the game we saw on this night, it was scoreless until the seventh inning as the starters Matt Harrison of the Rangers and Hiroki Kuroda of the Yankees were battling in a pitchers' duel. In the seventh inning, Harrison put a guy on base and for whatever reason Rangers' manager Ron Washington decided to take him out of the game. He came in with a 13-6 record. Despite that, he summoned Alexei Ogando from the bullpen to attempt to get out of the inning. He came in throwing heat but Nick Swisher was able to catch up with it and he hit a two run homer to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. The next batter was Mark Teixeira and he followed with a solo homer of his own to give the Yankees a 3-0 cushion. That proved to be the difference as Kuroda pitched a complete game two hit shutout as he shut down the high powered Rangers to guarantee the Yankees no worse than a split in the four game series.
Wednesday night after work I went back up to the Bronx again for game three. The King told me he wanted to sleep longer so I told him I'll go to the Court Deli Restaurant and get us some sandwiches to eat by our seats. I got a corned beef and he had turkey. When I got off the train, it was raining. I still proceeded to round up the food for us and then I took it into the Stadium. I went upstairs and I started to eat. The King arrived shortly thereafter. We both enjoyed our dinner. Then we patiently waited out the rain delay which lasted an hour and forty five minutes. The game finally started at 8:50PM.
For Yankee fans, it was worth the wait. Even though they had to sweat it out. Freddy Garcia pitched well as he went six and two thirds before giving way to the bullpen trio of Boone Logan, David Robertson and Rafael Soriano who held the Rangers off the scoreboard as the Yankees won the game, 3-2.
The only offense the Rangers could muster on this night was courtesy of Josh Hamilton who finally hit a home run at the new Yankee Stadium. Just before he did, the scoreboard informed us of that fact. The guy sitting next to me was upset to say the least. A few pitches later, boom there it goes, see ya. To add insult to injury, he hit another one in his next at bat. Fortunately for the Yankees, he failed to tie the game as struck out in the ninth inning with a chance to do just that.
Thursday night after work I went home and took it easy since the Yankees and Rangers wrapped up their series in the afternoon as the Rangers managed to win a game before they left town. As for me, I got to relax and recharge the batteries for the busy weekend I had planned.
Stay tuned for some special posts that will go into further detail about the fun I had home and away entertaining fellow roadtrippers.
Thank you for reading and following along.
Yours truly,
Gary Herman
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