Baseball

When the Yankees signed pitcher Kei Igawa to a 23 million dollar contract, they didn’t envision the left-hander spending the length of his contract in Triple-A Scranton. With time running out, the Yankees are taking another direction to find a use for Igawa: the bullpen.

If you're a Yankee fan, there was plenty to be excited about following Wednesday's 2-1 rubber-game win against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Curtis Granderson looks like a stud. Mo was Mo. The bullpen put it together. Nick Johnson didn't get hurt.

On balance, it was a successful beginning to the championship defense.

But ironically, it would be comments by longtime umpire Joe West that provided the biggest headline after the season's first series was through.

It took only two games into season for Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz to blow a gasket at the media. Here is what Ortiz had to say after his 0-for-7 start.

“Good,” he said, turning to face the reporters encircling him. “You guys wait ’til [expletive] happens, then you can talk [expletive]. Two [expletive] games, and already you [expletives] are going crazy."

We all knew what to expect when the New York Yankees headed up to Boston to face the Red Sox in the Opening Series of 2010.

The games would be long, exciting, hard-fought battles.

Those expectations were met.

Along the way, the Yankees taught us a few things.

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This is a much larger issue than simply Yankees-Red Sox, of course. The issue is that the pace of baseball is apparently too slow and the need to decision to establish rules to speed the game up.

Umpire Joe West should take this idea and apply it to his country singing. Talk about painfully slow and dull. But I digress. We need to quit trying to find fault with the game.

The Yankees won the rubber match of their opening series with the Boston Red Sox by a score of 3-1 in ten innings last night at Fenway Park.

Curtis Granderson hit his second home run of the season, a solo shot, in the top of the 10th inning to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. He crushed a 94 mile an hour fastball off Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon into the right field seats.

Mark Teixeira's RBI ground out with the bases loaded gave the Yankees an insurance run to make it 3-1, as Brett Gardner scored from third base. That run batted in was Teixeira's first of the season.

When the Yankees got Curtis Granderson in the winter, some people weren't totally sold on the center fielder.

"He only hit .249 and he can't hit lefties and he strikes out too much," were some of the things I heard about why trading for Granderson wasn't a good move.

After this past series with the Red Sox, I'm sure most of those critics will be silenced.

One of the most common things heard about new players is having them "earn their pinstripes." The way Granderson played this past series, he's earned them.

Rammy Manuel has rooted for the Los Angeles Dodgers since he came to the United States.

He is too young to have seen Bill Bevens' one-hitter in the 1947 World Series, but his father used to talk about that game whenever Rammy mentioned the New York Yankees, the one team that the elder Manuel really didn't like.

My father was at Ebbets Field on Oct. 4, 1947 to see the fourth game of the World Series between his beloved Dodgers and the hated, haughty New York Yankees.

2009 fell short of the Milwaukee Brewers' goals, but thanks to added pitching depth and veteran hitting, the Brewers are poised for a great 2010. As with any season, the Brewers face many questions in 2010. Will Yovani Gallardo prove worthy of being a staff ace? Will Corey Hart break out like in 2007, and end his three-year decline? Will Braun and Fielder reign again as the top one-two punch in baseball? For the Brewers to get to the playoffs again, and make a deep run, 10 keys come into play.

Mr. Clutch has returned.

Never one to shy away from a big game situation, Chipper Jones delivered again—proving why he’s still one of baseball’s most feared hitters.

With the Braves trailing the Cubs 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth, Jones smashed a 3-1 fastball from John Grabow over the left-center wall, propelling Atlanta to a come-from-behind 3-2 win.