Yankees Tie World Series, Burnett Pulls a Lee
October 30, 2009 by Staff
Filed under All Sports
A.J. Burnett owned the Philadelphia Phillies every bit as much as Cliff Lee did the night before. Sure, Burnett didn’t last as long, but he didn’t have to. Because when you have Mariano Rivera in your bullpen, why waste exercising any other options?
Last night, in Game 2 of the World Series between Philadelphia and the New York Yankees, A.J. Burnett pitched what can only be described as a “gem.” He had everything working for him, as his fastball had movement, and his breaking ball caught the edges of the plate all night. His 7-inning, 1-run performance gave him the win, the Yankees a 3-1 victory, and it tied up the World Series a two games a piece.
Coincidentally enough, Burnett was actually better than Rivera last night. With an off-day on Friday, Yankees General Manager put Rivera in for the final 2 innings of the game. Rivera allowed 2 hits and a walk before he could get the final 6 outs, allowing the go-ahead run to get to the plate in both innings.
That said, this night was all about the Yankees. After Phillies’ DH Matt Stairs had an RBI single in the 2nd inning, the Phillies failed to score for the rest of the game. In the 4th, the Yankees Mark Teixeira finally showed some life for the first time since Game 2 of the ALDS and hit a home run to right center. And Hedeki Matsui’s homer to right field in the 6th was all the Yankees need to put the Phillies away.
Pedro Martinez, the losing pitcher for the night, allowed just 3 runs in 6 innings before getting booed on his way to the dugout. So after two games, the World Series has seen 2 masterful pitching performances outshine quality starts by their opposition. This is quite stunning for a series in which all anybody did was talk about the offense the two teams were capable of producing. Instead, we have two games dominated by all 4 starting pitchers, and now Game 3 will feature a matchup between baseball’s all-time winningest pitcher and last year’s left-hand pitching World Series MVP. So if you thought this series was going to turn offensive the deeper in the series we got, think again.
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