Final Score: Boston Red Sox 1, New York Yankees 4Can I say something? Can I inject a big caveat into the Chien-Mien Wang lovefest that's going down on YES - damn you, local blackouts - a caveat that I will preface by saying I didn't expect Buchholz to out pitch Wang tonight (ask Alan, he's the witness): yes, Wang pitched an excellent game tonight, stymieing the Sox over and over again with but the accidental home run and the error that should have been a single to mar the perfection. Yes, he was economical, efficient, exemplary in his extra-special ability to elicit out after out after out. But here's the thing: the weather helped him out like a mofo.
Wang is a sinkerballer, by definition a guy who lives and dies by the ground balls he generates. He didn't rely as much on the sinking fastball tonight because he was getting the outs in the air, but that heavy, damp air, with its 64% percent humidity, and dropping (read: stormy) pressure was taking out Red Sox fly balls with an efficiency that would make the DC Sniper envious.
Take the fifth inning, for example: four deep flies to center and right field, which all seemed like sure-thing home runs or wall-ballers when they left the bat. Only one (Drew's home run) reached its hoped-for destination, and only then because Bobby Abreu misplaced his leap. On a normal night, a few more of those flies turn into hits, Wang relies more on the sinker, and maybe the face of the game changes. Maybe his confidence drops a little bit, and that early success doesn't feed into a late-inning dominance. I don't begrudge the Yankees for winning on a smart strategy (or a coincidence), but I wouldn't have minded some sharing of the love.
Also: I regret writing off Clay too quickly today. He looked pretty good tonight, especially before the wheels started to come off in the fifth.
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