Yankees Lose, Red Sox Win: Opening Day 2009

It was a tale of diametrically opposed Opening Day performances.

The New York Yankees and their new $161 million dollar pitcher, CC Sabathia, lost to the worst team from last year that wasn’t from Seattle, the Baltimore Orioles, 10-5.

On Opening Day, Sabthia turned in his fifth career start without recording a strikeout and his first since July 19, 2005.

After having their Opening Day game rained out, the Boston Red Sox received a pitching gem from ace Josh Beckett and defeated the defending American League Champions Tampa Bay Rays, 5-3.

It’s only one game. There are 161 games left. But the Red Sox appear rejuvenated and primed to make another championship run. The Yankees, minus the play of Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, seem sluggish and unprepared.

Sabathia, a notorious slow starter, will pitch better, but then again he couldn’t pitch much worse. The former Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers ace was pulled in the fifth inning with his team trailing 6-1. Sabathia allowed six earned runs, walked four, threw two wild pitches and registered no strikeouts in his pinstripe debut.

It's only one game but when it comes to the Yankees, every loss is dramatic and every win is over hyped.

Sabathia was part of a $423.5 million offseason spending spree by the Yankees that also included fellow free agents first basemen Mark Teixeira and pitcher A.J. Burnett. Teixeira went 0-4 and left five men on base in his first game as a Bronx bomber. Burnett makes his first start as a Yankee on Thursday.

It’s hard to believe, but the Yankees actually have a lower Opening Day payroll this year than they did in 2008. Of course when you’re spending over $200 million on 25 ballplayers what’s an $8 million difference?

Either way, that’s a lot of cheap New York Yankees tickets and a lot of expensive tickets that need to be sold to their new state-of-the-art stadium to pay for this (championship or underachieving) team.

Yankees fan hope it will be a championship team, but the team that lost to the O’s on Monday isn’t winning anything. The Yanks left 11 men on base and their bullpen gave up four earned runs. The eye test reveals the Yankees have a lot of fine tuning to do.

Beckett threw 93 pitches on Opening Day, 61 for strikes. His fastball was clocked at 94-mph.

Meanwhile, buy Boston Red Sox tickets while you still can because this could be their year… again.

After battling injuries all last year, Beckett looks to be at full strength. He shut down the Rays, pitching seven innings of two-hit ball, allowed one earned run and struck out 10.

After a sub-par 2008 campaign, catcher Jason Varitek has gotten 2009 off to a great start by going yard in the 6th inning. Third baseman Mike Lowell, who finished last season on the disabled list, had a big RBI double in the Red Sox’s half of the third. Closer Jonathan Papelbon picked up a saved while his fastball was clocked in the upper 90’s.

The best thing about the Red Sox is their attitude and it’s exemplified by their leader, and defending American League MVP winner, Dustin Pedroia.

“I’m excited. It was a good way to start. But it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” Pedroia told reporters.

Adam Lind led his Blue Jays to an Opening Day victory by going 4-for-5 and knocking in six runs.

As for fans with Tampa Bay Devil Rays tickets, don’t worry. They will be in contention for the division title. Starting pitcher James Shields did have a bad outing, but the bullpen absolutely shut down the Red Sox batters. Meanwhile, the Rays lineup was efficient; they scored three runs off of only three hits.

And to fans of all three teams, the Yanks, Red Sox and Rays, don’t look now but the Toronto Blue Jays are 2-0. The Jays could be a thorn in the side of “Big Three” all season. Needless to say, the American League East is the best division in the MLB.

Tags: Boston Red Sox, Boston Red Sox Tickets, CC Sabathia, Josh Beckett, New York Yankee Tickets, New York Yankees

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 at 12:50 pm and is filed under MLB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.