How To Fall To The Yankees In Three Inches

In the first inning,

Kevin Correia stared at Pirates catcher Jason Jaramillo and shook his head.  Over and over again.  It nearly worked.  The Bucs opening day starter had already recorded two outs.  Correia nearly had the last, but a few inches in the game of baseball made the difference.

On a 3-2 count to Mark Teixeira, Pittsburgh’s opening day starter surrendered a two out walk and it proved costly.

The next batter was Alex Rodriguez who had at least one RBI in eight of his last nine games.  ARod made it nine of ten, when he crushed his sixth homer of Grapefruit League action.  It was a fastball that got up just enough in the zone for Rodriguez to hit a bomb to dead center field,  staking the New York Yankees to a two-run lead.  The Bronx Bombers put it on cruise control and never looked back, despite being outhit by the Pirates.

Correia was solid, but allowed three runs and five hits over six innings.  It was the right handers best fake game of the season.

Andrew McCutchen was 3-for-3, and  fell off the second base bag, and was tagged out early in the game.  Inches indeed suck for the Pirates. When Garrett Jones made it back to the first base bag on a pickoff attempt late in the game, the ball got away.  It bounced perfectly to the Yankees second baseman who made a perfect relay to nail Jones at second base.  It was just one of those days for the young Buccos.

Before the game,  McCutchen was named Clint Hurdle’s number three hitter for the Pirates season.

Jason Jaramillo had an RBI double for Pittsburgh.

Chris Snyder was scratched with back trouble before the game which doesn’t deem well for the Pirates heading into the season.

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