Moseley Mows Down Red Sox
Unsung pitcher shuts down Boston bats

What a coming out party for young right-handed pitcher Dustin Moseley. Moseley, who gained the attention of Joe Girardi and company after mopping up a poorly pitched game by Sergio Mitre on July 24 against the Kansas City Royals, entered last night’s game with no other expectations than try and hold the line.

Under the lights at Yankee Stadium and showcasing his stuff on the nationally televised game for ESPN Sunday Night Baseball Moseley did more than that. He completely slammed the door on the Boston Red Sox for nearly seven innings.

Moseley entered Sunday’s game with a 1-1 record. His previous outing was on August 3 against the Toronto Blue Jays and the Jays knocked Moseley around like George Foreman knocked around Joe Frazier. Moseley lasted 7-1/3 innings, but have up 9 hits, including 2 home runs, and 5 earned runs. So against a dangerous team like the Red Sox who are fighting for their playoff lives no one could predict how Moseley would do in a game between the greatest rivals and sports and on national T.V.

Moseley didn’t disappoint.

The Red Sox, currently in 3rd place in the AL East, had their ace facing Moseley and the Yankees. Josh Beckett had just come off the disabled list and pitched a tremendous game against the Cleveland Indians, going 8 innings and just allowing one earned run on 3 hits. That said, observers said they wanted to see how Beckett would fare against an elite team before proclaiming he was all the way back.

If you were taking bets in Las Vegas the smart money would have been on Beckett over Moseley. Apparently, Moseley didn’t read the morning line.

Moseley went right after the Red Sox hitters. In 6-1/3 innings Moseley allowed only 2 earned runs on six hits, while striking out five and walking one batter. He threw 87 pitches, 52 for strikes and only second baseman Bill Hall managed to get more than one hit in the game. He did the most damage against Moseley when he hit a solo home run to open the 5th inning. The home run didn’t dampen Moseley’s spirits as he retired the next three hitters to maintain a 2-1 Yankees’ lead.

The Yankees got on the board first when in the bottom of the second inning, with DH Lance Berkman standing on second, LF Brett Gardner hit a grounder up the middle and to the left of Hall. Hall snagged the ball as Berkman made his way to third, but made a costly error trying to throw out the speedy Gardner at first. Hall threw the ball wide allowing Berkman to score the Yankees first run.

Gardner, doing what he does best stole second base to set up another run scoring opportunity. Shortstop and Yankee captain Derek Jeter as he often does lined a single up the middle scoring Gardner to make it 2-0. That hit was Jeter’s 2,874th to move him past Babe Ruth into 39th place on the career hits list.

After the Red Sox had cut the Yankees lead in half on Hall’s bomb the Yankees went to work on Beckett. First baseman Mark Teixeira, who had never hit a home run in 31 previous at bats against Beckett, led off the bottom of the 5th and hit a 91 mph 2-seam fastball over the right field fence to make the tally 3-1.

Beckett’s nightmare didn’t end there. He walked Alex Rodriguez and hit Robinson Cano with a pitch to put runners on first and second. After striking out Jorge Posada Beckett surrendered a run scoring double to Berkman. With Cano on third and Berkman occupying second Beckett walked Curtis Granderson to load the bases. As Gardner struck out swinging catcher Kevin Cash tried a pickoff throw to third in an attempt to get Cano. The ball bounced off a diving Cano’s helmet and went into left field. Cano scored and both Berkman and Granderson moved up 90 feet. That brought up Jeter.

Jeter drove a 1-1 cutter into the right-center field gap for a double and scored both Berkman and Granderson. That was the end of Beckett’s night. Reliever Manny Del Carmen came on and struck out Nick Swisher to end the inning. The damage was done as the Yankees took a 7-1 lead.

In the meantime Moseley held the line in the 6th. After David Ortiz singled to start the inning Moseley popped out Victor Martinez and got J.D. Drew to ground into an inning ending double play.

In the 7th inning Moseley surrendered a double to Adrian Beltre and, after striking out Ryan Kalish, he gave up a soft ground single to Hall to put runners at first and third. Manager Joe Girardi made a pitching change and brought in the inconsistent Joba Chamberlain. Chamberlain allowed a single to Mike Lowell scoring Beltre and putting runners at first and second. He got OF Jacoby Ellsbury to fly out to left before walking shortstop Marco Scutaro to load the bases and that brought up Ortiz. Girardi had seen enough. He replaced Chamberlain with left specialist Boone Logan who induced Ortiz to ground out to Cano to end the inning and the threat.

The rest of the game went without any drama and Moseley had earned himself a well deserved victory.

The Yankees and Red Sox face off today in the Bronx at 2:05 p.m. to close out their 4-game series. A Yankees win would put the Bombers 8 full games ahead of the Red Sox. A Red Sox victory would allow them to leave New York the same 6 games behind they were when they arrived on Friday.

Today’s starters pits Boston’s Jon Lester (11-7, 3.07) against New York’s Phil Hughes (13-4, 3.96) Lifetime Lester is 4-1 with a 4.01 ERA against the Yankees and Hughes 1-2 with a 6.48 ERA against the Red Sox.

Notes: In four starts against the Yankees this season Josh Beckett has surrendered 24 earned runs in 19-1/3 innings of work. That calculates out to an 11.31 ERA against the Bombers. Alex Rodriguez was removed from the game before the 9th inning due to his sore left shin stiffening up. Before that A-Rod became only the third player in MLB history to record at least 600 home runs and 300 stolen bases. Willie Mays and Barry Bonds are the other two.

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