Yankees leave their mark
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Scheduled last May by Yankees owner George Steinbrenner as an outreach after the April 16 shootings, the two teams took the field after a moment of silence and the release of 32 giant balloons in memory of the victims.
"It doesn't matter if there was any connection between the Yankees and Virginia Tech prior to the event," said Yankees President Randy Levine. "We all had to rally around these brave people and the relationship grows from there. It was the human factor."
Yankees' left fielder Johnny Damon led the game off with a four pitch walk, and the first pitch from Tech pitcher Andrew Wells was high and inside on Damon and elicited a round of "oohhs" from the crowd.
"It definitely wasn't my intention at all, going into it I just wanted to throw strikes and get ahead. Little bit of emotion, little bit of nerves, jitters, things of that nature. I just let it go and that's where it ended up," Wells said. "In the end I'm kind of glad it did, because I got Damon's batting gloves out of it, got a couple handshakes, had a nice talk with him."
"It was probably about 8 or 9 inches from my face. It was a little tough to see because the background was the clouds and everything," Damon said.
Yankees' shortstop and captain Derek Jeter followed with a shot off the glove of first baseman Sean O'Brien, putting runners on first and second with no outs. After a walk to Bobby Abreu loaded the bases, Alex Rodriguez lofted a sacrifice fly to right that put the Yankees on the board 1-0.
Wells then got Jason Giambi to ground into a double play to thwart the potential Yankee rally. The Hokies rotated pitchers each inning, and Wells yielded one run off two walks, an error, and no hits in his lone inning on the mound.
"I told the guys I felt like I had thrown two complete games and I had thrown 20 pitches to five hitters," Wells said. "I was just going into it trying to prepare and being caught up in the moment, I was so physically and emotionally drained after one inning it was such a great relief.
In the bottom of the first inning, Tech catcher Anthony Sosnoskie got the first hit of the game for the Hokies, stroking a two out single to left centerfield off Yankees' starter Jeff Karstens.
"I got to first base and there's Shelley Duncan with this huge grin on his face, and that was pretty cool," Sosnoskie said. "Then I looked out toward short and Jeter was smiling, so it was a real good experience. Once I hit it I knew it was a base hit that made it even better. It'll always stay with me."
Karstens pitched four innings for the Yankees, giving up only two hits and getting two strikeouts.
With two outs and a man on in the top of the second inning, Yankees' centerfielder Melky Cabrera got New York's first hit of the game with a double down the left field line. After a walk, Jeter hit a line drive off the glove of shortstop Ty Hohman that allowed a run to score .
Back-to-back bases-loaded walks to Abreu and Rodriguez padded the Yankee lead to 4-0 before Giambi hit a towering fly ball to deep right field that was caught by Tech right fielder Steve Bumbry to end the rally.
Yankees' manager subbed out the top half of his starting lineup in the fourth inning, and the rest of his lineup the following inning.
In the fourth inning, Tech's Jose Cueto singled to right field for the Hokies' second and final hit of the game. In the seventh, Cueto made a diving catch down the right field line that robbed Wilson Betimit of a base hit.
"I was laughing with some of the fans in right because it was such a loose game and it was one of the few chance I actually get to interact with the fans," Cueto said. "I told them it's something I'm not going to forget, some bragging rights in the locker room."
Tech pitcher Rob Waskiewicz went three up, three down against the Bronx Bombers in the third inning, and Brandon Fisher recorded back-to-back strikeouts of Jason Lane and Morgan Ensberg to end the fourth.
After being held scoreless for three innings, the Yankee bats awoke in the final innings. New York scored two runs in the sixth inning and then added five in the seventh to complete the scoring. Despite the final score, Tech head coach Pete Hughes was pleased overall with his team's performance
"I think we did a good job," Hughes said. "The strike zone was a little out of whack, but we walked people and didn't catch the ball a couple times and that hurt us. But if we didn't walk people that's probably a 5-0 game."
Added Hughes with a smile, "Maybe we'll beat them next year."
