Yankees and Dutchies in Spring Training, Thursday March 12

In a close game between the Yankees and the Braves, two Dutchies contributed to the score of their team. Andrelton SImmons went 1 for 3. He recorded the first two outs of the Yankees. Simmons himself grounded out to Didi Gregorius in his first at bat. In his first at bat (bottom 3rd), Gregorius belted the 1-1 offering to center field and he legged out a triple.
Gregorius eventually scored on the force out hit by Brett Gardner. In the fifth inning, Gregorius was hit by a pitch in the fifth inning and was replaced by pinch runner Jake Cave. In the sixh, Simmons hit a soft fly ball t o center field that advanced Pedro Cinaco to third, who eventually scored on a sac fly by Alberto Callaspo. This play shows why Simmons won another gold glove last year. In the fifth inning, the Braves had scored a run already, so they were in the lead by 2-1. But the Yankees prevailed. In the eighth inning, Chase Headley led off with a singel and was replaced by pinch runner Jonathan Galvez, who advanced to second on the ground out, hit by A-Rod. Stephen Drew got a free pass and after he was replaced by pinch runner Jose Pirela, Jake Cave hit a ground rule double that scored Galvez and put Pirela at third. A sac fly by Nick Noonan drove in the game winning run.
Both teams collected only six hits and no player had more than one basehit.
Of course this was the Spring Training debut of Masahiro Tanaka. He pitched two perfect innings in which he struck out two. One of his strikeouts lead to the ejection of Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. Ejecton? Really? In a practice game?THe velocity of Tanaka’s pitches was between 88-91 mph, but his fastest pitch was clocked at 94 mph. Most important is that he got out of the game without any complications.

In an 8-2 loss vs the Cardinals, Jonathan Schoop went 0 for 3 with one K and two runners left on base. He was part of a round-the-horn double play when Peter Gozma grounded to third baseman Jayson Nix.

In a game vs Pittsburgh, that was won by Boston 5-1, Xander Bogaerts went 0 for 3 with a strikeout.

In a hig scoring and surprising win vs the Nationals, Matt den Dekker went 1 for 1 for the Mets with an RBI triple to right field in the eighth inning.