The odds are good that Curtis Granderson will become pretty popular in New York: By all accounts, he’s a world-class good guy, and he’s got the perfect swing to flick balls over the short right-field porch at Yankee Stadium. Hitting a tenth-inning, game-winning home run against Jonathan Papelbon at Fenway Park — his second homer in three games, and one that gave the Yankees a series victory — will speed up that process.
After Andy Pettitte pitched six strong innings, the Yankees got to extra frames thanks to another fan favorite, Nick Swisher, who drove in Jorge Posada with a two-out single in the seventh. For the second-straight game, the bullpen was excellent: Chan Ho Park, who took the loss opening night, tossed three innings of scoreless, one-hit ball, and Mariano Rivera earned his second save in as many nights to seal the 3–1 win. (The Yankees would add an insurance run after Papelbon walked Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, and Nick Johnson to load the bases, and Gardner scored on a Mark Teixeira ground out.) All in all, not a bad first series.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that for his call of Granderson’s home run, John Sterling not only used his Broadway musical–inspired “something sort of Grandish” line from the other night, but literally started singing “the Grandy-Man can, the Grandy-Man can.” (Listen to him duet with Sammy Davis Jr. here.) This actually happened. On the radio. During a baseball game. Feel free to deconstruct that one yourself, in the comments.