Wells Walks Off For A 5th Straight Win

Ivan Nova, hands down, wins the award for "Best Performance From A Yankees Starting Pitcher This Season." Making only his 6th start of the season, Nova brought us back to 2011 when he went 16-4 in his breakout rookie season for the Yankees.

Nova may have lost his starting job to David Phelps when he went down with an injury in late April, but after tonight, there's no way that Joe Girardi can't give him more chances.

His only blemish throughout the entire game came in the 2nd inning when he started things out by hitting the dangerous Chris Davis. It was followed up by a homerun off the bat by Matt Wieters that managed to just barely slip it's way over the left field wall.

From there on out, Nova was unhittable. He held the Orioles hitless for the rest of the game, issuing only a walk to Wieters in the 7th inning, going to full nine innings for the first time in his career. He gave up two runs on three hits, while walking one and striking out 11 on 102 pitches.

"He gave up the one home run early then just was really, really good," manager Joe Girardi said. "You've got to give him a lot of credit."

The only problem was that the Yankees had only given Nova one run of support through the first eight innings, making it very possible he could take the loss after throwing an absolutely stellar performance.

"I was positive the whole night. I knew that we were going to win at some point," Nova said. "I told a couple of the guys, 'It's impossible that I can pitch that way, the first time, and lose the game.'"

Baltimore's starter Miguel Gonzalez did his best to keep up with Nova, holding the Yankees to only one run on four hits, walking five and striking out four through six frames.

His only permitted run came in the 4th inning when Vernon Wells shot a two-out single to left, followed by a walk to Lyle Overbay, then new Yankee Luis Cruz picked up his 2nd RBI with the team, singling the left field to get Wells in from 2nd base.

After that, it was up to only the best picture the win the game for their team. Throughout the night, Nova was that pitcher. The O's bullpen had done a good job holding the Yankees to only one hit off of O'Day in the 7th and 8th innings.

Needing only three outs to win the game, the Orioles brought on baseball best closer from a year ago, Jim Johnson. Yet, for the 6th time this season, he failed to get the job done.

David Adams began the inning by singling to right field off of Johnson. Attempting to move the runner over, Brett Gardner laid down a sac-bunt that Johnson couldn't handle, fumbling the ball, giving Gardner the base, and giving the Yankees runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out.

"Holy mackerel," Adams said. "It was kind of a line-drive bunt, so my initial reaction was to freeze. As soon as I see it down, I'm going as fast as I can. In my mind, I'm just, 'Oh my God, just get there, get there.' Thank God he fumbled the ball."

Ichiro followed up with a another bunt, moving Adams to 3rd as the tying run and Gardner to 2nd as the winning run. But with 1st base open, O's manager Buck Showalter took no chances pitching to Cano, walking him to load the bases for Travis Hafner.

Still pitching with a one-run lead, Johnson lost all of his composer, walking Hafner on four pitches to force home a run and tie the game at 2-2. Then Wells, with already a hit on the night, slapped a 2-2 fastball from Johnson into left field to send everyone home, in walk-off fashion.

"Those are fun. Anytime you can jump around, get punched a little bit after doing something good, it's a good time," Wells said. "Those are times, like when we turned the triple play, when you see the kid come out in us. That's the great part about this game. You forget that we do this for a living and just brings us back to when you're a kid."

Saturday's matinee will feature Andy Pettitte taking the mound against the Orioles best starter this season, Chris Tillman. That contest kicks off at 1:05 EST from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

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