Like Verlander, Sabathia followed up his rough inning of work by setting the Tigers down easy. That's what the great pitchers do.
Sabathia struck out Austin Jackson on four pitches (Jackson's second strike out of the game) and Will Rhymes (on a check swing), before getting Ordonez to ground out to Alex Rodriguez to end the inning. Ordonez hit it on the nose, again, but A-Rod made a nice play.
In the bottom half of the inning, Verlander's "no-no" went to "oh, no".
Russel Martin started his Yankees career on the right foot by singling to left field for the Yanks' first hit of the game. Brett Gardner then put down a sac bunt that he nearly beat out. Cabrera made the 1-to-4 play look easy, but it was a fantastic bunt by the University of South Carolina product. The Tigers may have avoided their first injury of the regular season on the play, too. Gardner stepped on Rhymes' foot as he crossed the base, causing Rhymes to hobble a little bit as he tossed the ball back to Verlander. He'll be fiiiiiiine, though.
After a walk to Jeter and a stolen base by Martin, Teixeira then took a 1-1 pitch to the seats, giving the Yankees a 3-1 early lead. It was just Teixeira's second career hit off of Verlander in 17 tries and it was a no-doubter.
Verlander subsequently got A-Rod to fly out to center and struck out Cano to end the inning, but the damage was done.
3-1 Yankees heading to the fourth.