FORT MYERS, Fla. – It took Kevin Youkilis a few seconds to register why a few unfamiliar reporters were walking toward him in the Red Sox’ clubhouse Monday night, but then it clicked. “He’s going to be a Hall of Famer,” Youkilis said.
Naturally, he was referring to Manny Banuelos, the Yankees’ 20-year-old left-hander. And naturally, Youkilis was also kidding. Banuelos left an impression on Youkilis, who acknowledged his obvious talent but, perhaps understandably, was not about to call him the second coming of Whitey Ford either.
“He’s got three pitches he can throw pretty good, now he has to learn how to pitch,” said Youkilis, adding: “If he figures it out, he’ll be all right. Being left-handed and throwing hard, if you throw three good pitches and you’re left-handed, you don’t even have to throw 90.”
Banuelos has yet to allow a run in seven and two-thirds innings, a streak that continued Monday night when he shut out Boston’s high-powered lineup for the first two and two-thirds innings of the Red Sox’ 2-1 victory. He ran some long counts and issued three walks, but pitched out of trouble, including in the second inning, when he retired Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia on groundouts to strand the bases loaded.
“You want to see guys handle adversity because you know that it’s not always going to go their way,” Yankees Manager Joe Girardi said.
One of those walks was to Youkilis, in the first inning. But in the third inning, Banuelos struck him out on a beautiful 3-2 changeup.
“That was a great changeup, yeah,” Banuelos said with a smile.
It is Banuelos’s second-best pitch, behind his fastball, and it takes courage and conviction – for a pitcher of any age – to throw it with a full count to a hitter of Youkilis’s caliber. Girardi said he couldn’t recall any other 20-year-olds – Banuelos’s birthday was Sunday – who would turn to that pitch and execute it in that situation.
“He believes in himself and he believes in his stuff,” Girardi said.
Kepner, who had covered the Yankees for The Times since 2002, is in his first year as the national baseball reporter. He joined The Times in 2000 as the Mets beat writer. A native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Vanderbilt University, Kepner has also covered the Angels for the Riverside Press-Enterprise in California and the Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their four children. 
Ben Shpigel is in his first year as the Yankees beat writer. He had covered the Mets for The Times since 2005. Before then, he was a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News for two years. He also worked at The News Journal in Wilmington, Del., and for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Shpigel received a bachelor's degree in English and journalism from Emory University and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He and his wife, Rebecca, and their daughter, live in New Jersey. 
Belson covers the business of sports after many years of writing about the business of practically everything else for the Times, Business Week, Reuters and Bloomberg. During his 12 years living in Tokyo, he wrote about baseball, kick boxing, marathon running and football in Japan. Since returning to the United States, he managed to persuade his wife, who grew up near the Yomiuri Giants' old stadium, to find it in herself to root for the Mets.
Sablich has produced news and multimedia for The New York Times since July 2006 after earning a master’s degree in new media from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He was born in Binghamton, N.Y. and resides in Queens. Sablich is still traumatized from his first trip to Yankee Stadium as a child when the Yankees starter Tim Leary was torched by the White Sox for 7 runs in one and two-thirds innings on Old-Timers' Day, July 15, 1990. 