Yanks Win a Series, Wang Has a Blog

The Yankees won their first series since way back on June 17 by taking 3 of 4 from the Minnesota Twins.  That's great news.  The Yankees need to be beating teams of the caliber of the Twins, who right now sit about 2 games ahead of them in the Wild Card race.  Hopefully winning the series will give the boys a little momentum going into this last series before the break.  Because with the Angels coming to town, they're going to need as many good vibes as they can get.

The Yankees WANTED to lose yesterday.  They tried as hard as they could.  They put Igawa on the mound, blew a 3-run lead, and Rivera even made it interesting by giving up a run in the ninth.  But in the end, the forces of good prevailed and the Yankees came out on top, thanks to Matsui's 8th inning homerun. 

I have to say that I was really happy to see Cano and Melky hit their homeruns, especially Cano.  Everyone keeps talking about he's going to be able to hit for both average and power, but we really haven't seen the power side and the average side has been MIA this season.  He's only got 5 homeruns on the year, but two of them have come during his last 3 games.  It would be great if he were to find his power stroke.  It's greatly needed right now.

I read over at Bombers Beat that Phil Hughes is throwing BP and is ikely to start some rehab games in the near future, putting a probable return sometime in early August.  Unfortunately, barring a near-miracle, that will be too late to do much good.  However, having those two full months to pitch at the big league level without a lot of pressure will most likely help him out when it comes to next season.  I'm not sure what the timetable is for Rasner or Karstens, but it would be good to be able to see them sometime in August or September as well.  Although I think Rasner may be done for the season.

One thing that the series win over Minnesota has done is give Yankee fans another miniscule glimmer of hope.  The Yankees can either build on it this weekend with a good showing against the Angels, or they can break out hearts yet again with a sad performance.  I'm not going to make any predictions on the series.  But I will say that winning tonight is going to be the key to winning or losing the series.  Bartolo Colon has struggled this season and Andy Pettitte has been pretty good.  If Pettitte can actually get some run support, the Yankees have a chance.  But if he doesn't, the Yankees chances of winning the game (and the series) are minimal.

On a more exciting note, my Taiwanese hero has his own blog here at MLBlogs.  Now I haven't been checking the site as dilligently the last few days, but I didn't see any amazing fanfare or pomp and circumstance surrounding the arrival of the blog like we did with, say, Kevin Youkilis.  But he's listed at the top of the active roster list.  Wang has only made one post and did not leave comments open.  But I'm looking forward to reading what he has to say and hopefully being ble to leave him some comments in the future.  Refueling Chien-Ming Wang!