The Yankees now have their third straight mini-streak going.  They lost following the first two (2 vs Minnesota and 1 each against Minnesota/L-Triple A).  This one bridges the gap between the Angels series and the second half opener in Tampa.  I have a pretty strong feeling, though, that after tomorrow we’ll be able to call this one an actual winning streak.

I was only able to catch the end of tonight’s game, but the boscore tells a pretty good story.  The Yankees managed to puut togethr double-digit hits, including at least one by all of the starters except Kahn-Yo.  The highlights, of course, were the Bombers three homeruns, including A-Roddasaurus’s 31st and 87th RBI.  The reason I am most excited/interested in the homeruns is because it shows that the break didn’t really interrupt the power rhythm the boys got into last weekend.  I had a bit of concern that the offense would disappear with 3 days off.  Thankfully, it didn’t.  It’s still around.  And despite the chance of sounding too confident, Tampa Bay is the team to start against to make sure it gets well re-established.

Speaking of offense, Bobby Abreu was tonight’s main offensive star with 3 hits, 3 RBIs and his 6th homerun.  So far in July, Bobby is batting .483 with 2 homeruns.  If the Yankees are going to make a run (and I think they can), they need his bat to stay hot.  He was hot in early June, the Yankees were too.  He’s hot in early July, the Yankees are too.  He’s a huge piece of the puzzle.

I have to say that I’m a big fan of tonight’s lineup.  It’s dangerous top to bottom.  Even Andy Philips has a hot bat.  His average is sitting at .310 right now.  It’s not the huge bat one might want from a first baseman, but it’s a number that’s tough to shake a stick at.  I like Abreu down in the lineup, and I like him following Posada.  If Abreu continues to hit, Posada will consistently see some decent pitches and will be able to keep up his impressive first half numbers.  And I like My Boy Melky! near the top.  If Damon continues to struggle, having Cabrera in the 2-slot might provide some backup table setting.  If Damon can’t Melky can.  If Damon gets it done, maybe Melky can move him for Jeter (who can hit anywhere).  Melky is the leadoff man of the future, let’s get him towards the top and leave him there.

Pettitte didn’t have his best stuff tonight, but he had enough.  5 2/3 isn’t great, but it’s a step forward following his previous 2 starts.  One thing I noticed is that 2 of the Rays’ 3 runs came from sac flies.  To me, that indicates that Andy wasn’t allowing the big hit.  A sac fly is far superior to a single with a man on 3rd, most obviously because you record an out.  He only walked 1 and struck out 4, so pettitte’s command was good, although he did give up 6 hits and wasn’t very economical with his pitches.  Since I wasn’t able to actually see him pitch I can’t really give any other comments on his performance, but I’m pleased with the result. 

I’m definitely pleased with the result of the bullpen’s performance, especially Mo’s 2 strikeouts.  I was able to see what he had tonight and it was nothing short of typical Mariano Rivera.  Two shattered bats in a single at-bat, 2 strikeouts and a groundout.  A perfect inning.  Too bad it wasn’t a save situation, but he’s only going to improve with work and that was some work for him.  Vizcaino continued to perform well while under Mariano’s tutelage, and even Farnsworth managed to put up a zero, despite allowing a leadoff walk and a single.  He came back strong and recorded a strikeout.

The Yankees moved ahead of Toronto tonight.  I was doing some thinking and decided that as long as the Yankees win this series, it’s really a no-lose situation.  They will either jump ahead of Toronto (done) or gain ground on Boston.  Or both.  Both things need to happen eventually, why not now?  I think best case scenario (trying to be realistic) might be a Yankee sweep and a Toronto-Boston split.  They would gain 2 games on both. 

Whatever happens the rest of the weekend, Yankee fans can rest easy for tonight.  Good stuff happened: a win, moved into sole possession of second place, gained 1/2 game in the wild card.  A detroit victory would tighten that Wild Card race a little more.  I’ll take it.

Series wins against the Angels are few and far between for the Yankees.  But they got one when they needed it the most.  Well, maybe not as much as they needed the two in the playoffs…but still pretty darn important.

New blogger Chien-Ming Wang proved once again why he’s the Yankee ace, throwing 6 1/3 shutout innings with only half of a finger.  OK, that’s an exaggeration of his finger problems.  But the truth is, he gritted through it (again) and gave us a quality outing (again).  He now has 9 wins on the season and could very well put together another 18 or 19 win season.  And all of the doubters thought it was a fluke.  I knew it was a fluke and Wang was here to stay.  The guy’s awesome.  His ERA is back down to 3.36, very near where it was during his string of 5 consecutive quality starts before he and the rest of the team hiccupped on the road trip.  He’s got 6 days off.  Hopefully the extra day or so of rest will help improve the state of his finger, although I fear it’s a condition he’s going to have to battle all season.

While the pitching from Wang and the bullpen was awesome, the real story was, of course, the offense.  The Yankees won 12-0.  They were (re)fueled by 3 3-run homeruns, including another Cano blast.  He’s hit 3 homeruns in the last week.  Is Robinson Cano finding the power stroke we’ve always been told he would have?  If he is, then the Yankee lineup just got a lot tougher.  If he’s not…well, I still like Robbie Cano and will be happy to have him in pinstripes.  Matsui hit a blast in the 1st.  And maybe it was my eyes playing tricks, but it looked like he was smiling as he rounded the bases.  I love to see baseball players smiling because it shows that they’re having fun.  And one of the many lessons in Little Big League is that having fun is the key to winning baseball games.  At least when you’re a 12 year old owner/manager. 

Let’s not overlook Alex Rodriguez.  Although his awesomeness is becoming so commonplace that it’s easy to ignore, today Alex got himself 4 more ice creams and another homerun and continues to lead the major leagues in both categories.  He is also now alone at 22nd all-time in homeruns and over the weekend joined Lou Gehrig and Joe D. as the only Yankees to have over 80 RBIs before the All-Star break.  If A-Rod is not in pinstripes next summer I think I might go into depression.  Michael Kay and John Flaherty today talked about Alex’s place in history and where that place will be if he leaves New York.  It’s not that you can’t have a legacy if you’re not a Yankee, but if he leaves the Yankees and spends 4 or 5 years somewhere else, what is he?  A Mariner?  A Ranger? A Yankee? A whatever?  I thought it was an interesting comment, because when you think about all of the great players, they may have played for more than 1 team, but they’re attached only to one.  Roger Clemens may be an exception, but you can bet he won’t be remembered as Blue Jay or an Astro.  I even have trouble thinking of Nolan Ryan as anything but a Houston Astro, although he had great years in other cities.  As a side note, did you know Nolan Ryan won 20 games only twice in his 26-year big league career?  Anyway, the Yankees need to make sure they hold onto Alex Rodriguez. 

So the 1st half ends on a positive note, taking 5 of 7 from Minnesota and L-Triple A.  At 1 game under .500, the Yankees aren’t exactly where they’d like to be.  But look on the bright side, they could be Tampa Bay.  Since winning 2 of 3 against the Mets on June 17, the Yankees are 7-11.  Not a good record.  But during that time, they’ve lost just 1 1/2 games in the division standings.  Once again the Red Sox had the opportunity to really put the Yankees (and Blue Jays for that matter) away for good.  Instead they have floundered.  10 games is a huge lead, but it’s not insurmountable.  The Red Sox have played right around .500 ball since June 1.  Their offense is struggling and their rotation is a bit of a question mark.  The Yankees CAN make a move and get back into the race.  Will they? I don’t know. If it’s going to happen, July is when it should.

After the break, the Yankees play 4 against Tampa Bay, 4 big ones against Toronto (in New York), 4 more against Tampa Bay, 4 against Kansas City, 3 against Baltimore, plus the suspended game, and close the month at home against the White Sox.  Barring rain, they’ve got 21 decision coming their way before August.  I see no reason why they can’t win a minimum of 15 of those 21 games.  They already have a 2-run advantage in one of them.  During that same span, the Red Sox have 4 against Toronto, 3 against Kansas City, 4 against the White Sox, 4 against Cleveland, 3 against Tampa Bay, and 1 against Baltimore.  That’s 19 decisions.  Playing like they have during the last month, let’s say the Red Sox win 10 of them.  The Yankees would go into August just 6 games back with 2 months to go.  Can it be done?  Sure.  And it’s not even asking for an insane hot streak…15-6.  And it’s not asking for much from Boston either, just keep playing like you have…10-9.  And suddenly it’s a race.  Or at least more of a race than we have right now.  I suppose I could be greedy…and expect the Red Sox to play those 19 like their last 19.  They’d go 9-10 and it’s only a 5 game deficit.  With 7 Yankee-Red Sox games to go.

Here’s to hoping….

GO YANKEES!

Robinson Cano has just caught the final out, and the Yankees have another mini-streak going.  Last time they couldn’t turn it into an actual streak, and I’m not entirely conifdent they can do it this time either.  But for now, I’m just going to enjoy tonight’s win.  It was a good one.

Every Yankee had a hit.  Every Yankee had an RBI.  The bullpen was great, especially Scott Proctor.  Proctor came in with 2 on and 1 out and after a wild pitch settled down to strike outGary Mathews, JR. and Garret Anderson.  He then worked a perfect 8th, adding a third strikeout.  His tough performance in the 7th inning, keeping the Angels off the board with 2nd and 3rd 1 out was a key part of the game.  I know that the Yankees came back and scored 2 runs in the 8th, but if Scott had allowed just one hit, the game would have been 12-11 and had a different complexion.  My hat goes off to Scott.  Maybe there was something to the burning of his stuff.

Offensively, there’s almost so much to say that I don’t know what to say.  19 hits and 14 runs were both season highs.  I’ve already mentioned that everyone had a hit and an RBI.  6 guys had more than 1 hit.  A-Roddasaurus showed us that his hamstring isn’t hurting him too badly, with a couple of nice plays in the field and 3 hits, including his 29th homerun.  The homerun put him in company with Lou Gehrig and the Crime Dog at 22nd place all-time, just 7 away from 500.  He also now has 82 RBIs on the season.  Even though his hamstring is apparently OK (although he said it was sore in his postgame interview), I still hope that he doesn’t play in the All-Star Game.  The last thing this team needs is someone to get hurt or aggravate an injury playing in something as worthless as the All-Star Game.  Take the time off and play with your kid, Alex.  Go to the club, Derek.  Reflect on your awesome first half, Jorge.

The main concerning thing was Andy Pettitte.  I think this is Andy’s second consecutive rough outing.  After the stress of being the only pitcher that could get outs, but still not getting any run support, I think Pettitte is in dire need of a rest.  Hopefully Torre gives him at least a full week off, holding him until the 3rd game of the D-Rays series after the break.  And also hopefully, in the meantime, the Yankees keep on winning, giving Pettitte a little mental break from having to continually be the savior as he has been throughout the entire first half.

Tomorrow Roger goes for win #351 against John Lackey.  While Clemens was vintage in his last performance, I’m not sure how he’ll handle the Angels.  Despite winning tonight, this is not a team I feel comfortable with.  They just play too well against the Yankees.  Lackey so far is 11-5 with a 3.04 ERA.  Which is pretty darn good.  In his last 3 starts, however, Lackey is 1-1 with an ERA of 5.40.  And, of course, the Angels are riding a streak in which they’ve lost 7 of their last 10.  The Yankees have won 4 of 5, including a great outing from Clemens last time and huge offensive performance tonight.  The Yankees have momentum on their side.  They’re going to need it.

Go Yankees!

P.S. Thanks to Mark for giving the Chien-Ming Wang blog the attention he deserves and posting the info on the MLBlogs homepage. Wang Rules!

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!

The Yankees won a game for the second straight night.  I’m not sure whether or not we can count it as a winning streak, but I’ll take what I can get with this team.  And what we got tonight was a great offensive showing all the way around and a great pitching performance from everyone involved, especially Chien-Ming Wang.

Wang really looked great, bouncing back nicely from his rough starts his last two times out.  Zero runs in 7 innings, giving up just 4 hits.  Unfortunately, he also walked 4 while striking out just 3.  I’m not concerned about the strikeouts, he’s not a strikeout machine.  However, the 4 walks is showing a few residual signs of his struggles during the road trip from hel1.  But, since he did induce 14 groundouts, I think it’s safe to say that Chien-Ming Wang is back in ace-of-the-staff form.  At least for now.  He’ll probably get one more start before the break, this weekend against the Angels.  I’m really hoping he’s back to stay because we all know that the Yankees need to play flawlessly to beat that team.

The relief were no slouches tonight.  Proctor pitched an inning and was actually able to strikeout 2 guys.  He gave up a hit, but there was no damage done.  Hits happen.  It’s just nice when they aren’t accompanied by 3 walks and an idle closer.  And then we got our first look at Edwar Ramirez.  He wasted no time in making himself known as he struck out the side.

I’m so happy with tonight’s pitching performance I could burst.

I’m also pretty darn happy with tonight’s offensive performance.  The Yankees got their 3rd straight good offensive showing, scoring 8 runs on 14 hits.  Jeter led the way with 3 hits and 2 RBI.  I wonder if Joe has solved the 3-hole mystery by plugging him in there.  It makes sense.  With a .343 batting average he’ll provide some protection for A-Roddasaurus.  And it gets My Boy Melky! a chance to stay near the top of the order where he belongs.  Speaking of Melky, he joined Jeter and Cano by knocking in 2 runs.  And even Bobby Abreu managed a multi-hit game, going 3-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored.  A-Rod was the only Yankee starter to not get a hit, although I suspect that it may have been a lingering affect of his hamstring injury.  Hopefully it’s not a long-term linger and more a result of being a little cautious/tentative the first day after the injury happened.

Tomorrow we see Moose take on Johan "The Pitching God" Santana.  I don’t have a very good feeling about the Yankees chances of extending their mini-streak to 3 games.  Santana is a lefty.  The Yankees can’t hit lefties.  Santana is awesome.  The Yankee bats are unpredictable.  We’ll see how it goes and hope for the best.

Go Yankees!

A-Rod is in the lineup tonight.  That’s excellent news.  I think it might be the first break to go the Yankees’ way all season.  Let’s see if they can do anything with their good fortune.

Go Yankees!

Congratulations to Roger Clemens and his 350th win.  He did it in grand style, going 8 innings and giving up only 1 run.  And he threw only 97 pitches.  Is there any chance that we can rely on him to perform similarly on a regular basis?  I don’t expect consistent 8-inning starts.  But it would be nice if we could regularly get 6 and some change from him and fewer than 3 runs.  Then he would be the man we wanted to come in and bolster the rotation.  Not just an oldie but goodie.

Oh, Alex Rodriguez, what will we do without you?  Probably lose.  But we’re doing that pretty regularly WITH you.  Either way, I don’t want you to be hurt.  I don’t want you on the DL.  Stupid hamstrings.  Did the team refuse to spring for the good hamstrings this season?  They went with the cheap ones?  It was a dumb move because everybody’s seems to be breaking down.  And the last person who we need with a hamstring injury is A-Rod.  Can this year get any more frustrating?  Is it possible?  At this point it seems as if the injury isn’t that bad and he may only miss a game or two, or maybe through the All-Star break.  But hamstrings can be pesky and you never know how it will affect his play, even if he’s able to be on the field.  I’m not sure what I would prefer.  A healthy Miguel Cairo, who’s been playing pretty well, or an Alex Rodriguez with limited mobility hampering him at third, on the bases, and probably at the plate (I’m not entirely sure how essential the left leg is to a righty’s swing, but I bet it’s important)?

Speaking A-Rod, his wife showed up to the game on Sunday with an F-You shirt. Not surprisingly, it made all kinds of not-quite-baseball-related news.  Now I won’t discuss my feelings on the shirt in a family section of the ballpark…but last time A-Rod was involved in news outside of the team, the Yankees won 14 of 17 games.  Maybe she caused a stir on purpose.

The Yankees look to extend their winning streak to two games tonight, with Chien-Ming Wang on the mound.  Wang is the ace of the staff, but his last two starts haven’t been ace-like.  Which is OK, considering everybody else has been playing terribly.  The two starts were both no-decisions, but he gave up a total of 10 earned runs in 12 2/3 innings.  That’s an ERA of 7.10.  In his 2 most recent starts at Yankee Stadium, however, he has given up just 3 runs in 15 2/3 (1.72 ERA).  Hopefully the Yankee offense will stick around after having a good time with Boof last night and Wang will have a lot to work with.  It will probably be a big confidence boost for this team if they can get two strong pitching performances in a row and two good offensive showings (3, really, if you count scoring 5 against Oakland.  A confidence boost is what they need, and I think that Wang is just the man to give it to them.

3 games under .500 with 6 games left before the break.  They need to win 5 games to be over .500 when the All-Star game arrives.  Can they do it?  I don’t know.  The Twins and the Angels are very good teams, and we all know how the Yankees play against the Angels.  It’ll be tough, but it’s necessary.

Go Yankees!

Go Chien-Ming Wang!

Go A-Rod’s hamstring healing!

"When we pitch some days, we don’t hit" Jeter said. "And when we hit, we don’t pitch. When we pitch and hit, we don’t play defense. When we pitch, hit and play defense, we don’t run the bases. That’s how things go when you’re scuffling. Like I said, it’s happened to every team throughout the course of the year. It’s just, for us, it’s happened for a long time."

Hit it right on the head, Derek. Now do something about it.

I’m headed to Coors Field tonight to see Tom Glavine.  I had thought he wasn’t pitching in the series, but I read differently this morning.  The Rockies have this "Player of the Homestand" campaign (which I don’t really understand since they pick the player of the homestand before the homestand starts), and you can buy ticket packages. 2 tickets and 2 packs of peanuts and it came to $23 after taxes.  Normally these packages are nosebleed or rockpile seats so I don’t pay a lot of attention, But the PotHS seats are in section 144.  Just on the outfield grass behind 3rd base.  Normally they are 30-something dollar tickets for 8 bucks a piece (plus 2 for the peanuts you can’t refuse).  I’ll take it. I’m pretty excited.  I wish Glavine hadn’t slumped as much and this could be win #300.  But I’ll take what I can get.

Clemens goes after #350 again.  This time he takes on Boof.  If I remember correctly the Yankees hit Boof around pretty well last time.  Come on, guys.  Get your sh1t together.

Go Yankees!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yesterday was another day and another loss for the New York Yankees.  A spectacular one-hit affair.  Scott Proctor, who in the last week has twice been the victim of his own poor pitching and Torre’s mismanagement, is lighting fires on the field.  It’s the only fire we’ve seen from the Yankees since the Mets series.  The team is dead. 

There was talk a mere 2 weeks that the Yankees had rebounded and were on their way back to contention.  They had gained 7 games in the standings, the Red Sox were struggling.  Two weeks later, the Red Sox are still struggling (they’re 5-5 in their last 10 games).  But the Yankees have let them off of the hook, going just 2-8 since the Mets series.  Given the teams the Yankees have played in that span (San Francisco, Colorado, Baltimore), the Yankees should very easily have been able to, at the very least, keep pace if not gain at least a game.  Instead they continue to fall further and further behind because they are slaves to their own ineptitude.

The Yankees have been so bad recently that I think they’re starting to believe it.  They’ve been here before, though, and bounced back.  I’m not sure they can do it this time.  No one can swing a bat.  Only 2 starters seem to be able to regularly pitch well, and one of them never gets any support.  Jorge Posada said that he feels like the team is "just [going] through the motions."  That’s probably true.  Scott Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth seem to be the only ones with any fire, no pun intended.  Unfortunately, they’ve both been mistreated and pitching poorly.  If someone that’s playing well could show some life maybe something would happen.  Alex yelling at an opposing third baseman, anybody?

Someone needs to step up.  Something needs to happen to shake these guys up.  They’re a couple of embarassing losses away from the Bronx Zoo.  All they need is a fight in the dugout and someone to run his mouth a little too much.  Management is in disarray and clueless, the players are in shambles, and the team is going nowhere fast.  Something needs to change and it needs to change now.  I just wish I knew what it was.