2 up

There were some doubts about Andy Pettitte coming into tonight. Mostly concerning him coming off the recent injury and just how deep he could go into the game. He answered all those questions without a doubt with 7 innings of 2 run ball. Lance Berkman came up big with a homer and a RBI double, and Mo was Mo.

Now the Yankees have a day off tomorrow before Hughes takes the mound for Game 3 in the Bronx. We'll get to have John being torn between wanting the Yankees to win and clinch the series, or lose so he can use his Game 4 tickets. It's situations like that where your moral fiber is really tested.

SEE YA!

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Best Win of the Season?

So I heard on ESPN Radio today refer to last night's game as "the best win of the season for the Yankees." And you know what? I think I agree. Let's look at the drama the game had:

Down 6-1 in the fifth and Cliff Lee is appraoching double-digits in strikeouts you're starting to think, guess not today. Then, Derek Jeter hits a triple and narrows the gap to 6-2 by scoring on a wild pitch. Suddenly Lance Berkman hits a ground-rule double, and the Yankees have runners on second and third and it's a 6-3 game and Cliff Lee seems human.

But the two heroes of the game last night were Marcus Thames and Mariano Rivera. Thames helped inch the Yankees closer, hitting a solo home run in the eighth, making it a 6-5 game. Then in the top of the ninth with the game tied, Thames, who was batting in the third spot with Teixeira out of the lineup, singled in the go-ahead run, capping a five-run comeback and giving the Yankees a 7-6 lead.

But the drama didn't end there. One night after Mariano Rivera suffered his first loss since May 18, Elvis Andrus led off the ninth with a triple. Rivera had to face Michael Young, Josh Hamilton, and Vladimir Guerrero with they tying run on third, on the road, and nobody out. And he got them all out with ease.

If that's not enough drama for you for that to be the best win of the season, I don't know what is. The Yankees needed to win that game. They had already lost a series to potential ALCS foe Tampa Bay Rays, and were staring at a two-game sweep by another potential ALCS opponent in the Texas Rangers. But the Yankees showed why they are the defending champs and scored in the last four innings for what was, the best win of the season.

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Code Breaker

During the game last night, Alex Rodriguez apparently crossed the pitcher's mound on his way back to first after a foul ball. A's pitcher Dallas Braden took offense to A-Rod breaking one of the unwritten rules of baseball, and let the slugger know about it when it happened. After Cano

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grounded into the double play to end the inning, Braden flipped out and started kicking and screaming. A-Rod just waved him off as Braden went to knock stuff over in the A's dugout.

Sure, A-Rod broke the "code" of baseball and I get why Braden would be like, "Hey! Get off my mound!" At least the first time, but I don't really understand the temper tantrum he threw after the inning. I could see Braden doing something like that if A-Rod was stealing signs, but this was a little over the top for something like this. And especially a guy with, as Rodriguez says, "a handful of wins."

On the A-Rod side, people really need to start writing stuff down for him because he's not very good with the "unwritten rule" thing. He slapped the ball from Bronson Arroyo's glove in 2004, did steroids before the official testing, called off the Blue Jays infielder while running the bases in Toronto, and now this. I can see why other people in baseball don't like the guy.

Some other quick things:

• The Yanks turned their first triple play since 1968 in 5-4-3 fashion during the 6th inning of yesterday's game. If you take a look at the video they have on Yankees.com, they have all the different radio and TV calls of the play. I'm not sure if there was editing, but the fact that John Sterling automatically knew it was the first triple play in 40 years was impressive.
• With the team's trip to visit President Barrack Obama at the White House next week, the Yankees released a schedule of events in and around Washington, D.C.
  
• In Fantasy Baseball, my team, A Deuce for the Cuse, is in 6th place out of 12 teams, 137.33 points out of first place. John's team, SwishHawk, is in last place, 196 points behind me. John, however, has channeled his inner Brian Cashman and pulled off 3 trades this week to acquire 7 new players, including Grady Sizemore, John Lackey, Rajai Davis, and Lance Berkman. My team is being powered by Matt Kemp, currently the position player with the most points, and Roy Halladay, currently the pitcher with the most points. Paul Konerko continues to rack up the points and was an absolute steal in the 20th round. Shane Victorino and Chirs Carpenter are holding down the fort for John right now. We should have put a wager on who finishes higher, but I think I'm going to have a tough time talking John into that now.
  

Game vs. Angels starts at 10:05 PM EST with AJ Burnett facing Ervin Santana. Check back for the lineups then.

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