Yankees find Peace of Mind against Boston

Red Sox 6 8 1
Yankees 13 18 0

WP: Chamberlain (8-2)
LP: Smoltz (2-5)

PLAYER OF THE GAME: It's too hard to pick just one guy, so I'm just giving it to the entire lineup. They pounded out 18 hits and four home runs on their way to scoring 13 runs.

PLAY OF THE GAME: The Jeterian play by Robbie Cano in the top of the eighth inning on a ground ball to short right-center field by David Ortiz.

TURNING POINT OF THE GAME: I'm going out on a limb here, but I think the turning point was the 8-run 4th inning. After Casey Kotchman homered in the top of the 4th to give Boston a 3-1 lead, the Yankees scored 8 runs on 8 hits, including 2 home runs.

GAME NOTES:

• The Yankees pitching staff allowed 12 walks. That is horrible. 7 of them were from Joba, and he only pitched 5 innings.
  
• While Joba did not pitch well, I'm not worried. He's been pitching very well lately, but he isn't going to dominate every time out.
  
• Now, the Yankees are 3.5 games ahead of the Red Sox and because the Rays were idle, Tampa Bay falls to 6 games behind.
• In case you had turned the game off by that point, Dustin Pedroia was hit by a pitch to lead off the top of the 8th. He decided to be dramatic about it, despite the fact he's shorter than me (and I'm pretty short) by barking at Mark Melancon. So, with Beckett and Burnett on the mound tomorrow, don't be surprised if there are some fireworks.
  
• Now that they finally got the first win against the Red Sox out of the way, the Yankees can just worry about beating up on them all time.
  

TOMORROW:
Round 2
Red Sox at Yankees
Beckett vs. Burnett

SEE YA!

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GAME 108: Yankees vs Red Sox

Lineup via PeteAbe
YANKEES (65-42, First Place AL East)
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Posada C
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Cabrera CF
Pitching: RHP Joba Chamberlain (7-2, 3.58).

RED SOX (62-44, Second Place AL East)
Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Martinez C
Youkilis LF
Ortiz DH
Drew RF
Lowell 3B
Kotchman 1B
Lowrie SS
Pitching: RHP John Smoltz (2-4, 7.12).

Rivalry Weekend: It's Yankees vs Red Sox in a 4-game series in the heat of a pennant race. The Yankees are in first by 2.5 games, but as everybody knows, the Yankees are 0-8 this season against the Roid Sox. This is a big weekend for both teams and can argue who it is more important for.
Joba the Heat: Joba Chamberlain is 3-0 with an 0.83 ERA since the All-Star break. He has allowed only eight hits over 21.2 innings while striking out 19 batters.
Locked In: Nick Swisher is 11 of his last 34 with six extra base hits and Johnny Damon is 10 of 22 with two home runs and six RBIs.
Who's in Left? Kevin Youkillis will play left field for the Red Sox tonight, as Yankee-killer Jason Bay is dealing with a bad hamstring.
Welcome to the Bronx, Big PA-P.E.D.: It's David Ortiz's first game in Yankee Stadium since finding out he tested positive for PEDs in 2003. Although I believe chanting "steroids" would be hypocritical, the Red Sox fans did have their fun with A-Roid, so expect the Yankees fans to get a bit creative and boo a bit louder with Roidtiz.

UPDATE 6:56: Word on the street (and by street I mean various tweets on twitter) is that David Ortiz will address last week's steroid report to the media on Saturday at Yankee Stadium before the game in joint presser with Micheal Weiner. Weiner is the guy replacing Donald Fehr...interesting.

UPDATE 7:14: Joba looks a little too pumped up. He just gave up a double and quick walk to Victor Martinez. Girardi out calming him down.

UPDATE 7:16: And Joba gets Youkillis out, and Ortiz gets booed. Still getting booed. And they are not stopping. Good job Yankees fans.

UPDATE 7:56: There is non stop screaming going on in my living room after that play. Why on earth would Posada not slide on that play? I tmakes zero sense. Posada just cost the Yanks to strike the first blow in the game. I am still baffled on why he did not slide. Martinez was standing up for Christ's sake. Very frustrating.

UPDATE 8:00: Well that sucks. Pedroia just hit a Yankee Stadium home run after throwingout Posada last inning and it's 1-0 Red Sox. Thanks alot Posada.

UPDATE 8:16: Johnny Damon ties it up in almost the same spot Pedroia hit his home run. Tied at 1-1 in the third.

UPDATE 8:21: Four hard hit balls that inning and only one run. That could be a sign the Yankees offense is about to erupt.

UPDATE 8:26: Think there's no problem with Yankee Stadium and home runs? Just watch this game. All three would have been outs anywhere else. 3-1 Red Sox.

UPDATE 8:38: Posada scored without sliding and Cano got an RBI with a RISP? What is going on this inning? 3-2 Red Sox.

UPDATE 8:43: Melky Cabrera is clutch. And that was no cheapie either, as it goes saling into the second deck. 5-3 Yankees still nobody out in the fourth.

UPDATE 9:03: I was so excited over the Posada 3-run HR I forgot to update it on the blog. Anyway Jorge won't have to worrry about not sliding into home plate as he blew the lid off this game. 9-3 bottom 4. See how Joba responds inthe 5th.

UPDATE 9:17: One out in the fifth. Oh yeah, and Joba walked the bases loaded and now Mike Lowell is up.

UPDATE 9:23: Well that was almost disastrous. Joba strikes his way out of further trouble and it's 9-4 Yanks after 4 and a half innnings. That has to be it for Joba, who labored through 5 innings, but is in line for the wins.

UPDATE 9:59: So Robertson strikes out 3 batters and can't finish the inning. The first strikeout of the inning was a passed ball and Ellsbury reached first so he is safe but it is still recorded as a strikeout.

UPDATE 9:59: Yankees just acquired Chad Gaudin from the Padres. Yeah, I have no idea what to make of it, I guess he's better than Mitre.

UPDATE 10:22: We're bringing in the fresh legs...er... hands to finish the blog for the game, as it's Jim here taking over.

We love giving Michael Kay a hard time sometimes (check that, all the time) but before when they were talking about Posada possibly hitting for the cycle, Kay told a story that was relevant and that he had never told before (at least to my knowledge).

While discussing whether Posada was capable of hitting a triple, Kay mentioned that Posada actually pinch ran in the 1995 playoffs. I never knew that.

UPDATE 10:30: In case anyone was wondering, according to Baseball Almanac, the longest 9 inning baseball game in MLB history took place on August 18 in a game between (guess who) the Yankees and Red Sox. That game lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes.

UPDATE 10:37: So, the plunking of Pedroia adds some intrigue to the rest of this series. And while Pedrioa didn't go try to take out Jeter at second base, he changed his mind at the last possible second. You can tell because that was one of the ugliest slides I've seen in a while.

UPDATE 10:39: Rob Cano doing his best Derek Jeter impersonation right there. Pretty play.

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Johnny B. Goode: Damon and Yanks sweep Jays

Yankees 8 10 0
Rays 4 11 0

WP: Aceves (7-1)
LP:Rzepczynski (1-3)

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Johnny Damon. With a 3-5 night at the plate with 3 RBI's and a home run, he helped spark the line up.

Image via Wikipedia

PLAY OF THE GAME: The catch by Melky Cabrera as he went back to the wall in the 8th inning in support of Phil Hughes.

TURNING POINT OF THE GAME: The 7th inning. The Yankees scored 4 runs to take the lead with a game-tying home run by Swisher and then 3 singles by Matsui, Damon, and Teixeira.

GAME NOTES:

• So now that this series is over, we can turn our full attention to the Red Sox series. Thanks to the Rays, the Yankees will go into that series 2.5 games ahead of the Sox.
• The bullpen situation: Hughes has pitched 2 straight days, but Mo did not pitch today. So Philthy may not be available tomorrow, but Mo can maybe get 4 outs tomorrow.
  
• I have the YES Network Postgame on as I'm writing this, and Bob Lorenz just said something about "doing his 'Sweating to the oldies' tape twice a day now." Is the not-talking-about-baseball thing (AKA the Michael Kay syndrome) contagious?
• PeteAbe says the Yankees told him that Muhammad Ali will be honored before the game tomorrow night. Upon hearing this, John and I set the over/under for Michael Kay boxing references at 7.
• The Yankees are 30-16 since the last time they played the Red Sox, so they are a very different team than they were in mid-June.
  

TOMORROW:
The Empire Strikes Back
Red Sox at Yankees
Smoltz vs Joba

And I am rooting for the Yankees not only because I am a die-hard fan, but because I already have a great headline for it if they do.


SEE YA!

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GAME 107: Yankees at Blue Jays

Lineups, as always, courtesy of PeteAbe

YANKEES (64-42, 1st place AL East)
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez DH
Swisher RF
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Hairston 3B
Molina C

Pitching: RHP Sergio Mitre (1-0, 7.80).

BLUE JAYS (51-55, 4th place AL East)
Scutaro SS
Hill 2B
Lind DH
Overbay 1B
Wells CF
Rios RF
Encarnacion 3B
Barajas C
Inglett LF

Pitching: LHP Mark Rzepczynski (1-2, 3.25).

TIME/TV: 7:07 p.m., YES.

Don't get caught looking ahead: The Yankees begin a four-game series tomorrow against the Red Sox, but they need to win this game first. And Mitre throwing some decent innings tonight to save the bullpen certainly wouldn't hurt for the upcoming series.

Divide and conquer: The Yanks are 21-18 against teams in the division, including 6-2 against Toronto.

One more to decide it all: The Yankees are 4-4 on the current road trip, so tonight's game will decide if they go home up one, or down one on the trip.

UPDATE 7:30: Mitre didn't help the cause there, with 2 runs on four hits. Hopefully he can settle down and give the Yankees some innings.

UPDATE 8:02: So the Yankees got the 2 runs back, Mitre just needs to make sure he doesn't keep putting the team in a hole.

UPDATE 8:45: I have to ask: Why Aceves? His shoulder has been bothering him, and they brought Anthony Claggett up just for tonight's game, and I assume it wasn't to just eat sunflower seeds in the bullpen.

UPDATE 9:05: Looks like the Yanks have locked in on how to hit this guy, and so he's gone.

UPDATE 9:58: That was a nice play by Melky starting off the inning. Let's hope Hughes can get out of this inning pretty quickly.

UPDATE 10:12: Robertson in to get the last 3 outs. Rays up 6-4 over the BoSox with JP Howell in for Tampa Bay.

UPDATE 10:17: The Rays held on to win, 6-4. The Yanks can go up 2.5 games on the Sox with a win here.

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Yankees 5- Blue Jays 3

Yankees 5 10 0
Blue Jays 3 9 1

WP: Pettitte (11-6)
LP: Halladay (11-5)
S: Rivera (31)

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Mark Teixeira. Big Tex went 2-4 with a home run and an RBI. His home run in the 8th off of Doc Halladay was big as Hughes struggled a little bit in relief.

PLAY OF THE GAME: Melky Cabrera's nice catch going back towards the wall. (In the interest of full disclosure, I missed the game because of work, and just stole that award from the YES postgame show.

TURNING POINT OF THE GAME: Johnny Damon and Teixeira going back-to-back, belly-to-belly in the 8th inning off of Halladay.

GAME NOTES:

• This was Pettitte's first win since July 1. He had been struggling and suffered from a little bit of bad luck. But in his post-game interview, Posada said that Andy's cutter was working well tonight, and that's always a good thing.
• The Yankees finally figured out how to hit Halladay. In their last two games against the Cy Young award winner, the Bronx Bombers have scored 10 runs on 19 hits. That information from PeteAbe.
• Good news on the health front, as Ian Kennedy threw 25 pitches from a half-mound a little over 2 months after having an aneurysm removed from his right arm on May 12.
  
• The stats for the 2-5 hitters in the Yanks lineup: 7 hits, 5 runs, 4 RBI's. That's pretty good.
• Remember people, no matter how bad it gets, just remember: We could be Mets fans.
• Great game going on between the Red Sox and Rays. I'll be watching that closely.
  

TOMORROW:
Yankees at Rays, 7:07 PM at the SkyDome (same situation as Comiskey Park)
Mitre vs. Rzepczynski (thankfully, this blog has no audio portion, because I would have no idea how to pronounce that)

SEE YA!

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GAME 106: Yankees at Blue Jays

Lineups and Notes via PeteAbe and BaseballReference
YANKEES (63-42, First Place AL East)
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Posada C
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Hinske RF
Pitching: LHP Andy Pettitte (8-6, 4.51).

BLUE JAYS (51-54, Fourth Place AL East)
Scutaro SS
Hill 2B
Lind DH
Millar 1B
Wells CF
Rios RF
Encarnacion 3B
Barajas C
Bautista LF
Pitching: RHP Roy Halladay (11-4, 2.68).

Roy is Still in Town: After not being dealt at the trade deadline, Roy Halladay remains a Blue Jay and in the AL East. He has a 16-5 lifetime record against the Yankees with a 2.90 ERA and takes the mound tonight at the Skydome/RogersCentre or whatever the hell it is called now. He is also 8-0 with a 2.10 ERA in his last 10 starts against the Yankees, however, last time the Yankees were victorious on the 4th of July as the Yankees scored 5 runs on 9 hits in 7 innings, leaving Roy Halladay with a no-decision.
No Support for Andy: The Yankees could not ask more out of Andy Pettitte since the All-Star break. He has a 2.70 ERA since the break, however his record is 0-1 due to lack of run support. Pettitte has given up 6 earned runs in his last 3 starts while Yankee hitters only scored 3 runs with Pettitte in the game (8 total).
Beyond the Cycle: Hitting for the cycle Sunday is just a glimpse of how Mellky Cabrera has been playing lately. He is 15 of his last 35 with 5 RBI and 10 extra base hits.
Ha!: A-Rod is hitting .303 with 31 homers in his career at the SkyRogersDomeCenter.

UPDATE 7:13: After striking out Jeter and Tex, A-Rod drives in Damon who scores from first base. It looked like Damon got a lucky hit to even get on base so that is huge. Plus any scoring off Halladay is big.

UPDATE 7:16: Five years later A-Rod is still knocking balls out of peoples gloves. At least this time it was with his feet so he could get away with it and it's 2-0 Yankees. All sorts of sloppy play in that at-bat.

UPDATE 8:11: Pettite's lost the strike zone now. Back to back walks and now 2-0 to Rios with 1 out and the bases loaded in teh 4th.

UPDATE 8:14: Pettitte escapes with minimal damage. A sac fly and groundout keeps the Yankees the lead at 2-1.

UPDATE 8:31: Roy Halladay is cruising right now. He's retired 10 straight batters. As for Pettitte, he's hanging in there, but it's safe to say the two pitchers are heading in different directions at this point in the game, which is not good news for the Yankees.

UPDATE 8:52: Hughes coming in with 2 on and 2 out. Pettitte pitched very well today with Halladay being the opposing pitcher. Andy had 7 strikeouts and gave up 1 run on 4 hits. He did have a little bit of luck though, as a lot of hard hit balls were right at the fielders.

UPDATE 8:58: That was HUGHE! Ok, I know, stupid pun. But still, Yanks needed that.

UPDATE 9:03: Damon's success off Halladay continues and as I type Mark Teixeira wants to get in on the action and hits a monster shot off Halladay and that is back-to-back home runs for Tex and Damon and it is 4-1 Yankees.

UPDATE 9:19: Mo coming in to get a 4 out save. Hughes threw alot of pitches to Millah before striking him out. Two on two out for Mo. As for me, after this inning I'm off to see the movie Funny People, so there will be a recap after 10 when Jim is back.

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Michael Kayisms: Tying a Record Held By Many

It's an off day today in Yankeeland, so you know what that means...Michael Kayism day! Today, we will talk about how pointless it is to say a player has tied a record held by many.



For those unfamiliar (but if you watch enough Yankee games, you are) whenever a player records all three outs in one inning it prompts Michael Kay to say "and he ties a record held by many."



For example, the first out of the inning will be a groundout to Mark Teixeira. The second out is popped up to Teixeira. The third out is another grounder to Teixeira. As Teixeira records the final out Kay will say something along the lines of this: "Pretty play by Teixeira as he makes all three put outs in the inning, tying a record held by many."



Ok, so if it is a record held by many, why even bother saying it in the first place? If it is something many players before him have accomplished, why make it noteworthy? I mean, he could say he made all three put outs, but why say he ties a record held by many? And why stop there when there are plentY of other plays in a game that have happened before. He can easily say someone tied a record held by many in any other circumstance in a game (not that I condone he should).



Say A.J. Burnett strikes out the side. Kay doesn't say, "Burnett strikes out thre batters in one inning, tying a record held by many." Or if Jeter and Damon lead off the game with back-t0-back doubles he won't say, "Back-to-back doubles by the first two batters in the game, tying a record held by many."



Basically what I am trying to say is that you cannot say he ties a record held by many because if it has happened so many times, it really isn't a record. Technically, the amount of times someone has made three putouts in an inning would be the record, but nobody keeps track of this, because it is a common occurence. Baseball has been played for over 120 years and the same player making all three putouts in an inning has probably happened thousands of times.



I know when dealing with Kayisms it could get a bit confusing, but if you didn't understand some of the above just read this. It pretty much explains much of what I tried saying. Just remember, today we tied a record held by many trying to make sense (that's another one, make sense of things) of Michael Kay. See how stupid and pointless it was to say that?

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Got Melky?

Yankees 8 15 0
White Sox 5 11 0

WP: Sabathia (11-7)
LP: Buehrle (11-5)
S: Rivera (30)

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Melky Cabrera. He picked up the first cycle for the New York Yankees since Tony Fernandez in 1995. So Michael Kay will mention Melky whenever someone comes close to hitting for the cycle, instead of Fernandez.

Image by Keith Allison via Flickr

PLAY OF THE GAME: There were a lot of great defensive plays in today's game, but I'll give it to Melky's diving catch.

TURNING POINT OF THE GAME: We can't give everything to the Melk Man, as the TPOTG goes to Johnny Damon's RBI single in the 4th inning that gave the Yankees the lead.

GAME NOTES:

• Cabrera is the 5th Major Leaguer this season to hit for the cycle and the first since Michael Cuddyer on May 22. And I was surprised by how quickly someone put up the fact that Melky had hit for the cycle on Wikipedia.
  
• This win helps the Yanks avoid the sweep and halt a three-game skid.
  
• Boston won a slugfest against the Orioles, so the Yankees remain 0.5 games ahead of them with only 4 days before the start of a 3-game set in the Bronx. Tampa Bay fell to the Royals, as they fall 6 games out of first.
  
• Derek Jeter tied Babe Ruth for the 4th-most games played as a Yankee with 2,084. Yogi Berra (2,116), Lou Gehrig (2,164) and Mickey Mantle (2,401) are ahead of him on the list.
  

TOMORROW:
Off-Day
Stay Tuned for a Michael Kayism

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Game 105: Yankees at White Sox

YANKEES (62-42)
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez DH
Swisher RF
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Hairston 3B
Molina C

Pitching: LHP CC Sabathia (10-7, 3.83).

WHITE SOX (54-51)
Podesdnik CF
Beckham 3B
Dye RF
Thome DH
Konerko 1B
Quentin LF
Getz 2B
Nix SS
Castro C

Pitching: LHP Mark Buehrle (11-4, 3.45).

TIME/TV: 2:05 p.m., YES.

Are we home yet?: After a 9-1 homestand, the Yankees are 2-4 on this road trip, that continues Tuesday in Toronto.

He's due for a bad game, right?: Buehrle retired 45 straight batters over his last two starts, one of which was a perfect game. So let's hope the Yankees can get something going against him as the lefty is 1-5, 6.11 against the Yankees, 0-4, 6.91 at Comiskey Park.

Sabathia the Stopper: When you're the ace of the staff, as CC is, it's your job to put an end to long losing streaks. Let's see if he earns his paycheck.

UPDATE 2:12: Jerry Harriston makes a very nice play as the first ball is hit to him in his first game. That always seems to happen in baseball.

UPDATE 2:18: Nice play by the Melk Man, I guess the Yankees decided they are actually going to look sharp today.

UPDATE 2:35: There's a lot of nice defense going on in this game. The Yanks can't be satisfied with this lead, they need to tack on.

UPDATE 3:00: Well, CC just handed that 3-run lead right back to the White Sox.
And as I wrote that, the South siders take the lead.

UPDATE 3:05: Did Johnny Damon just throw someone out or am I seeing things?

UPDATE 3:12: So much for that pitching duel everyone was expecting.

UPDATE 3:30: The Yanks did get to Buehrle, as he is already out of the game. They need to keep pouring on runs here, because it's going to be a battle of the bullpens.

UPDATE 4:00: How do you let a pitcher off the hook, when he walks the bases loaded by not scoring a run?

UPDATE 4:41: Big at-bat here for Hughes with the tying run at the plate.

UPDATE 4:55: Melky Cabrera hits for the cycle. I doubt he has ever run that fast in his life.

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GAME 104: Yankees at White Sox

YANKEES (62-41, First Place AL East)
Jeter SS
Swisher RF
Teixeira DH
Rodriguez 3B
Posada C
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Hairston LF
Ransom 1B
Pitching: RHP A.J. Burnett (10-4, 3.53).

WHITE SOX (53-51, Second Place AL Central)
Lineup TBA
Pitching: LHP John Danks (8-7, 3.89).

TIME/TV: 4:05, FOX.

Lead Shrinking: Don't look now, but the Yankees are only 1.5 games up on the Red Sox and have lost 3 of their last 4. Time to start winning again, to stay in first by the time they come into town.
New Guy In Town: Jerry Hairston Jr. is in the lineup today. Shelley Duncan was optioned back to AAA, so he got called up to sit the bench one night.
We Got Our Hot Pitcher Going Today: A.J. Burnett has been on a roll of late. He is 8-2, with a 2.08 ERA in his last 11 starts.
Home Run Hinkse: Eric Hinske has 5 home runs in 21 at-bats since becoming a Yankees.

Don't expect updates today. We're both going to be out and busy for the afternoon/evening.

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