Can the Yanks keep this heet rolling?

The Yankees have a 4 game winning streak and they are pretty hot right now. With Brett Gardner's inside the park home run, Jeter's solo home run, Mark Teixeira's 3 run home run, and A-Rod's walk off home run the Yankees have a lot to work with and it would be nice to see them lengthen their winning streak from 4 to maybe the double digits. With Brian Bruney Returning and Jorge Posada not long after that the Yankees have a pretty solid team.

What A Way To Come Back for Arod as the Yankees win 4-0

Derek Jeter started off the game with a ground out to the pitcher, Guthrie, that was followed by a pair of walks to Damon and Teixeira, then the first pitch of the season for Arod and Bam, a three run home run by Arod off the first pitch and swing in his first at bat of his first game of the season after beeing sidelined after leg surgery.

What a way to come back, and take the talk away from steroids, which was already quiter because of Manny Ramirez, and his failed drug tests that lead to steroids.

Arod stole the headlines from C.C. Sabathia who threw a complete game 4 hit shutout, C.C. showed everyone why he got the big contract over the off-season, while throwing 8 strikeouts and only 1 walk. The lossing streak is over at 5. Lets see if the Yanks can now start a winning one.

Breaking News Arod is Coming Back Tomorrow

Arod is finally coming back from hip surgery, he will play in tomorrow night's game against the Orioles. He is coming back at a time where the Yanks need him most. They are coming off a 4 game losing streak, where they failed to score more than 4 runs in a single game.
Cody Ransom did a bad job filling in for him, although Ransom's replacement Ramiro Pena did played very well for a few games.
Anyway it's about time, hopefully his bat will do wonders for the lineup, and for the team.

Two hits won't cut it for Mark Teixeira

Mark Teixeira is known for his sub par Aprils, and this year's was as bad as any. This streak of unacceptable hitting has lingered over into the beginning of May, but we are seeing some good signs.
Of late he has been swinging the bat better, putting the ball all over the park and placing it just where it needs to be instead of just airing it out to the center fielder.
Yesterday we saw Tex get two hits, only his fifth multi hit game, including two in the last three games. He displayed his clutch ability with his eighth inning bases clearing 3 RBI double tying the game.
Although Mark Teixeira was able to save the game in the eighth he was not able to continue his clutch hitting to continue the game. He flied out short right field destroying a sac fly opportunity to tie the game by hitting the 2nd out. The score then remained the same the Yankees lost 3-4 to the TB Rays. All Yankee fans will continue to watch attentively as we wait for Tex's bat to wake up.

Whats wrong with the bullpen

It's 27 games into the season and the Yankees are 13-14, what is going on?

Well, a number of things have gone wrong, like Chien- Ming Wang and his 34.5 ERA or Mark Teixeira, and his .209 batting average, or all the injuries that happened this year.

But right now lets look at the problems in the bullpen

The bullpen has already netted 5 losses and has blown 4 saves, allowing a total of 84 runs over 89 innings this multiplies out to an ERA of 7.93, that is dismal no matter what stadium you play in, even if there is a "wind tunnel going to right field".

The first problem in the bullpen is the injury to the eight inning set up guy Brian Bruney, this leaving a huge hole in the bullpen, in the eight inning spot. Before being put on the DL, Bruney pitched 8 innings allowing only 3 runs on 3 hits and 2walks, while throwing 12 strikeouts.

Secondly, three of the pitchers who were supposed to carry most of the bullpen responsibilities, Damaso Marte, Jose Veras, have a combined 8.35 ERA. The lefty Damaso Marte who was brought in via trade last year has a 15.19 ERA. Jose Veras who pitched very well last year has a 7.62 ERA. And Jonathon Albaladejo who is also struggling has a 6.43 ERA.

Thirdly there have been a lot of errors, and unearned runs so far. There have been 16 errors and 14 unearned runs thus far. This means that when someone committed an error, the pitchers have not stepped up their games, and picked up their teammates.

Solutions

There are a few ways to fix the bullpen, firstly Brian Bruney will come back, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Another Solution is to put Joba in the bullpen, this will weaken their rotation, but it could be a necessary measure if the bullpen doesn't improve.
Joe Girardi could give young players like Alfredo Aceves a chance.
Or the Yankees could make a trade, but that would happen as the trade deadline nears.

Good game for Pettitte and the Yanks

Andy Pettitte pitched 7 innings allowing 2 runs on 9 hits getting no K's but allowing no BB's, as the yankees went on to win 5-3.

The yankees scored 4 runs in the second inning starting off with a leadoff walk by Nick Swisher, and a double by Matsui, followed by a Ransom fly out to the Right fielder, Gardner then hits a 2 rbi single and then Jeter matches minus the rbi's. Damon hits a line drive to the left field and got caught going for 2, netting a rbi single. Tex finished off the scoring with a rbi single.

A 2 run 4th by the A's brought them to withn 2 but they would not come closer than that, because Johny Damon hit a solo Homer in the 6th.

Brian Bruney allowed 1 run in the 8th but Mo got the job done in the 9th and got his 4th save of the season.

Notes

Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera tied for the MLB record of win save combinations with 57

Pettitte the ace?

After seeing Pettitte have a great game against the Mets, and have much success in the past few weeks, many are saying that Pettitte is the ace of the staff. I for one think that Pettitte is not the ace of the Staff. The staff is a fairly good squad, with potential to be great, with Wang. But if Ponson plays well like he did in the Mets game on Friday, he can fill in the whole that Wang, the real ace of the staff left when he got hurt.
So who is the ace of the staff if it is not Pettitte? It is not Mussina either, or Chamberlain yet. It is not Rasner either, or Ponson. Then who is it? The answer is it could be anyone. One any particular night the pitcher could look like the ace.
We have seen Pettitte do what he did yesterday but he also got lit up for 10 runs in Kansas City.
We have seen Rasner pitch some fantastic games, and then he messes up and lets up six or seven runs, in less than five innings.
We have seen Mussina go eight innings of one or 2 run baseball, but we all know what happened last year, when he was not even in the rotation.
We have seen Ponson do what he did on friday, but we also saw what happened in 3 years ago.
And Joba just doesn't have the experience to be called the ace yet.
Everyone can step up and pitch a great game, but it is the constistency that makes players great, if a pitcher throws great great games consistently then he will be considrered the ace.

Yanks win 10-0 as joba gets his first win as a starter

The yanks come back and win after a dismal performance by the whole team tuesday. Joba threw 114 pitches, and went 6 2/3 of shutout baseball, with a lively offense to help him. With 10 runs off 16 hits, including homers by abreu, and cano, and a 2 doubles by jeter in a 3 for 3 night. Cano also went 3-5 yesterday raising his average to .241 after a terrible start to the season.
The scorring started with the bases loaded and 1 out with giambi at the plate, a groundball that seemed to be a double play but on the throw by wilson the pitcher duke who was covering first missed the ball 2 runs scorred, leading to the yankees win.

Who is Justin Christian

As some of you who were watching yesterdays game may have seen, there was a new face in the outfield. It was Justin Christian, the 28 year old who was called up before yesterdays game, while Traber was sent down.
Christian was imidiately propelled into the left field spot due to some minor injuries to Damon and Matsui. He had a ruff first few inning with an error and an out in his first at bat, but he recovered nicely with a single and then a 2 rbi double.
Christian was in AAA Scranton batting .309 with 18 steals, along with 4 homers, and 39 rbi's in 55 games.
Christian was playing independant league ball, until 2004 after going undrafted. Then he played in the Yankees minor league gulf coast team, and worked his way up the system untill he reached his goal of the majors.

Yankees visit to Pittsburg; starts off with a crash and burn, but rookie leaves his mark

The Bronx bombers weren't bombing . . . as Ras fell apart letting up 7 runs in five innings followed by Latroy Hawkens letting up five runs in the seventh and eighth but Edwar got charged for one of them. the week and a half streak of sure fire pitching has come to an abrupt stop, letting up 19 hits and 12 runs. On the other end of the ball Rasner was a walk machine. he had his two first major league at bats and drew two walks, without even swinging the bat. As far as the bats were concerned, Cano hit an RBI single trying to raise his average that has been stuck in the disappointing .220 range which he has been stuck at for the better part of this season, leaving him a boat load of work to do if he is going to return to his usual season average of .300, and ROOKIE JUSTIN CHRISTIAN went 2-4 in his major league debut with an RBI single and a 2RBI double, giving him a not too shabby average of 500 and a collection of 2 RBIs in his first MLB game. The Yanks entered the ninth with a score of 3-12 in the pirates favor, and Yankee fans everywhere were teased by Bobby abreu' s 2 out 2 run homer to decrease the defacet to seven, but A-rod ended the game and his ten game hitting streak by grounding out a few times.

Yankees vs Pirates 6/24/08

Yanks 41-35 vs. Pirates 36-40
7:05 Ch9
Pitching
Yanks Rasner 4-4 3.64
Pirates Gorzelanny 5-6 6.59

Preview
As Interleague continues the Yanks will play the Pirates and will look to get a win to improve to 7 over .500 their high for the season so far.The Yanks won seven in in a row then went 1-2 against the Reds. This is an important game against Gorzelanny who has been fairly bad for the Pirates so far.
Rasner although only 4-4 has pitched magnificently so for the Yanks, being let down by the offense a few times. He ERA is a good 3.64, only allowing 20 runs in the 8 games that he has pitched after being called up.
The offense needs to wake up once again after netting only 8 runs in their last four games, and give Rasner some run support which he has rarely gotten so far.