Moose Helps Salvage A Split

In his first start, Mike Mussina performed better than expected. Of course, I set the bar extraordinarily low going in, so that's not saying much. Tonight, Moose pitched well according to anyone's standards. He led the Yanks to a 6-1 win and pushed their record over .500. Bobby Abreu provided all the needed offense with his first bomb of the year in the first inning, then added a triple, single and walk to his tally.

The six runs were the highest total of the season for the Yanks, and even LaTroy Hawkins' shoddy work out of the pen couldn't spoil the night.

It would be nice to see the Yanks putting double digits on the board against the horrible pitching they've been facing, but hitting is not a cause for concern with this team. The bats will wake up, they'll score a ton of runs. The thing we needed to worry about coming into the season was the pitching.  So far, they've only had one truly awful start (from Ian Kennedy) and only one disappointment out of the pen, LaTrine. Mussina, Traber and Bruney have all been pleasant surprises. Wang has lived up to the hype, Hughes as well.

It's easy to get worried when the Yanks leave a small village on the base paths. It's a knee-jerk reaction to panic when they can't seem to buy a clutch hit, but if the Yanks were sitting at 4-3 having won 4 games 12-10 I'd be much more frightened about the rest of the season. What we've seen so far is an encouraging start.

Now, if Jeter's quad injury turns into something lingering we're going to have to reassess, but I don't think that's going to happen. Worst-case seems to be a couple of games of Betemit at short. If Jeter heads to the DL I'd expect to see Alberto Gonzalez called up to hold down the fort until he the Captain gets back.

Player of The Game: Mike Mussina
Team Record: 4-3
Damon's Broken Bats: 0 today (7 in 7 games on the season)