Depressed Fan

It was only Jake Peavy's second start back from the DL, so I'm going to blame his performance tonight on that rather than, you know, not pitching against crippled lineups in the best pitcher's park ever invented. The Yanks sent Peavy to the showers after only 4 innings of work (93 pitches), and scored 4 runs off him on 6 hits and 2 walks (only 3 of the runs were earned, though).

It was after Peavy was lifted that some minor trouble occurred. With the Yanks leading 5-2 in the 7th, Edwar Ramirez gave up two solo shots to pull the Fathers to within a single run. After a couple inning on cruise control, the Yankee offense answered back immediately with 2 runs of their own. The announcers were all over this, the Yanks were challenged and they answered immediately. It seemed almost like they could score at will, whenever they needed to. In the top of the eighth, the Padres added another on a bomb off Farnsworthless. In the bottom of the eighth, the Yanks struck again. This time it was Johnny Damon with a two-out, RBI single up the middle.

This is what great teams do. Good teams win games, they win more than they lose. The great teams answer with their bats when their pitchers give up a run or two late in the game. The great teams can apply pressure whenever they need to. The beauty of this game was the way the Yanks scored their runs. A-Rod had a solo bomb mixed in there, but the other 7 runs came on hits with runners in scoring position. Three of those runs were set up directly by stolen bases. They got on, they stole bases, they delivered the runs. When the Yankee offense is clicking like this, they can, and really should, beat anyone.

The Ras had a nice bounce-back outing on the heels of his disaster in Oakland. He wasn't sharp, but he held the Padres at bay and made it through five innings with the lead for the win. Girardi gave Matsui the day off to rest a barking knee.

Joba will take the hill tomorrow night sans pitch count for the first time. My hope is that losing the pitch count will take a little pressure off him and this will be the best start of his short career. I'd love to see him get the ball directly to Mo with the lead, I think that has to be the goal and he's more than capable of doing it.

Player of The Game: A-Rod, 3/4, 2 RBI, 2 runs, 1 HR, 1 SB
Team Record: 39-33
Damon: Zilch, although he did pick up 3 hits.