A-O Kei

Woo hoo. Yankees win. Thuhhhhh Yankees win. Another nice win for the boys in Pinstripes.
You've got to give it up to Kei Igawa. He was sharp tonight. Two-thirds of his pitches went for strikes and many of them were first pitch strikes. Was it just me, or was he ahead of almost every batter? They showed a stat during the broadcast that Igawa had the 4th lowest percentage of first pitch strikes in baseball. He had to have climbed that ladder tonight as he threw first pitch strikes to 19 of the 25 batters he faced. I thought for sure as soon as they flashed that stat it was downhill from there but there would be no jinx tonight. Igawa was solid and he's now got that first MLB win under his belt. In his last 2 starts, Igawa has a WHIP of .97 and an ERA of 3.24. Not bad for a back of the rotation starter. I said it before the season started: Igawa will win more games than Daisuke Matzusaka this year. Take it to the bank. Congrats Kei.
A-Rod. Do I even need to expand on how awesome he's doing? Yeah, I think I do. His league leading 9th HR. His league leading 23rd RBI. An 18 game hit streak. An extra-base hit in 12 of the 13 games this year. And he's catching pop-ups. Dude is in the zone. My 3 fantasy teams thank you.
The Yankee lineup was awesome again tonight. The 3rd inning needs to serve as a blueprint for how to pummel opposing pitchers. Rack up base hit after base hit, keep the line moving, and plate 5 runs. The lesson here is that you don't always need the longball. Chicks might dig it, but you don't need it to be effective. This is a problem that always seems to plague the Yankees. They often seem to swing for the fences as opposed to going for that timely base hit. All the starters had at least 1 base hit tonight. That was nice to see. Going into the game, lefty bats were 1-for-15 against Jeremy Sowers. The Yankee lefties hit Sowers pretty well going 4-for-6. And our boy Giambi is heating up. He's 8 for his last 21. That game-winner in Oakland is starting to look like his turnaround point.
The Yankee pitching staff isn't messing around. I told you that the rotation wasn't as bad as people think. In the last 7 games, Yankee starters have posted an ERA of 1.89. Impressive, eh? The bullpen was on its game tonight, as expected. 3 innings, 2 walks, no runs. The bullpen's ERA has now dipped to 2.26. The Yanks now have a team ERA of 3.57. I've said it all season: the Yankees have one of the better pitching staffs in the American League. You mix that in with this offense (which after today I think is currently leading the AL in runs scored) and you've got something to worry about if you're the rest of the league. Step back from the ledges people. As previously stated, the Yanks are fine. Everything is A-O-Kei.
Rasner is up next. A 3 game sweep of the Tribe would be nice going into Fenway. If only the game weren't at 1:00. As much as I goof around at work, there's no TV. I'd listen to it on XM, but I've got meetings and conference calls set up from 2-4. I've got the game set up to DVR but watching it on "tape delay" isn't the same. We'll see how the day goes.
Peace, love and Pinstripes. (and congrats to Mark Buehrle on the no-no)
J