9th Inning Rally Falls Short, Yanks Lose 6-5

Shelley. Shelley. Shelley. I thought he tied the game up there for a split second but the ball hung up there longer than I thought it would. Crap. Props to Jim Leyland for issuing the intentional walk to Matsui. That call won the game. Brilliant. It's too bad they had no one else to go to. Shelley isn't exactly what I would call an offensive threat.

Did anybody really think that Kei Igawa was going to pitch well? He's turning out to be a huge bust. I know the plan is to have Igawa throw again on Wednesday but come on, they can't trot him out there again can they? God I hope not. With Kennedy at least I feel like there's a fighting chance. The Tigers hit Igawa hard and often. 11 hits to 20 batters. Not a good ratio. Not even an average ratio. Not even a poor ratio. What's worse than poor? Whatever it is, that pretty much sums up Igawa. Send him back to Scranton on a 1 way ticket.

The Yankee bullpen looked good tonight. Jonathan Albaladejo, LaTroy Hawkins and Edwar Ramirez combined for 5 shutout innings. They kept the Yanks in the ball game and gave the offense the opportunity to get the team back in the game. It's too bad that they waited until the 9th to try and claw they're way back in.

It wasn't a bad night at the plate. They had their chances but in typical Yankee fashion they couldn't get it done. They had 2 on with 1 out in the 3rd....nothing. They had 2 on and 1 out in the 5th....nothing. Two on in the 6th....nothing. Tying run at 2nd, go ahead run at 1st in the 9th and Duncan flies out to CF. The bottom of the order had a pretty good night. Multi-hit games from Betemit, Giambi and Cano. Giambi and Cano's averages are on the rise. The Yankees need that. If this team is going to get out of the lose 2, win 2, lose 3, win 3 funk that they're in, they're going to need consistent production from Robbie and Jason, especially with Jorge and A-Rod on the shelf.

I really don't like Wilson Betemit. Get well soon Alex.

My buddy and I are making the trip to Detroit (from Buffalo) for tomorrow's game. It'll be my first live game this season. I've been looking forward to it for a month now. I'm about .500 at Yankee games attended in person. One of the losses was game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. That still stings. I'm hoping to bring back a Yankee win. The post for tomorrow's game will likely be combined with Sunday's post. I've got to get up and leave at about 5am and I'll probably get back around 1-2am, and with Sunday being Mother's Day, I probably won't get to blog until after the game on Sunday. Enjoy the game and I might as well say this now for Sunday....Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Enjoy your day.

Peace, Love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie