5 Straight And Feelin' Great, Yanks Roll Pods 8-0

4 games into interleague play. 4 wins. I said before this 15 game stretch againzt the NL started that this was the time for the Yanks to make a move. They've got 15 games against teams with losing records. Winning the first 4 is a great way to start. They whomped the Padres tonight. 8-zip. The pitching staff has thrown 2 straight shutouts. The Yankees have won 5 straight. Things are looking good. Real good. If only we had the Wanger.

Andy Pettitte was sharp again tonight. He's thrown 2 greats games back-to-back. Andy has always been a strong second half pitcher. It looks like he's getting a head start. In his last 2 outings Andy's thrown 15 innings, allowing 10 hits, 2 walks, has struck out 15, and allowed 1 earned run. That's pretty darn good. Andy started this 5 game winning streak. The Yankee pitching staff has allowed 6 runs in those 5 games, 4 coming in 1 game. The pitching staff is hot. The offense is hot. It's time to rock.

The boys broke out the lumber tonight. A-Rod went deep for the 3rd straight game. He's locked in with 8 multi-hit games in his last 11, going 18 for 39 (.462) in that stretch. He now leads the team with an average of .328. The Yanks now have 4 guys hitting in the 320s. Damon at .327. A-Rod at .328. Matsui at .321. Posada at .326. And then there's the mustachioed Jason Giambi. He'd likely be hitting over .300 if he didn't start out so poorly. He was hitting .191 on May 18th. Here we are a month later and he's tipping the scales at .268. Unreal. In that span of 24 games, the Big G is hitting .375 (30 for 800 with 9 HRs and 19 RBI. 2 bombs tonight. Oh yeah, he's back and he's here to stay. Don't ever shave dude. Don't ever shave.

The bullpen has been kicking it up a notch also. In the last 7 games, the pen has thrown a combined 19 innings, giving up only 2 runs on only 9 hits, and striking out 20 in the process. If only they could keep the walks down. They issued 11 free passes in that stretch. Mo was on today whiffing the side. Man he looks good. What's new right? He is after all the best there's ever been.

A 5 game winning streak. Winners in 6 of the last 7. 4 back in the loss column. Again though, it's all overshadowed by the loss of Chien-Ming Wang. Losing Wang until September is going to hurt. That's a long time to go without one of the best in the game. It's hard to make up for that. It sounds like Cashman is going to stand pat for the time being. At first, I didn't see how he could, but it makes sense. The Yanks are only going to need a 5th starter 4 times between now and July 24th (thanks Pete!). They can weather much of the stretch with Moose, Pettitte, Joba and Rasner. Speaking of Joba, how lucky are we that he's now in the rotation? That worked out well. Phew. If Cashman were to do something now, he'd be bent over and done like an inmate in Oz. The price goes down the longer he waits. It happened 2 years ago with Bobby Abreu/Cory Lidle. It'll happen this year too. They can weather this storm. They're firing on all cylinders right now. You can never count this team out.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie