Yankees Back In 1st Place As A-Rod Saves The Day

Talk about snatching a win from the jaws of defeat. Down to their final strike. A questionable non-3rd strike call. Boom! 3-Run HR by Alex Rodriguez. Mariano for the save. Game over. Yankees win. Rays lose. Yankees are back in first place.

Son of a B. Bob Lorenz just opened the postgame show with my opening "snatching from the jaws of defeat line." Now everyone is going to think I bit that. Thanks Bob. Make me look more unoriginal.

The biggest moment of the night for me was Jorge's AB to lead off the 9th inning. Talk about money. That was clutch. Next biggest moment came moments later when A-Rod took what could have been the game-ending strike 3. I loved when YES dropped a slo-mo on the grin he had on his face after the pitch. I saw that and had a feeling that something good was coming. It didn't take long for that good thing to come. Next pitch, ball going, ball gone. It's A-Rod's world tonight. Thanks for letting me live in it.

I had this tweet typed on my phone during A-Rod's AB: Tonight's postgame show should just be Bob Lorenz saying, "The Yankees suck and goodnight." Roll credits. That came from Michael Kay telling me to tune into the postgame show to hear Bob run the game down. I thought for sure the Yankees were losing tonight. They've been scuffling lately and I didn't see Alex coming through. Lesson learned. Never count these guys out. This is a huge win for the Yankees. It better turn things around.

I thought Burnett pitched pretty well tonight. He looked good. Not physically though. What's up with the shiner? I missed it if they talked about but it looked like he got popped pretty good. Anybody know how it happened? Anyway, it was a pretty good outing for Burnett. By my count that's 4 somewhat decent ones in a row. I'm really hoping he's turned the corner. They're going to need him to pitch well down the stretch and in October. Maybe the possible ass-kicking he got did him some good.

Perfect night for the Yankees. A clutch come from behind win and both the Rays and Red Sox lost. The Yankees are back in first place and are 2 steps closer to clinching a playoff spot. The magic # to clinch a spot is now 9. The Yankees are also set up to keep the good times rolling over these next 2 days. The big man, aka CC Sabathia, goes tomorrow. You can't argue that CC has been awesome for quite sometime. Hopefully he picks up win #20. Sunday marks the return of Andy Pettitte. It'll be good to see him back on the mound in a Yankee uniform. He's been very reliable and very good this year and his return is just what this team needs right now. Looking forward to seeing his return.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie