Yankees Take Game 5 To Stay Alive, ALCS Heads Back To Texas

If you're a Yankee fan, or a Yankee for the matter, you have to be relieved that the Yankees won today and will live to fight another day. Elimination games are always tough and extremely tense. I wonder who it's more tense for, the players or the fans? I, for one, was extremely nervous even though I was confident that they'd pull out the W. I think it was more tense than normal because I didn't get to see much of it on TV. I caught most of it on the radio and some of it on the MLB app on my phone. I've got to say there is nothing as nerve-racking as following along with MLB gameday. But more on that later.

Big up to CC Sabathia for battling his way through that start. It could have been an ugly game. It's not often you see a pitcher give up 11 hits and only 2 runs. CC made the pitches that he needed to when he needed to. He didn't issue any walks and he got some big DPs. That combination will definitely neutralize a lot of baserunners. It definitely wasn't his sharpest outing but it got the job done. I hope his next start is better than this one. Yeah, I'm confident we'll see him get the ball again. But more on that later.

The Yankees offense wasn't anything to brag about today. They weren't bad. They were definitely better than they've been recently. But it still felt off. But only a little. When they hit the ball they hit it well, racking up 9 hits, 6 of which went for extra bases. But they were 2-11 with RISP. They're not getting the big hits. I'm hoping today is a building block for game 6. Bottom line for me is they need to improve. Great job by Granderson. Ever since he worked with Kevin Long he's been doing fairly decent against the LHPs. The Yankees MVP of this series has to be Robbie Cano. If they pull this off he's a shoe-in for MVP. I'm liking him in the 3-hole too.

Great job by Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera. I turned the game on just in time to see Wood pick off Elvis Andrus. That made me very happy to see. I don't know what it is about Andrus but he's quickly becoming my least favorite player in MLB. I think it's because I find the whole "antler" thing to be beyond stupid. Just looking at him kind of annoys me. I took great pleasure in seeing Yankee fans mocking the antlers when TBS went to commercial after that pickoff. So glad I caught that. Who knew Kerry Wood was so adept at picking off runners?

So the series is headed back to Texas and the Yankees have another must-win game staring them in the face. As I wrote yesterday they need to worry about game 6 and only game 6. Phil Hughes gets the start and I feel pretty about it. I wrote before the series started that I thought the Yankees had the advantage in the games Hughes started against Colby Lewis. Despite Phil's terrible game 2 start I still think the matchup favors the Yankees. Hughes is better than that and I think he's going to pitch with a lot of confidence in game 6. The real worry is will the Yankee bats be able to hit Lewis? They should be able to and I think they will. Can't wait until Friday.

When I got home from work today my wife immediately sent back out to go pick up some prescriptions for our 2 sick boys. I could listen to the radio on the way there but inside the store I was relying on MLB's app to keep me informed. I had the "gamecast" on while I was filling the order and "saw" Sabathia whiff Vlad Guerrerro. I then took a seat and while I waited I turned on the WCBS feed to listen to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. I turned it on and was greeted with 3 straight singles. Being the superstitious guy that I am I turned off the audio and went back to the gamecast. Bases loaded and 1 out and I'm following along on gamecast. That was incredibly tense. First of all, when you don't have picture or sound and you're not getting updates you have no idea what's happening. You wait anxiously for it to tell you the result of the pitch. So with bases loaded and 1 out I get this, "in play, run(s)." So now I'm anxiously awaiting the update to tell me what happened. I'm having thoughts like, "please don't be a grand slam," "aw man here it comes," and other thoughts of that nature. So I wait, and wait, and wait. Give me the update already. What's going on? Tell me!! Ground out, run scores. Phew. Incredibly tense. Thankfully, they filled the order right after that and I got out of there and back to the car. I don't think I could have taken much more of that.

Game 6 is Friday. Let's worry about that and not loom ahead to Cliff Lee. One game at a time. Win and then worry about game 7. Can't wait until Friday.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie