Freddy Garcia Leads Yankees To 3-1 Victory Over Royals

I really like how the title of this blog sounds when I say it out loud. Say it with me: Freddy Garcia leads Yankees to 3-1 victory. Freddy Garcia leads Yankees. Freddy Garcia. How awesome is that? I love it when one of Brian Cashman's "trash heap rejects" does well. I hope the haters recognize that maybe Brian Cashman knows a thing or two. There is never anything wrong with a low-risk high-reward signing. It's especially nice when it turns out to be a low-risk really high-reward signing like both Garcia and Bartolo Colon has been. Point Cashman. Suck it haters.

Garcia pitched pretty well tonight. The wheels started to fall off their in the 7th but thanks to David Robertson the Yankees made it out of the inning with no damage done. Right now my only concern about Garcia is his stamina and ability to pitch deep into games. He's done alright so far but I'm a little weary about him when it gets into the 7th inning and beyond. It's a small concern though. Can't be too concerned by a guy with a 2.61 ERA. Nicely done Freddy.

Big props to the bullpen for pitching extremely well tonight. David Robertson, as mentioned above, came up big in the 7th when he whiffed Escobar and Getz to get out of a bases-loaded jam. Joba pitched a pretty impressive 9 pitch 8th inning. And Mo as usual was Mo. I didn't get to see any of the postgame so I'm not sure why Rafael Soriano didn't pitch in the 8th, especially after an off-day. I could easily find out why by hopping on Twitter but I'm a little lazy right now. Don't judge me.

Before I move on I wanted to talk about Joba for one quick second. I'm coming around to him again. He's pitching very well right now. Tonight's scoreless appearance makes it 6 straight scoreless appearances in a row. And on 9 pitches to boot. Very impressed. I was just looking at his stats and he's sitting on a 0.88 WHIP. That's pretty damn good. To put that into perspective Mariano's WHIP this season is 0.84. Joba's isn't too shabby. Baseball is a weird game. Joba has a 0.88 WHIP and a 3.18 ERA. D-Rob has a WHIP of 1.50 and an ERA of 1.35. Odd, isn't it? Anyway, Joba is pitching well. I'm pleasantly surprised and I'm becoming a fan again.

The offense was again underwhelming tonight. The bats are just not living up to their potential. Thankfully the pitching is exceeding theirs. Derek Jeter had another multi-hit game and is now sitting on a .283 average. It's now the 2nd highest on the team and he only trails Robbie Cano (.289) by 6 percentage points. What a difference a couple of days make, eh? I'm glad to see the Captain swinging the bat well. You knew he had it in him. It was just a matter of would he find it. He has. Welcome back Derek. We missed you. And oh yeah, suck it haters.

I'm not sure how much of the next few games I'll get to see. I have to travel to Kingston, NY for training and I have no idea if the hotel will have YES. You'd think they would but who knows? I also will have to "play the game" and go out to dinners. I don't really want to but it is what it is. I told my boss to just make sure wherever we go that the Yankees game will be on. I doubt that request will be honored, but we'll see. Hopefully things bounce my way and I'll get to see the games. I know for sure I'll miss some of Friday's Red Sox game as I'll be sitting on a train when it starts. If I had much hair left I'd pull it out. It sucks but what can you do? Seriously, what can I do? I need to figure something out.

Hope you all enjoy the next few days if I happen not to be around. And as always...

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie