Robinson Cano Powers Yankees To 6-2 Win

Thanks to Mike D, I got to see the last 2 innings of tonight's Yankees/Angels game. He tipped me off to a website that was carrying the MLB.TV feed so I tuned in for the last 2 innings. I'm really hoping the website has the future My9 games on its site. I really thought the issue of the My9 games not being on TV here in Buffalo would have resolved itself by now, but no luck. Not for me anyway. DirectTV and TWC customers apparently get the games now. We FIOS customers are still out in the cold. So I didn't see much.

I'm especially ticked because I was really looking forward to seeing Phil Hughes pitch. From the little I gathered about his outing online (people's tweets during game), it wasn't the prettiest of outings. I can kind of tell that by looking at the box score. Phil threw 109 pitches in 5 innings of work. Not very economical. He walked 5 but had a decent strike-to-ball ratio (60.6%). He whiffed 6 so he got a lot of swings and misses. Allowing 3 hits and 2 earned in 5 innings of work isn't all that bad. But it sounds like his overall outing should be met with mixed reviews. I'm assuming there was some good and some bad. If anybody wants to share their opinion I'm all ears. I'm going to bring back a little something-something I did for Mike Mussina during his 20-win season. When Moose picked up the W, I busted out a Moose call, adding an extra "o" for every victory. So after his 20th it looked like "Moooooooooooooooooooose!" I'm going to do the same for Phil and break out with a "Hughes call" with 1 instance of the letter "u" per win. So today it's kind of lame since it's win #1: Hughes! I hope to add at least 19 more of those.

Didn't see any of the runs scored by the Yankees so can't say much about the offense. Robinson Cano is still on fire. He had 2 more pops today and knocked on 3. Just remember when he wins the 2010 AL MVP award that I predicted it before the season started. Can't imagine too many people did that. Here's a fun fact for you: Robbie has as many HRs (4) as David Ortiz has hits. That makes me laugh. Interesting Ortiz story: he's apparently getting sued by Jay-Z. As the story goes, Ortiz opened up a nightclub in the DR called it the "Forty/Forty Club." Jay-Z has a club in NYC called the "40/40 Club." Bam! Lawsuit! The rivalry runs deep.

I see Derek Jeter went deep for his 2nd HR of the season. I checked out the play-by-play and I'm not surprised that it was hit to RF. I don't think anybody in baseball has a sweeter "inside-out" swing than the Captain. It works rather well in the new Stadium.

Big up to Joba and Mo for picking up my fantasy team a hold and a save. Joba scares me a little. He lets too many guys on base (1.69 WHIP). Thank God the greatest closer in the history of baseball is not too far away. I know it's not Joba's fault the game turned into a save situation as DJ probably should have made that play, but still, bring that WHIP down my man.

The win tonight puts the Yanks record at 6-3. They've won each of the first 3 series and when you consider the opponents, it's impressive. The Rangers are up next and they're no slouch either. One could argue that the Red Sox, Rays, Angels, and Rangers are 4 of the best teams in the AL. If the Yankees can take at least 2 of 3 from Texas it should be obvious to everyone, not just us Yankee fans, that the Yankees are the team to beat.

To be the man, you've got to beat the man.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

Beckett = Good, Moose = Bad, Me = Unhappy

I think the only thing that was enjoyable about tonight's Yankees/Sox game was watching David Ortiz go 0-5. Other than that it was a pretty crappy game.

My man Moose did not have anything tonight. He was downright awful. Talk about ineffective. I got a called from my friend Dave during the game. Needless to say he's not a big Moose fan. and right now I can totally understand where he's coming from. I know people are going to be ragging on him and wanting him yanked from the rotation, but that's not the answer. It's a bad outing. It was really no different than Wang's outing the night before. Both were awful. You could even argue that Wang's outing was worse. So before anyone decides to bag on Moose, just remember that he's pitched pretty well so far, today not counting of course. He pitched pretty well last week in Fenway. The only mistake was pitching to arguably the best right-handed hitter in the game. Manny is on the verge of hitting his 500th HR. He's made many good pitcher look bad during his career. Manny absolutely owns Moose. I don't think you can look at this start and assume Moose will continue to pitch this way. With the exception of David Ortiz, the Sox bats are pretty hot right now.

Derek Jeter continues to show what timely hitting is all about. Jeter is absolutely amazing with 2 out and runners in scoring position. He's now 3-6 w/ RISP and 2 outs. As I pointed out yesterday, he hit .418 in 67 ABs with RISP and 2 outs last year. In 2006 he hit .369. If there's a guy you want up with 2 out and runners on, it's Captain Clutch. Right now the opposite of Derek is A-Rod. His foul out to the catcher now makes him 0-7 on the year with RISP and 2 outs. you'd think the reigning MVP would do a little better there. I think Alex's problem is he's looking longball. He needs to shorten up that swing and concentrate on keeping the line moving. Base hits score runs.

As much as I dislike him, you've got to tip your hat to Josh Beckett. He threw a pretty good game. He didn't really give the Yanks much of a chance tonight. When the Yanks got to him in the 5th and I thought maybe they could scratch their way back into the game. Beckett retired every batter he faced from the end of the 5th on. The Yanks just couldn't get it going.

Joe Girardi definitely needs to figure something out with the rotation. The short starts are going to kill the bullpen. They had this problem last year and that didn't work out to well. There's speculation that once the off day comes along that they're going to slide someone in between Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy. I hope they do that because right now they're running the risk of too many short outings in a row. It makes total sense to move Pettitte up a day and have him throw between the 2 youngsters. Pettitte and Wang should be able to throw 6-7 innings per game. A rotation of Wang-Moose-Hughes-Pettitte-Kennedy should give the bullpen the relief it needs, especially if Moose has a decent outing.

So we're done with Boston for a few months. I like the break. These guys play way too often and it takes away from the rivalry in my opinion. I thought they matched up pretty well against the BoSox. The Yankees never play them well in April and going 2-3 against them isn't that bad.

Phil Hughes gets the call tomorrow against Baltimore and he needs to have a good outing. His last 2 outings were horrendous. He definitely needs to put those starts in the past and pitch the way we all know he can. Another short outing isn't going to cut it.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie

And Your Winner By Unanim, What, It's Not Unanimous?

It shouldn't be a shock to anyone that the runaway victor of the AL MVP award was none other than A-Rod. The shocker is though that 2 writers didn't see it the same way as everyone else, casting their first place votes for Magglio Ordonez. I'm sorry but there is no justifiable reason anyone can make for giving the nod to Magglio over Alex. There just isn't. Anyone that watched baseball in 2007 knows this. I'd like to ask why these guys voted for Magglio but I don't have to. both writers are Michigan based. Like last year, when the two Canadian writers voted for Justin Morneau over Derek Jeter, I'm calling shenanigans. It's ridiculous.
The BBWAA is getting almost as bad as the fans when it comes to voting for all-stars. As much as I hate fan voting, it's expected that a fan will be bias. Sports writers should be objective. It's overly obvious that it's not the case. Ridiculous. If only these guys could fix the system. I don't see it happening.
Some odd things jump out at me when I look at the overall results for the vote. How does David Ortiz get a 2nd place vote? Seriously? He wasn't even his team's MVP. How he finished right ahead of Mike Lowell is beyond me? JJ Putz gets the highest nod for all pitchers? Umm, what? Bobby Abreu got a 7th place vote? Odd. Very odd. What crack are you guys smoking?
Congrats to Jorge for finishing 6th and Jeter for finishing 11th.
J-Boog