Teixeira Propels Yanks To Late 4-2 Win Over Mariners

I took my soon-to-be 2 year old son Cooper to his 1st baseball game last night. We went to see the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs take on the hometown Buffalo Bisons. The game started at 7:45pm which is usually when the little guy goes to bed. I thought maybe he would last an inning as he doesn't have the longest attention span. Surprisingly, he made it through 3 full innings. He didn't really watch the game though. He spent most of the time sitting on the concrete eating popcorn. He was cute nonetheless. By the time we got home and put him in bed it was about 9:45, 2 hours past his normal bed time. He usually wakes up around 6:30am so I figured that this extra 2 hours would afford me the ability to stay up for the entire Yankees/Mariners game and still get a descent night's sleep. Boy was I wrong. 5:45am and there he is calling out "Daddy!" Needless to say, I'm pretty beat. 4.75 hours of sleep will do that to a guy.

Are you like me in thinking that the Yankees are never going to lose again? Good Lord they're on a roll. Even when they play poorly and don't deserve to win they find a way to pull it out. They didn't exactly play poorly last night but they didn't play well either. That game was definitely Seattle's to win. Andy Pettitte struggled right from the onset but managed to stay composed (despite beating up some dugout equipment) and pitched a pretty solid ballgame. Pettitte has pitched pretty well lately. His last 4 starts have been pretty damn good. 26 innings, 20 hits, 7 walks, 28 Ks, 4 ER and a 1.38 ERA. His ERA has dropped after each start. And what's he have to show for it? 1 win and 3 no decisions. Andy has had a pretty solid year. Much better than I thought he'd do.

The Yankees offense was a little lacking yesterday but they were there went it counted. 4 of their 7 hits came in the 9th inning. The big blast came off the bat of Mark Teixeira. Teix led off the 9th inning with his 30th HR and that proved to be the game winner (thanks Mo!). Mark is having an MVP-type of year. He's definitely the MVP of the Yanks and he's definitely going to get some serious consideration from the writers who'll be voting for the AL MVP. I don't know why but I thought Teix was under-performing. For some silly reason I didn't think he was doing as well as he was. I just took a glance at his career averages and he's right on par with them. Mark is a career .289 hitter. He's now hitting .288 this year. His OBP and SLG are also higher than his career averages. I'm a little surprised by that and again, I don't know why. I think It's because I've always thought of Mark as a .300 hitter. Maybe it's because he cracked the 300 mark in both 2007 and in 2008. In the end, it doesn't matter. Bottom line is that he's kicking some tail-feathers. I wouldn't be shocked if he gets even hotter.

Sergio Mitre gets the start tonight in what could be his last start. Mitre scares me. He reminds me a lot of Sidney Ponson. He allows a lot of baserunners but somehow finds a way to keep them from scoring. The problem with that is that it doesn't happen all the time. A lot of times those guys do score. Hence Sergio's 7.04 ERA. When Sergio pitches you can only hope that the offense shows up to bail him out. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Add my kid sleeping late tomorrow to that. I could use a solid night's sleep. I'm not sure I'll make it up for this one.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie