The Yankees edged out the Sawx 8-6. Randy Johnson pitched like a ERA 18.00 pitcher for half his innings and pitched like an ERA 0.00 picther for the rest of the way. He gave up 5 runs but struck out 8 and walked only 2. The peripherals are there unlike with Jaret Wright's recent smoke and mirror act; however the results aren't there just yet. Maybe he's going to slowly turn it around after all.
However, the hero of the night was Melky Cabrera who was sent in to lead off. He went 2-for-4 with a walk and batted in 4 runs. He's hitting .325/.413/.350 so far after 40 at bats. We're not seeing any power yet (he's hit one double), but his OPS stands at .763. His GPA is .273 which is passably good thanks to the high OBP, though it is nowhere enough for what you'd want from a corner outfielder. It's still small sample-size hour, but so far overall, he's been handy.
Digging a little deeper, his BABIP is a whopping .382, so he's been lucky with his groundballs. It's not going to stay at .382, so when (not 'if') he regresses back to league average on BABIP, expect to shave about chunks off his OBP. On the other hand, his linedrive percentage has been relatively low, and his GB to FB ratio is 4.00, so perhaps there will be an increase in power if he can hit more line drives for doubles. It would be expecting too much for him to provide an OPS of .850, but if he continues to provide an OBP-heavy OPS of about .750-.800, it might just be enough to keep the Yankees afloat.
The other big problem for the Yankees right now is Jorge Posada who is getting an MRI. The Yankees have no depth at catcher prospects since trading prospect Dionar Navarro in the Big Eunuch trade... Oh, that and Terrence Long; but I'm going to cut him some slack because he had 2 hits, actually drew a walk and scored 2 runs.
The Yanks were lucky to walk away with the series and stay only 0.5 games behind the Bosox.
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