The Yankees ended up being swept in Boston at the start of the week. Considering they had the Sox on the ropes in 2 of the games, it was hard to take those losses and to get swept.
They then rolled into Detroit where CC Sabathia pitched 8 innings and still lost 4-2. Then, something good started to show. Phil Hughes pitched 6 strong innings for a win, followed by Job Chamberlain who also pitched into the 6th and got his first win. The Yankees then returned home to face the Angels and won 2 interesting, edgy games with walk off hits by Melky Cabrera and Jorge Posada. That left the Yankees 2 games behind division leaders Toronto, unti of course they lost today's game 8-4.
The Bullpen Is Flammable
The 2 games coughed up in Boston were in no small part due to the bullpen. In fact, the leads coughed up in the Angels game also were due to some bad outings from the pen.The ERA of these guys are looking really ugly as we speak:
- Edwar Ramirez 5.40
- Jose Veras 7.94
- Damaso Marte 15.19
- Jonathan Albaladejo 7.50
- Mark Melancon 2.70
- Phil Coke 3.72
- Mariano Rivera 2.79
So right now, 3 of the 7 guys in the pen are good, the rest are dreck. Things can't keep going this way, what with Joba pitching to about 5.2 innings and Phil Hughes filling in for Chine-Ming Wang. Surely there will be some changes shortly.
Ramiro Pena
The guys that the Yankees get to fill infor their injured superstars can be surprising. Erick Almonte in his stint filling in for Derek Jeter back in 2003 did all right. Cody Ransom filling in for A-Rod was less impressive, and then got injured. Right now, the man filling in at 3B for A-Rod and Ransom is Ramiro Pena who has hit 8-for 17 in the last 5 games. His line now sits at .333/.393/.367. Anybody can hit anything in 5 games, but it's nice to get that out of your second string utility player.
Tex, It's May Now
So you can commence hitting.
A .189 Ave is pretty yuck, but he's walked 5 times in the last week. As a result his OBP is sitting at .358. He's still helping when he's not hitting, but in an injured-Jason-Giambi kind of way. That being said, actually hitting some would be nicer.
A-Rod Miasma
There have been more leaks from Selena Roberts' upcoming book about A-Rod, imaginatively titled 'A-Rod'.
The new assertions are that he took steroids since high school and that he tipped pitches to opposing players back in Texas - Doug Mientkiewicz who played with him in High School said it was unlikely, because he was with him 20hours a day and didn't see it. Other allegations include how A-Rod is totally obsessed with Derek Jeter and how he was playing up with strippers and hookers while his wife Cynthia was pregnant.
Even if you think 90% of these allegations are wrong in some way, it leaves the picture of a guy who isn't exactly the kind of guy you'd want to have as role model for your children. All the same, you probably shouldn't have superstar athletes as role models for your children - parents should be the role models for their own kids.
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