07/24: Moose Dominates Twins as Yanks Win 6th Straight
Posted by: Seamus
Fortunately for Ron Gardenhire, his Twins will never have to step foot in this Yankee Stadium ever again. It must be something in the air here. Whatever it is, the Twins stumbled their way into another loss at the Stadium, as Mike Mussina made it impossible for Minnesota to make up for a myriad of mental mistakes. Mussina shut the door on the Twins, and the Yankees won the game by a score of 5-1 for their 6th straight victory and their 10th straight at home. The Rays and Red Sox both won as well, so the Yanks remain 3.5 and 3 games back, respectively.
Moose was on his "A" game all afternoon and gave what may have been his best outing of his stellar season, throwing 8 shutout innings, allowing just six hits and striking out seven. He threw 105 pitches (73 for strikes) and didn't walk anybody. Mussina is now tied for the A.L. lead with 13 wins and has his E.R.A. down to 3.26. If he keeps this up for another two months and keeps the E.R.A. down around the 3.00 mark, could we possibly be talking about Mussina (dare I say it?) as a Cy Young candidate?
Neither team was able to push a run across until the bottom of the 5th, when the Twins were just begging the Yankees to get on the board. With runners on first and second with one out, Jose Molina grounded into what should have been an easy double play ball, but Twins 2B Alexi Casilla thought there were two outs and never threw to first to double up Molina. Justin Christian followed that up by doing something the Yankees of the late 90's did that maybe distinguishes them from this team, which is taking advantage of the other team's mistakes. Christian lined a ball down the left field line, scoring both Robinson Cano and Jose Molina as the Yankees went ahead by a score of 2-0. Twins pitcher Glen Perkins was pretty irate, but he made a similar bonehead play in the previous inning, as he failed to cover first on a ground ball hit to the first base side that allowed Bobby Abreu to reach.
The Yankees added three more in the 6th, highlighted by a two-run double off the left-centerfield wall by Alex Rodriguez. Richie Sexson was next to hit and brought A-Rod in with a sacrifice fly.
After Mike Mussina had thrown 105 pitches in 8 innings (I wouldn't have been opposed to throwing him back out there in the 9th), Joe Girardi summoned Latroy Hawkins with the Yanks up 5-0. Hawkins labored a little as he allowed three hits, and when he allowed the tying run to come on deck, Girardi called on Mariano Rivera to record the final out (is the "save" stat rediculous or what?)
Funny how some trendy analysts were trying to label the Yankees as "sellers" during the break because they were a whopping 5.5 games out of the playoffs with 67 games to go. Turns out just a week later, the Yanks are just three games behind Boston and a sweep of this next series would give the Yankees a share of the wild card lead. The Yanks will open up their series at Fenway tomorrow night and the first game will feature a very intriguing pitching matchup, as Joba Chamberlain is set to go up against Josh Beckett. Game starts at 7:05 E.T.
Moose was on his "A" game all afternoon and gave what may have been his best outing of his stellar season, throwing 8 shutout innings, allowing just six hits and striking out seven. He threw 105 pitches (73 for strikes) and didn't walk anybody. Mussina is now tied for the A.L. lead with 13 wins and has his E.R.A. down to 3.26. If he keeps this up for another two months and keeps the E.R.A. down around the 3.00 mark, could we possibly be talking about Mussina (dare I say it?) as a Cy Young candidate?
Neither team was able to push a run across until the bottom of the 5th, when the Twins were just begging the Yankees to get on the board. With runners on first and second with one out, Jose Molina grounded into what should have been an easy double play ball, but Twins 2B Alexi Casilla thought there were two outs and never threw to first to double up Molina. Justin Christian followed that up by doing something the Yankees of the late 90's did that maybe distinguishes them from this team, which is taking advantage of the other team's mistakes. Christian lined a ball down the left field line, scoring both Robinson Cano and Jose Molina as the Yankees went ahead by a score of 2-0. Twins pitcher Glen Perkins was pretty irate, but he made a similar bonehead play in the previous inning, as he failed to cover first on a ground ball hit to the first base side that allowed Bobby Abreu to reach.
The Yankees added three more in the 6th, highlighted by a two-run double off the left-centerfield wall by Alex Rodriguez. Richie Sexson was next to hit and brought A-Rod in with a sacrifice fly.
After Mike Mussina had thrown 105 pitches in 8 innings (I wouldn't have been opposed to throwing him back out there in the 9th), Joe Girardi summoned Latroy Hawkins with the Yanks up 5-0. Hawkins labored a little as he allowed three hits, and when he allowed the tying run to come on deck, Girardi called on Mariano Rivera to record the final out (is the "save" stat rediculous or what?)
Funny how some trendy analysts were trying to label the Yankees as "sellers" during the break because they were a whopping 5.5 games out of the playoffs with 67 games to go. Turns out just a week later, the Yanks are just three games behind Boston and a sweep of this next series would give the Yankees a share of the wild card lead. The Yanks will open up their series at Fenway tomorrow night and the first game will feature a very intriguing pitching matchup, as Joba Chamberlain is set to go up against Josh Beckett. Game starts at 7:05 E.T.
