Monday, July 7, 2008

Gardner Comes Through in Clutch

The Yankees moved another game closer to Boston in the wild card chase, but are still in 4th place behind Boston, Minnesota and Oakland. Tampa Bay has a nine game lead on the Yanks.

Despite carrying a meager .143 average, Brett Gardner did his best to endure himself to Yankee fans last night, hitting the game winning RBI single in the tenth inning of Jonathan Papelbom. Gardner was 2 for 5 and showed his speed early on. After his first hit, he quickly stole second base of the slow-throwing tim Wakefield. When Derek Jeter hit a single to the outfield right afterward, Garder dashed home to tack on a run. The Bombers definitely could use more of this run manufacturing, doing the little things to tack on a few extra each game. Let's just hope that Gardner can continue to play like he did last night.

Joba Chamberlain pitched fairly well for six innings, but was the victim of an umpire with an erratic strike zone. Joe Girardi finally came out and gave it to the ump, earning himself an ejection but watching the game on TV, I couldn't make heads or tails of the strike zone yesterday.

Despite coming in with a tie game (and not a lead), Mariano Rivera was impressive. In the ninth inning he went after the Sox best hitters and shut them down. Watching Manny Ramirez go down looking without ever swinging the bat was a thing of beauty.

Johnny Damon is heading to the DL and the Pinstripers will definitely miss his bat. Matsui, Damon, Rodriguez, Jeter, Posada - the Yankees have certainly had quite a few injuries hampering their offense at different times during this season. Let's just hope that JD isn't out too long.

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