Friday, August 8, 2008

Yankees Split Series With Mussina's Help

Mike Mussina continued to shine last night, propelling the Yankees to a victory over the Texas Rangers. Moose threw seven shutout innings against the highest scoring team in baseball, earning the Yankees a split over the four game series. With Tampa losing the Bombers are now 5.5 games out of first place and still have two other teams in front of them for the wild card spot.

It looks like Ike is back. Ian Kennedy will get the start tonight against the Angels and Giese will start tomorrow. Kennedy has been alright in the minor leagues so we'll have to see what happens when he faces big league hitters again. At the beginning of the season, I was very pro-Kennedy but after his performances early on, I lost faith. At the time he looked like he had no confidence in his stuff and was afraid of the hitters. Ian needs to throw strikes early and challenge hitters. If he starts painting the corners again, teams just sit back and watch him struggle as he gets worked deep into counts and his pitch count soars. I was hoping a prolonged stay in the minors would help his confidence a bit. Perhaps he'll have a chip on his shoulders when he returns to the big leagues tonight and will use that to motivate himself. Sure, and maybe Carl Pavano will be healthy again soon.

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