Freddy Garcia pitched 6 scoreless innings and got the win. Garcia pitched very well, especially for a guy who hasn't started since March 29, nearly three weeks ago. He doesn't have the speed that he used to, but Garcia is a different pitcher these days. His fastballs are only hitting 87-88 mph, but his command today was perfect. Garcia mixed in breaking pitches and offspeed pitches, that kept the Rangers guessing all day. He only allowed 2 hits, as the Rangers looked confused against him.
The bullpen came in and finished things off with Chamberlain in for the 7th, Soriano in the 8th and of course Mo finishing it off in the 9th getting his 6th save of the season. The bullpen has looked dominant so far, and today was no exception although Soriano came close to giving up a homer to Beltre today. The Yankees bullpen has only allowed 3 Earned Runs in the past 23 innings!
The last two games, the Rangers have used left handed starting pitching. The Yankees bat Jeter leadoff against lefties due to his strong career numbers against lefty pitchers. Since Gardner is having some trouble offensively, Andruw Jones has been starting in left field. Without Gardner in the lineup, Nick Swisher gets moved up in the batter order to #2. He seems to like batting in the 2-spot, as Swish has four hits over the last two games batting second. This formula seems to be working so far.
Tomorrow night the Yankees will try to win this series before hitting the road to Toronto & Baltimore. CC Sabathia will get the final start against Alexi Ogando. Sabathia has yet to get a win despite strong starts and only a 1.45 ERA. Ogando who is a converted relief pitcher, is 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA. He has pitched 13 scoreless innings over his previous two starts. He has never started a game against the Yankees and has only pitched very limited innings in relief, so tomorrow may be a battle of starting pitchers. Hopefully CC will get a win already!
Burnett will pitch Tuesday in Toronto but after him the starting rotation is a big question mark. Hughes has been placed on the DL with a "dead arm" so Colon will likely take his spot, but it may be possible to see Nova get the start on Wednesday in order to allow Colon to try and stretch himself out a bit. Right now, Colon can only pitch about 80 pitches. Since the Yankees have Thursday off, that should give Freddy Garcia the chance to pitch Friday night in Baltimore, followed by Sabathia who would pitch Saturday giving him 5 days rest. It's entirely possible that Sabathia may pitch Friday rather than Saturday and Garcia or Colon would start Saturday night.
Girardi needs to make some big decisions with the starting rotation as the only reliable starters are CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett, although after last season, I don't think anybody likes using "reliable" as a adjective to describe Burnett.
No comments:
Post a Comment