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It took twelve innings, but the Yankees were able to beat the Twins today, putting us one over .500. Bobby Abreu got the game-winning single, which drove in Johnny Damon for the run. The final score of the game was 7 to 6. The Yankees combined for 11 hits, including one by Derek Jeter, who has been slumping lately. Alex Rodriguez had two RBIs on the day as did Abreu. It looks like A. Rod.’s return has got the team back to normal offensively. Thank god for that.

The Yankees weren’t bad on the other side of the ball either. Chien-Ming Wang struggled a bit, giving up five runs in a little over five innings pitched, but other than him everyone looked great. Wang has had a rough couple of weeks, but it doesn’t look too serious and he should be back to normal soon. The relief played well instead of him today, giving up only one run and four hits in almost 7 innings pitched. Ross Ohlendorf ended up getting the win and Mariano Rivera got the save, making it his 15th on the year. Who says Rivera is old? He has yet to blow save this season.

And now we head to June baseball… First game is tomorrow against the Twins at 2:10EST. Darrell Rasner will take the mound for the Yankees and Nick Blackburn will suit up for the Twins. The game will be aired on YES.

Well, the wait is finally over… officially. Joba Chamberlain is set to make his first start with the Yankees on Tuesday. He will go up against the Blue Jays and limited to somewhere around 65-70 pitches. He is expected to gradually make his way up to 100 pitches/game, moving up by 15 or so each game. Joe Girardi got everything ironed out with Cashman and management and everyone is on the same page. Now, it is time to wait and see what our young star can really do.

Ian Kennedy’s return wasn’t what he expected it to be. The young pitcher only pitched three innings before being taken out. In that period he allowed four runs off of four hits, including two home runs. After this outing I don’t see him keeping his spot in the rotation, especially with Rasner pitching well and Joba moving to a starting role.

Brian Burres, who started for Baltimore, wasn’t stellar either. In fact, IPK was the superior of the two. Burres allowed eight runs off of ten hits in a little over three innings before he too was pulled. Both teams ended up using five other pitchers to finish up the game, which went into extra innings and didn’t finish until late in the night due to a rain delay after the eighth.

The Yankee offense continued its surge (about time) after A. Rod.’s return, scoring 9 runs. Sadly a questionable decision by Girardi in the 11th to put in Hawkins cost the team the game and the Orioles left the victors with a score of 10-9. Both teams combined for nine home runs, which accounted for fourteen of the game’s runs. The Yankees that went yard were A. Rod., Giambi, Damon and Abreu.

Let’s see if the team can get back to winning against the O’s in their next game. Pettitte will start for the Yanks and Guthrie for the Orioles at 7:05EST. The game will be on YES.

The Yankees five game win streak ended with a loss against the Orioles today, on Memorial Day. Ironically Orioles’ starter Garret Olson pitched in both the games that started and ended the streak. This time around he was a lot better though, going seven innings and allowing only three hits (and no runs.) Darrell Rasner started for the Yankees and he too had a good day, giving up only one run in six innings pitched. The problems began when the bullpen came out. LaTroy Hawkins failed to pitch through one inning, giving up three runs before he was switched out for Jose Veras. Veras would allow two more runs in the seventh before getting the third out and eventually throwing a scoreless eighth. The Yankees managed to only score one run in the top of the ninth, which ended the game with a score of 6 to 1.

The streak was bound to end some time, but thankfully it did give us a nice push after a few sloppy games. We are still in last place in the AL East, but we are only 6 games behind first, which isn’t too bad. Alex Rodriguez’s return has certainly proven well for the Yanks and hopefully things will continue to look up. Posada may be returning soon too and Joba is going to continue pitching more, so let’s hope all that adds up to some nice W’s.

Next on the schedule is a rematch with Baltimore tomorrow at 7:05EST. Ian Kennedy will make his return to the lineup after a bad start. He will go against, the Orioles’ Brian Burres. You can watch the two go head-to-head on YES.

The instant replay debate is on in baseball as the umps have made a few bad calls of late. Two of them were at Yankee Stadium, when Carlos Delgado was robbed a homer in the subway series a few days ago and again 2 nights ago when the same happened to Alex Rodriguez. Instant replay would surely have prevented those miscalls. So should it be implemented? It may be easy to say “yes”, but one can also make a strong argument for the opposition.

Currently there are three options being discussed: having instant replay for all controversial calls, having instant replay to judge whether a ball is a home run or foul, and keeping it as it is with no instant replay. Personally I agree with the second option, which is only using it to judge whether a ball is a homer or a foul. While it may seem like a good idea to use instant replay on all calls, in practice it probably wouldn’t be so great. Having too many instant replay delays would really mess up the flow of the game. Baseball is a sport built on human calls and not having that would really change the game a lot. Instant replay on all controversial calls would just lose the authentic feel of the game.

For the most part the MLB seems to agree, and plans have already begun to test instant replay on only home runs in the Arizona Fall League. If it works out, it will probably be tried in a few other places before being brought to the MLB. At this point, instant replay for next season seems possible, but that’s only if the tests work out well.

Is this still the MLB? It really hasn’t seemed like it so far this season. We are almost a fourth of the season through and the Rays are in second place in the AL East! Even more surprising is that the Marlins, the team that basically sold all its hope is currently leading its division by more than two games. Oh yea, and the Mariners who were supposed to be one of the better teams this year is currently in last place, with a record of 15-25. I thought I was done, but wait! The Tigers, who spent a load of cash this offseason are also last, with a 16-22 record. Some critics expected them to be the top team in the MLB for god’s sake! Their division rivals, the Indians are fairing so well either with a .500 record. Back in the reigning NL champions, the Rockies are 15-23 and only one game from being tied with the worst record in the majors. And then of course there are our Yankees, who aren’t boding so well thus far either. All I can say to all this is wow, just wow.

If you had predicted that we would be hear 40 games in then you really are a genius because I don’t think anyone else saw this. Now the end-of-season standings probably won’t be like this, but for some teams they just might be. I hate to say it, but the Rays really have a chance to keep up this style of play because their young pitchers are just throwing phenomenally. Let’s just hope that our guys can start pulling something together like they did last season.

Our sluggers should start hitting soon and I think the pitching staff will have some bright moments in the near-future as well with Darrell Rasner stepping up nicely and Moose and Wang doing good. Pettitte is bound to start being clutch soon enough and that just leaves one more spot. It is currently filled by Kei Igawa, but I’m not expecting much from him. Hopefully IPK or Hughes will be back soon with their troubles behind them. We can definetely pull through, especially when the Rays’ young guys start making mistakes.

Ok, back to the speculation on which teams will end in the other direction come October… The Marlins are not going to last. The only reason they are doing this well is because of an offensive surge and as we all know offense can’t carry a team. On the defensive side of the ball their guys have been making too many mistakes and it will eventually catch up to them.

As for the other NL team, the Rockies, I think they will end the season out of the playoffs. I expect them to start rebouding soon enough and they’ll probably finish above .500, but I don’t see a playoff berth happening. It is pretty clear that the D’ Backs are taking the division and looking at the way the Cubs, Cardinals, and Astros are playing, the Rockies will have a tough time squeezing out the wildcard. You also have to remember that the Mets, Braves, and Phillies will remain contenders for playoff spots until late as well. I just don’t see it happening for Colorado again, sorry Todd Helton.

Now, back to the AL. In the Central I think we will be seeing the Indians take it again. Their pitching and defense is great and they have much of the same dominant team as last year. The Tigers on the other hand don’t. They have upgraded their bats and starting pitching, but neglected relief and without a good bullpen they aren’t going to get far.

In the AL West, the Mariners currently sit 8.5 games behind divison leader Oakland! Billy Beane has done a terrific job with managing the team and I think this could be the year they make it back to the playoffs (notice I said I think it could be, not I think it will be). I’m not putting my money on them just yet though because the Angels as always are also a very strong team, especially with new addition Torri Hunter. I really don’t know who will take the division, but I do believe that the Mariners will have a tough time getting ahead of both the A’s and Angels. I would still give them a chance, but it will be tough to overtake Oakland and Anaheim, and I really don’t think the wildcard is going to the West. It would be great to see a neck-in-neck battle between the three in September.

The surprising start is bound to make things most exciting, especially during the end of the season. Some great baseball is ahead of us…

What do you think about my predictions? Do you agree or disagree and why? Please comment, I would love to hear all of your opinions.

The Rays are having an amazing year and they continued that today against the Yankees, beating us 7 to 1. Their young pitching staff is doing really well and Matt Garza is no exception. He pitched for seven innings today and allowed no runs on five hits. Andy Pettitte on the other hand, wasn’t so solid. He was in the game for only a little over four innings during which he let up five runs on eight hits. He did have five strikeouts, but that really doesn’t matter. He ended up taking the loss, which is the second against the Rays this season. Prior to tonight’s loss Pettitte was an astounding 8-1 at Tropicana Field and 14-3 all-time against the Rays.

The same problems are still there as the Yanks continue to struggle. The offense is still asleep and without run support we really can’t win much. Although the loss today wasn’t completely the offense’s fault, they certainly could have done better.

The team will get another shot against the Rays tomorrow at 7:10EST. Maybe Chien-Ming Wang is just what we need to beat the Rays. Edwin Jackson will suit up for the Rays. The game will be aired on YES.

The game was postponed due to a lot of rain.

Darrell Rasner could be the reliable starter at the bottom of the rotation, which we so desperately need right now. He had another solid performance today, pitching for a little over six innings and allowing only four hits and two runs. As Joe Girardi said, he isn’t doing anything fancy, but he is just simply using his stuff the right way.

Rasner got decent run support with the Bombers’ five runs on nine hits. Derek Jeter broke his home run drought with a two-run blast in the first. Wilson Betemit batted in Robinson Cano in the fourth. The final two runs came in the fifth thanks to Abreu, Jeter, and Giambi.

And with this win we are 19-19 and back to .500 (it seems like I’ve been saying that every other game.) Ideally we can go above the 50% mark tomorrow against the Tigers with Andy Pettitte on the mound. Detroit will counter with Nate Robertson. The game is at 1:05EST and will be aired on TBS.

Six runs and eleven hits in the first four innings. That is what lost it for the Yanks today. I guess it really isn’t a surprise considering Kei Igawa started, but it still is disappointing. Igawa made him first start of the year today and like most of his big league career, it was a failure. He allowed all six runs the Yanks would give up on the day and left the game with an ERA of 18.00 so far this season. Girardi pulled Igawa in the fourth and after that is was smooth sailing for the Bombers who didn’t allow anymore runs at the hands of Jonathan Albaladejo, LaTroy Hawkins, and Edwar Ramirez.

The offense ended up scoring five runs, one shy of tying up the game. Jason Giambi hit another homer today, which is his 184th with the Yankees, putting him at 16th all-time on the team list. Chad Moeller batted in a run in the seventh and the team got three runs in the ninth.

It will be nice if the late offensive run carries over into the next game. Darrell Rasner, who had an excelent debut this year, will make his second start. Detroit will start with Jeremy Bonderman on the mound. The game is at 3:40EST and will be on FOX.

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