Time for a Quickie

There's nothing wrong with a quickie every now and then. We've been swamped and were never able to put up a recap of last night's game. Heck we're closer to tonight's game then last nights. So a quickie is in order.

Andy Pettitte was oustanding last night. He's put two very good starts back to back. Hopefully he can keep this going now. He picked up his 171st win as a Yankee, passing Ron Guidry for sole possession of 4th place on the all-time team list.

The Yankees have scored 24 unanswered runs. Michael Kay was overjoyed to keep repeating and incrementing this total. It's the most since by the Yankees since 1995. It's really meaningless other than the fact the Yankees have been able to put to shutouts back to back.

A-Rod is getting locked in, can ya tell? He hit his 13th home run last night and nearly had another. He's hitting .421-6-17 in June with a 1.332 OPS. He also made a couple of spectacular plays at 3rd base.

The Giamustache continues his slugging as well. Last night he crushed a pair giving him a team leading 17 for the season.

Mariano Rivera finished the night off, in a non-save situation, by striking out the side.

June 17, 2008

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
San Diego	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	7	3
NY Yankees	0	2	0	5	0	0	0	1	X		8	11	0

San Diego	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	LOB	AVG
Gerut, CF	4	0	0	0	0	2	2	.279
Gonzalez, Ed, 3B	4	0	1	0	0	2	1	.312
Giles, RF	4	0	1	0	0	1	0	.303
Gonzalez, A, 1B	4	0	0	0	0	1	2	.289
Clark, DH	4	0	1	0	0	2	0	.246
Headley, LF	4	0	2	0	0	2	0	.500
Greene, SS	4	0	1	0	0	3	3	.226
Barrett, C	2	0	0	0	1	0	3	.183
Stansberry, 2B	3	0	1	0	0	1	3	.375
Totals	33	0	7	0	1	14	14
BATTING TB: Gonzalez, Ed; Giles; Clark; Headley 2; Greene; Stansberry. Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Stansberry; Barrett; Gonzalez, A. Team LOB: 7. BASERUNNING PO: Gonzalez, Ed (1st base by Pettitte). FIELDING E: Headley (1, fielding), Stansberry 2 (2, missed catch, fielding).

San Diego	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Wolf (L, 5-5)	4.0	6	7	5	2	2	3	4.16
Adams	2.0	1	0	0	0	2	0	2.65
Guevara	2.0	4	1	1	0	3	0	7.04

NY Yankees	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	LOB	AVG
Damon, LF	4	1	1	0	1	1	0	.327
Jeter, SS	5	0	1	2	0	0	0	.272
Abreu, RF	5	0	1	1	0	1	4	.283
Rodriguez, 3B	5	1	2	1	0	2	4	.328
Matsui, DH	3	1	0	0	1	0	0	.321
Giambi, 1B	3	2	2	3	0	0	0	.268
a-Betemit, PH-1B	1	0	0	0	0	1	2	.220
Posada, C	4	1	2	0	0	1	2	.326
Cano, 2B	3	2	2	0	0	0	1	.230
Cabrera, CF	4	0	0	0	0	1	4	.254
Totals	37	8	11	7	2	7	17
a-Struck out for Giambi in the 7th.
BATTING 2B: Abreu (16, Wolf), Cano (14, Wolf), Rodriguez (16, Guevara). HR: Rodriguez (13, 2nd inning off Wolf, 0 on, 0 out), Giambi 2 (17, 2nd inning off Wolf, 0 on, 1 out; 4th inning off Wolf, 1 on, 0 out). TB: Damon; Jeter; Abreu 2; Rodriguez 6; Giambi 8; Posada 2; Cano 3. RBI: Rodriguez (38), Giambi 3 (40), Jeter 2 (32), Abreu (43). Runners left in scoring position, 2 out: Rodriguez 3; Posada. Team LOB: 8. FIELDING Pickoffs: Pettitte (Gonzalez, Ed at 1st base).

NY Yankees IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA Pettitte (W, 7-5) 7.0 5 0 0 1 9 0 4.29 Veras 0.2 2 0 0 0 2 0 3.20 Traber 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.32 Rivera 1.0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0.84

WP: Wolf, Guevara, Pettitte. HBP: Cano (by Wolf). Pitches-strikes: Wolf 89-48, Adams 39-26, Guevara 38-27, Pettitte 103-63, Veras 14-10, Traber 7-4, Rivera 15-12. Ground outs-fly outs: Wolf 3-7, Adams 2-2, Guevara 0-3, Pettitte 5-6, Veras 0-0, Traber 1-0, Rivera 0-0. Batters faced: Wolf 22, Adams 7, Guevara 11, Pettitte 26, Veras 4, Traber 1, Rivera 3. Inherited runners-scored: Traber 2-0. Umpires: HP: Jim Reynolds. 1B: Gary Cederstrom. 2B: Mike Estabrook. 3B: Fieldin Culbreth. Weather: 71 degrees, partly cloudy. Wind: 12 mph, Out to LF. T: 2:46. Att: 52,306.

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Tonight's Lineup (6/17)

Damon LF
Jeter SS
Abreu RF
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Giambi 1B
Posada C
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF

Peter Abraham reports that Billy Traber has been called up to take Chien-Ming Wang's spot on the 25-man roster. He's also added a slider to his repertoire (which in his case meant "I stink" in French).

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Yankees vs. Padres - June 17

The Yankees begin a 3-game series this evening with the San Diego Padres at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are 3-2 in interleague play thus far, with all the wins coming against the Astros and the two losses against the Mets. The Padres, under second year manager Bud Black are playing better of late after a bad start.

The Padres have been perennial NL West division contenders since the new millennium, but they started this season with an 11-17 April. The dropped 7 of their first 8 games in May and were 23-34 at the end of the month. But after a 3-game losing streak start this month they've won 8-11 to get back to 9 games (31-40) under .500 and 6.5 games back of the Diamondbacks in the NL West.

The Padres starting rotation was supposed to be among the best in the NL and all of baseball lead by Jake Peavy, Chris Young, and Greg Maddux. But both Peavy and Young, who was hit in the face by an Albert Pujols line drive, have missed significant chunks of time due to injury. Peavy recently returned and picked up a victory. Guys like Randy Wolf and Josh Banks have recently stepped up to help the Padres start to turn things around.

On offense, Adrian Gonzalez is quietly having one of the best seasons in baseball. He's hitting .293-19-62 with 25 walks. His OBP/SLG is .358/.555/.913. Shortstop Khalil Greene hit 27 HRs and drove in 94 runs last year, but has struggled this season, with just 6 home runs and 27 RBI in 69 games. Second year 3rd baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff is putting up numbers similar to his rookie year (.275-18-74). His play has allowed the Padres to move stud prospect Chase Headley to left field. Headley is expected to get his major league call up tonight.

Brian Giles is the biggest name at the plate, but his numbers aren't reflective of his ability. His power continues to decline (4 home runs in 67 games) and there are rumors he could be moved.

The Padres bullpen has not performed as well it has in the past, though in a typical Trevor Hoffman season, there are plenty of big saves and plenty of blown ones.

* * *

The Yankees last faced San Diego in 2004 when the Yankees took 2 of 3 at the Stadium. The Yankees lost the opener 10-2 after Mike Mussina had to leave after 3 innings with a groin pull. The All-World trio of Felix Heredia, Paul Quantrill, and Gabe White (whose mustache would fit in today) got lit up.

The Yankees took the second game 3-2 behind good ol' Johnny Lieber's 6 innings. The angry old man, Gary Sheffield, drove in 2 runs against one of his many former teams. The Yankees came back not once, but twice to win the finale 6-5 in 12 innings. Hideki Matsui and Kenny Lofton hit back to back 2-out home runs in the 9th off of Trevor Hoffman (remember what we said) to tie it. Then down 3 runs in the 12th the Yankees came back again. A walk by Bernie Williams, a double by Derek Jeter. Alex Rodriguez's ground out drove in one run and it was 5-3. Sheffield's single put men on the corners for Jason Giambi who delivered an RBI single to center to cut it to 5-4.

Then manager Bruce Bochy sent for a guy we all hated in NY, Jay Witasick or Witasuck as he was known. He delivered as usual. Jorge Posada tied things up with a double, and after an intentional walk to Matsui, Ruben Sierra brought home the winning run with a sac fly.

Of course the most famous meeting of the two teams was the 1998 World Series when the Yankees finished off their magnificent season with a series sweep.


Pitching Probables

Tuesday: Randy Wolf (5-3, 3.83) vs. Andy Pettitte (6-5, 4.64)

Wednesday: Jake Peavy (5-3, 2.64) vs. Darrell Rasner (3-4, 3.64)

Thursday: Josh Banks (2-0, 1.29) vs. Joba Chamberlain (1-2, 2.48)


Yankees vs. Wolf

Damon 1-6
Jeter 0-3
Moeller 3-6 1 HR 2 RBI
Joe Girardi may want to grab a bat. He was 3-9 against Wolf.

Padres vs. Pettitte

T.Clark 5-28 1 HR 3 RBI
Gerut 1-3
Giles 3-13 1 RBI
Gonzalez 1-5
Greene 2-10
S. Hairston 3-9 1 HR 2 RBI
Iguchi 0-2

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