Yankees vs. Royals - June 6

The Yankees just need to look back to April 19, 2007 to realize they better not let down this weekend. On that date, Alex Rodriguez capped a 3-run comeback with a walk-off 3-run home run off the Indians Joe Borowski for an improbable (we like that word) 8-6 win. Then the Yankees went to Boston and got swept in a 3-game series by the Red Sox. There's no comparison between the Red Sox and Royals, but you see what we are driving at. Build off the victory, don't get buried under it.

The Yankees already loss 2 of 3 to the Royals in April, scoring just 2 runs total in the 2 losses. The Royals have gone through some struggles since then. They were just swept by the White Sox in a 3-game series and have lost 15 of their last 17 games. The bullpen, once dominant, is now a mess with injuries and struggles.

The series opens tonight with Darrell Rasner (3-2, 2.67), coming off his only bad outing of the season, going against right-hander Kyle Davies (1-0, 1.80). Davies has made just one start this season, a 5 inning stint in which he helped stopped the Royals 12 game skid. He's only faced the Yankees once in his career and was tagged for 5 earned runs in 3 innings pitched.

Saturday's game pits Andy Pettitte (5-5, 4.21) against Brian Bannister (5-6, 4.60) in a battle of inconsistent starters. Bannister has faced the Yankees just twice, going 1-1, 8.10.

Joba Chamberlain (1-2, 2.42) will make his 2nd start on Sunday against Zach Grienke (5-3, 3.56), who was the winning pitcher in the Royals 4-0 victory on April. Grienke is 2-2, 6.10 in 8 career appearances, 5 of them starts, against the Yankees, who selected his brother Luke in today's amateur draft rounds.

The series wraps up on Monday with Mike Mussina (9-4, 4.01) going against youngster Luke Hochevar (3-5, 5.13), who is making his 11th big league start. He threw 3.1 scoreless innings in his one career relief appearance against the Yankees.

Yankees vs. Davies

Abreu 1-4 1 HR 2 RBI
Betemit 3-4 2 HR 5 RBI
Cabrera 0-2
Cano 1-2
Damon 2-4
Jeter 2-2
Matsui 1-1
Moeller 0-1
Posada 0-2
A-Rod 1-1 1 HR 3 RBI

Jose Guillen is the only KC Royal to face Rasner, going 0-4.

LaTroy Hawkins 3-game suspension was upheld by MLB.

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Around the Horn, AL Central - 5/12

AL Central	W	L	Pct	GB
Minnesota Twins	19	17	.528	--
Cleveland Indians	18	18	.500	1.0
Chicago White Sox	18	18	.500	1.0
Kansas City Royals	16	21	.432	3.5
Detroit Tigers	16	22	.421	4.0

The Minnesota Twins in 1st place? Is this 2002? No Johan Santana, no Francisco Liriano, no Torii Hunter. But this is an organization that knows how to put a team together. It also helps when you have Joe Nathan closing games.

The Twins lead probably won't last for long, just as the White Sox didn't after April, but right now they're in the mix in a division of over- and under-achievers. Cleveland has gotten back to about where they should be, 1 game behind the division leader. But if not them, shouldn't Detroit be leading the division? They're in the cellar again after losing 6 of 8.

The Twins have relied on their two big hitters, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, their new spark plug, Carlos Gomez, and and a mix of young and old pitchers.

Livan Hernandez has been the biggest find for the Twins this season. The veteran leads the staff with a 5-1 record and a 3.83 ERA. The season has a long way to go, but most pundits predicted misery in the AL for El Duque's half-brother. Rookie Nick Blackburn has been solid, 3-2, 3.93, as has Scott Baker (2-0, 4.09), who is currently on the DL. With an injury to Kevin Slowey and poor performances from Boof Bonser, prospect Glen Perkins has also gotten a shot to stick with the club.

Gomez has given the Twins some of the spark that left with free agent Torii Hunter. He became the first Twin to hit for the cycle in 22 years, is hitting a respectable .269, and has 16 steals in 19 attempts. Mauer is scorching the ball to a .330 tune, though he has no home runs. Morneau, .286-6-27, is the team's big RBI man as usual. Delmon Young's numbers are average, but his attitude has been good and his game is improving. Michael Cuddyer was injured and hasn't gotten his bat up to speed yet.

Nathan is still a dominant force out of the pen, but he has problably lost key set up man Pat Neshak, for the season. But Dennis Reyes, Juan Rincon, and Matt Guerrier have pitched fairly well. It would help the Twins immensely if Jesse Crain could return to his rookie form.

Cleveland's turn around ties into the thing that always win ball games- pitching. C.C. Sabathia has turned is season right side up. Cliff Lee is pitching like Sandy Koufax. Fausto Carmona has struggled with his control, but is still winning games, and kids like Aaron Laffey have stepped up to fill in for injured Jake Westbrook.

The bullpen has also been left short handed with an injury to closer Joe Borowski, but Rafael Betancourt has made the successful step up to that role and set up man Rafael Perez has snapped out of his April slump. Imagine if Travis Hafner started hitting.

The reason we didn't pick the Tigers to win the AL Central was because of their pitching staff. We still thought they would be the wild card winner, and they may very well be, but their pitching has really been a let down. Kenny Rogers, except when he faces the Yankees, is pitching like a 43-yr old ready for retirement. Jeremy Bonderman's control comes and goes, and Nate Robertson is, well, Nate Robertson. Justin Verlander is not injured, but a 1-6 record with a 6.43 ERA makes one wonder. The job #5 man Armando Galarraga has done, has made the team not worry about the return of Dontrelle Willis (hyperextended knee). The bottom line? The Tigers have a major league worst 5.09 ERA.

Offensively, last year's MVP runner up Magglio Ordonez leads the team in everything. The team missed spark plug lead off Curtis Granderson, who sat out the start of the season with a hand injury, in April. Granderson returned with a flourish, but is hitting just .171 in May. Miguel Cabrera also got off to a good offensive start, but has only 1 home run and 4 RBI since April 23.

The Tigers have tried a variety of set up men to build the bridge to closer Todd Jones. They've started to rely heavily on veteran Aquilino Lopez and youngsters like Francisco Cruceta while they wait for Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya to heal.

The White Sox reversed their 11-7 start and are 18-18 after 36 games. To say this team is scuffling for runs would be an understatement. With Jerry Owens injured, the White Sox went with Nick Swisher in the lead off spot. As his averge plummeted towards the Mendoza line, Ozzie Guillen stuck Orlando Cabrera in the top spot in the lineup despite an OBP of less than .300. The White Sox hit just .239 as a team.

Carlos Quentin took advantage of Owens' absence to claim the left field job, and leads the team in average, home runs, RBI, and OPS. Jim Thome (.220), Juan Uribe (.194), and Paul Konerko (.227) are among those with sickly looking batting averages.

The White Sox are at .500 because of their pitching. Their 3.69 team ERA is 4th best in the AL. They've also gotten solid years out of the bullpen from free agent signee Scott Linebrink and closer Bobby Jenks. 4 of the 5 Sox starters have ERAs under 4.00 and Mark Buerhle's 5.31 ERA is bloated by his opening day start.

The Royals started their season 3-0 and everyone went wild. Reality came back to KC, but the Royals have still managed to stay 5 games within .500. The Royals young pitching staff is what has kept this team, the 2nd worst offensive team in baseball, from sinking to the bottom of the league. The Royals have averaged just 3.5 runs pers game, but their pitching staff has allowed 4.3.

The Royals would be even better if their ace Gil Meche were having a more consistent season. He's had 4 quality starts and 4 abysmal starts. The Royals would take something in between. But while Meche has struggled with his numbers, Zach Grienke has come back from the brink of oblivion. Grienke started to show the much talked about promise towards the end of last year and he has continued this season. He's tied with Brian Bannister for the team lead with 4 wins and has pitched to a minuscule 1.80 ERA. AL opponents are hitting just .213 against him.

The Mets have to still be kicking themselves for dealing away Bannister who won 12 games last year with a 3.87 ERA. After a strong start, Bannister struggled and had back-to-back bad showings against the Rangers and Angels. But in his last start he limited the Orioles to just 2 hits over 8 innings to earn the win. Veteran Brett Tomko and rookie Luke Hochevar round out the back of the rotation.

Many teams envy the back of the Royals bullpen. Set up men Ramon Ramirez (1.15), a former Yankees prospect, and Leo Nunez (1.80), and closer Joakim Soria (0.00 in 14.1 IP) have been completely dominant. The three have combined for 48 strikeouts in 45 innings.

Now if they could only find an offense to match. Billy Butler leads the team with a mediocre 5 home runs and 19 RBI.

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Around the Horn - 5/8

You can tack another loss on to Barry Zito's record. The Giants gave Zito a start yesterday and held their breath. Throwing 99 pitches in 5 innings is not good, but he gave his team a chance to win by allowing 2 runs in 5 innings. But the Giants bats couldn't do anything against Pirates starter Phil Dumatrait and the bullpen. They finally broke up the shutout in the 9th, but still lost, 3-1.

The Rockies looked like they were going down to defeat again after the Cards' Adam Wainwright shut them down for 7 innings. But Kyle McLellan, Randy Flores, and Jason Isringhausen each did their part to blow the game. The Rocks scored 4 times off of the 3 Cards pitchers in the 8th inning with Chris Ianette delivering the decisive blow- a 2-run game winning triple.

The Astros won their second straight over the Nationals in their final at-bat. In both cases, Carlos Lee delivered the game winning hit. Tuesday night Lee doubled in a pair with the Astros trailing by a run. Last night's game was tied in the bottom of the 9th when Lee singled home Kaz Matsui with the winning run a 4-3 contest.

The Marlins moved 5 games over .500 with a 6-2 win over the Brewers. Jorge Cantu and Dan Uggla each homered against a Brewers team that fell back under the .500 mark.

The Mets took out their frustrations from the prior two games and pounded the Dodgers 12-1. Four different Mets drove in 2 runs each and John Maine came within 2 outs of a complete game shutout.

Tim Hudson picked up his 140th career win in the Braves 5-2 thumping of the Padres. The game was tied 2-2 in the 7th when newly acquired Greg Norton put the Braves ahead with a pinch-hit single. The Padres fell to 12-23, but got to watch Bobby Cox get ejected for the 137th time in his managerial career.

As we told you yesterday, Joey Votto smacked 3 home runs and the Reds totalled 7 in all in a 9-0 whitewashing of the Cubs.

The Phillies came back from 3-1 and 4-3 deficits to beat the Diamondbacks 5-4. Eric Bruntlett and Chase Utley each knocked in runs in the go-ahead 8th inning.

Carlos Gomez hit for the cycle in the Twins 13-1 win over the White Sox. Gomez had the two hardest hits, a home run and triple, by the end of the 5th inning. He's the first Twin to achieve the feat since Kirby Puckett in 1986. Meanwhile the White Sox have dropped 7 out of 8.

Detroit blew a 3-run lead, but rallied against Jon Papelbon in the 9th inning to beat the Red Sox 10-9. Curtis Granderson tied it with an RBI ground out before Placido Polanco's 5th hit brought home the game winner for the Tigers. Kevin Youkilis homered twice for Boston.

Mark Ellis belted a walk-off home run in the A's 6-5, 10 inning win over the Orioles. The loss was a season high 5th straight for the O's.

Zach Grienke improved to 4-1 (1.80 ERA) and David DeJesus belted a 3-run HR in the Royals 9-4 thumping of the Angels. Jered Weaver was tagged for 8 runs in just 3.1 innings.

Shaun Marcum allowed just 1 hit over 8 innings before losing the shutout in the 9th, but he came away with the win in the Blue Jays 6-2 triumph over the Rays. Scott Rolen hit his 2nd home run in Jays uni.

Vincente Padilla won his 3rd straight game as the Rangers blanked the anemic Mariners 2-0. Padilla has allowed just 1 earned run over his last 21.2 innings Erik Bedard took the hard luck loss and is just 2-2 despite a 1.99 ERA. The Mariners, who have scored 2 or less runs in 6 of their last 7 games, dropped into sole possession of last place in the AL West.

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Around the Horn - 4/15

Scores

The Red Sox rallied from a 4-1 deficit to beat the Indians 6-4 last night. Manny Ramirez capped the comeback with a game winning 2-run HR in the 9th off of Joe Borowski. It was career HR number 493 for Man-child. Many people, us included, picked the Indians to win the AL Central based on the strength of their bullpen. The ERAs of their top 3 in the pen? Borowski (18.00 - actually not a shock), Rafael Betancourt (5.14), and Rafael Perez (8.41). Borowski also said after the game that his arm felt tired. He hit only 83 mph on the radar gun.

UPDATE 1:50 p.m EDT: Joe Borowski has been placed on the 15-day DL with a strained tricep. One day too late.

The Tigers got the offensive explosion they've been waiting for all year, in an 11-9 win over the Twins. Detroit scores 6 runs in the 8th to rally from a 9-4 deficit. Carlos Guillen and Ivan Rodriguez drove in 3 runs each.

Miguel Olivo had 3 hits, including a home run, in the Royals 5-1 win over the Mariners. Zach Grienke tossed a complete game 4-hitter to improve to 3-0 with a 0.75 ERA.

Kevin Millar homered and drove in 3 in the Orioles 4-3 win over the Blue Jays. The win kept the O's in 1st place in the AL East.

Ervin Santana improved to 2-0 with 7 solid innings in the Angels 7-4 triumph over the Rangers. More importantly, Scot Shields and K-Rod were lights out in relief.

Greg Smith went 7 innings to earn his first major league win in the A's 2-1 triumph over the White Sox. Mark Buerhle (7 IP 2 ER) was the hard luck loser. Kurk Suzuki went 4-4 with an RBI and is hitting .370.

Nate McLouth hit a game winning 3-run HR in the 9th off Takashi Saito in the Pirates 6-4 win over the Dodgers. The win put the Pirates a game over .500 (7-6).

Randy Winn had 2 RBI and 2 stolen bases in the Giants come from behind 5-4 win over the Diamondbacks. Arizona, which has lost 2 straight, welcomed back Randy Johnson. The Big Unit allowed 3 unearned runs in 5 innings, walked 4, and struck out 7.

News

Erik Bedard is hoping to avoid the disabled list with a sore hip. The Mariners left-hander will throw a side session to determine where he goes from here.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal is reporting that the Brewers have signed free agent pitch Jeff Weaver to a 1-year, incentive laden deal.

Mets GM Omar Minaya said Pedro Martinez will be out until at least the middle of May and possibly the beginning of June. Not good news for our projected comeback player of the year.

Angels 2nd Baseman Howie Kendrick is out until at least the weekend with a strained hamstring. He may yet end up on the DL.

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