The Big Unit finally withdraws

Randy Johnson aka- The Big Unit announced his retirement this evening. He finished his career with 303 wins which is 22nd all time. Here are some more of his career accomplishments: His first game was with the Expos in Sept 1988 against the Pirates. 1st strikeout victim was Orestes Destrade He played 22 years for 6 teams 1999-2002 won 4 straight Cy Youngs-won 5 overall 2001 was a World Champion with Arizona and co MVP of the World Series along with Curt Shilling He won 17 games in back to back seasons with the Yankees in 2005-06. His 10.67 strikeouts per 9 innings were 1st all-time for starting pitchers 188 hitbatsmen is 3rd all-time 4.875 strikeouts are second all-time and 1st among left handed pitchers 7.24 hits allowed per 9 innings pitched is 10th all-time 37 shutouts is 57th all-time 20 strikeouts in a game on May 8, 2001 He pitched a perfect game on May 18, 2004 He is the 5th pitcher in MLB history to pitch a no-hitter in both leagues joining Cy Young, Jim Bunning, Nolan Ryan and Hideo Nomo. These stats were courtesy of Wikipedia. I will have more on Randy Johnson tomorrow, some comments he made at the press conference and other thoughts on his career.

Yankees at Red Sox(The Rubber Game)

The New York Yankees will try and win the 3 game series with the Boston Red Sox tonight at 8 on ESPN. The Yankees also will be finishing a roadtrip where they are 6-3, 7-3 would be great and 6-4 isn't bad if they lose. CC Sabathia will go up against Josh Beckett in a marquee matchup. Here are the pregame notes and lineup via the Lohud Yankees Blog. The Yankees are 5-9 against the Red Sox this season being outscored 118-114. Derek Jeter is one hit away from 2,700 for his career. He is 16 of his last 29 and 19 of 39 on the roadtrip with 8 rbi's and 8 runs scored. Sabathia is 4-0 with a 2.35 era in his last 4 starts. He has pitched 30 2/3 innings allowing 20 hits, 5 walks and striking out 31. Sabathia is 32-9 with a 3.14 era in August in his career. Josh Beckett is 2-0 with 4.12 era in 4 starts against the Yankees this season. Boston has 20 homeruns in their last 8 games. David Ortiz has 5 homeruns in his last 8 games. Boston is 18-2 when he hits a homerun so CC don't give up a homerun to him. Nick Swisher has 18 of his 21 homeruns on the road. He has hit in 8 straight games with 5 runs scored, 7 rbi's. Yankee relievers in the last 2 games have allowed 7 innings, 11 hits, 9 earned runs and 3 homeruns. Of course this is Fenway Park and a lot of pitchers have bad days there. Check out weei.com to see what Jonathan Papelbon said about Billy Wagner. I would tell him to let the GM worry about trades and stuff and not him, of course he had to be classy and open his mouth as usual. Jason Giambi and Russ Ortiz were signed by the Colorado Rockies today. Yankees Lineup: Jeter(SS) Damon(LF) Tex(1B) A-rod(3B) Matsui(DH) Swisher(RF) Cano(2B) Cabrera(CF) Molina(C)

Yanks at A's(The Rubber game)

The New York Yankees will take on the Oakland A's at 10:05 tonight on the YES network. Chad Gaudin will make his first Yankees start against Brett Anderson. Here are the pregame notes and lineup from Peter Abraham. Chad Gaudin pitched for Oakland from 2006-08. He was 20-18 with a 4.00 era. He is 12-9 with a 3.71 era in 58 career games at Oakland Coliseum. Brett Anderson a 21 yr old rookie is 4-1 with a 3.12 era in his last 12 starts. He has faced the Yankees twice going 12 innings and allowing 9 runs on 18 hits and 3 walks. He last faced them on July 24th giving up 4 runs in 6 2/3 innings. Derek Jeter is batting 429 against lefties this season. The Yankees have not homered in their last 2 games, this can't be true is it, yes it is. 9 of Johnny Damon's last 11 hits have been for extra bases, I think he is trying to stay past this season. The Yankees are 62-30 since A-rod came off the DL. Big Tex is slumping a bit going 3 for his last 18 with 1 rbi in his last 5 games. Tex, Pujols and Adam Dunn are the only players with at least 30 homeruns in each of the last 6 seasons. Kurt Suzuki a yankee killer well he is hitting 407 against them in his career with 11 rbi's. This season he is hitting 448 against them with 5 xbh and 9 rbi's. Yankees Lineup: Jeter(SS) Damon(LF) Tex(1B) A-rod(3B) Matsui(DH) Swisher(RF) Cano(2B) Cabrera(CF) Molina(C)

Yanks win again take over first place

The New York Yankees won their fifth game in a row tonight and in doing so they took over sole possession of first place. They now lead the Red Sox by 1 game in the AL East. Sergio Mitre got the start and pitched fairly well going 5 2/3 innings giving up 8 hits, 4 runs with 1 walk and 4 strikeouts. Alfredo Aceves pitched 1 1/3 scoreless giving up 0 hits, 0 walks and 0 strikeouts. Phil Coke came on and pitched a scoreless 8th and Mo finished it off with a 1-2-3 ninth for his 26th save. The offense really didn't do much again but A-rod had a big 2 run single and also added a walk and stolen base. Cody Ransom had a double and a couple of walks with a stolen base. Johnny Damon had a rbi single, just missing the 200th homerun of his career. Robinson Cano had a couple of hits with one of them being a 2 run homerun. The Yankees once again played very good defense. They will look for their 2nd straight sweep tomorrow afternoon with A.J. Burnett on the mound.