Yankees come out on top in Subway Series

The New York Yankees defeated the New York Mets this afternoon by the score of 9-3.  The final score looks like the Yankees had an easy time but that isn't true.  The offense struggled for most of the day off of Mike Pelfrey and then the seventh inning happened.  In that inning the Yankees sent 13 men to the plate, scored eight runs and it took half an hour to complete.  Oh yeah they didn't hit a homerun, it was all walks, hit by pitches, singles, doubles.  The Yankees scored runs without hitting a homerun, they must of been sick of hearing all that homerun is evil talk.  The Yankees offense has been inconsistent at best and they seem to only hit homeruns which have accounted for 60 percent of their total runs scored.  This may be the game that breaks them out of the slump and gets them doing the little things more. 

Ivan Nova started for the Yankees and although he wasn't great he pitched 6 2/3 innings and gutted it out.  He gave up 11 hits and bent but didn't break.  He gave the Yankees a chance to win when it looked like he may get knocked out early and they would have a tough time coming back.  Luis Ayala did a terrific job out of the bullpen.  He pitched 1 1/3 hitless, scoreless innings.  Lance Pendleton finished the game up with a 1-2-3 inning. 

Curtis Granderson hit his 16th homerun of the season today.  Alex Rodriguez had four hits and Derek Jeter had two hits.  Jeter is inching closer to that 3,000 mark.  Jeter is 25 hits shy of the mark.  Chris Dickerson and Brett Gardner had two hits, Robinson Cano had a big RBI single.  Jorge Posada had a hit and a walk as he continues to try and climb out of his season long slump, he is hitting much better of late. 

The Yankees will take on the Toronto Blue Jays in a three game series which begins on Monday night.  Bartolo Colon will make the start.  The Yankees are percentage points ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays for first place in the AL East.  The Boston Red Sox are only 1/2 a game behind, it is looking like some race this summer between the three teams.  The Yankees record is now 25-20. 

Joe Girardi seemed to be bothered after the game with all the homerun questions.  He gets asked almost daily about hitting too many homeruns and not doing enough of what they did today.  He said he feels that homeruns aren't being considered hits and that bothers him.  I think that the problem is you can't always hit homeruns, especially against good pitching and in playoff type baseball.  Alex Rodriguez understands and says the same thing I just said which is you are not going to hit homers against great pitching.  He said, "You have to have diversity in how you score runs."  He said that the things they did in that inning are going to count when it really counts which means they will remember that and have something to go back on when they need too. 

In the previous five home games for the Yankees they were 4-33 with runners in scoring position.  In the seventh inning today they were 5-7, including 4-4 with the bases loaded.  The homerun that Granderson hit makes him the fourth player in the last 50 years to have that many homeruns(16) in the first 45 games.  He also layed down a great bunt in that seventh inning and had no problem with that.  He said "If I'm asked to sacrifice bunt, I'm going to take pride in getting that bunt down."