Curtis Granderson and Ivan Nova lead the Yankees to victory

The New York Yankees defeated the Anaheim Angels by the score of 9-3 on Wednesday night. Ivan Nova made the start and continued to make a case for staying in the rotation. The way he has been pitching, I don’t think there is anyway they can remove him from the rotation. The Yankees offense was led by Curtis Granderson who hit two homeruns setting a career high with 31 on the season.
Nova pitched six plus innings giving up three runs on five hits. He didn’t strike out a batter and walked three. Nova ran out of gas in the seventh and that is when two runs scored on him. Rafael Soriano who has done a great job since coming back from the disabled list pitched a scoreless inning. Soriano entered the game with the bases loaded and no outs and he got a ground ball double play and a fly out. Luis Ayala pitched two innings giving up three hits and no runs, he struck out three batters. Nova picked up his 11th win of the season.

Brett Gardner had a walk, Derek Jeter had a walk and Granderson had two hits and four RBI with a walk. Cano had three hits and two RBI, Nick Swisher had two hits and an RBI and Eric Chavez had a hit and an RBI. Russell Martin had a hit and an RBI. Cano, Chavez and Swisher each had a double. Cano had a triple and a homerun and Granderson had two homeruns. The Yankees were 3-9 with runners on scoring position and left three men on base.

The Yankees didn’t make Angels starter Garrett Richards feel welcome. Richards was called up from AA which is hard enough and then he had to pitch in Yankee Stadium against the Yankees. He only pitched five innings giving up six hits and six runs. The victory was the Yankees first since May 1, 2004 against a starter making his major league debut. They had lost their last six games in which a starter was making his major league debut. The Yankees will try and win the series on Thursday afternoon. Bartolo Colon will be making the start against another young Angels starter.

The Yankees have a seven game lead over the Angels for the wild card and they came into this game 1 ½ games behind the Red Sox for first place in the AL East. The Red Sox are still currently playing so right now it is a one game lead. Curt