The Yankees are in first place for the Wild Card. That’s the good news. The bad news is, with the Indians looking like they’ll be winning their game, we’ll have a three way tie for first place. The Yanks accomplished all of this by taking three of four against the Blue Jays.
On Monday, Jaret Wright had another good outing since coming off of the disabled list. He threw seven shutout innings, and the pen did their job to secure the win. Hideki Matsui drove in three runs and Alex Rodriguez had three hits and he drove in his 100th run of the season.
Tuesday was THE game. The Yanks came back on three seperate occasions and they walked off the field in the ninth with the win. Down 4-3, Hideki Matsui hit a solo homer to tie the game up. The Yankees then loaded up the bases and with two outs, Felix Escalona singled home the winning run. Al Leiter had one of his best outings of the season (he only walked one, enough said) and Mariano Rivera walked away with his sixth win of the season.
Yesterday’s game was a drag. Mike Mussina was tagged for eight runs as the Blue Jays scored all nine of their runs in the fifth inning. The Yanks tried staging a comeback by scoring five unanswered runs but it just wasn’t enough. Bernie Williams hit a three run pinch hit homer and Matsui (who had a great series) had three hits and two RBIs.
This afternoon, Shawn Chacon threw another great game. He’s really looked good since donning the pin stripes. He gave up only two runs on six hits through seven innings of work. Gary Sheffield had the big hit with a three run blast in the 1st inning and Alex Rodriguez added his 37th homer of the season.
Boston is losing as we speak. If they drop their game, we’ll only be two and a half games back. Kansas City rolls into town so anything less then a sweep would be a disappointment. The Red Sox host the Tigers in the shitbox this weekend. The Tigers had a chance to help us out but they laid an egg against the A’s this week. Hopefully they’ll be able to do it for us against the Sox. Cleveland goes to Toronto, so hopefully the Jays aren’t too shellshocked to pull out a couple of wins.
