Baseball’s Savior

Earlier in the season, the Yankees dug themselves a nice hole. Now, they’re paying for it because they almost have to be perfect down the stretch to make the playoffs. Fortunately, we’re talking about the greatest franchise in the history of sports, so it’s well within their capabilities. The problem is, they just have to do it.

Today’s game is case in point. The Yankees had a six game winning streak, but right now, that’s not enough. Fortunately the Red Sox lost as well, so we’re still only one and a half back. The Indians didn’t lose, so we’re also 1 1/2 back of them. What’s interesting is the Red Sox are now tied with the Indians, so you have three teams chasing two playoff spots. If we’re able to pass the Red Sox, they might not have the Wild Card to fall back on. Same goes for us if we can’t take the AL East.

Today’s game was a tough one, both on the score board and on the field. Jaret Wright and Jason Giambi both left the game. Giambi we can live without because we usually don’t have a problem on offense (not that he won’t be missed). Jaret Wright is the tougher nut because we all know the Yankees are short on arms. We might be seeing Al Leiter back in the rotation.

And we lost. We were down early 5-2, and while we scored a run in each of the last three innings, it was the Jays insurance run in the eighth that really burned us. Jaret Wright may have walked away (in more ways the one) with the loss, but Tanyon Sturtze definitely gets an assist.

The other two weekend games were scary as well. On Friday, we jumped out to an 11-3 lead and it didn’t seem to matter that much that Randy Johnson got tossed. A few innings later, it was 11-10 and we were fighting for our lives. The back end of the pen (Strutze and Rivera) did their job, and we walked away with a win.

Yesterday, Shawn Chacon pitched the game of his life. Man, this guy must be glad to get out of Denver, because he’s been lights out at times for us. Nice trading deadline move. Anyway, he pitched eight shutout innings and gave up four hits, resting the pen in the process. Oddly, he only struck out one batter, and he didn’t have that great of a ground ball/fly ball ratio (8/14). Bernie Williams singled home Jorge Posada, and that’s all we’d need.

Now we head home to play the Orioles in a four game series. Three of four is mandatory. Splits don’t cut it, because we have only two weeks left. Cleveland squares off against the struggling White Sox in Chicago for three. Boston goes to Tampa Bay. Maybe Tampa can help us out after all the damage they’ve caused us this year.