It's feast or famine with this team.
Andy Pettitte made one big mistake through his six innings and A.J. Burnett was dominant as the
Blue Jays downed the Yanks 4-1 on the final day before the All-Star break. Once again, the Bomber offense was held in check. The Yankees have played 12 games in July and have been held to three or fewer runs in seven of them. They are 6-6 during that span. How'd they ever win six?
The Good:Jason Giambi. The Yankees were two outs away from being shutout for the second time in three days and third time this month before The 'Stache stepped up to the plate. The Giambino launched his 19th round-tripper of the year to prevent the embarrassment. That was all the offense, folks. Giambi finished 2 for 4 with a run scored and the lone RBI.
The Bad:Andy Pettitte. I was a bit conflicted about putting Pettitte in the bad category since nothing short of a shutout is good enough with the way the Yanks are hitting, but his one faux pas in the second was huge. The Blue Jays already had a 1-0 lead (thanks in part to another misplayed ball by Bobby Abreu in right) and had runners on first and second with no outs. Light-hitting Marco Scutaro was up and in sacrifice mode. Pettitte got ahead 0-2 to take off the bunt and Scutaro responded by blasting a three-run homer to left. Just like that the Jays were up 4-0 and you could just sense that the game was over. Pettitte didn't allow a run the rest of the way, but giving up Scutaro's third dinger of the year was inexcusable. "If we want to make the playoffs, we've got to be better," Pettitte said after the game. Here, here. Pettitte dropped to 10-7 with this: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 6 K, 1 HR.
The Ugly:Third place at the break -- again. This is the second straight season that the Yankees are looking up in the standings heading into the All-Star Game. The Bombers finished the first half in third place in the AL East, six games back of the Boston Red Sox and 5.5 games behind the Tampa Bay Rays for the wild card. Disappointing, but I'm going to shine a bit of sunshine on this (or make excuses, you decide). The Bombers are five games over .500 (they were 42-43 at the break last year), have gotten zero wins from two starters (Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy), lost Chien-Ming Wang until at least September, watched Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada go down with injuries for a combined seven weeks, put Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui on the disabled list and they're still in the thick of the hunt. The Yanks went on a tear in the second half last season. Let's see if they can give us an encore.
The Yanks will be off until Friday (they get an extra day for some reason) when they welcome in the Oakland Athletics for a three-game set. Mike Mussina (11-6, 3.61 ERA) will go against Joe Blanton (5-12, 4.96 ERA). Blanton has had a rough-go this season. He finished 1-4 with a 7.16 ERA in June, including a 4-1 loss to the Yankees in Oaktown. Blanton is 0-3 with an 8.18 ERA in four career starts against the Yanks. The Moose has been on the receiving end of the lackluster offense. Mussina has given up eight runs in his past 26 innings (2.76 ERA), but is 1-2 in those four starts. The Moose is 17-10 with a 3.82 ERA in 34 career starts against the A's.
So take some time off, relax and come back ready to play, Bombers.
It gets late early around here.
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