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Is Eight Enough?

The Yankees’ current eight-game winning streak matches their best such streak from last season. Interestingly, last year’s streak also included a 5-1 run against the A’s and got the Yanks out of an early hole and back over .500. The Yankees aren’t back over .500 yet, but they would be with a win tonight as they roll into Seattle to face a Mariner team they swept in the Bronx one week ago.

Not much has changed with the M’s since then, though they did have fun this weekend, taking 2 of 3 from the Red Sox (by comparison the A’s were swept by the Sox in between series with the Yanks). There have been a couple of roster changes in Seattle. Wiki Gonzalez, who was called up to replace Dan Wilson and promptly given the starting catching job over a severely slumping Miguel Olivo, has been placed on the disabled list with a hamstring injury. Olivo has been given the starting job back and 21-year-old rookie Rene Rivera has been called up to serve as the back-up.

Meanwhile, Joel Pineiro, who was to become the staff ace after the trade of Freddy Garcia last year only to spend the majority of that time on the DL thus far, has been sent to the minors to work on his mechanics following a rough Friday the 13th start. Reliever Julio Mateo, who has started just 12 games in his professional career, the last coming with Class-A Wisconsin in 2000, will take Pineiro’s start against the Yankees on Tuesday. He will be framed by Aaron Sele (tonight) and Jamie Moyer (Wednesday) against whom the Yankees scored twelve runs on eighteen hits in five innings last week.

Chein-Ming Wang takes the ball for the Yanks tonight. Removing his one rough outing in Tampa, he’s turned in this line in his other two starts: 14 IP, 10 H, 5 R, 0 HR, 5 BB, 3 K. Curiously, the only part of that that isn’t encouraging is the K/BB ratio, which was one of his strong suits in the minors. Expect that to correct itself. He’s already seen his strikeouts increase in all three starts, even if it has only been from 0 to 3.

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7 comments

1 rbj   ~  May 16, 2005 5:05 pm

1.  No, eight is not enough. I want the team to be over .500, and stay that way.

2 Nick from Washington Heights   ~  May 16, 2005 9:17 pm

2.  Bernie!

3 weeping for brunnhilde   ~  May 16, 2005 9:19 pm

3.  Wow!!! Bernie, and from the left side! I'm just thrilled. Fantastic!

And now Giambi goes the other way, inside out swing, says Sterling.

This is old-school!

4 rilkefan   ~  May 16, 2005 9:20 pm

4.  When Bernie finally retires, I'll probably think back on this moment.

5 singledd   ~  May 16, 2005 9:21 pm

5.  geez....I hope I'm not the only one who prefers Bernie over Womack (although I think switching Bernie and Matsui is slightly better defense).

6 brockdc   ~  May 16, 2005 11:12 pm

6.  Man, I hate to be the one to you-know-what on this parade; but Bernie's playing center like he's wearing marble moon boots. Is there any way we can move him over to left whenever he plays the field? I like Womack, but I'm not so sure he needs to play EVERY day.

7 Zack   ~  May 16, 2005 11:27 pm

7.  Its always nice to see Bernie in center to remind yourself just how awful he is. At this point, the best set up we have is Bernie as DH, with Giambi riding the pine...

Clearly, Andy Phillips is in Kenny Lofton/Bubba Trammel/Louis Soho/Enrique Wilson etc land. One of these days Torre will remember he's on the team and send him out there, at which point he will strike out a few times and not play again for a few weeks...

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"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver