The road trip that is. The Yanks go for their second sweep of the Mariners in a ten day span tonight, with Mike Mussina–who started this whole winning streak thingy by shutting out the A’s a week and a half ago–coming off the three best starts of his season. His mound opponent will be Jamie Moyer, who hasn’t made it out of the fourth inning of any of his last three starts, the last coming against the Yankees when he was run with one out in the third. Moyer has a 19.80 ERA in his two May starts combined.
Bernie Williams, who has always owned Moyer and went 2 for 2 against him last week with a double and an RBI single, is expected to start, which might mean Womack will sit and the outfield will be an adventure.
Speaking of line-up changes, I had this fantasy that Joe Torre decided that, with the series in his pocket, he could sit E-Rod tonight in favor of Andy Phillips or Russ Johnson, or perhaps a two-at-bats-each in-game platoon of the two. You see, E-Rod has played third for all but one inning this season while Johnson has just one at-bat in the majors this year and Phillips hasn’t played since he took an 0-fer in Moose’s streak-starting shutout back on May 7. With the Yanks headed to Shea to take on the Mets this weekend, it would help to have those two bats a bit warmer than they are now (which is ice cold) for pinch-hit opportunities. And it wouldn’t hurt to rest E-Rod with the series in the bag and a 5-0 record on the current road trip.
Just a thought. I know it won’t happen.
