The Yanks cruised to a 5-1 win last night behind a dominating complete game by Chien-Ming Wang. Wang needed just 104 pitches and faced just 33 batters, allowing five hits, all of them singles, and a walk while striking out four and getting 16 of the remaining 23 outs on the ground. Two of those 16 groundouts came on a double play. Wang has induced at least one double play and picked up the decision in each of his nine starts this season.
The only Chicago run scored in the third inning on a single, a wild pitch, and a pair of groundouts. The only time the Sox had more than one man reach base in an inning was in the sixth when Jerry Owens got on via an infield single and stole second. Tad Iguchi then hit a hard single to shallow center and third-base coach Razor Shines sent Owens home where he ran right into the second out thanks to a strong throw by Melky Cabrera.
As for the Yanks, they got four of their runs in the third despite the fact that both Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada ran into outs at second base. In Rodriguez’s case, he hit what looked like a grand slam to left field, but the ball hit off the bottom of the wall for what should have been a two-RBI double, only Rodriguez had merely jogged to first. In Posada’s case, he tagged up at first on a Hideki Matsui sac fly to center and was thrown out when Owens’ throw home was cut off. Both Rodriguez and Posada appeared to be safe on the replays, however, but, using the NFL standard, neither was clear enough to overturn the call on the field.
Wang’s complete game was the Yankees’ first of the year, and the first complete game victory by a Yankee starter since Wang himself shut out the Devil Rays last July. The only other complete game of Wang’s career was the game in Washington last year that he lost on a walk-off home run by Ryan Zimmerman. Wang has pitched a minimum of eight full innings on ten other occasions.
With that victory the Yankees are just one game behind the White Sox in the Wild Card standings and can pull even with them with a victory tonight.
