The Yankees were both lucky and good on Friday night as they beat the woeful Mariners (who were both unlucky and bad) about the face and neck to the tune of 13-2.  It was a beautiful night–crisp and cool–for a laugher in the Bronx.  Manager Joe Girardi sat this one out after being suspended for his theatrics last night, but I’m sure he liked what he saw on TV as Andy Pettitte featured a sharp slider and mixed his pitches effectively, striking out a season-high nine over six innings. 

The Yankee offense featured a few well struck balls (Hideki Matsui had three hits, the slumping Shelley Duncan cranked a three-run homer, while Bobby Abreu and Robinson Cano had a couple of hits each), but mostly featured a chorus line of dinkers and dunkers, 18-hoppers through the infield and off-the-end-of-the-bat flares to the outfield.  In fact, such a collection of cheap-o and fortunate hits I can’t recall seeing in some time.  And during the eight-run fifth, Derek Jeter deftly kept himself in a rundown until the two runners behind him advanced; on the next play, Alex Rodriguez got a tremendous jump on a soft liner to center and scored easily, and later Matsui slid under a tag at the plate to score another run.  In the eighth, Matsui even threw out a runner at the plate who was trying to score on a sac fly.  Go figure.  It was that kind of night.

Everything broke New York’s way as they won their third straight.  Maybe it’s Giambi’s mustache. Whatever the case, we’ll take it and we like it.