Yankees Take Down Mighty Rays

Just when I was getting ready to write a post about how, even though I’m not happy about it, I’m willing to accept this year as a non-playoff year and focus on next year. That would mean being happy about Cashman not making any big moves, or any at all, before the trade deadline, keeping the prospects, not acquiring any more aging veterans, etc. And I hope that still happens. But as far as being a team that may sneak into the playoffs, the Yankees aren’t out of it. Last night’s win in Tampa was impressive. Pettitte pitched real well and the bats kicked Kazmir out of the game pretty early, and he’s no slouch. It was the Yankees’ eighth shutout of the year; they had five all of last year. In fact, this was their fifth in the past 21 games. Melky, who finally homered for the first time in about a month, has matched his total from last year. Remember I had mentioned that Jose Molina had a great stealers caught ratio? Last night’s Michael Kay-less YES broadcast confirmed that it is by far the best in the bigs. His 12 consecutive runners thrown out matches a streak last achieved in 1993…I’m just sayin’ they’ve been playing well lately, and with a ton of injuries. That’s all.

Jeter said about last night’s game: "People make a big deal, obviously, because it's Tampa.” Is this a parallel universe? New York slashed their deficit to Tampa in the loss column to, uh…8. Yikes. Tonight: Edwin Jackson vs. Gentleman Sidney Ponson.

In the meantime, the AL East is the only division in baseball without a team that has a negative run differential. (Yesterday everyone was in the black but Baltimore didn’t do so well last night and is now at 0.) Does this mean anything? I’m not sure, but it’s interesting. I wish I had time to research it.

The NL West only has its two top teams in the black in run differential, and they’re at +5 and +6! (Diamondbacks and Dodgers, respectively) Arizona is leading the division at exactly .500, which will probably be enough to win it at season’s end. The Orioles are at .500 and are in 4^th place, 10.5 GB. There are 15 teams in the majors with better records than the Diamondbacks – half of MLB! Again, I don’t know what any of this means, except that the NL West stinks.