Yankees 5 – Cardinals 2
Can you believe the Yankees have shed the funk they were in? Does taking two of three from the Astros and sweeping three from the Cardinals officially mean the swagger of April has returned?
It does when the upcoming schedule is softer than David Wells’ midriff.
Not only can the Yankees feel good about yesterday’s 5-2 win over the Cardinals in front of 54,797 at Yankee Stadium, they have to be dying to strap it on for the next 17 games against the Devil Rays, Mets and Orioles.
The next time the Yankees play a team with a pulse is July 4 when they host the Red Sox, who could be looking at a significant AL East deficit if they aren’t careful across the next two weeks. The Bosox stayed a half-game back after beating Houston 3-2 in 14 innings.
A five-run sixth inning that was ignited by Robin Ventura’s two-run, no-out double on the 10th pitch of a good at-bat, erased a 2-1 deficit and made a winner out of Mike Mussina, who improved to 9-4 and got back into the AL Cy Young race.
Woody Williams, who issued six walks and six hits in 5 1/3 innings, opened the fateful sixth by walking Jason Giambi and Jorge Posada. On the move with the count full, they scored when Ventura scorched a high fastball into the right-center-field gap. Hideki Matsui followed with an RBI single to right and he scored on Ruben Sierra’s double to left-center.
“This is more like how we expected to play,” said Mussina, who gave up a homer to Albert Pujols but retired his final 13 batters before watching Mariano Rivera require three pitches to post his ninth save. “We felt we weren’t quite as good as April (21-6 counting one game in March) but certainly not as bad as May (11-17). If we can turn it up a little bit and be close to what we were in April that will be great.”
Joe Torre says everything the Yankees do hinges on pitching, but it’s been the Yankees’ bats that have come alive. Since six Astros pitchers no-hit them last Wednesday and Torre’s blistering meeting afterward, the Yankees are 4-0, batting .331 and averaging 7.25 runs per game.
“We have been having good at-bats and the at-bats Matsui has had in the last 10 days or so has been big in our lineup,” Torre said of his center fielder who is riding a 20-for-36 (.555) hot streak in the last 10 games in which he has driven in 12 runs.
Matsui, who leads the Yankees with a .289 average, also contributed with a back-to-the-plate catch of Kerry Robinson’s one-out fly to center in the seventh.
So, is the middle of June looking like April to the Yankees?
“This was a big win for us because we knew they were a good ballclub,” Mussina said. “We played well for three games and it was a good solid win for us. For the whole month of April we got hits at big times and solid pitching. For the last couple of games we have done that.”
Riding a four-game win streak the Yankees arrive at the softest part of their schedule with their bats smoking, their gloves working and their bullpen roles as defined as they have been all year.
“We are starting to click again,” Giambi said.
