It’s Saturday night and we’ve all got other places we’d like to be, so let’s sum this one up bullet point style.
- CC Sabathia … man is that guy awesome or what? He pitched better than his line (7-5-3-3-3-8) indicates, taking a no-hitter into the fifth and only laboring in that one inning when a couple of bloops dropped in. He gave up a solo homer to ex-teammate Grady Sizemore on a 3-1 challenge fastball later in the game. Grady won the battle, so tip your hat to him. Sabathia is now second in the AL with 78 IP (four behind Halladay), and every bit the horse the Yanks thought they were getting when they signed him for $161M.
- David Robertson threw a flawless inning in relief, and should start seeing some more high-leverage innings. Since he was recalled, he’s faced eight batters, retiring all of them. Jose Veras entered the game with a seven run lead in the ninth and did what the great ones do, he pitched to the score.
- The offense seemingly scored at will. Jorge Posada & Nick Swisher clubbed second inning solo homers, and Robbie Cano drove in three. Deter Jeter & Johnny Damon each drove in a pair of runs and Alex Rodriguez reached base three more times. Even Hideki Matsui went 3 for 5. Hugs and hand-pounds all around, the team is firing on all cylinders.
- The Yanks have now gone 16 games without committing an error, and are one away from tying the 2006 Red Sox’s record of 17 consecutive errorless games. Kim Jones totally jinxed it on the postgame though.
With the win, the Yanks increase their lead in the AL East to 1.5 games, and their run differential is only four runs worse than second place Boston, amazing considering how bad Chien-Ming Wang was early in the year. Phil Hughes vs. Carl Pavano in an early game tomorrow, 12:40 start time.