The Yanks go for the sweep tonight, in their first chance since back-to-back sweeps in May against the Twins and Orioles. It seems strange that the Yankees, with the third-best record in baseball, have only swept two series all year (not counting the two games against the A’s). They’ve been winning a lot of series, which is always nice, but when you have a chance for that sweep you’ve gotta convert.
The Yanks will get a chance against Livan Hernandez. As we noted last time the Yanks faced Livan, they’ve beaten him up pretty good over his career. In 35 career innings Livan has allowed 27 earned runs, including 10 home runs. More of the same, please.
One Yank who could use the run support is Chien-Ming Wang. He hasn’t gotten much of that this year. While it would be a stretch to say he pitched well in his last few starts, the lack of run support hasn’t made them look any better. A quality five- or six-inning performance tonight, combined with a good heap of run support, could be just what Wang needs.
This is it for Interleague play. There is no consensus among fans regarding these interleague games, but count me as one against them. I’d far rather see the Yankees take the 18 games they’ve played against the NL and give them six more series against AL opponents. My favorite part about baseball used to be that there were two leagues, completely separate, until the one meeting in the World Series.
Lineup:
1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Nick Swisher, RF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Robinson Cano, 2B
6. Jorge Posada, C
7. Melky Cabrera, LF
8. Brett Gardner, CF
9. Chien-Ming Wang, P