Yankees Win a Weekend Trio

We took a little time off this weekend from working the blog, but baseball does not wait for us. The Yankees won two of the games they would like to during the regular season- by getting excellent starting pitching. The other was a shootout with the Pirates that Yankees held on to for a 13-10 win.

The most impressive aspect of Saturday's game, which was televised on YES, was the perfect work of A.J. Burnett. Perfect in that Burnett retired all 12 batters he faced in the Yankees 3-1 win over the Astros.

One surprise in the game was an appearance by Robinson Cano, who came up as a pinch-hitter. Cano has not yet been cleared to return to the field. He and Damaso Marte will be headed for MRIs today.

Johnny Damon led off the bottom of the first with a home run off of Astros' starter Wandy Rodriguez. Cody Ransom enjoyed a 2-hit game.

Ian Kennedy came out the winner in the wild victory over the Pirates in Bradenton. Kennedy bounced back from two bad outings in a row to allow one unearned run over three innings. He also struck out five. Starter Phil Hughes had an up and down outing, allowing a pair of solo home runs and three walks in three innings.

Jesus Montero highlighted a seven run seventh inning with a grand slam. Austin Jackson also homered. On the down side, Mark Melancon was tagged for five runs in just 2/3 of an inning.

Yesterday, it was Andy Pettitte's turn to put together a fine performance in a 5-1 win over the Twins. Making the day even better was Jorge Posada's first appearance this spring behind home plate.

"He (Posada) seemed normal back there to me," said Pettitte, who worked three scoreless innings. "I guess I'm so used to seeing him back there -- the way he sets up and everything -- that it's just kind of embedded in my head." MLB.com

Posada didn't get the chance to throw out any base stealers, even though speedster Carlos Gomez did reach base safely.

Phil Coke, Jose Veras, Anthony Claggett, and Stephen Jackson all looked good in keeping the Twins to five hits over the final six innings.

Angel Berroa continued to impress with his bat, going for 1-2 with 2 RBI. He's now hitting .438 (14-32) for the spring with 8 RBI in 13 games.

The Yankees takes on the Phillies today in Tampa at 1:15 EDT. Joba Chamberlain will be looking to build some momentum off his last start.


Brian Cashman said Alex Rodriguez is coming along nicely in his rehab from hip surgery. Cashman has so much faith in Dr. Marc Phillipon that he doesn't feel he needs to check in with him regularly on A-Rod's progress.