Yankees Rout Mets in Series Finale

Santana not so Smooth.

This had to be the oddest Yankees-Mets interleague series to date. You had the Luis Castillo (Cas-tE-yo) error on Friday night that gave the Yankees an improbable victory.

Mets fans figured they were in trouble on Saturday with Fernando Nieve on the hill, but instead, he and another long time minor leaguer, Omir Santos, dominated the Yankees in a Mets win.

So you had to think that today, Sunday, the Mets would take the series with their ace Johan Santana going up against A.J. Burnett. The Yankees right-hander had been shredded in Boston and had been shaky of late, while Santana is one of the top 3 pitchers in all of baseball.

So what happened? The Yankees won in a 15-0 blowout of course. Santana was charged with 9 earned runs, the highest total of his career, in just 3 official innings. He faced 5 batters in the 4th and didn't retire any of them.

Burnett was the complete opposite of Santana on the day. He threw 7 shutout innings and got out of a bases loaded, no-out jam in the 3rd inning when the score was just 4-0. He also gave the bullpen a much needed rest.

The Yankees put 4 runs on the board on Santana in the 2nd inning with Francisco Cervelli and Derek Jeter delivering RBI singles and Johnny Damon driving in a pair of runs with a single of his own.

Burnett did his Houdini act in the 3rd after a pair of walks and a single. He struck out Alex Cora and Fernando Martinez, and got Carlos Beltran on a line out to Jeter. Burnett was fired up by his great escape and so were his teammates.

They sent Santana to an early shower in the 4th after he allowed a 2-run home run to Hideki Matsui and an another RBI single to Jeter. Brian Stokes was greeted by Damon with an RBI double and an infield single by Mark Teixeira. An RBI ground out drove in another run and then Robinson Cano crushed a Stokes deep into the bleachers in right-center field for an 11-0 Yankees lead. Melky Cabrera capped off the inning with a 2-run double that hit the top of the wall in right-center and came back into play. He was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple or the inning might still be going.

In all, 12 batters, 9 runs, 8 hits, 3 walks (2 by Nick Swisher), and 2 home runs.
Ramiro Pena added and RBI single and Cano a sac fly with the bases loaded in the 7th for the 15-0 finale.

Game Notes

The Yankees have a much earned/needed day off on Monday before starting a series with the Washington Nationals Tuesday night.

Jerry Manuel was ejected from the ball game after he came out to protest the ball and strike calls by home plate ump Jim Wolf. Both Alex Cora and David Wright were upset with him too when they struck out.

The YES camera crews caught relievers Brian Bruney and Francisco Rodriguez "discussing" Bruney's comments about the Mets closer. Several players got in between them when K-Rod got heated up. According to Jon Heyman, several Yankees stopped a Bruney interview after the game when he was asked about the incident by the media.

We hate K-Rod's end game histrionics as much as anyone, but Bruney, who has had a mediocre career, needs to shut the hell up.