Tex Slam Gives Yankees Subway Series II

Mark Teixeira has heard the grousing from the fans. He's been repeatedly asked what's wrong and when will he turn things around? Joe Girardi has stuck by his 1st baseman through his season long slump and it paid off dividends over the weekends with the Mets.

Teixeira's grand slam provided all the runs on the day as CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera blanked the Mets 4-0.

The Subway Series has lost a lot of it's sting and six games is three too many. That being said, the weekend games were very intense as a good amount of Mets fans filtered into Yankee Stadium.

Johann Santana matched zero with Sabathia for the first two innings, but ran into trouble in the 3rd. Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter started the inning off with back to back singles. That brought up Nick Swisher, who was below the Mendoza line against Santana in his career.

No one was more aware of that than Swisher himself. Hitting right-handed, Swisher pushed a bunt down the first base line. It so confused the Mets that Santana and second baseman Ruben Tejada collided as they converged on first base and Ike Davis' flip.

With the bags juiced, Santana threw three straight change ups, but left the last one over the heart of the plate and Teixeira jumped all over it. It was the seventh grand slam of the season for the Yankees, tops in the majors.

Sabathia breezed through the first five innings before Tejada gave the Mets their best shot with a leadoff double in the 6th. But Sabathia retired Jose Reyes, Angel Pagan, and David Wright to strand Tejada right where he started.

The Mets had their last shot against Sabathia an inning later when Davis singled and Jason Bay walked. But once again Sabathia bared down. He struck out Rod Barajas looking and then induced an inning ending double play from Fernando Tatis.

Sabathia's 100th pitch was his last as he completed the eighth having allowed just four hits. Rivera's 1-2-3 9th inning earned him his 16th save of the season and a split of the six games with the Mets.

photo courtesy of Yahoo Sports