Yankees Offensive Fireworks Continue

Joe Maddon, Buddy Bell, and their respective pitching coaches are wearing out the path between the dugout and the pitcher's mound. After pounding the Devil Rays 3 times out of 4, the Yankees blasted Bell's Royals on Monday night, 9-4. That trend continued tonight when the Yankees scored 7 times in the first 2 innings, drew 10 walks, and forced Bell to go to his bullpen 4 times.

Just as they did Monday night, the Yankees went right for the throat at the start of the game. Johnny Damon lead off the ball game with a walk and Derek Jeter followed with the first of his 4 hits. Damon raced to 3rd ahead of the throw and Jeter moved up to 2nd on the play. Bobby Abreu's sac fly brought home the 1st run off of Scott Elarton. Alex Rodriguez was hit by a pitch and Hideki Matsui walked to load the bases. Jorge Posada ripped a single to score two, and Robinson Cano doubled to left for a 4-0 lead.

The Yankees picked it up again in the 2nd as Damon singled and scored on a double by Abreu. Two batters later Matsui stroked and RBI single, ending Elarton's night. Reliever John Bale didn't fare much better as he intentionally walked Jorge Posada, but unintentionally walked Cano to load the bases. Cano, amazingly, walked 3 times on the night. A walk to Andy Phillips forced in the 3rd run of the inning and gave the Yankees a fat, 7-0 lead. The Yankees would receive 9 free passes on the night.

Chien-Ming Wang didn't seem comfortable all night, but with a big lead he could pitch to the scoreboard. Leading 8-2 in the 5th, he ran into real trouble. David DeJesus and Mark Grudzielanek stroked 1-out singles and moved up a base on a Wang wild pitch. Mark Teahen's sacrifice fly cut the lead to 8-3, and Billy Butler walked to put 2 men aboard again. That's when the Royals helped the Yankees out. Ross Gload singled back up the middle to drive home Grudzielanek, but Butler unwisely tried to go from 1st to 3rd, and was gunned out by Melky Cabrera to end the rally.

The Yankees got one of the runs back in the 6th when Cano walked, Phillips singled, and Damon delivered an RBI single off of Zack Greinke. Mike Myers, Kyle Farnsworth, and Brian Bruney threw an inning each to close out the game.

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The win moved the Yankees to within 4.5 games of the Cleveland Indians in the wild card race, as the Indians lost 1-0 to Dice-K and the Boston Red Sox.

When the Yankees went down in order in the 8th it snapped a streak of 24 consecutive innings where the Yankees had at least 1 man on base.

Johnny Damon continued to show how important it is for him to set the table at the top of the order. He's now 9-21 in the last 5 games, with 8 RBI and 7 runs scored. He also stole his 18th base, in 20 attempts, tonight.

photos courtesy of AP