Mr. August

Winfield is Mr. May. Reggie's got Mr. October. And Derek snagged Mr. November. It's time to officially tab Andy Pettitte as Mr. August. The Yankees left-hander continued his late Summer mastery with a dominant 7 innings in a must 8-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels. The victory enabled the Yankees to gain a game in both the AL East and Wild Card races, as both Boston and Seattle lost.

Pettitte improved to 5-0, 2.06 this month, by limiting the Angels to 1 run, an Orlando Cabrera home run, and 5 hits. He struck out 6 and walked just 2 in a 95-pitch effort. And this time around the Yankees hitters made sure there would be no late inning heroics by the Halos.

With the game tied 1-1 in the 7th, the Yankees put runners on the corners with 1 out. Melky Cabrera came up with the first clutch hit of the night, ripping a John Lackey delivery for an RBI single through the right side. Lackey retired Johnny Damon but Derek Jeter delivered a big 2-out single for a 3-1 lead. on a fly out, Jeter was thrown out trying to advance to 2nd on the play to end the inning.

The Yankees put the game away in the 8th. Bobby Abreu sent Lackey to the showers with a long home run, his 15th, to dead center field. Scott Shields replaced Lackey and continued his poor performance since the All-Star break. After a walk to Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui ripped a double into the right field corner, and both runners came home on Jorge Posada's double to left. Posada was 3-4 on the night to raise his average back to .336. Melky Cabrera rounded out the inning's scoring with a liner just out of the reach of shortstop Orlando Cabrera.

After Robinson Cano's RBI single in the 8th, the Yankees turned the game over to Joba Chamberlain, who merely went out and struck out the side. He did allow 1 single, which was quite charitable. Oh, and he hit 100 mph on the radar gun, prompting oohs and ahs from the crowd. Maybe more amazing is that Vlad Guerrero was right on it and fouled it back.

...

Mariano Rivera pitched the 9th to get some work and allowed 1 run, though 2 of the 3 hits he allowed were bloopers. He also struck out 2.

Andy Pettitte is now 68-33 in his Yankees career following a loss. He's now 44-16, 3.32 in all the Augusts of his career.

The win was number 1,150 for Joe Torre, pushing him past Casey Stengel for sole possession of 2nd place on the all-time Yankees wins list.

Joba Chamberlain's performance continues to make fans push for the Yankees to get rid of the so-called "Joba Rules". He's now struck out 14 batters in 8 innings pitched.