Yankees Take a (Home) Stand

When previewing the Yankees weekend series with the Detroit Tigers, you had to like, outside of Friday night, the pitching match ups. As it turned out that's exactly how it turned out. After Friday night's debacle, the Yankees took the next 3 games, culminating with yesterday's 9-3 win at Yankee Stadium.

Chien-Ming Wang wasn't at his best, but he still held the Tigers to a "quality" 3 runs in 6 innings. The Yankees had handed the Wanger a 2-1 lead against Jeremy Bonderman, but the hero of Taipei gave up 2 runs in the top of the 5th. Hideki Matsui's sac fly tied the game in the Yankees half of the 5th and then Johnny Damon gave Wang a chance to be the winner with an upper deck home run off of Bonderman in the 6th. It was one of Damon's 3 hits on the day and his 7th home run of the season.

Wilson Betemit and Andy Phillips singled in runs in the 7th for a 6-3 lead, and then with Mariano Rivera getting ready for a save situation, the Yankees busted the game wide open in the 8th. Aqualino Lopez retired Bobby Abreu to start the inning, but Alex Rodriguez singled through the left side. After Matsui flied out for the 2nd out of the inning, Jorge Posada walked and Robinson Cano ripped a single to right to load the bases. Betemit quickly unloaded with a double up the alley in right-center for a 9-3 lead. The hit also allowed Rivera to sit down and Edwar Ramirez to record his 1st major league save. Bonderman lost his 5th straight decision and dropped to 10-6.

The Tigers had their chances against Wang (14-6). With 2 on and 2 out in the 3rd, Brandon Inge struck out, the 1st of 3 times, on a nasty Wang slider. Mike Rabelo's RBI double in the 4th had cut the Yankees lead in half and put 2 men in scoring position with 1 out. But Inge struck out again and Cameron Maybin grounded out to Cano to end the inning.

The Tigers stranded a runner 3rd in both the 5th and 6th innings. That would be the last chance the Tigers would get, because Joe Torre Chamberlain. With the crowd handed the game over to the young guns. First it was Joba Chamberlain. With the crowd buzzing, Chamberlain retired Gary Sheffield on a pop-up, blew Magglio Ordonez away with a 98-mph fastball, and got Carlos Guillen to swing and miss at a 3rd strike with a nasty slider. When Torre went to K-Ram, the Tigers fared no better.

The right-hander, who looks like he weighs half of what Chamberlain does, struck out the side in the 8th with his 93-mph fastball and hard breaking changeup. When Ramirez retired the side in order in the 9th, the Yankees pen had put together 3 perfect innings.

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The win was the Yankees 70th of the season and put them back at a season high 16 games over .500. With the Angels 3-1 win over the Red Sox, the Yankees moved back to within 4 games of the AL East lead. The Yankees remain a half game back of the Mariners for the Wild Card.

Chien-Ming Wang is now an impressive 41-17 in his 3 year Yankees career.

Taking out his 1 bad performance, after a 2 week layoff, Edwar Ramirez has allowed 1 run in 6.2 innings, striking out 10.

Joba Chamberlain has now thrown 7 shutout innings with 11 strikeouts.

The win was Joe Torre's 1,149th as Yankees manager, tying him with Casey Stengel for 2nd place on the all-time team list. Joe McCarthy is 1st with 1,460.