No Support for Rasner

He pitched an amazing game for the Yankees. He released 118 pitches from the mound and 75 of them passed across the plate for strikes. He walked none and only let two runs score. He lasted 8 innings which, by recent Yankee pitching standards is incredible in itself. But yet again, his teammates were unable to perform for him offensively and Rasner wound up taking a loss for last night's 2-to-1 game against Kansas City.

In fact, in his last 3 starts, the Yankees have only scored 2 runs for Rasner. This is not the way to catch up to Boston.

Abreu, Rodriguez, Cano and Cabrera all went 2-for-4 last night and one would think that would have been enough to put more than one run in the books. But that doesn't always happen when you strand 9 men on base. A ground out double play (A-Rod) is not the way to move runners.

To the teams defense however, I think that it was the obnoxiously incorrect call by the home plate official (Ed Montague) in the bottom of the eighth inning that cost the Yankees this game. It happened with Giambi at the plate with runners at first and second and Jason didn't even come close to swinging at a 3-2 pitch but was called out for not checking his swing. It is surprising to get such a poor call from a veteran official... a call that never would have come to pass if Montague would have first checked with his colleagues at first and third base, as he is supposed to do.

"It doesn't matter now. I can't really do much about it," Giambi said. He is right... but where was the skipper to support his slugger? I would have liked to at least see Girardi leave the dugout to argue this one.

So the Yanks return to last place and one game under .500, unable to beat a team that was toting an 11-game losing streak on the road. They will have three more chances this weekend. The next one today at 1:05pm. I will be at the stadium. Perhaps I can provide the Bombers with a little bit of luck.