Mother's Day Rainout

The rubber game of the three game set between the Yankees and the Tigers was rained out on Mother's Day. A make-up date has not yet been announced by July 24th and September 1st seem to be the two possibilities.

The Yankees have arrived in Florida and will begin a four game series against the Rays beginning tonight at 7:10pm.

Standings

I wasn't able to watch yesterday afternoon's 5-to-2 Yankee win over the Tiger's, so I had to resort to the box score to write this entry. It seems as though Rasner might be sticking around for a while if he can continue to perform like he has been. Giving the Yanks six solid innings and only letting 2 runs score on his watch... yeah, we'll take that.

Today it will be important for Pettitte to secure the win so that New York can leave Detroit with the series. The standings have them 4.5 games back at this point and, although it is still early, this is a good time to start narrowing the gap. Four games against Tampa Bay this week give the Yankees some real opportunity for movement in the standing before taking on the Mets at home.

Kei Igawa got his shot last night to show that he has made some improvement since last season. I didn’t see any improvement.

His inability to pitch low is still the main concern and the Tigers took advantage of this weakness, taking 11 hits over 3 innings (though really only in the 1st and 3rd innings). Igawa, who struggled all last season for the Yankees, had been showing better stuff in Triple-A this spring. But as we all know, Triple-A is not the majors. The current plan, according to Girardi during the post-game interview, is to give Igawa another chance. Whether or not the Yankees follow through with this plan is, well, up to the Yankees. More than likely Ian Kennedy, another "star"of the minors, will wind up replacing him.

I personally do not think that the solution to New York’s pitching woes lies in their Triple-A teams. We need to be looking further and outside of the organization. If Boomer is serious about coming back then let’s get working on the paperwork. Igawa, and Kennedy for that matter, are nothing more than band-aids for the moment. Unless the team is in a position to lose a minimum of 2 of every 5 games for the rest of the season, some more permanent plans need to be formed.

And what the hell was the deal with Betemit? Third base is clearly not the best of his utility positions and Ensberg should have been at that bag. There is no doubt that much of last night’s loss rested on Wilson’s shoulders. I haven’t quite figured out what some of Girardi’s logic is when he creates these lineups.

So the Yankees offense did what they could to save the game but a pop out from Duncan sent the team to the clubhouse with a loss of 6-to-5.

Four errors in total for the evening. 14 hits that couldn’t allow us to take the lead. And Albaladejo is going to the DL with an elbow injury to be replaced by Chris Britton. Tonight is another game.