Thursday, April 17, 2008
Moeller. Chad Moeller.
The Chad Moeller era continues to be a rousing success. After averaging just 3.7 runs a game through their first 15 games of the season, the Yankee offense we were hoping to see all year finally showed up last night in a 15-9 drubbing of the Red Sox. After starting the year 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA, Chien-Ming Wang got touched up for eight runs in four innings, facing four batters in the fifth and not retiring a single one.
The Red Sox came back from a 7-3 deficit to score six in the fifth and take a short-lived 9-7 lead off Wang and Ross Ohlendorf. The Yankees put up a four spot to take the lead right back, but the game was still tenuous. Enter LaTroy Hawkins, who has been pitching decently after a horrendous second outing of the season. Hawkins shut the Red Sox down over two scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out two. Billy Traber got David Ortiz out in the eighth and then Brian Bruney got the last five outs.
On offense, every starter got a hit. Moeller went 3 for 4 with a walk and is hitting .400/.538/.500 on the year. That’s an MVP caliber performance. Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada and Jason Giambi had two hits apiece, Giambi raising his average to .139 on the year. Matsui’s quietly putting together a very solid start to his season at .327/.393/.545. He’s been worth about 11 runs so far this season, which is second only to guy who plays third.
Prior to last night, the Yankees were on pace to score 605 runs this year. Now they are on pace to score 719, which still sucks.
Beckett vs. Moose tonight in the series finale.
Page 1 of 1 pages: