Sunday, June 15, 2008
NY Times - Kepner: Mussina Continues a Masterful Season
HOUSTON—The box of Rawlings baseballs was wrapped like a present in a department store, with thick bands of white tape forming a cross on the top and the bottom. It was marked with the score of the game that had just taken place—Yankees 8, Astros 4—with Mike Mussina’s pitching line and this special notation: #260.
Mussina has collected 10 such boxes this season, filled with game balls from each of his victories past 250. No pitcher in the American League has won more often this season than Mussina, who is 10-4 and helped lift the Yankees to a season-best three games over .500.
He worked six innings at Minute Maid Park on Saturday, allowing three runs in the first inning and none thereafter. He is tied with Cliff Lee of the Cleveland Indians for the A.L. lead in wins and has now reached 10 victories in each of the last 17 seasons.
I have to admit that I thought Mussina was done and couldn’t adapt to his lost velocity, but I am very happy to have been wrong in this case.
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