Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Yankees.com: Momentum mounting
The Yanks clinched a series win despite being short-handed, clearly not satisfied with simply clinching a playoff spot one game prior. Against an Angels club that’s given them fits in the past—and that is a potential postseason opponent—the Bombers got key two-out hits from Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera.
Yes. Cano got a hit. With runners in scoring position. AND two outs. Incidentally, the earth is flat.
The win was nice, but more importantly, A.J. Burnett followed up a good start against a mediocre Seattle offense with another decent one against arguably the second best offense in the AL, although they were short one fearsome DH today. Burnett’s stuff looked as sharp today as it has all year IMO. His fastball was clocked as high as 98mph according to Gameday and his hook was nasty.
It was also nice to see Ian Kennedy’s return to the bigs for a scary but effective inning in the eighth. It’s been a lost season for IPK but it’s good to see him past his health problems and hopefully primed to contribute next season.
The Yankees magic number for both the division and HFA is down to five, and they head home for an off day before hosting Boston for a three game series. The absolute worst case scenario for that series has Boston arriving in New York with a record of 91-61, compared to the Yanks at 97-56. Even if Boston sweeps, they’d still be two games back in the loss column and would have to go 6-1 to tie the Yankees if the Yankees can just go 3-3 over their last six games.
Of course KC could help make that scenario even more implausible by stealing one or both of the next two games, so go Royals.
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