August 13, 2006: L.A. Angels 5, N.Y. Yankees 3
Another loss to the pesky Halos. They are our nemesis, I swear. We just don't match up well with them.
I thought Wang would be sharp today. He didn't have a great outing last time, but I figured he'd bounce back. Especially for a game at home, where he usually plays well. But he struggled from the beginning, and though he settled down after the first inning, he had already dug the Yanks a hole they couldn't climb out of. And having let them bat around in the 1st, his pitch count was too high for him to go deep. Torre had to go the bullpen in the 5th, which was disappointing. The bullpen is being run ragged.
I wonder if the long season is catching up to Wang. They are careful with innings pitched in the minors. His first season in the majors was last year, and he missed a large chunk of it with a shoulder injury. He's never pitched so many innings in a season as he has this year.
To be fair, the five runs Tiger gave up were hardly an insurmountable lead. But the Yanks just couldn't get anything going (until the bottom of the ninth, when A-Rod and Giambi provided back-to-back homers - too little, too late).
More than one fan commented today that the Yanks have been in a tailspin since Bubba was DFA'd. Since that black day, we are 4-5. Under .500, with two out of three series lost, when we'd been winning almost all of them.
I miss our gritty, scrappy lineup. They may have been kids and castoffs, but they mostly won. Maybe the Yanks are just pressing, but they seem to have reverted to their old homer-hacking ways:
Today: 3 runs, all on homers
8/12: 5 runs, all on homers
8/11: 4 runs, 1 on a homer
8/10: 4 runs, all on homers
That's 11 out of 14 runs scored on homers.
Earlier this season, the Yanks were scoring a lot of runs, but not hitting a lot of homers. Not this week. Rather than manufacturing runs like they used to, they're all swinging for the fences. And mostly striking or flying out.
Clippers Watch:Bubba is not in the Clippers
lineup tonight. There's a day game tomorrow (12:15pm); we'll probably see the guys not playing tonight then.
