Despite control issues, A.J. Burnett got his third straight win and continued his streak of dominate performances, dominate would be a stretch for last night, but he definitely did have his moments. Although A.J. did put on 11 batters in 6.1 innings, he worked in and out of trouble and escaped last night’s game only giving up 2 earned. The key moment for A.J. was in the bottom of the 5th, after loading the bases Cuddyer came up to the plate and Burnett struck him out swinging with a series of horrible pitches that showed how anxious Cuddyer was, and how much pressure he put on himself. Burnett’s wildness is just a key to how good of a pitcher he is, even with his control issues he still put batters away and kept them guessing all night and more importantly didn’t make mistakes trying to correct those problems. The Yankee bats, lead by the unlikely Brett Gardner, got to Swarzak early and gave a cushion to Burnett. The lineup is molding and connecting at a very high level right now and, besides Damon, every starter had at least one hit again last night, Jeter and Posada were the only two with multi-hit games. The Yankees were cruising going into the 5th inning putting 9 runners on (8 hits, 1 walk) and scoring 4 of those runners by the end of that inning, taking a 4-2 lead.
Arod provided an insurance run in the 5th to put the Yanks up by 2 and give them a little more room to work with, a run that ended up being a necessity more than a luxury.
Burnett only had 2 ks last night but they came in very tight spots where a strike out was needed desperately. One I talked about earlier with Cuddyer and the other came in the bottom half of the 6th when A.J. struck out a scrappy hitter in Denard Span with his best curve ball of the night that if even hit would’ve been a weak grounder to Teixeira.
Bobby Keppel would come in for the last 2 outs in the 5th, after loading the bases by way of a walk to Posada (he did inherit 2 runners) he got the Twins biggest out of the night when Cano flied out to left, a collective sigh of relief swept over the place as Keppel has not had much success in the majors, but that was as a starter.
Arod’s insurance RBI came into play in the bottom of the 7th when Phil Coke was summoned to face M&M (Mauer and Morneau). Coke, who has been one of the reasons this Yankee bullpen has been so great lately, left the ball hanging on the outside portion of the plate to Mauer and he drilled it over the left field wall, cutting the Yankee lead to one run. Coke did half of his job and struck out Morneau on a nasty breaking ball. Hughes followed and got a pop out to right on one pitch to Cuddyer to end the inning. Side Track/Hughes Watch: Phil Hughes has not allowed an earned run in his last 9 appearances or 11 innings pitched over that span his ERA has dropped 1.02 runs from 5.13 to 4.11 and has only allowed a staggering 6 runners on base. Hughes has been almost mistake free out of the bullpen and has continued to confuse and stifle batters, he is quickly becoming one of the best relievers in the game right now.
Another note that might not make people happy, but might make them understand how often an ump calls a guy out when the ball just beats them to the bag happened again last night. Nick Swisher, who is not the swiftest or fastest runner in the world, attempted to stretch a single into a double in the top of the 8th. Although he was clearly out, at least in terms of the ball getting there, the Twins short stop Brendan Harris may have missed the tag. Of course factoring in all the angles an ump has to fight with it would be hard to tell from his perspective, but when reviewed and slowed down it appeared that Swisher foot was in before the tag. My point being that, not as bad as Jeter’s mind you, umps often call players out when the ball beats them to the bag, and last night was another example, so even though Jeter had a point to argue, the ump wasn’t that far off when he made his argument. I am not saying that it is right, but it is something that happens every now and then, I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens once a night around the MLB, and will continue to happen, just think of the neighborhood rule at 2nd base, it’s almost the same principle.
Back to the game, Mo came in to close it out and shut the top of the Twins order down 1,2,3 to record his 22nd save of the year and solidifying another series win for the Yanks.
The Yankees are on a roll right now winning 6 out of 8 games in July so far and winning their last 5 series, they are 1 game out of the AL East lead and are waiting to pounce on an opportunity to jump into at least the share of first place.
W: Burnett (8-4 3.77 ERA)
L: Swarzak (2-3 4.50 ERA)
S: Rivera (22)
Tonight’s Game: Aceves (5-1 2.02 ERA [first major league start]) vs Liriano (4-8 5.49 ERA)
A very interesting match-up that puts Aceves on the mound, replacing the injured Wang, as a starter for the first time in his Major League Career. Aceves has been great for the Yankees coming out of the pen this year and was the deemed the right pitcher to run out there for the start. He faces a very talented but struggling pitcher in Francisco Liriano who pitched very well his first start against the Yankees earlier this year. The Yankees want Aceves to do to the Twins that first time starters do to them and keep them guessing. I would be surprised to see him going past 5 innings tonight so it is good that only 2 pitchers were used out of the pen last night. This game is a coin toss that obviously can go either way, if the Yankee bats keep it up they win but if they are stifled I can see them losing. I think Aceves will be fine but do think he will give up a few runs, hopefully the Yankee bats back him up…LET’S GO YANKEES!
If I made mistakes I will correct them…I am running out to lunch lol 
Today won’t be the first time Aceves starts in his career. He started a few games at the end of last year.
[...] I said yesterday I expected the Yankee bats to have to bail out the pitching and I was right. All the scoring in the [...]