An A's for effort

             Escaping the horror show of no offense the Yanks were experiencing recently on the east coast, the team headed out west to the safe confines of the Oakland Coliseum where they had won six straight and wanted to tack on three more. After righting the ship somewhat by taking the last two games against the Royals, Ivan Nova was given the task to keep the small streak going against A's starter Tyson Ross.



             Although Ivan Nova was solid in the 7 innings he recorded on the mound with only giving up 3 earned runs, the story of the night as well as the weekend was the emergence of some of the missing Yankee bats, namely Mark Teixeira.



             The Californian air must have agreed with him because he was responded with 2 hits, including a homerun in the massive pitcher-friendly ballpark. Both Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher also added homers and Rafael Soriano came into the 9th to close out the 6-3 victory for his 4th save of the season.



              The next day brought two larger-than-life pitchers to the mound as CC Sabathia set to face his teammate from last season, Bartolo Colon. Like Freddy Garcia, Colon too hasn't had the same success he had in pinstripes in 2011 and the Yankee hitters were more than happy to see him.



             The Mark Teixeira Show continued as he shined in the offensive display by the Yankees with his whopping four hits that included two more homeruns added to his weekend tally. Robinson Cano too went deep in consecutive games, but he only hit one homer this time around. CC Sabathia navigated his way through 7 innings of work for his 6th win of the season. This time Soriano wasn't needed as the Yanks were well ahead 9-2 which became the final score.



             Winner of 4 straight games for the first time in a long time, the Yanks wanted to get greedy and make it 5 in a row with a sweep of the Oakland A's. Standing in the Yankees way was A's left hander Tommy Milone. In the top of the 1st inning, Derek Jeter continued to climb up the hits chart by surpassing Royals Hall of Fame 3rd baseman George Brett.



             Yankee runs weren't as plentiful for this final game and Hiroki Kuroda was forced the make an early 1-0 lead from an Andrew Jones bomb to centerfield stand. Looking for his first road win of the season and the usual recipient of poor run support, Kuroda took matters into his own hands and delivered shutout 8 innings of brilliance against the weak-hitting A's lineup. The only threat came in the bottom of the 7th when the A's had runners at the corners with only one out, but Kuroda boldly struck out Kila Ka'aihue and got Josh Donaldson to fly out. Mark Teixeira failed to hit another homerun, but did add a major RBI double to give Rafael Soriano a two-run cushion to work with. With the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the 9th, Soriano struck out Seth Smith to end the game and complete the sweep of the A's with the 2-0 win.



            Resembling a baseball team at 26-21, the Yankees head to the warmer Southern California this time to face off against the always-nemesis Anaheim Angels of California and a lockdown rotation of Jared Weaver, Dan Haren, and Ervin Santana....

Thank God for Ivan Nova

             In what was turning out to be a disastrous beginning to the season, Ivan Nova stepped up and provided the Yankees with something they haven't had yet in 2012, a good start.



            Nova went 7 innings and struck out 7 to help the Yankees secure a 6-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. With the win, the Yankees were able to remove the giant zero that was in their win column seemingly forever. Although Nova scattered 10 hits, he gave up no walks and was helped out by a number of double-plays. Derek Jeter brought his hot bat to Camden Yards with a 4 for 4 effort, but unfortunately Jeter is the only one in the lineup who is hitting with any consistency. Andrew Jones also chipped in with his first homer of the season, and looking at him, I still can't image he was once a gold glove center fielder.



           The second game was one of those marathon games the Yankees always seem to have when they visit Camden Yards. It took 12 innings to get there, but the Yankees squeaked out a 5-4 win over the Orioles thanks to another clutch hit from newest old guy on the roster, Raul Ibanez.



           Derek Jeter led off the game by doing A-Rod's job and smack a homer deep over the centerfield wall to give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead. Freddy Garcia wasn't able to follow up on Nova's good start and uncorked 5 wild pitches, something that hadn't been done since 1989 when Nova was only 2 years old. All night the Yankees left runners on base and were a putrid 1 for 12 with RISP. It looks like A-Rod can't even hit a ball out of the infield at this point and the days of Teixeira batting over .250 is in a museum somewhere. A key blunder in the game was by Yankees third base coach Robbie Thompson sending Swisher home on the Cano double with no outs and Swisher was nailed dead to rights at the plate. Then again, with A-Rod and Tex coming up next, can you blame Thompson? Ibanez came up in the 12th inning and smacked a RBI double into the Baltimore windy night. After going up by 1 run, Mariano came into the game to notch his first official save of the season.



           The final game of the set was yet another extra innings affair at Camden Yards, but this time it only took the Yankees 10 innings to accomplish the 6-4 victory. The Grandy Man finally showed a pulse this season with 2 hits, including his first homerun of 2012 that gave the Yanks an early 2-0 lead.



           CC Sabatthia was less than stellar again and struggled through 6 innings and gave up 4 runs. To CC's defense, or lack there of, he interfered with a sure double-play ball which led to Baltimore's first 2 runs. Maybe they should just let him eat again.



          Girardi rolled the dice in the bottom of the 9th to walk the bases loaded and put the winning run on third, but this time Rafael Soriano make him look smart by striking out Adam Jones to send the game into extra innings. Of course, Soriano was his usual happy-cheery self coming into the dugout.



         Nick Swisher came to the plate with a runner on in the 10th, and if there was ever a player who was due for a big hit, it was him. He launched a no-doubt-about-it homerun into the right field seats on a 3-2 pitch from Orioles reliever Kevin Gregg. Later on, the ball was tossed back onto the field and almost hit Swisher. A real reliever, Mariano Rivera, came into his third consecutive game to lock down his second save of the season to cap off the magnificent performance from the Yankees' bullpen all series long.



         Next up at 3-3, the Yankees head home to have A-Rod and Albert Pujols purchase a small country....