Hughes gotta be kidding me

             Before returning to New York from their west coast trip, the Yankees made a little stop in Detroit to check out next year's models and face the disappointing Tigers who were 3 games under .500.



             All the signs were there for the Yankees to be able to get the first game under their belt easily as the Tigers had to call up Casey Crosby to make his first career start in place of Doug Fister, who was recently sent to the DL. It didn't take the Yanks long to welcome the kid to the big leagues as by the end of the 2nd inning they had put 5 runs on the board, mainly due to a grand slam by former-Tiger Curtis Granderson.



             CC Sabathia made the start for the Yankees and had a workman's type outing: going 7 innings and giving up 3 earned runs on 8 hits with 5 strikeouts for his 7th victory of 2012. In the 9th inning, with a runner on and the game well in hand for the Yankees, Alex Rodriguez added a homerun to push the score to 9-4 which is what the final score ended at. The Tigers started to threaten in the bottom of the inning, so Girardi was forced to bring out Rafael Soriano to get the last two outs for his 7th save of the season.



             Off from his first road win of the season against Oakland, Hiroki Kuroda faced off against Rick Porcello and for most of the game, the two were locked in a pitcher's duel. The new David Ortiz, in terms of Yankee-killing, Miguel Cabrera, broke the tie in the 4th with a massive solo bomb to center. There was plenty of tension in the game as both Joe Girardi and hitting coach Kevin Long were tossed for arguing the strike zone. After the Yankees had scratched and clawed to tie the game at 2-2 in the 8th inning, there was Cabrera to yet again hit another solo bomb to center, this time off of Cory Wade, to make it 3-2 Tigers.



            The Yankees kept on coming back as they managed a bases loaded walk-in run (although a hit would've actually been nice, but godforbid) against their tormenting dancing-idiot foe Jose Valverde, who blew the save. Only getting the single run in the 9th ending up costing the Yankees the game as the Tigers had a 4-3 walk-off in the bottom of the frame thanks for a game-winning sac-fly from Omir Santos.



            On most occasions when a rubber game has to be decided upon the pitching of Phil Hughes and 2011 MVP and Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander, you hand the series to the Tigers, but on this day Hughes had other things in mind. Bouncing back from an awful start a few days ago against Anaheim, Hughes shocked everyone by throwing a complete game for the first time in his career and the only run he allowed was a solo shot by Prince ("Need to showboat after hitting one") Fielder.



          Just like the Angels game, the offense gave Hughes some runs early via the home run by Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, who launched one 455 feet to left!!



        Hughes refused to choke away the lead this time and only gave up the one run on 4 hits with 8 strikeouts. Justin Verlander was handed his third loss in a row as a consecutive Cy Young Award looks bleak at this point. With a grueling road trip that included the Angels and the Tigers, two teams that made the biggest moves in the AL this offseason, the Yankees managed to go a pleasant 6-3 and saw signs of waking up from the likes of Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, yet the 29-24 club continues to be collectively putrid with runners in scoring position....

Kick em' while they're down

             The Detroit Tigers were one of the most talked about teams of this offseason with their addition of Prince Fielder to their already dangerous lineup and the fact they have 2011 AL MVP and Cy Young winner Justin Verlander as their ace. For 2012, things haven't been so peachy as the Tigers strolled into Yankee Stadium with only a .500 record at 10-10 after starting the season 3-0. Things got off on the wrong foot before any games were played as the night before at his midtown hotel, Tigers outfielder Delmon Young was arrested for hurling anti-Semitic slurs at a Jewish panhandler, which drew the ire of a group of tourists from Chicago.



             The Yanks were treated to Justin Verlander immediately as he took the mound on a chilly Bronx night against the Yankees' most consistent pitcher over the past year, Ivan Nova. Both looked human, especially Verlander who served up two homeruns to Alex Rodriguez and another to Russell Martin. Nova was touched up for 6 runs in his 5.1 innings of work, although to his credit some of those early runs were off of seeing-eye-singles which found holes in the infield. Tied at 6-6 in the bottom of the 9th, Derek Jeter scored the winning run from third just in time for the 7-6 victory.

              Freddy Garcia continued his magical 2012 with another awful performance as he was racked for 6 runs without even being able to get out of the 2nd inning. David Phelps, who has had the job of cleaning up Hughes and Garcia's messes so far this season, was able to steady the ship with three scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Nick Swisher provided two homeruns, including one in the 9th inning to help jump start a possible comeback as the Yanks scored 3 runs, but it was too little too late as the Yanks lost 7-5. Drew Smyly, in addition to having a weird name, held the Yankees to 1 run over 6 innings, and combined with Garcia's bad start put the Yanks in too deep a whole. After the game Garcia was sent to the bullpen having lost his job to Phelps. The honeymoon on Garcia's 2011 season seems to be on its way out the window. 

             With the pitching rotation looking real scary over the past week, Yanks ace CC Sabathia took the hill in the rubber game against the Tiger lineup which was still without the bigotry of Delmon Young. Sabathia followed up his strong 8-inning performance in Texas with another strong 8 innings in the Yanks 6-2 win to take the weekend series. Max Scherzer was shaky for the Tigers and wasn't able to get out of the 5th inning as his pitch count went well over a hundred. Other than a massive Fielder bomb given up by Sabathia, the big guy scattered four hits with eight strikeouts in his eight frames of work. Both Granderson and Andrew Jones went deep for the Yanks as they improved to 12-9 while the Tigers stayed at the same .500 they came in with at 11-11. Nick Swisher left the game early with a tight hamstring which could be a cause for concern with Brett Gardner still on the DL and the fact Swisher suffered leg problems most of spring training. Meanwhile Stockburn, that is Jim Leyland, tries to figure out how to get his team on track. 

              Next up the AL East leading Baltimore Orioles come to the Stadium in which YES announcer and former Orioles star Ken Singleton is sure to be calling the games....