MVN - Most Valuable Network

Game 85: Rangers at Yankees (W)

Texas Rangers (44-41) vs. New York Yankees (44-40)

Luis Mendoza (1-2, 5.40) vs. Sidney Ponson (5-1, 3.50)

July 2, 2008 @ 7:05 p.m. @ Yankee Stadium

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Texas	0	0	3	0	0	4	0	0	0		7	9	2
New York	0	1	4	0	1	0	9	3	X		18	16	0
Ramirez (W, 2-0) Madrigal (L, 0-1)

Preview:

Sidney Ponson goes for the Yankees tonight as they try to avoid the sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers.  In his first start for the Yanks, he did a fine job, shutting out the Mets over six innings.  This will also be Ponson’s first start against the team that he was a part of just a few weeks ago.  As would be expected, Ponson has said that he will treat this game the same as any other.  On the other side, Texas manager Ron Washington said that there are no hard feelings.

“We never said he couldn’t pitch. I hope he does well, except for [Wednesday].”

The big news of the day though, is the Yankees’ centerfielder, whom - at least for today - is not Melky Cabrera.  As has been called for for weeks, Brett Gardner will get his first career start in CF. 

Many fans in recent weeks had become fed up with Melky’s performance.  Cabrera is now zero for his last 19 at-bats and is hitting .215 since the beginning of May.  And the patience of the organization itself was appearing to wear thin, with the recent call up of Brett Gardner.

Apparently, the straw that broke the camel’s back came in the ninth inning of Tuesday’s game, when Melky came to the plate with a runner on and no outs with the Yankees trailing by one.  He had one job, which was to advance the runner.  Instead he grounded into a double play, essentially killing the Yankees’ chances to make a comeback.

Of course, it will remain to be seen how long this change is for.  Perhaps this will be a one game substitution in hopes that a day off will re-start Cabrera’s bat.  But the signs are there that Melky’s grip on the center field job isn’t quite as solid as it was a couple months ago.

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Recap:

The Yankees broke out of their offensive slump tonight in dramatic fashion, posting their highest run total this season.  Ten different Yankees had hits in the game - all nine starters and Jose Molina - but the key to this game was Jason Giambi.  The ‘Stache hit a grand slam in the fourth to give the Yankees the lead, and in the seventh, he drove in the first two runs of what turned out to be a nine-run inning.  He ended up with six RBI.

Also of note were Johnny Damon, who went 3-6, and Alex Rodriguez, who went 2-3 with two walks and a three-run homer to cap off the seventh inning.  Congratulations is also in order for Brett Gardner, who got his first career hit and RBI tonight.

On the pitching side, it wasn’t so great - although clearly good enough.  Ponson was reasonably effective through the first five innings, allowing three runs.  However, he stunk up the place in the sixth, giving up a walk, homer, single then another homer to give up the lead.

On the bright side, Edwar Ramirez was fantastic tonight in his two innings.  He allowed just one baserunner, and struck out three to earn the win.  Farnsworth also got the job done in the eighth, but the fact that he walked two men with an eight-run lead is not encouraging.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Sidney Ponson, Edwar Ramirez, Brett Gardner, Kyle Farnsworth, Melky Cabrera, Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, Game Thread / Recap, Alex Rodriguez. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.