Pettitte Looking Good, Offense Looking Bad

Yes, just like Mike, I got to see good ol' Andy start a game this year. Except my game was a tad bit different. Pettitte was absolutely dominate. No one could touch him. He struck out nine batters in eight innings of work and barely exceeded the 100 pitch count. I personally was rooting for him to come out in the ninth, but still it was an epic outing.

It looked good for the Yankees to get a win, with their old horse on the mound. The Yanks have had continuous struggles in both the hitting and pitching category this year. It seems that after a huge offseason of stocking up on quality pitchers, the only reliable one that remains is C.C. Sabathia. Kuroda has shown excellence at times, but has been wacked around too. Hughes pitched terribly to start and looks to turn it around. Nova has been shaky, Pineda is injured, Garcia has been demoted, and Burnett is gone! (Oh, wait that's a good thing). The Yanks pitching has been very disappointing this year, and I didn't even talk about how Rivera is done for the season and how Robertson is on the DL right now.

But, that's still not the worst of the Yanks worries. The new problem is scoring runs. The Yankees through history have been good at this, all the way from Ruth to Rodriguez. But this year, they have been plain awful at getting runners home. The Yankees went 0-13 with RISP on Monday. No, you're not on the wrong page. I'm not talking about the Mets, or the Pirates, or the Mariners. I'm talking about the Yanks. And yes, the Yanks did get a good win against the Reds last Friday winning four-zip, but the Yanks only drove in one runner who was in scoring position. I cheered for the long balls by Ibanez and Cano, but it was hard not to think about how that's the only way the Yanks can score...other than a weak groundout and an RBI by A-Rod.

So the Yankees did make me happy by showing me a win in my first trip to the stadium this year. But I'm still concerned about the team. I expect the hitting to pick up, as the lineup is to star studded to stay like this, but in such a tough American League East it makes me worry about the Yanks playoff chances altogether. I still have confidence that the Yanks will do well, but every loss makes me cringe even more.