Weekend in Review

Yanks lost 2 out of 3 to the Texas Rangers.

Game 1 continued Kevin Brown's eternal march to the Glue Factory. Garbage Time gave up four runs in the first inning, five overall through six innings pitched. Meanwhile, Chris Young, a guy who walked into Yankee Stadium with an ERA over seven, shut the bombers down for 5+ innings. The score remained at 5-1 until the Yanks had a too-little-too-late rally in the ninth inning.

Game 2 featured the pitchiing stylings of Jaret Wright. More notably, it featured the injured pitching shoulder of Wright--you know, the same pitching shoulder that needed surgery twice before, and totally derailed Wright's career? The same pitching shoulder that might just've failed the first physical the Yanks put it through, when they signed Jaret as a free agent this winter?

Yeah, that shoulder.

As reported by MLB.com, Joe Torre might've guessed that Wright wasn't doing too well on Saturday, when he grabbed the pitcher's non-throwing arm between innings in the 4th, and Wright winced. Still, it took things getting so painful that Wright doubled over on the mound, before he would let on that his shoulder was hurting.

It'd be easy to get a hate-on with Wright, for not being up-front about his condition. But, as much as I dislike the man, I can empathize with his predicament. There are lots of times that you can put yourself in denial of the maladies that afflict you, particularly if you fear them badly enough. Wright probably didn't acknowledge the pain not because he was trying to put one over on the Yankees and their fans, but rather because he remembered the misery of his previous shoulder woes, and didn't want to believe something bad was happening again.

It seems like no sooner was Wright off the field on Saturday, than he was on the DL. No tests, no questions, straight to the DL. The diagnosis today was that they think it wasn't as bad as expected, just some scar tissue tearing loose, 4-6 weeks out of the rotation. Colter Bean comes up for this week's games, until Wright's rotation spot comes up Saturday. With Tanyon Sturtze also on the now-crowded Yankee DL, Chien Ming Wang will come up from Columbus to take next Saturday's start. He'll have a few weeks to make an impression, make a hard choice for management between him and Kevin "Sunk Cost" Brown. It's a good opportunity for Wang and not much of a downgrade for the Yanks--it's pretty hard to imagine Wang doing much worse than Wriight's 9.15 ERA (now with an utterly jack-tastic 6 homers in less than 20 IP!).

By the way, the Yanks lost Game 2 big, to the tune of 10-2. The Yanks were unable to do anything with Texas's own fragile, overpaid starter, Chan Ho Park, even as Wright was getting creamolished.

In Game 3, the Yanks came to, behind strong pitching from the Big Unit, and a hard-pounding offense that brought the Yanks an 11-1 victory over the hot-streaking Pedro Astacio. The surprise hero of this game? None other than Andy Phillips, who found himself at first base to face what was considered a pretty tough righty. Phillips went 2-4 with a homer and four RBIs.

Here's hoping that this is the start of something. That the Yanks can actually give someone from the organization a chance. Not Colter Bean, though. Joe Torre has already announced that Bean's an emergency plan, for use only in blowouts.

Nah, I'm not bitter. The homestand continues, with the Angels and Blue Jays coming to the boogie-down. A year ago, with the same record on the same date, the Yanks ran the table against the A's and the Royals to have a winning month. Here's hoping they can do that again.