Week in Review: Off the Subway, Back on Track, Part I

Breakdowns in Part I, Awards in Part II this evening.

Week 11: June 11-17, 2007

Record for the Week: 5-1 37 RS, 16 RA
Overall: 35-32, 3.5 games behind Detroit for the Wild Card

Breakdown:

06/12 -- Arizona 1, Yankees 4
Chien Ming Wang bests Brandon Webb in the battle of the wormkillers. (Webb is 1st in the majors in GB/FB ratio, Wang is 8th. And their names both start with "w".) Each guy slipped up once, allowing a homer which accounted for most of the team's scoring--just lucky, I guess, that the Yanks had men on when Abreu hit his big fly in the 1st. Lesson learned: It's nice, y'know, when Bobby Abreu doesn't suck.

06/13 -- Arizona 2, Yankees 7
Mike Mussina pitched into the eighth inning, and three Yankees (Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, and Hideki Matsui) homered. Lesson learned: Livan Hernandez is, how do you say? Not so good.

06/14 -- Arizona 1, Yankees 7
A-Rod and Matsui rack up three hits apiece and drive in five runs, combined, and Pettitte tosses eight more strong innings onto the counter. Lesson learned: Sweeping the D'backs isn't payback for the 2001 World Series, but it's probably as close as we're going to get for a while.

06/15 -- Mets 2, Yankees 0
We already covered the Roger Clemens/Oliver Perez matchup earlier in the week. Lesson learned: no use crying over broken winning streaks.

06/16 -- Mets 8, Yankees 11
An unholy mess created by both starters, Tom Glavine for the Mets and Tyler Clippard for the Yanks, falling apart on a wet summer afternoon (I know, I know, technically it's Spring until Thursday). The lead see-sawed back and forth in the early innings, before the Yanks pulled away and took a commanding 10-5 lead, which Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera almost threw away in the 8th and 9th innings. A-Rod and Jeter both homered. Lesson learned: Clippard might be too high strung for the majors right now. He seems to get so busy beating himself up, that it opens the door for the other team to kick him around, too.

06/17 -- Mets 2 Yankees 8
Brother J and I were fortunate enough to be at this game. Chien Ming Wang was masterful, striking out ten Mets, and the crowd at Yankee Stadium actually booed Joe Torre when the manager came to pull Wang with two outs and the bases empty in the ninth inning. Rodriguez hit another homer, a total moon shot to left field, to start the scoring in the first (say it with me now, "A-Rod...he's so hot right now...A-Rod"), Damon and Posada also hit shots. Lesson learned: Orlando Hernandez learned that you can't come home again. Even though his first appearance on the field was greeted with cheers by savvy bleacher fans, at other times idiots (who apparently didn't remember El Duque's role on the 1998-200 championship squads) needed to be drowned out for booing the Mets starter. Hernandez showed his amazing guile, striking out six Yankees, and also his age, allowing six runs in 4 1/3 innings.