Five for Fighting (Postgame Notes 17 June 2008)

The Yankees seem to have discovered the perfect instant jolt for a win streak: the National League.

The San Diego Padres tonight played as though they were a Triple-A team, and the Yankees, believe it or not, played like the Yankees.

While Randy Wolf couldn't make it into the fifth inning for the Padres, Andy Pettitte had one of his best games of the seasons, striking out nine, while surrendering only five hits and one walk. Pettitte had no double-plays, but he did have one of his patented pick-offs in the first, which seemed to set the tone for the entire game.

The Yankee offense looked stellar. Alex Rodriguez homered on the first pitch he saw from Randy Wolf, and two batters later, Jason Giambi sent one into the right field stands. Giambi would homer twice in the game.

In the fourth inning, the Yankees were the Yankees--they capitalized on errors by the Padres, and ended up scoring five runs in the inning. It originally looked like they would have only scored two, from Giambi's second home run, but the Padres botched what should have been a double play off of Derek Jeter's bat, and the floodgates opened.

In the past two games, the Yankees have combined for 21 runs, while allowing 0. In fact, they have not allowed a run since Ross Ohlendorf allowed one in the 14 June game in Houston.

The injury to Chien Ming Wang has detracted from one simple truth--the Yankees, of late, have been playing good baseball. They've won five in a row, six of seven and ten of thirteen (if my math is right).

That they're currently playing under-performing teams in the Astros and Padres, one can't chalk up this streak to an easy schedule--the Yankees took two out of three in Oakland, a surprising team second in the league in the Wild Card race.

Though one can't say for sure that the Yankees have utterly turned the corner over the past week until the end of the season, it's looking more and more like the Yankees have finally figured out how to, well, be the Yankees.

They certainly played like it tonight.