Lucky 13

Lucky, only from a Detroit perspective, since it's the number of Yankees their pitching staff left stranded on base. For the Yankees, it's another great example of the team's complete inability to string a legitimate rally together. A rally, meaning numerous consecutive hits; not a 3-run homer, not the kind of half-assed job they did on Monday backing into 4 runs through outs, infield hits and misplays. Cano and Giambi are the biggest culprits in the clutch so far this year; Giambi showed at least a sign of life with his 9th inning RBI single, but Cano, save for his early homer, left a ridiculous 5 runners on during his trips to the plate.

The starting pitching set a negative tone, yet the bullpen allowed the team to stick around and have a chance up until the final out. Unfortunately, though, the offense is so stagnated and walk/home run-reliant that they have very little hope of climbing out of holes. In years past their lineup would be capable of chipping away here and there, putting up a consistent comeback; now, too often there's a general team-wide wait for one big inning that will feature one big hit.

The Tigers did all they could to give the game away. 8 walks by their pitching staff, numerous jams from The Gambler on down to Todd Jones, yet they bent but never broke thanks to the limpness of the Yankees' bats.

Tomorrow brings Jeremy Bonderman as the opposing pitcher, someone who hasn't been the same since having arm troubles last year but is nonetheless capable of shutting down any lineup. Andy Pettitte will be looked to for a quality bounce-back start tomorrow night, as usual. No concept of if A-Rod will be back in the lineup, but it seems like he'll most likely be out until some point this weekend.

Not a very pleasant night for the Yankees; not much good to report, except for a solid relief performance from the bullpen, mostly Ohlendorf, who had one of his better performances of the season. The problem, though, is that it's still more likely he follows it up with a flame-out where he gets knocked around than with another solid performance.

I really don't think the team can demote Hughes, simply because so much of their success depends on him becoming a reliable starter this year. It would be counterproductive to send him to AAA, no matter how bad his April has been.

Either way, not a great start for the team's supposed future ace.