Confidence Booster! Yanks Beat Halladay!
Yanks Beat The Doc, Could it Have Happened at a Better Time?!
Last night, the Yankees took the first of 2 from Toronto against the best pitcher in baseball. They had everything working for them: pitching, defense, and timely hitting. The final score was 5-3.
Pitching Analysis: Andy “Bad Luck” Pettitte toed the rubber last night in search of his first win of the second half, and he found it. Andy pitched a helluva game. He went 6 & 2/3 innings of 1 run ball, 4 hits, 4 walks, and 6 strikeouts. Andy threw strikes and worked quickly, and the game itself was quick, 2 hours and 35 min. That performance had to be a confidence booster for Pettitte, not only picking up his first win of this half, but doing it against Doc Halladay! That’s pretty incredible. We can take away that middle name I gave him now.
GO ANDY, GO ANDY!
Phil Hughes pitched the last out of the 7th and first two of the 8th. He got into a little jam in the 8th thatnks to back-to-back singles, and Mo was called upon for the 4 out save. Vernon Wells doubled off Mo, scoring 2 and making the game 4-3. Those runs were charged to Hughes. But as always, Mo held it and pitched the 9th (who else would?) and recorded his 31 save of the season. Pitching was a plus PLUS for the Yanks yesterday.
Defensive Analysis: The defense was another strength last night. Andy worked at a nice quick pace, which kept the defense ready. As I always say, pitching and defense go hand-in-hand. In the 3rd, Jeter robbed Barajas of a single on a sharp liner to his right, which he grabbed quickly for the out. After a 1 out walk to Bautista, Scutaro hit a bullet line drive to Arod, who gloved it and fired to first to erase Bautista’s walk and to end the inning. Nice.
In the 5th, Tex started a beautiful 3-6-3 double play. That is something Giambi could never do. Tex is so smooth, and I feel confident when a ball is hit in his direction. In the 7th, my man Melky made a nice running catch for the first out of the inning. He is so underrated. Melky catches everything, and he has a killer arm. I love you, Leche!
Offensive Analysis: The Yankees got to Halladay early, scoring 2 in the first thanks to an RBI double by Arod that drove in Damon. Arod then scored on an error. He is a great baserunner, most of the time. That was all for the Yanks for a long time.
But the Bronx Bombers were back last night! In the 8th, Johnny Damon homered to right of Doc, who pitched a complete game. Then Tex crushed a homer into the right field seats! His home runs are ridiculous! In the 9th, Matsui decided he wanted to make it easier for Mo in the 9th, so he provided an insurance run. Matsui hit a no-doubter bomb of a home run to center field. The homers were so fun to watch.
Last night’s victory was a BIG one for the Yankees. Could it have come at a better time? I say, NO! First of all, the Rays beat the Red Sox in extra innings last night, so the Yankees now have a 1.5 game lead. Second, the Red Sox come to the Bronx on Thursday for a 4 game series. Beating Halladay may have given the Yanks the confidence boost they need to beat the Sox! Oh, I almost forgot: the heroes are Andy for a great start, and the Bronx Bombers (Damon, Tex & Godzilla) for their offensive production. I am starting to get excited again! GO YANKS! KEEP UP THE GOOD BASEBALL!
Oh, and here’s to Jane, my fellow blogger. I have two celebrity look alikes for you.
EJ, you should appreciate this one.
Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz….
….and the WWE’s Cody Rhodes!
Oroile’s manager Dave Trembley….
….and William Shatner!
I’m not as good as Jane, but these aren’t that bad for my first time! GO YANKS!
Live, Eat, and Breathe Yankees 
Hi, Virginia … Welcome to mlblogs !!!
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It’s great to see another New York Yankees blogger in our great mlblogging community here at mlb.com !!!
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The Yankees had a big 5-3 win over Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays last night, led by three Yankee homers and a great pitching effort by Andy Pettitte … This victory, coupled with the Rays 4-2 win over the Red Sox made for a very exciting ending to the baseball action last night !!! … I look forward to the upcoming “big” four-game weekend series against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium when the Yankees can really start to open up their lead in the AL East with at least three wins in that classic rivalry matchup !!!
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Take care, Virginia !!!
Keep up the excellent work on your blog; and, have a great day !!!
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“Go Yankees” !!!
— Jimmy 27NYY Curran, “BY&L”
— http://baseballtheyankeesandlife.mlblogs.com/
Great look-alikes! Those are great.
http://kaybee.mlblogs.com
Oh my goodness, that is sooo cool!! yeah, the Padres just traded away Jake Peavy, and he was one of my favorite players. I was on a trip with a bunch of teens from my church and a church near ours; we were in North Carolina for a conference. I found out about the trade just as we were going to get on the plane home, and I cried for like an hour. I felt so weird, because it seemed like such a trivial thing, you know? But it really was sooo sad. Oh, and Game 163 between the Rockies and the Padres in 2007? I was so devistated!! It’s kind of weird to people who don’t understand baseball, but we live and die with our teams, don’t we? I think that people who have a hobby like being a fan of a baseball team have something special 🙂 Yeah, I’m almost 16 too!! Haha yeah, my crush on the Padres is Kevin Kouzmanoff. I insist that I like him because of how good a player he is, but he is also really, really cute 🙂 I’m so glad I found your blog!!
http://kaybee.mlblogs.com
Nice lookalikes, Virginia. I did the Trembly/Shatner one a few months ago, before you joined us here. I think they look so much alike. Great analysis of the game, as always. It was definitely a confidence booster, so now let’s see if they can carry it over into tonight. I’d like to have a ton of offense with Mitre on the mound. It might give HIM confidence and he needs some!
– http://janeheller.mlblogs.com
Great game for you guys last night. I like it how other Yankee bloggers will comment on your posts, for some reason, Angel bloggers dont do that. I go to many of their blogs, leave comments, but they never ever return them. kinda weird but oh well. I like the Trombley Shatner look alike – it’s scary!
Lawl, well, the Trembley-Shatner has been done a lot before, even on MLB Network, so AH-HAH! I caught you in the act, thief.
Booty C? …Booty C? Oh come now. Something is terribly terribly wrong with that, lol.
-Richard, the 10-year old boy who watches you dress yourself during afternoons
Thank God Halladay is out of our hair for a while. Although to be honest, I had a good feeling about yesterday’s game. I figured Halladay wasn’t going to be at his best, and he wasn’t. We get the W. That’s all that matters. Mitre better show us a thing or two tonight, or I’m going to Canada and “removing” him myself.
– Lisa
http://perennialpinstriper.mlblogs.com/
The Shatner lookalike was the best! Well done! Well, we took down the Sox for you, and us. Now if you don’t mind laying down on one tonight while we take down the Sox again then we can all be happy.
What was it with Halladay last night? He did not look like the same dominant pitcher from earlier this year. You guys really roughed him up!
http://raysfanboy.mlblogs.com
Haha, I just told you who Richard is!
Mitre? Sexy beast? Hmm… I can see it, lol. I still say Markakis is the hottest. *ahem*
Yeah, I liked the Igawa part too. That’s why I put it in there. lol I’m a very good rapper, I’m known for that rapping skill among my peers.
-blob
Virginia,
“Pitching Analysis: Andy “Bad Luck” Pettitte…” Oh you have one too. Ours is Randy Wolf who I hope beats D.Lowe on Thursday for the rematch. Congrats on the huge win against Holladay. I’ll keep an eye on your four game series. We have ours against the Braves.
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I am looking forward to Saturday because in morning is the WIN (Women Initiative Network) baseball clinic followed by the luncheon and at night the game.
Emma
http://crzblue.mlblogs.com/
Yeah, I totally want to be a sports reporter for a newspaper. I think that would be sooo much fun 🙂 I would really love to be able to talk to the players a lot. And travel with the team. And go to Spring Training with them. That would be pretty amazing 🙂
http://kaybee.mlblogs.com
I was extremely surprised with Pettitte. He was just painting every corner against every batter, he mixed in a great cut fastball, some sliders and breaking balls flawlessly and seemed to work really well with Posada as the game progressed, even though he’s been pitching with Molina catching recently. Hopefully Mitre was taking notes! Great blog!
-R
http://yankeeslovin.mlblogs.com/
Now you need a boyfriend, so whenever he needs you he can say “Arrgh I’m a pirate and I need Booty.”
-Jay-Z
I’m jealous of you. How come you get a lot of comments from all kinds of people yet you’re the only one who comments on my blog? It almost feels like I’m cheating when I get 7 or 8 comments cause I know it’s because of you. lol
-Chirp chirp, I’m a bird…
Haha yeah, I think I would rather work for a newspaper than MLB.com. I guess all this blogging has turned me against seeing my work exclusively on the internet 🙂 Newspapers are really cool 🙂 TV isn’t really my interest though. I would much rather be writing than speaking!! But hey, maybe ten or so years, Kim Jones will want to retire!! Haha. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something somewhere 🙂 And yes, I really like smiley faces 🙂 HAHAHA!! Anyways, the Lastest Leaders list is a list of the most popular blogs by page views. So if Bob so and so gets 10 page views in a month, and Larry gets 9, Bob is going to be #1 and Larry #2. That’s just a really lame example, since some of the most popular blogs are getting thousands of page views per day. The key to get more page views is to comment on other blogs, especially the most popular, and always leave your URL, which you have been doing. During the season, the LLs are only once a month, but during the offseason, we sometimes had it every week!! Just keep blogging and commenting, and you’ll be on the list in no time!! It’s been sooo cool “talking” to you!!
http://kaybee.mlblogs.com
The Yankees did play well, and forget their misfortune against the White Sox, they are the team to beat in the AL. I think the Yanks are sure ready to get on a groove on again in August.
Matthew Tang
http://matt7.mlblogs.com/
The Red Sox are all yours, Virginia. Enjoy! LOL! Good Luck. We beat them again tonight. 🙂
Ginny
http://watercooler.mlblogs.com
Virginia: I did notice that in the beginning, there was a lot of shaking off between Pettitte and Posada, it was strange but I definitely got the vibe something was not quite right. Towards the end of the game though they really got everything worked out and seemed extremely comfortable together. Like you said, they’ve definitely had some great chemistry over the years, so I don’t really understand why you would break them two up and put Pettitte with Molina instead of a new guy like Burnett or CC. Regardless, Mitre kept us in the game like we needed. Not to mention, I’ll be meaning to send the Rays a nice little thank you card soon…
-R
http://yankeeslovin.mlblogs.com