That's all I can say. To make Kei Igawa, and especially Chase Wright, look like solid No. 4s is sad. And for a team known more for its hitting, it's a dangerous road to go down. To be fair, Jake Westbrook was clearly caught on a bad day Tuesday.
Alex Rodriguez is hitting so many home runs that he's boring people. Peter Abraham points out his contemporaries in fast starts and takes a positive wait-and-see approach on Igawa and the season as a whole.
Either way, it's a fun time to watch him, and it's taking pressure of the majority of the lineup not producing well at all.
Over on Bronx Banter, one guest is positively down on this year's Yankees. He makes some good points, and some scary ones (i.e. Jeter's woes).
With the Yankees-Red Sox circus upcoming, I have to say that I don't mind them playing a series at this point. I just don't like when, as MLB occasionally does with rivalries, they play three or four series before the All-Star break. Even with a 19-game head-to-head slate, it leaves precious drama for September.
The worst recent case I can think of is 2004, when St. Louis and Chicago played 19 times between April 30 and July 20. Granted, the World Series-bound Cardinals ran away with the division, but coming off of Bartman and the Curse living on, MLB clearly knew that a September fight was possible. Punctuating that with head-to-head matchups would have helped. As it was, the Cubbies were wild-card contenders, even if they were 16 games out of first.
This year's Yanks-Red Sox schedule is only somewhat spread out -- 12 games by June 3 with a late August and mid-September series. Maybe people like the buildup by a slew of these games in a span of two weeks or so. I'm not such a fan.
Oh yeah, Mark Buehrle threw a no-hitter. ESPN.com said it was the 16th(!) in White Sox history. Here's the list of the others (scroll down), most thrown before WWII.
It's the first American League no-hitter since 2002 by Derek Lowe. Ricky Henderson played not left but center in his 44th year and led off for the Sox. That'll take you back.
