Game 10 Wrap-Up: MIN 7 NYY 3

(Web Gem?  Courtesy of Getty Images)

The only way I could think of to ruin a "Carl Pavano in Yankee Stadium" outing would be to lose to him, and unfortunately for the Yankees that's exactly what happened last night.  Freddy Garcia wasn't very good, Pavano surprisingly was, and the Bombers find themselves back at .500 for the moment.

Game Notes:

- Freddy Garcia had problems finding and keeping the ball anywhere near the strike zone in his first start in Baltimore.  Tonight, it was the exact opposite.  Too often, Freddy was leaving pitches right in the center of the zone last night and the Twins hitters capitalized on it, especially with 2 outs.

- Freddy's outing was a reverse poop sandwich, with the poop as the bread in the 1st inning and late 5th-early 6th innings when he gave up 5 earned runs on 9 hits and the meat in the middle being the 2nd-4th innings when he retired 9 in a row, 6 on groundballs.  His control was better tonight than in his first start, but he wasn't commanding anything where he wanted to in the zone.

- Carl Pavano certainly looked up the challenge of matching Freddy hit for hit when he opened the bottom of the 1st by giving up back-to-back HRs to Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson on 4 pitches, but he managed to settle down after that and efficiently worked his way through 7 innings, only allowing 5 more baserunners in the process and striking out 6.

- Pavano's curveball was working, but I still have to call out the Yankee offense for making it easy for him after the 1st.  They only got 1 ball out of the infield after the 3rd inning, and Pavano is not an overpowering pitcher by any stretch of the imagination.  You have to put some good swings on pitches.

- Little surprised to see Joe go to Rapada and not Soriano in the 9th, just to get Soriano some more work, but after Cory Wade gave up the 2 runs in the 8th, I guess Joe decided to keep that card in the deck for a game he felt better about winning.


F*ck Yeahs:

- Jeter: 2-4 with a HR, 1 R, 1 RBI.  Continues to look like the 27-year-old version of himself.

- C-Grand: 2-4 with a HR, 1 R, 1 RBI.  I think he's swinging at too many pitches early on this season, but when he squares the ball up he can take it out of the yard in a hurry.

Oh Nos:

- Garcia: 5.2 IP, 9 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 5 K.  He looked like he had started to find things in the 2nd-4th innings, but Freddy still doesn't have the feel for his stuff.  And when you have the stuff he does, that's not a good thing.

- Swish & Cano: Combined 0-7 with 2 K and 6 LOB.  C'mon, man!

Next Up:

Carsten will make his 3rd start of the season and will be looking to find that missing fastball command when he matches up against fellow lefty Francisco Liriano tonight.