Game 4 Wrap-Up: Super Nova

(Goodbye.  Screen cap courtesy of MLB.com)

The losing streak is over!  The Yanks were able to put good hitting and good pitching together last night for the first time this season, and the result was exactly what you would expect.

Game Notes:

- Ivan Nova was on last night, no other way to say it.  His fastball velocity was up, and he located it well to both sides of the plate.  He threw a ton of strikes to keep himself in control of the at-bats and worked his offspeed stuff in brilliantly.  There was no talk of missing command last night.  Nova was damn good.

- It's a little weird to use the word "scattered" when describing an outing in which the pitcher allowed 10 hits, but that's really what Nova did last night.  The only really bad pitch he made was the changeup he left up on the Matt Wieters HR.  There were a couple instances of balls just finding spots in the field where the defenders weren't, but there was never a sense that Nova was losing control of the game.

- Derek Jeter was the big offensive star of the night, going 4-4 with a double and 1 R and RBI apiece.  It marked the 37th time in The Captain's career that he had 4+ hits in a game and continued the positive trends we've seen from him at the plate since he returned from his ST calf injury.

- Joe wasn't playing around in the 8th and 9th innings, going right to D-Rob and Mo to close it out.  It's nice when he doesn't have to make any real decisions with the bullpen.  D-Rob decided to change things up for his escape act last night, striking out the first 2 batters of the inning, then giving up consecutive hits before finishing things off.

F*ck Yeahs:

- Nova: 7 IP, 10 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K.  Command problems?  What command problems?

- Jeter: Doing what you want your leadoff man to do.

- Andruw Jones: 1-2 with a HR, BB, 1 RBI, 2 R scored.  He looks lean and mean this season and absolutely smoked that homer off of Darren O'Day in the 6th.

Oh Nos:

- The "Heart of the order: Cano, A-Rod, and Teix combined to go 2-13 with just 1 RBI and 11 LOB, although they did draw 2 walks.

Next Up:

The Yanks look to turn this one win into a mini-streak with a follow-up W in the second game of this series tonight.  Freddy Garcia takes the hill for the Bombers against Wei-Yin Chen.  Yeah, I don't know who the hell he is either.