Yanks treat Toronto like the G20 Summit

On Brian Cashman’s birthday the Yankee offense exploded, if only for an inning. The Yanks recorded an 11-run third inning to rout the Blue Jays 11-3 on Saturday and somewhat erase the memories of Friday’s 6-1 11-inning debacle.

That fateful third saw the Yanks snap an 0-for-25 streak with RISP and end a 12-inning scoreless streak. The Yanks had scored seven runs all week heading into Saturday’s game, they scored 11 in the third frame alone. In other words: they scored more runs in the third inning on Saturday than they did all week combined. The 11 runs given up tied a Blue Jays record, the last time they did it was on August 6 of 1979 against the Royals. It was also the most runs the Yanks have scored in a single stanza since they put up a 13 spot against the Devil Rays in 2005.

Girardi:

"A lot of times things in this game don’t make sense. We all try to say we know why it’s happening, sometimes things just don’t make sense and they happen."

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the third was that Brett Gardner — he of three homers all season — slugged a grand slam (the first of his career, and he now has as many as Derek Jeter). Gardner is hitting .342 (40-for-117) with a .428 OBP and four homers at home this year. As a whole, he is at .316/.398/.421 in 2010…not bad for a guy hitting ninth in the lineup. His shot was the eighth GS the Yanks have hit this season…they haven’t had that many in a WHOLE season since they had nine in 2004. If 2009 was the year of the pie, 2010 is the year of the salami.

Gardy:

"I told somebody I’ve never hit a grand slam before — little league, high school, college. I haven’t hit many homers in my life, so it was a good moment because our offense had been struggling. We’ve been really struggling the past four or five games, we scored 11 in the one inning and didn’t score the other seven innings. It’s a crazy game and that’s just the way it works out sometimes. When you’re on that side of it it’s a lot of fun, but I’ve been on the other side just as many times…I know how it feels on the other side too."

A-Rod also had a three-run double (which I thought should have been ruled an error, but I’ll take it) in the third that made John McDonald look like Luis Castillo. No disrespect to McDonald intended.

Tex went 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and two RBI to record his first multi-extra base hit game since that three homer game in Boston on May 8…yikes.

Jeter achieved yet another milestone, as he passed Eddie Murray (not to be confused with this guy) and Paul Waner for 38th on MLB’s all-time runs scored list with number 1,628.

Chad Huffman went 0-for-3 at the plate but made a phenomenal catch in right.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the guy who made it all possible — Andrew Eugene Pettitte. The 2010 Cy Young Award winner settled down after a shaky first and retired 14 batters in a row. The 38-year-old lefty is now 10-2 with a 2.82 ERA and just keeps on rolling. He is 7-0 with a 1.67 ERA and .198 BAA in eight day-game starts this year. Holy shit.

"I expect to win, wins are hard to get. Coming into this year I felt like I could give us a solid year. I’ve had some big hits to help get some wins…Obviously it’d be great (to make the All-Star team). It’d be something that you’d love to be able to make. I won’t be watching it that closely but hopefully you get a chance to go."

Don’t cha know, Cano is 2 for his last 16 to see his batting average “plummet” to .342, which is cool, but Adrian Beltre (the one-nut wonder) now has a higher BA than he. Not cool.

I won’t even get into what the bullpen did today — two innings of perfect relief from the new kid Dustin Moseley and another perfect inning from CHoP. Maybe CHoP was destined to be a mop-up guy.

If that’s what the Yanks had planned for Cash’s birthday, I wonder what they have in store for Mr. Steinbrenner’s b-day tomorrow. They got Future Ace Phil Hughes going against Brandon Morrow. LET’S GO YANKS!!!!

The Sox are in action later tonight against the O’s, but no matter what they do they can’t claim a share of first place. But let’s put our orange and black hats on just for the sake of it. GO ORIOLES!

On another note, here are some injury updates courtesy of RAB.