Yankees Letting The Good Times Roll

Well hello there everybody! Welcome to This Week In Yankees Baseball. The Boys From The Bronx are playing free and easy, enjoying themselves and cruising out in front in the American League East.

A big reason for this is the outstanding pitching of Michael Pineda. Pineda followed up his eight scoreless inning performance on Tuesday with 16 strikeouts on Sunday. And no one has a better seat to witness it all then Yankees catcher Brian McCann. [related category]

“He’s a dominant pitcher, he really is,” McCann said according to MLB.com. “His stuff today was electric. Almost every time he takes the mound, it is.¨ Pineda fell just two short of Ron Guidry´s club record of 18 strikeouts in a game.

Another big moment for the Yankees this week came on Thursday when Alex Rodriguez hit career home run 661 to pass Willie Mays and claim possession of fourth place on the all-time home run list. Alex´s homer helped the Yankees defeat Baltimore 4-3. Yankee fans even coaxed him to come out for a curtain call.

“It’s been quite a journey here the last few years,” Rodriguez said, also according to MLB.com. “I promised myself that I would come out and enjoy every moment. The way the fans have allowed me to come back and play baseball, the way I repay them is by working hard, playing hard and trying to help our team win.”

And look out, Carlos Beltran is starting to get into a groove. In his last ten games Beltran has 11 hits and six RBI. He´s making solid contact at the plate. Even his outs are loud ones. “I feel better at the plate, I’ve been hitting some balls hard,” Beltran said also according to MLB.com. “But at the same time, the results that I’m looking for are not there yet, so I just need to control what I’m controlling. Come in every day, working in the cage, working on my swing. When it comes, it comes.”

So when all of the dust settled the Yankees, through Sunday, sat three games ahead of the second place Rays. Now the Yankees have a chance to open the gap even more as they begin a four game series in Tampa starting on Monday night.

There´s a big day coming up soon for Bernie Williams. Another is planned for Jorge Posada. More on that next week. And On May 11, 2006,  Hideki Matsui played in his 518th straight game for the Yankees. That set a record for consecutive games played from the start of a career in MLB baseball.

How about that!