Yankees 6, White Sox 4: The Good, Bad, and Indifferent

Box Score

The Good

Boone Logan

Logan came in and threw 0.2 scoreless in relief for Vazquez in the sixth. I still firmly believe he's going to be a huge part of this bullpen—in a good way. 

 
Nick Masset

Masset did what was asked for him: he kept the Sox in the game. He threw two scoreless innings while allowing one hit and walking one with three strikeouts.  

With tonight's performance, Masset's ERA is down to 3.75. I can live with that out of the long reliever that barely made the team out of spring training. 

 
Bobby Jenks

Jenks threw a scoreless ninth and looked good. He hadn't pitched since blowing the game against Baltimore, so even though this wasn't a save situation, it still was good to see Jenks throw a scoreless. 

The Bad

The offense

Man, to think I thought yesterday's offensive effort was frustrating.

At least yesterday, the Sox were getting men on base. And they were getting men on base against a far superior pitcher in Chien-Ming Wang.

Today, the White Sox got four measly hits against the aging Mike Mussina. One of those hits was a check-swing bleeder down to left that Jim Thome hit against the shift. Orlando Cabrera had a single and Joe Crede and Carlos Quentin homered for the only hard-hit balls of the game for the White Sox.

Almost everything the Sox put in play was a weak, rolled-over ground ball or a flyout. It truly was a pitiful effort by the offense today, who looked like they had absolutely no clue how to go about hitting Mussina.  

One of the best things the Sox have been doing this year has been bouncing back strong after disappointing losses. They've done that against Cleveland, Oakland, Detroit, and Tampa Bay, but showed no signs of life today against Mussina.

The offense did put up a fight against LaTroy Hawkins, Billy Traber, and Mariano Rivera, but it wasn't enough.  

 
Javier Vazquez

Vazquez was enigmatic at best tonight. When he was basing his attack off his fastball, he was dominant, but when he started relying on his off-speed and breaking pitches, he got in trouble.  

Coming into the game, Vazquez had walked just six batters all year. He walked three today, and that was largely part to his unwillingness to throw his fastball in certain situations.

The good news is that Vazquez didn't get hit all that hard today—the Yankees just had a superb approach by taking him up the middle and the other way, staying on the ball with perfection. It's a shame the White Sox lineup didn't take some notes as to what the Yankees did today.

This was Vazquez's second bad outing of the year, and while I'm confident he'll come out and pitch well most of the time, he's going to have to avoid them more often if he wants to be the ace of this staff and win the 20 games many think he can this year.

The offense

Just, you know, for extra emphasis. 

The Indifferent

Nothing here. This wasn't a particularly great game, but somehow the Sox made it close at the end.