Struggling Sluggers Returning To Form In May For The New York Yankees

With an "A-Bomb" grand slam from A-Rod on Friday night, the great Mariano Rivera giving up a grand slam himself on Sunday, and Marcus Thames sinking Papelbon and the Sox on Monday, it has been a week of highs and lows for the Yanks thus far.

But through it all, the Yankees are starting to see some major production out of their once struggling sluggers.

Mark Teixeira, also known as Mr. May, has been on fire this month. He has five homers to go with 21 RBI and his average now stands at .224--at the end of April it was a lowly .195.

Tex is certainly making a strong case for player of the month, but so is his teammate Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod has had some very clutch hits for the Yanks thus far, but none bigger than his 577th and 588th career home runs, which he hit in the past few games.

On Friday night against the Twins, A-Rod hit the go-ahead grand slam to give the Bombers the lead, en route to an 8-4 victory 

It was Monday night, with one out and Gardner at third, when A-Rod struck again with a game-tying blast to deep left in the bottom of the ninth. With two outs, Marcus Thames took Papelbon deep again to sink the Sox 11-9.

Although A-Rod has not experienced a slump to the magnitude of Teixeira's in April, he did seem to be struggling for a stretch, but now leads the Yankees in RBI and is coming up with clutch hit after clutch hit.

Tex and A-Rod couldn't have picked a better time to break out. The Yankees have several key injuries right now: Curtis Granderson has been out for a while and is still two weeks away from returning to the lineup, Nick Johnson had surgery on his left wrist (no surprise there), Jorge Posada has been dinged up, and Nick Swisher has been out with a bicep injury of late.

So the power strokes of A-Rod and Tex are coming back at the perfect time, as the Yankees try to take down the first place Rays when they welcome their Tampa rivals to the Bronx on Wednesday.