It Wasn't the Yankees Day

When Chien-Ming Wang’s sinker is sinking he seems to be unhittable, when it's not he might as well be throwing batting practice. Today was the later in the Yankees 7-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

Wang gave up nine hits and seven runs in 3.2 Innings. You won't win a lot of games like that. Wang will have to battle to bring down his ERA which now stands at 17.18.

Aside from Wang's poor performance there was a lot of good things that came from this game. Namely that the bullpen was perfect not allowing a hit and only walking one batter. The Yankees attempted to Rally in the ninth inning with a two run homer by Derek Jeter and an RBI double By Mark Texiera (his first career hit as a Yankee). Hideki Matsui popped out to end the game representing the tying run. Too little too late.

Pitching for Baltimore was Koji Uehara who Baltimore signed in the offseason from Japan. A former teammate of Matsui in Japan, Uehara pitched five innings allowing one hit and one run with no strikeouts. Although he didn’t look great he had a decent change-up and the Yankees never do well against pitchers they have not seen before. To me he seemed a bit wild and pitched up in the zone, which is common of Japanese pitchers (see: Kei Igawa).

Nick Markakis was 3-3 with a home run and three RBI leading the offensive charge for the O’s.  Jeter was also 2-3 with a home run and two RBI for the Bombers.

Don’t panic yet folks. It's a long season and I still think that the Yankees will be your AL representatives in this year's World Series.

Tomorrow is a day game with pre-game starting at 1:00EST on YES.