Joba, Yanks: Domin-Eight

As the Black Eyed Peas song goes, post All-Star break these New York Yankees are so 2008.  That's because with their eighth straight victory in an 8-3 win over the Oakland Athletics, they've matched their streak from last season's second half start.

Down 1-0 early as Orlando Cabrera scored on a sac fly after he'd doubled and stolen third off Joba Chamberlain, it didn't take long for the Yanks to settle down.

While Brett Anderson started off much like Vin Mazzaro with seven K's, New York jumped on him early too, getting two back in the third.

Derek Jeter got the Yanks on the board with a single to right.  Jeter was 3-5 on the night with two RBI.

Also with having a big night at the plate, former A's outfielder Johnny Damon had three RBI himself. Meanwhile Melky Cabrera picked up three hits as the bottom of the order between he, Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher scored two runs each.

The biggest plus though has been the bounce back of Joba Chamberlain.  With some athletes you can't take away that natural raw emotion and it finally looks like Joba has that swagger back.  With the talk of recent days being centered around Chamberlain's innings limit, the young hurler only seems to be getting much stronger and more economical, throwing seven innings at 100 pitches.

Joba also picked up six K's en route to his sixth win on the season, following up his gem from Sunday against Detroit in which he picked up eight punch outs. 

Not to be lost in the shuffle was Phil Coke, who picked up Chamberlain in the eighth to get the Yanks out of a jam. 

That in-turn set up a huge bottom frame for the Bombers as Jorge Posada got it going, launching an absolute moon shot to left, his 13th on the season and first from the right side since Opening Day at the Stadium.  The Yankees capped off the crazy inning by scoring four runs while batting around, putting themselves up on the A's 8-1.

Oakland would come back with two in the top half of the ninth, but it wasn't nearly enough to top the American League's best squad from jumping to 22 games over .500 at 59-37.

So the Yankees will go for nine in a row Saturday, with as Fergie would put it, the rest of the league trying to copy their swagger.