A-Rod's 52nd helps Wang win 18th

A-Rod's 52nd helps Wang win 18th

Home run in fifth straight game contributes to sweep of Royals

By Conor Nicholl / MLB.com

KANSAS CITY -- Often overshadowed by his own teammates and several other high-profile starting pitchers, Chien-Ming Wang sometimes hasn't received due credit for his results. But Yankees manager Joe Torre said he considers Wang "one of the big guys," someone who is a true ace.

"But there is always somebody else that is going to get more attention than him," Torre said.

That may still be true after Sunday's performance, but Wang's results are necessitating as much publicity and discussion regarding the Cy Young Award as several of the American League's elite pitchers, including Johan Santana, Josh Beckett and C.C. Sabathia. Wang tossed seven innings of three-run ball on Sunday and earned the win in the Yankees' 6-3 victory over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium.

"I think he is [one of the best]," catcher Jorge Posada said. "I think he has proven a lot. He gets better and better every time he goes out there. He is showing it and not saying anything about it.

"He is very low-key and very quiet about it, and I think that is why people are not giving him the credit that he deserves. I think he deserves all the credit in the world."

The win lengthened New York's lead to four games ahead of the Detroit and five ahead of Seattle in the AL Wild Card race. The Yankees have won five straight games, their longest streak since Aug. 3-7.

On Sunday, Wang's batterymate and his third baseman provided the help. Posada broke a 3-3 tie with a two-run double in the fifth inning.

Alex Rodriguez continued his assault on the record books with his 52nd homer of the season, his fourth of the series and his seventh in the Yankees' past five games.

Rodriguez has homered in five consecutive games, tying a career high. The long ball also gave him a Major League-leading 140 RBIs this season, marking just the fifth time a Yankees player has driven in 140 runs since 1939.

"What Alex has done in the short period of time is pretty amazing," Torre said.

The offense supplied plenty of support for Wang, who earned his 18th win this season and kept a tie for the Major League lead with Boston's Beckett, who also won his 18th on Sunday.

Wang also ranks second in the AL in winning percentage (.750) and lowered his ERA to 3.69, just outside of the top 10. New York is 8-1 in Wang's last nine starts.

"He is our horse," Posada said. "He is our No. 1. You try to get him some runs. ... He has been very, very key for us."

Wang, who missed time at the beginning of the season with a strained right hamstring, has the chance to become the first 20-game winner in the Major Leagues in the last two seasons. In 2006, Wang led the Majors with 19 wins and finished second in the voting for the AL Cy Young Award.

"He certainly hasn't done anything wrong," Torre said of Wang's Cy Young chances. "And any time you pitch with the urgency to win -- Beckett is doing the same thing, obviously -- it is pretty impressive. This kid -- how quickly he has turned into someone you count on, on a regular basis -- I think is very impressive."

Before the game, Posada approached Wang and told him to shorten his stride slightly. Kauffman Stadium's mound is flatter than most, and Posada wanted to make certain that Wang still kept his sinker down.

Wang was efficient, tossing just 25 pitches through three innings. He had some trouble in the fourth, when he permitted a three-run double to Alex Gordon on a sinker that was supposed to be away but was left in the middle of the plate.

But Wang quickly settled down and tossed scoreless innings in the fifth, sixth and seventh. He tied a season high with four walks but coaxed 11 ground-ball outs.

"I just forgot about it and slowed down," Wang said of Gordon's game-tying double.

Afterward, Torre said that Wang was a "little Jekyll and Hyde," but it's a testament to Wang that he didn't have his best stuff and was still able to produce a quality start.

"He can get away with stuff," Posada said. "He can get away with not having a sinker. He can get away with not having a changeup or a split-finger. He has been that effective."

Wang went at least six innings for the 18th time in his last 19 starts and the 25th time in 27 starts this season. While the injury short-circuited any chance the right-hander would have of leading the AL in innings pitched, few starters have consistently worked deeper into games. Wang has averaged more than 6 2/3 innings per outing, one of the top marks in the AL.

"He has been able to throw his slider for a strike and been able to expand the zone with his fastball," Posada said.

Wang received the necessary run support when Rodriguez hit his 52nd homer of the season -- and fourth this series -- off Zack Greinke in the first inning, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead. A-Rod is the Majors' leader in runs scored (132), RBIs and homers.

"It's a magical season," Rodriguez said. "I am enjoying it. The reason I am getting pitched to is those guys behind me."

Four innings later, one of those guys behind him -- Posada -- broke a 3-3 tie with a two-run double off John Bale down the right-field line.

"We got some guys on base, and you want to try and stay in the middle of the field," Posada said. "You have a left-hander in there, and I got a great pitch to hit."

And that was all Wang needed for another quiet win.

Yanks' rookies surprised by transition

Yanks' rookies surprised by transition

Preparation, coaching, veterans make pitchers feel at home

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- Sometime on Thursday, Ian Kennedy will board a charter flight bound for Kansas City, where a three-game series at Kauffman Stadium and his second big league assignment await. He won't have to carry his bags.

The 22-year-old rookie, making his first road trip since being summoned from the Minors, has compared life in a Yankees uniform to being treated like royalty. Not that he would cast aspersions on his dizzying path to the Bronx, but the experience has been better than even he thought it would be.

"I didn't expect it any other way, because the Yankees are always in a pennant race," Kennedy said. "It's nice to feel that every game counts. Even though I'm a rookie, I want to win every time I go out there."

Like relief stud Joba Chamberlain, Kennedy opened the year in front of sparse Florida State League crowds. His quick assimilation into the Yankees' fold is already well ahead of schedule, coming on the heels of a seven-inning, one-earned-run performance against the Devil Rays on Saturday.

"I thought I'd be in [Double-A] Trenton," Kennedy admits. "But you get a little greedy, and you want to go to the next level and the next level [after that]. It's not a trend, so I didn't know if I was shooting for the stars or if I was thinking about something that could actually happen."

It has happened more than expected in 2007.

Phil Hughes, just 21 years old, logged his best effort Wednesday after a three-start slide, the backstory to the Alex Rodriguez Show, and the identically aged Chamberlain unknowingly put himself in position to become the ninth Yankees pitcher to log his first victory in 2007 -- an unthinkable achievement, considering the track record of an organization that freely dispensed young talent in favor of veteran presence.

"It's exciting for me to be here as long as I've been here, and then all of a sudden you've got this crop of young arms that have come along," said Yankees manager Joe Torre. "We're accelerating this stuff more and more these days, and giving the kids the experience at this level. It's working out more times than not."

One of Torre's favorite illustrations for the perpetual coming-of-age story that has become a welcome sidebar to the Yankees' highlight reel is his own experience. Torre's big league debut came in 1960 with the Milwaukee Braves, and he recalls looking at a fastball zip by. The baseball came from 60 feet and six inches, and it didn't behave differently just because the pitch had been delivered by a person in a Major League uniform.

"I can hit that," Torre recalls thinking.

In the cases of Hughes, Chamberlain and Kennedy, they can throw that. But maybe the most important figure for all three young pitchers, at least in recent days, has been the figure lurking in the shadows. Triple-A pitching coach Dave Eiland, who pitched parts of four seasons in New York from 1989-91, reassumed his old digs last week to help prepare Kennedy for Tampa Bay.

The 41-year-old Eiland has been kept busy, overseeing Kennedy's first Yankee Stadium mound session in an empty building -- thwack, the ball echoed off 55,000 seats as it met bullpen catcher Roman Rodriguez's glove -- before administering a few key tweaks during Hughes' most recent bullpen performance, resuming a relationship formed last season at Double-A Trenton.

"A lot of times, you don't really feel what you're doing wrong," Hughes said. "That's why it's nice having Dave here. He saw me a lot last year and this year in Trenton and Scranton. He really knows what I need to do."

"This game is set up for you to fail. I understand that's going to happen. ... When it does happen, you have to respond and understand that that's part of the game."

-- Joba Chamberlain

The time investment has been wise, considering the stakes. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre may be involved in a postseason series, but Hughes, Kennedy and Chamberlain -- all Triple-A Yankees at various points this season -- have much more at stake, assigned to figure out Major League life on the fly.

"If any of these young guys can handle it, they can, because of their makeup," Eiland said. "They stay under control of themselves, and they don't seem to get rattled. If they do, they hide it well. They're pros. They're mature beyond 21 and 22 years of age."

Physical gifts aside, the trio's most impressive trait has been their levelheadedness and professionalism, said Eiland.

Chamberlain may well be the most boisterous of the bunch, quickly gaining chutzpah as his 12 1/3 scoreless inning streak extended. Torre joked that the carefully protected Chamberlain shouldn't be allowed to give up a run until 2008, but Chamberlain cautions that this streak won't -- can't -- last forever.

"This game is set up for you to fail," Chamberlain said. "I understand that's going to happen. You've just got to go out and keep attacking the zone. When it does happen, you have to respond and understand that that's part of the game. That's going to be the big test."

So while Chamberlain still gets the oohs and ahhs as he wanders New York, unmistakable with his thick build and swagger, Hughes and Kennedy both own a quieter confidence.

Not that any of the three demand to be acknowledged or looked at. As Kennedy said, that makes him the lucky one: "Everybody knows Joba, but they don't know who I am. I don't mind that at all."

"Just being around them for a period of time, you see how they handle themselves," Eiland said. "It's not only on the mound, but in the clubhouse. They're not guys that are loud talking. They're always willing to learn and always asking questions."

Of course, it helps that there are voices willing to answer those queries. Kennedy -- who feared that the clubhouse would be an "off-to-yourself type of feeling" before he actually experienced it -- said that he hoped to spend some time picking the brains of Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina, particularly on the topics of how to deal with a young, scrappy Royals club.

Chamberlain's first Major League locker was issued a thin wall away from Roger Clemens' belongings, no chance assignment. And Hughes has benefited all season long from veteran presence, dating back to Legends Field, when he was deposited into Derek Jeter's clubhouse neighborhood.

Having that kind of support system has eased the transition for all involved -- for the Yankees, suddenly placing their trusts in a foreign youth movement, and for the players, who understand that the way things work now aren't necessarily the way they were just a few years ago.

"It's been positive," Hughes said. "When I got here [in August], Shelley [Duncan] was here, and then Joba and Ian. It's good to have that young blend in a locker room [with other] guys coming up. You don't feel like the one sole guy in the group. You can share the good and bad that come with being up here."

A-Rod smacks two homers in Yanks' win

A-Rod smacks two homers in Yanks' win

Taters highlight Bombers' eight-run seventh inning

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- Alex Rodriguez insisted that he could play, even as his sprained and bruised right ankle had him limping through the Yankee Stadium clubhouse corridors.

And as manager Joe Torre searched into the All-Star's intense stare, looking for hints of uncertainty floating about the trainer's room, he listened. Good thing.

Rodriguez jumped out of an MRI tube and onto a pair of pitches in the Yankees' eight-run seventh inning on Wednesday, as his Major League-leading 47th and 48th blasts of the season comfortably helped the Yankees to a 10-2 victory over the Mariners.

"There's not much time left," Rodriguez said. "I guarantee you that if it was April or May, I probably would have taken a day, no question. Every game is so important."

Habitually one of the earliest reportees to the stadium for games, Rodriguez arrived on Wednesday ready to go through rigorous regimen paces, despite having injured his right ankle in a headfirst slide on Tuesday.

The Yankees, as cautious as would be expected with the probable American League MVP, had different plans. Instead of running sprints in the outfield and taking dozens of cuts in the underground batting cages, Rodriguez found himself grumbling his way to a Manhattan hospital, where tests revealed injuries that left him at an estimated 60 percent.

"You've got to be smart about it," Rodriguez said. "Going to the hospital at 5:15 [p.m.] is something that you're not very excited about. You want to play, you know your body, and you certainly don't want to get into an MRI machine."

While Rodriguez was in transit, Torre ripped up his original lineup card, on which he had optimistically filled in Rodriguez as New York's third baseman and cleanup hitter.

Another version briefly filtered through Torre's mind, showcasing Jorge Posada as the designated hitter and Wilson Betemit at third base, but Rodriguez wouldn't have it -- going through an abbreviated pregame workout at the stadium, he charged past reporters and into the trainers' room, where Torre asked him to prove that a third revision was necessary.

"I know you want to play, but are you going to be able to apply yourself and not be tentative?" Torre recalled asking Rodriguez.

"He wanted to look me in the eyes and make sure I wasn't lying to him," Rodriguez said.

The truth came through in the seventh, as Rodriguez -- the DH, batting fourth -- erased a one-run deficit by turning on a full-count Jarrod Washburn fastball, instantly spoiling six innings of work in which the Seattle left-hander had limited the Yankees to little but Jose Molina's solo homer.

After an error, the Mariners turned Washburn's game over to their September-swelled bullpen, and from there the Yankees took control, sending 12 men to the plate in the inning. After Rodriguez's homer, George Sherrill offered two walks before pinch-hitter Posada looked at a 3-1 Sean Green pitch to force home the go-ahead run. Johnny Damon bounced into a RBI fielder's choice, and Melky Cabrera singled through the right side with Damon in motion. Derek Jeter's two-run double off the wall in right-center preceded Rodriguez's second homer of the inning, a blast to left field that earned him a curtain call from the crowd of 52,538.

"I can't relate to it. It's unbelievable," said Jeter, who stood at home plate applauding Rodriguez's memorable feat. "I haven't seen anything like it in all my years playing. It's not that easy."

The home runs gave Rodriguez 512 for his career, moving him past Mel Ott and tying Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews for 17th place on the all-time list.

Even though Rodriguez said this is no time to ponder his place in history, Torre didn't hesitate to marvel once more.

"His whole career is something special -- the numbers he's put up at his age, and how he takes care of himself," Torre said. "Sometimes how important this game is to him gets in the way, because he needs to do so much. This year he's been a gamer."

The big inning left 21-year-old Joba Chamberlain in line to earn his first Major League victory, having pitched a scoreless seventh in relief of starter Phil Hughes. Chamberlain said that he didn't realize how the official scoring worked until Mariano Rivera congratulated him after the game; crediting Rodriguez with helping him get win No. 1 would be no problem.

"The man's incredible," Chamberlain said. "He's one of the best in the game, and he still works every day to become better. That's a tribute to him and his workout. He understands that it takes hard work. You can't get at the top and stay there. You have to work even harder."

Raul Ibanez reached Hughes for a two-run homer in the fourth, but otherwise the right-hander appeared in command, tying a career high with six strikeouts, and scattering five hits and walking two in a 97-pitch effort.

"Especially coming off three not very good starts, it's definitely one that I can work off of," Hughes said. "And it also feels good to know that I didn't just go out there and [not] know what I did differently. I know where I need to be right now, and that's a good feeling."

The outburst helped the Yankees bookend their nine-game homestand with high notes. A sweep of the Red Sox was followed by the doldrums of dropping two of three to the Devil Rays, a luxury the Yankees can ill afford. But picking up two wins against the AL Wild Card-contending Mariners provides a springboard to an important trip to Kansas City, Toronto and Boston.

"We have a lot of work to do here," Rodriguez said. "We've talked about how, from July on, every game for us is a postseason game. We just need to take small bites."