Yanks pour on runs in rout of Twins

Yanks pour on runs in rout of Twins
Wang shuts out Minnesota in seven dominant innings
By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- If the Yankees are going to make a push toward their usual destination of postseason play, they'll have to see underperforming areas of their starting lineup come to life.

For at least one night, the most inconsistent parts of the Yankees offense all worked in harmony. Bobby Abreu, Robinson Cano and Hideki Matsui shouldered much of the load to help Chien-Ming Wang down the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday, 8-0.

"It was a good game," said Yankees manager Joe Torre. "It just gives you an indication, when a couple of guys start hitting, all of a sudden it sort of relieves some of the tension. Guys start being themselves instead of trying to force something."

The contest featured Cano snapping a dry spell of 112 at-bats without a home run, Matsui shunning his pull-happy ways to contribute two hits, and a second consecutive three-hit night from the long-troubled Abreu.

"We scored a lot of runs like we're supposed to," Abreu said. "We played a better game and our pitching responded like it's supposed to. There was a lot of action in every inning."

All of the excitement, it turned out, was provided by the Yankees, who recorded just their second shutout of the season and their first since May 6 at Seattle.

They did so behind seven scoreless innings from Wang, who admitted that even he was surprised to have thrown that many zeroes on the board against the Twins, spending much of his night trying to ignore a cracked nail on his right middle finger.

While Wang wasn't at his most efficient, he was able to navigate past damage, walking four and striking out three in a 101-pitch performance to log his team-leading eighth victory.

He most notably sidestepped a tight situation in the fourth inning, guarding a 1-0 lead in what catcher Jorge Posada would later credit as a turning point.

One night after straining his left hamstring beating out a fielder's choice, Alex Rodriguez played a key role in helping keep Minnesota off the board, a frame that saw Wang walk three batters -- one erased by a caught stealing -- and allow a hit. "That's probably the play of the game," Posada said. "If we don't turn it there, they probably get a rally going."

With Minnesota turned away, the Yankees took advantage. Cano added power in the fourth, lofting a hanging breaking ball into the right-field seats in the fourth inning for a two-run homer.

The home run was Cano's fourth of the season and ended a drought of 112 homerless at-bats for the second baseman, his first since June 1 at Boston, but more importantly, it opened things up for Wang, who would face the minimum in two of the next three innings before yielding to the bullpen.

"That's why I was so happy about the homer," Cano said. "It's not because I hit it hard, but when I hit it, it was with men on base with two outs, and it made the game 3-0."

After suffering losses in his previous two starts at San Francisco and Baltimore, Wang said he consciously decided to alter his arm slot to a higher point, returning his form to more closely resemble his action from earlier in the season.

The tweak, performed in Wang's side session following his defeat at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, worked.

"He bore down and really made pitches when he needed to," Posada said. "Ground-ball outs. Even when he's not well, his sinker is so difficult when he keeps it down."

Wang had plenty of support by the end of the night, particularly as the Yankees batted around in a five-run sixth inning that chased Minnesota's Carlos Silva.

It was a frame that began with laughs on the Yankees bench, as Roger Clemens and bench coach Don Mattingly were among the most vocal ribbing the sight of Posada -- slow-footed catcher that he is -- legging it to third base as Hunter misplayed a single, the ball skipping under his glove for a two-base error.

"I almost missed second base," Posada confessed. "It's a tough one to get to third base."

The dash home was simpler, scoring on a Silva wild pitch, and opened an inning that made the Yankees feel a whole lot better about their production.

Matsui doubled and scored on an Abreu single, and after Cano was hit by a pitch, Melky Cabrera stroked a run-scoring single. Derek Jeter drove in another run, his second RBI of the night and part of a three-hit game, to complete the barrage.

"The more hitters we have who start hitting the ball hard, the better it is for the team," Matsui said. "The results are going to be there."

Leaving the stadium, the Yankees added one more storyline to the mix -- the Major League debut of 26-year-old right-hander Edwar Ramirez, who recorded three swinging strikeouts on nasty changeups.

Ramirez's feel-good story -- twice released by the Angels organization, out of baseball for all of 2004, and plucked from the roster of an independent league club in Edinburg, Tex., last year -- was just one more thing for the Yankees to trumpet on a night when everything else seemed to go right.

"Sometimes things are contagious," Jeter said. "It seems like a couple guys start swinging the bats and everyone picks it up. You hope it can last for at least the rest of this homestand."

Yanks look to salvage finale

Yanks look to salvage finale
New York (36-39) at Baltimore (34-43), Thursday, 7:05 p.m. ET
By Geremy Bass / MLB.com

The Yankees will try to end their dismal nine-game road trip on a positive note and snap a four-game losing streak when they wrap up their three-game series in Baltimore Thursday at Camden Yards.

Right-hander Chien-Ming Wang will take the mound to make his 13th start of the season. Wang received his only no-decision of the year in his last start, when he left leading San Francisco, 4-3, after allowing four runs on six hits in 6 1/3 innings. He's left nine of his 12 starts with the lead, mostly because the Yanks are posting an average of 5.3 runs per game when he starts. Wang is 8-3 in June over his three-year career.

New York will face erratic righty Daniel Cabrera, who can either baffle entire lineups or struggle mightily to throw strikes. In his last start, Cabrera two-hit the Diamondbacks over six innings to record his fifth win of the season. But in each of the two starts prior to that, he surrendered a career-high three home runs and picked up a loss. Cabrera's 49 walks are also tied for most in the Majors.

The Yanks have lost seven of eight games on the road trip and haven't been swept by the Orioles since April 2005.

Pitching matchup
NYY: RHP Chien-Ming Wang (7-4, 3.51 ERA)
Wang is 2-1 with a 4.19 ERA in five career starts against Baltimore, and in his last start at Camden Yards he allowed just one run in 7 1/3 innings to record a win.

BAL: RHP Daniel Cabrera (6-8, 4.98 ERA)
Cabrera is 2-3 with a 3.94 ERA in eight career starts against New York.

Player to watch
Third baseman Alex Rodriguez was 1-for-4 Wednesday and is 8-for-18 (.444) with two home runs in his career against Cabrera.

With A-Rod's help, Wang denies Mets

With A-Rod's help, Wang denies Mets
Major League-leading 27th homer supports 10-strikeout gem
By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- Chien-Ming Wang's day started with a rude awakening, the discovery of a stiff neck from sleeping wrong. He ended it right, pitching as though he was in a dream.

Wang struck out a career-high 10 batters and came within one out of a complete game, while Alex Rodriguez clubbed his Major League-leading 27th home run, leading the Yankees past the Mets in Sunday's Subway Series finale, 8-2. The win clinched a series victory and kept momentum on the side of the Yankees, who have won 11 of their last 12 games and 14 of 17.

Complaining of a tight feeling in the right side of his neck, Wang reported to Yankee Stadium well ahead of the players' 5 p.m. ET report time on Sunday, administering heat therapy to help loosen him up for the start.

The treatment didn't completely knock out the kink, but that seemed to be just about all Wang couldn't put under wraps. He limited the Mets to just six hits and mixed in an effective slider and used his changeup often -- more, he said, than in any previous big-league start, complementing his vicious sinker.

The results were striking, as Wang shut the Mets out through six innings before being touched for a run in the seventh inning -- by which time the Yankees had already pieced together a six-run lead -- on a Carlos Delgado double. Otherwise, Wang was dominant going into the final frame, striking out the side around a hit in the eighth inning.

"That's something certainly out of character for him," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "But it gives you an idea -- when he gets that off pitch working for him, the slider or changeup, that really makes a difference for him."

By Wang's 10th and final strikeout, a whiff of Mets spark plug Jose Reyes to end the eighth, Rodriguez said that he looked up and marveled at what the Yankees' "special talent" had achieved.

"I couldn't believe it," Rodriguez said. "I thought it was a different game."

With a series of relievers having risen in the bullpen, only to be seated once again as Wang continued to rifle past the Mets, Torre permitted Wang to go batter-to-batter in the ninth inning as he neared his eventual 113-pitch conclusion.

A route-going effort dangled as a teaser, but Wang allowed a leadoff double to Ramon Castro and a run-scoring hit to Carlos Beltran before getting David Wright to hit into a 5-4-3 double play that put him just one out away from completion.

Torre said that the Yankees had already decided that Wright would be Wang's last batter, no matter the outcome, and Mike Myers came on and struck out Delgado to end the game.

"There was no sense in him going 120 [pitches]," Torre said.

The Yankees built their lead by battering around an old friend, right-hander Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, who surrendered six runs and seven hits -- including the two-run homer to Rodriguez and a solo shot to Johnny Damon -- before being lifted with two outs in the fifth inning.

The red-hot Rodriguez's blast came with two outs in the first, as the slugger unloaded on a 2-0 pitch and sent it over the left-field wall, the beginning of a three-RBI night for A-Rod. Rodriguez clubbed five home runs on the Yankees' homestand and leads the Majors with 73 RBIs, personal achievements that he said are more enjoyable now that the Yankees have found a formula for success.

"Winning's what makes it all special," Rodriguez said. "April was OK, but we weren't really winning any games, so it was hard to enjoy that. The fact that we're [winning], that's what counts."

Miguel Cairo added an RBI double and Damon had a run-scoring hit in the second, and the Yankees tacked on when Bobby Abreu tripled and came home on a Rodriguez sacrifice fly in the third.

Damon reached Hernandez in the fifth for a solo shot to right, the designated hitter's fourth home run of the season and an extremely good sign for the Yankees, given Damon's recent absence from the lineup due to a mild abdominal strain that the club feared might make him unavailable for use in National League parks.

"I definitely feel like I should be doing better," Damon said. "Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come."

Torre said that the Yankees still haven't come to a decision on where Damon could play, if at all, under NL rules. But Sunday's showcase certainly didn't hurt.

"Doing what he's doing right now has kept him pretty healthy," Torre said. "I'm not saying we're not going to play him in the outfield and we're not going to play him at first base. We're going to have to make a decision."

Jorge Posada completed the Yankees' scoring by ripping a two-run homer, his ninth, off reliever Aaron Heilman in the eighth inning. The power displays provided plenty of support for Wang, who won his fourth consecutive outing and his first career start against the Mets.

After missing the beginning of the season and having a slow beginning, Wang has been rolling, allowing just four earned runs in his last 28 innings.

As the Yankees prepare to embark on a three-city, 10-day road trip to Colorado, San Francisco and Baltimore, Torre said that Wang will have the benefit of an extra day of rest on the upcoming schedule. Pushed back to Saturday, Wang's next outing and an attempt at a fifth straight win will come at San Francisco's AT&T Park, a setting Wang said he was looking forward to due to a large Taiwanese population in the Bay Area.

Of course, there's also one large caveat to that matchup, one that could serve to somewhat interrupt the good feelings of the hurler's recent run.

Yet, when asked about the prospect of facing Giants slugger Barry Bonds in less than a week, Wang simply showcased the smile of a man with weapons of confidence at his disposal.

"Keep the ball down," he said, grinning.