Encouraging First Win For Yanks

Opening day!  Finally the Yankee season has officially begun, and despite some bumps throughout the beginning of the game, the Yankees defeated the Tampa Bay Devil Rays by a score of 9-5. 

The biggest scare for all Yankee fans going into this game was wondering how “Iron Man” Carl Pavano would do, seeing as though it had been nearly two years since his last start, and his road to recovery has been littered with Porsche crashes and buttocks injuries.  But for the first 4 innings of the game, Pavano looked good only giving up 2 hits, and unearned run, 2 strikeouts and 2 walks.  But in the fifth inning, the Iron Man of old showed his true colors giving up 4 runs (3 earned).  The bullpen took care of the rest though, with nearly everyone contributing including Mariano Rivera doing his thing striking out the side in the ninth.

As for the bats, the Yankees caught up to the D’Rays via small ball (bunting runners over, sacrificing, running) and added to the lead through power, and its this type of mix that the Yankees were able to succeed without Matsui and Sheffield for most of last season.  As much as the moneyball philosophy of walks and power seems like the way to go, when the Yankees play small they end up coming up big. 

Now that the hard part of Pavano trying to win against Scott Kazmir is over, the Yankees can  look forward to seeing Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina on the mound for the rest of the series, which is very encouraging.  Joe Torre made a good move pulling Pavano out the second he noticed he couldn’t keep his sinker or fastball down in the zone, but as a Yanks fan I hope he wont abuse the bullpen too much over the course of the season. 

 And here’s to Arod’s coushining two-run Home Run in the eigth inning, now if only he could do that if the Yanks are behind in the eighth can I give him a lot more credit