Duke Castiglione's Blog

Thursday night the Yanks of the late 90s showed up.  Against a good pitcher in Toronto's McGowan, the Yanks got a very solid start out of 21 year old Phil Hughes.  He went 6 innings gave up 2 runs.  Than the bullpen did the rest.  The lefty Traber did his job in the top of the 7th. A much slimmer Bruney closed out the 7th.  Joba dominated the 8th.  Rivera did what he always does in the 9th and that's close out the game.

The other impressive thing about Thurday night's game is how they played small ball.  Melky started off the inning with a single. Than Damon followed with a sac bunt which the pitcher Downs couldn't handle putting men on 1st and 2nd.  Jeter than followed with another sac bunt putting men on 2nd and 3rd.  Than Abreu drove in Melky (the game winning run) with a bloop hit making it 3-2 Yanks. 

The Yanks of the last 5 or 6 years have relied to much on power.  They hardly ever played small ball.  And 'the bridge to Mariano" barley existed.