Holland Breezes Past Yankee lineup

This afternoon was about Derek Holland, who had never won a regular season start against the Yankees in his career. Today, Holland came with his guns loaded and knocked the Yankees out rather effortlessly. In his complete game shutout of the Yankees, he only had to use 92 pitches. The Yankees have looked anemic at the plate. They swing early in counts, often resulting in in lazy fly balls or grounders for double plays. Cano made a huge mistake in the seventh inning as he tried to get greedy after earning a lead off walk versus Holland. On a wild pitch that didn't go too far, Cano strutted into second base and looked indifferent in his efforts. Had Cano have hustled a little more on his way to second base he would have been in scoring position for the middle of the order. Speaking of the middle of the order, Vernon Wells went 0-3 with three strikeouts. Wells is now 11 for his last 99! Those numbers are purely pathetic for a player who got off to as hot of a start as Wells did.

Phil Hughes pitched his heart out today and kept the Texas lineup to two runs in eight innings of work. Hughes is frustrating because he has the ability to do this every time out, but many time he gives up big innings. Hughes always seems to pitch well when his offense doesn't score him any runs. With the loss, Hughes falls to 3-7 and the silver lining is that he lowered his earned run average. If this is the Hughes that the Yankees can have for the remainder of the season they would take it in a heartbeat. It would also give them some leverage in trade talks regarding Hughes at the deadline in the case of them being out of the race. A lot of things have to go right for the Yankees if they want to stay in it for the rest of the season. By the looks of it they are not heading into the right direction. 

If not for Ichiro's ninth inning heroics on Tuesday, the Yankees could have possibly faced a sweep. The Yankees will head to Baltimore for three games against the Orioles. This is a huge series for the Yankees as it could bump them up in the standings or it could just as well sink them further down.