Hiroki Kuroda came into the game badly needing a good performance. As I posted in yesterday's blog, Kuroda needed that win and there was a good chance it would come against a light hitting team in a pitcher friendly ballpark. I was right about that, but Kuroda managed to pitch eight innings of shutout baseball before handing it over to Rafael Soriano to close it out in the ninth with a 2-0 lead. Hopefully, Kurpda can feed off this start and continue it in his next start against the Tigers in Detroit where he will face a heavy hitting team with Cabrera and Fielder. This game certainly puts him in the right direction. When Kuroda is on, he can pitch a shutout, similar to AJ Burnett. However, his bad starts are usually stinkers where he allows 4+ runs.
Mark Teixeira continued his hot hitting today by going 2-4 with an opposite field RBI double to score Granderson in the seventh inning. By the looks of it, Teixeira has come out of his funk with another solid game offensively. The pitchers that the Yankees have to face this week will not be a spring picnic with Weaver tomorrow and Haren on the mound Tuesday. Andruw Jones finally contributed today with a long home run to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead which they would not relinquish. Jones is not a very valuable asset in my eyes, but what he did today helped the team. He can still hit the hell out of the ball every once in a while.
Tomorrow, Jered Weaver faces off against Phil Hughes, who has put it together lately himself. Weaver enters the game with a 6-1 record and an ERA south of 3. Pujols has been heating up lately so it will be interesting to see if he hits the Yankee pitchers hard this week.
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