Cobb Shuts Down Yankees Offense

Alex Cobb was in cruise control tonight against the Yankees, tossing 8.1 scoreless innings and allowing only three hits in the process. The Yankee batters looked lost at the plate and were swinging at pitches that were out of the strike zone. I didn't expect Cobb to beat the Yankees, especially since the Yankees had him somewhat figured out in previous starts he made against them. The only time the Yankees were able to muster any kind of offense was in the ninth against Fernando Rodney, who gave up another hit to Ichiro, making Hafner the tying run with two outs. Hafner popped out to the third baseman and the Yankees were dead ducks. They were dominated tonight, and I don't blame them for not winning because they couldn't get men on base against Cobb in the first place.

Andy Pettitte pitched well enough to get the win, and on most nights he would have been the winning pitcher with a performance like the one he had tonight. Unfortunately, a key error by Boesch caused the runners to each move up a base in the fifth inning on a Kelly Johnson single. Zobrist would drive the first two Rays runs home on a double, followed by a solo home run by Sean Rodriguez in the following inning. I'm not worrying about Pettitte, because he was just on the wrong end of a fantastic pitching performance by the opposition.

The Yankees will welcome in the hot swinging Blue Jays into Yankee Stadium for a four game set beginning tomorrow evening as Hiroki Kuroda will take the ball for the Yankees coming off his great performance against the same Jays lineup in Toronto. Mark Buehrle will make his second start against the Yankees in less than a week.