Yankees Offense Comes Alive

The Yankees were able to score seven runs tonight, following last night's performance where they were only able to score one lone run against Astros pitching. Several players had a great offensive night including those who have been struggling this season. Ichiro and Nunez each had three hits and Nunez hit two doubles after getting only one extra base hit through last night's game. Ichiro Suzuki was able to get two infield hits as well as a legitimate hit to right field to raise his season average to .268, which is still not up to Ichiro's standards but an improvement on his first three weeks of the season. Travis Hafner had another night to remember, going 3-4 with three RBI and a walk. Hafner finishes out his April with six home runs and 17 RBI, and remember that this is a player who does not get at bats every day. He is tied for the team lead with Robinson Cano, who collected two hits tonight. Philip Humber hung in the game through six innings and allowed four earned runs to the Yankees. He was able to get out of jams throughout his performance courtesy of a couple of ground balls by Boesch, one of which was a double play ground ball.

Hiroki Kuroda came out of the games badly. Reminiscent of Pettitte's performance last night, Kuroda kept getting into trouble in the early innings of this game but was able to get key outs to hold his shutout performance. After the second inning, Kuroda had thrown over fifty pitches and looked like he would not be long in this game. Kuroda was able to find his pitches after the fourth inning and ended up going seven strong shutout innings to notch his fourth win of the month and a 2.25 ERA to finish out his strong April following his first start where he lasted less than four innings following a finger injury.

The Yankees had a five run lead heading into the ninth inning but Shawn Kelley could not put up a clean inning, allowing two runs to score and forcing Girardi to use Mariano to get a one out save. It's sad that the manager can not trust a reliever to get three outs to close out the game against a team like the Astros. Thank god for Mariano, though.

David Phelps will make the start tomorrow night in place of the injured Ivan Nova as the Yankees try to get a series win against Houston. Toeing the rubber for Houston will be lefty Erik Bedard, who has traveled to several teams over the last few years. Bedard has not pitched well against the Yankees in the past, but will try to do so tomorrow night.