Yankees earn a 3 game sweep of punchless Chi Sox

O.K., O.K., This is OLD news --- but I missed a little time and am trying to get back into the groove here at the blog so I thought I'd recap this four game series since the last legit post I made was about the Boston series.
The Yankees won their second series in a row last week when they won the last 3 games of this four game series and it's starting to look like the Yankees have something going here in the month of June.

GAME 1: Yankees lose 6 to 4 to Chicago in 9 innings (MONDAY: 06/04/07)
The series started out on a sour note as Matt DeSalvo took the hill for the Yankees as a replacement for Roger Clemens who couldn't start due to a "fatigued groin" and got hit with a loss in a game that the Yankees lost 6 to 4 and a game in which rookie Yankees pitcher Matt DeSalvo ended up with a record of 1-3 with a 5.87 ERA.
The youngster threw 44 pitches and gave up 2 runs and ended up being pulled from the game early after an inning and a third and was designated for assignment by the team at the conclusion of the game.
I think I might have allowed him to pitch a little longer into the game.
Giving up 2 runs in less than 2 innings is not positive and neither is needing more than 44 pitches to get through 2 innings --- but I would have let him pitch another inning or two.
If only to save the bullpen extra work if nothing else.
I mean, we lost the game anyway and we sent him packing after the game anyway so you might as well have him pitch as long as he could before you pulled him out?
Jon Garland pitched well and pitching into the 9th inning and only gave up one run up to that point.
There was a little drama in the 9th as the Yankees tacked on three runs in the 9th inning after Garland was removed, but Bobby Jenks eventually got the save for Chicago as the South Siders took game one by a score of 6-4.
Just as I didn't quite understand why Joe Torre pulled out DeSalvo so quickly, I really didn't understand why Ozzie Guillen pulled out Garland.
He'd been very effective and the White Sox had a 6-1 lead as he was pitching in the 9th.
The Yankees lone run at that point had come in the first inning, so why not let him try and get the last two outs?
It wasn't the best game --- but the Yankees showed some heart by scoring 3 runs in the 9th and bringing Jeter to the plate as the tying run in the 9th.
Can't fault their effort here.
They just needed a better performance from their starting pitcher in this one.

GAME 2: Yankees win by a score of 7 to 3 over Chicago in 9 innings (TUESDAY: 06/05/07)
This was the second game in a row that the Yankees were going to send out a rookie pitcher against the White Sox and this time it was going to be their 9th round draft pick (JW Mitchell High School in Lexington, Kentucky) in the 2003 draft; Tyler Clippard.
Clippard has pitched pretty well for the Yankees and had earned two wins.
At the conclusion of this game he would find himself in possession of a 3-1 record in the major leagues after the Yankees banged out 17 hits and 7 runs in run support for him and after Alex Rodriguez hit his 21st home run.
The Yankees starting hitting and just kept hitting throughout the length of the ballgame and won the game in regulation by a score of 7 to 3.
Clippard got the win and Mariano Rivera got his 6th save of the season while Mark Buehurle was tagged with the loss.
Both Damon and A-Rod had three hits in the ballgame and it seems like being the designated hitter agrees with Damon as he's shown new life in the last few ballgames.
And speaking of new life, Bobby Abreu has been coming around in the month of June after an awful end in May.
A nice win for the Bronx Bombers against the White Sox.

GAME 3: Yankees win by a score of 5 to 1 over Chicago in 9 innings (WEDNESDAY: 06/06/07)
Chien Ming Wang.
That's all you need to say about this game as Chien Ming Wang gets the win by pitching a complete game in this one.
The 27 year old Yankees ace needed only 104 pitches to retire 27 White Sox in a complete game win in which he only surrendered one earned run on just five hits while striking out 4.
It really was a masterpiece by Wang as he had all of his pitches working effectively and got the big outs when he needed them all night long.
On the other side of things --- Miguel Cario, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, and Melky Cabrera all had two hits in the ballgame and Bobby Abreu hit his 3rd home run of the year off of Bret Prinz in the 8th inning.
A really fantastic win for the Yankees and the bullpen gets the night off !

GAME 4: Yankees win by a score of 10 to 3 over Chicago in 9 innings (TUESDAY: 06/07/07)
This game was special.
How special?
The Yankees win their third game in a row, the Yankees extend their fledgling winning streak to 3 games, the Yankees win their 4 game series against the White Sox, Alex Rodriguez hits his league leading 22nd home run with his 16th career Grand Slam, Mariano Rivera gets his 7th save by pitching a scoreless 9th inning, and oh yeah... by the way... Joe Torre collected his 2000th Major League victory as a manager.
How's that for special?
The only thing that wasn't special was that Moose departed the game after pitching six solid innings and with the Yankees having a one to nothing lead only to watch the Yankees score a run off of Mike Myers in the 7th to tie the game 1-1 and take his chance for a win away from him.
Then he had to sit on the bench and watch the same Yankees offense that scored one run for him through 7 innings score 9 runs in the last two innings of the ballgame to give Scott Proctor his first win of the season in relief.
Getting lost in the shuffle is how good Jose Contreras was for the White Sox in this game as he pitched his way into the 8th inning and gave up only 4 hits and 3 runs to the streaking Yankees offense.
And one or two of the three runs were charged to Contreras but were inherited runners that the poor Chicago Bullpen allowed to score after Contreras left the game.
Every time I see him doing so well I always wonder what if we'd kept him and not traded him to the Chi Sox for Esteban Loazia back in 2004?
Loazia is another what if as well.
Would Contreras ever have found his groove in New York?
Most baseball writers seem to think the answer to that question is no and that he needed out of the spotlight to get his stuff together and be who he is now.
But I look at our pitching staff starting with the 2004 ALCS and all the way up to this week and just wonder how things could have been different had we held on to Contreras just a tad longer.
I mean I used the same eyes to watch Kevin Brown and Javy Vazquez pile up an ERA of just over 22.00 in game 7 of the 2004 ALCS against the Red Sox that I used to watch Jose Contreras pitch a complete game in the 2005 ALCS for the Chicago White Sox.
I don't know.

Maybe he wouldn't have or couldn't have done that for us.
But I for one would have enjoyed finding out.

Anyway, all is well that ends well in this particular series as the New York Yankees take the last 3 games of the series and win the series 3 games to 1.

Great games and then it was on to Pittsburgh?