The New York Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 5-3. Andy Pettitte got the win. Mariano Rivera got the save. Andy Pettitte started the game out great. He was throwing his cutter hard and high with late movement above the waist to the right-handed batters. He was taking a little off of his slider leaving batters way out in front. He had good variance in speed and had good location. He had a good slider that was breaking down. To left-handed batters he was throwing his breaking ball, late and down and they couldn’t reach it. In the fourth inning, A-Rod made an error on a tough play, a wild pitch moved the batter over and then scored on a sacrifice fly. There was a harmless little single by catcher Michael Hernandez. Pettitte then made a mistake to Gabe Kapler on a 3-2 cutter that was in. Otherwise, Pettitte pitched a very good game. Phil Hughes came in the game and did excellent. He had great velocity on his fastball and even reached 95 mph on one pitch. He was able to throw strikes. Phil had to know that he could throw every thing he had at the batters because he was relieving. He didn’t have to worry about pitching backwards and worrying about if the batters saw his pitches already. He threw an awesome fastball and then would get them to ground out with his curveball. I really like Phil in the bull pen. I’d like to see Phil start in the future but he’s looking pretty good in the bull pen. You know, when the Rays tied the game at 3-3, I went to a couple of message boards and said that I knew the Yankees would win because that’s just the way they roll. They comeback and win and if the game is tied, there’s no way they are going to lose. You better be beating them by five runs if you want a safe lead. Player of the Game: Nick Swisher. A home run and two RBI says it all.
