15 runs, 17 hits, but just one win

The Yankee offense has been asleep for a large part of the season, but it came alive today in the Bronx.  Derek Jeter went 4-4 with four singles, an HBP, and three runs scored.  Alex Rodriguez went 3-3 with a three-run homerun, two singles, two walks, three runs scored, and five RBIs.  Jason Giambi collected all four of his RBIs on a grand slam homerun in the second inning.  In all, the Yankees scored 15 runs on 17 hits in eight innings while starting pitcher Mike Mussina held the Kansas City Royals to three runs over six innings in the Yanks' 15-6 rout.

But all that added up to just one win.

And that has been the Yankees' problem, not just this year, but in the past several years.  Even when they were at the top of the league in runs scored, they'd have big-run breakouts among games where they couldn't buy a run.  This season, those big breakouts seem to be few and far between.

Still, it was good to see the Yankees not just break out, but also come back.  Mussina, the soft-tossing veteran right-hander, gave up all three runs in the top of the first innings, and the Yankees were in a hole before they even came to bat.  But after Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter singled to start the game, A-Rod hit a game-tying three-run homerun.  After Giambi grounded out for the second out of the inning, Xavier Nady hit a go-ahead solo homerun.  Then Robinson Cano singled, Jose Molina doubled, and Brett Gardner--the hero of the Yankees' extra-inning 4-3 win over the Royals the day before--tripled, and by the time the first inning was over, the Yankees had a 6-5 lead.

The Yankees picked up four more in the second on Giambi's grand slam, putting them up 10-3, and the game was effectively over at that point.  The Yankees added another run in the third and one four more in the bottom of the seventh, highlighted by a two-run homerun by recent call-up Cody Ransom.

The Royals, meanwhile, picked up a wild-pitch-aided run in the top of the eighth and two in the ninth on a two-run blast by Ross Gload, and the game ended with the Yankees scoring 15 runs on 17 hits and the Royals six runs on 10 hits.

For Mike Mussina, it was his 16th win, his highest total since 2003, when he won 17 for the Yankees, who beat the Boston Red Sox in an emotional seven-game American League Championship Series before losing the World Series in six games to the Florida Marlins.  Mussina, who has won 19 games twice and 18 games three times, will need four wins in the Yankees' final 38 games to reach 20 for the first time in his career.

The Yankees now stand at 66-58, third place in the American League East Division and third in the American League Wild Card race.

With the Boston Red Sox losing to the Minnesota Twins, the Yankees are now five games out of the Wild Card race and nine games out of the AL East race behind the Tampa Bay Rays, who play the Rangers tonight in Texas.

Despite the lopsided score, and despite the prowess of the Yankee offense on one Sunday afternoon in August, the Yankees still have plenty of work to do.  Since August 11, the Yankees have gone 3-3 in two series that I said they had to go 5-1.  Now at 66-58, the Yankees will have to go 24-14 to reach that 90-win mark.  And still they will need help.  The Tampa Bay Rays, currently 74-48 will have to go 16-24 for the Yankees to tie for the division.  And the Red Sox, currently 71-53, will have to go 19-19 for the Yankees to tie for the Wild Card.

It was a great afternoon for the Yankees, a great game, but it did little to improve their prospects of playing baseball in October.  The game today, on Sunday afternoon, August 17, 2008, may be one of the last good memories of Yankee Stadium.