It will be interesting to see if Alex Rodriguez can connect for his 500th home run against Jorge De La Rosa of the Royals tonight. De La Rosa gave up #400 a little more than two years ago and if he should find himself on the wrong side of history again it may have the strange effect of guaranteeing him a job for life. This Sunday the Times ran an article about John Yandle, a former AAA pitcher who has found a second baseball life as Barry Bonds's personal batting practice pitcher. Seeing as how De La Rosa's career ERA currently sits at 5.76 he probably will be out of the league before A-Rod's done slugging homers. He might want to serve up a meatball as a reference for his next gig.
De La Rosa finds himself in that precarious position because Gil Meche gave up 499 last night, a less sexy number but an important homer all the same. It opened a 3-1 lead into a 5-1 edge and helped assure the Yankees of a sixth straight win. The final was 7-1 after some padding that followed A-Rod's pre-historic blast. That one Royal run may be more important than another night of Yankee hitting goodness. Mike Mussina started and picked up his first win of July, an important development given his struggles in his other three appearances this month. He needed to get bailed out in the sixth but that in itself was a positive development for the team. Joe Torre finally realizes Mussina's limitations and isn't going to let him damage the team when one of those big innings might be looming on the horizon.
Speaking of looming on the horizon, Joba Chamberlain made his first start at AAA last night. The results explain why Brian Cashman refuses to discuss trading the righty. Chamberlain struck out 10 across five shutout innings, one night after Phil Hughes pitched six shutout innings for the Scranton Dunder Mifflins. Tonight's starter Kei Igawa may be taking one of their turns in the rotation next week unless he does a great job, something he hasn't done since leaving Japan.
(AP Photo/Ed Zurga)
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