Hindsight and Foresight: Yankees Review June 11th to June 24th

Off of a bad day where the doctor told me I'd need surgery to remove a cyst, things are still looking up for the Yankees. I gave my mid-June assessment of the Yankees (and Red Sox) here so I'm going to make this weeks Hindsight and Foresight quick and painless (as I hope my future surgery is, though the recovery won't be fun).

Hindsight: June 11th to June 17th

Another two series won in the bag, one of which was a sweep. The Yankees were able to handle the D-Backs three decent starters, Webb, Hernandez and Davis handidly, and held Arizona's offense to four runs over the series. It was quite a dominating performance as Wang, Mussina, and Pettitte all went at least seven innings deep and combining for three quality starts. The pitching towed the line this week, though the Yankees offense did their part scoring an average of 6.5 runs/game. This was capped by the 4-5 hitters A-Rod and Matsui. Here are their weekly totals below:

A-Rod .429/.480/.952 3 HR 10 RBI
Matsui ..429/.500/.619 1 HR 8 RBI

The Yankees were blanked on Friday by Oliver Perez. On a sidenote, I used to think Perez would be the bomb and he was in 2004, but after that he's been erratic. It looks like Peterson has calmed him down. Clemens put up a decent performance, but I still think he needs to be tested against an AL team--as in AL East. Overall, the Yankees were solid as the stats below show:

Weekly Stats

W-L: 5-1
RS/RA: 37/14
Offensive Numbers (BA/OBP/SLG): .297/.376/.503
Pitching Line (ERA/Whip/K per 9/BAA/SLG): 2.67/1.09/8.0/.231/.347
Who's Hot: Chen-Ming Wang. I pointed out how well he'd been doing last week. It continued as Wang went 2-0 1.72 ERA 15.7 IP 0.83 Whip 6.89 K/9 (double his career average).
Who's Not: Tyler Clippard. He looked good the first few starts, but after the next few he's landed back in triple-A.
My Yankee of the Week: Hideki Matsui. Matsui's been quiet this year, not doing anything too great or too aweful, but his bat finally got my attention.

Foresight: June 18th to June 24th

I am off to Charleston, SC--what's that, not for work--but to hang out with Doug for a few days. I'm not sure what will transpire on the blog, but forgive us if the posts seem like we've had a few too many because that's what's most likely to happen. As for the Yankees, they hit the road going to Colorado, which could be fun for the offense (and not for the pitchers) and then off to San Francisco. I am seeing Igawa back in the rotation going on Friday. Too bad Clemens won't be pitching against Bonds. I remember the last time he was in pinstripes and playing the Giants he told the paper before the game he was going to hit Bonds in that "plated armor on his elbow". And then he did just that. San Fran is in last place in the NL West and CO is next to last, but is one game over .500. As I have said in earlier posts on here, these are the kinds of teams the Yankees need to win against to keep pace up with the Red Sox.