Yankees Win, Baroid Homers: Yankees 7, Giants 3

If Baroid Bonds is going to hit a home run, that's how I want it to be. Trailing pretty big late, bases empty on a challenge fastball. I have to give credit to Scott Proctor for letting him hit it as opposed to walking someone with a big lead. That's the way the game should be played so my hat is off to Scott Proctor for yesterday. That makes it 749 home runs for Bonds, who inches ever close to the real record holder, Hank Aaron. The closer he gets to the record, the more we'll hear about his on the field exploits, and less about his off the field ones. That's due to the extremely hypocritical nature of ESPN. They'll roast you one day, and prop you up for ratings the next. Big reason why in my eyes I can't take them truly seriously when it comes to some sports news topics.

Anyway, I digress. My prediction was basically the same score flipped around (Giants 7, Yankees 4), but I'm very glad to be wrong. Yankees took a 3-0 lead right away off of great ABs from Miguel Cairo and Kei Igawa, both of them working walks. Yeah, I can't believe that actually happened either. Melky Cabrera scored Cairo and Cano (who singled) to make it 3-0. Kei Igawa looked amazingly sharp in the first four innings, making the Giants players seem lost, including Bonds. He really had that changeup I talked about in the preview working well. Was able to control it pretty easily. What I will say is this: he left some pitches over the middle a couple of times through the first four that he got away with and he needs to prevent this from happening again. Sure, he limited his mistake pitches from his earlier outings, but there still were a couple of floaters. On to the fifth. Igawa started to get hit and it clearly started to show in his approach. He seemed a bit rattled walking to batters in a row, one letting a run in (a Bonds bases loaded walk). I'd much rather see that then the game tying grand slam. At this point the game was 5-2 Yankees and Igawa was pulled after 4 and 2/3 innings of work. It disappointed me a bit because he was doing so well, only to falter. But it was heartening to see that he can be a good pitcher in this league, and he proved it through the first four innings.

Since I've already mentioned the Bonds home run and the Yankees scoring, the game got pretty uneventful after Hideki Matsui saved the game in the fifth on his bases clearing double saving catch. If he didn't catch it the game would have been nodded up at 5. Who knows what happens then: maybe Baroid's homer actually means something. All I know is that it didn't matter at all last night: both in the course of history and in the game.