HANK Steinbrenner said late Friday night that he wanted to see better pitch ing and more of a spark from his Yankees.
Quite simply, he said it was “time to snap out of it.”
He got his weekend wish yesterday, as Mike Mussina mixed it up like Jamie Moyer, something Hank mentioned several weeks ago. And Johnny Damon gave them the kind of voltage the leadoff hitter used to produce for the Red Sox back in 2004, lashing two doubles and an upper deck home run as the Yankees amassed 13 hits.
It all added up to a 6-1 pounding of the Mariners at chilly Yankee Stadium. The Yankees still have their share of issues, but they are back to .500.
Damon said he understands what Boss Jr. is talking about.
“He’s definitely with us,” Damon said. “They’re paying us an awful lot of money to be good, not just to be average. We expect to go out and win, and sometimes we need to have that fire lit under us. We know what we have to do. We’re a veteran team and winning makes everybody happy.”
“Hank’s right, we do need to pitch better,” manager Joe Girardi said. “Our kids have struggled and we know that. We need a find a way to get these kids going, and obviously we’re not going to get a lot from Phil Hughes for a while because of his broken rib.
“Any team that is not scoring runs looks like it doesn’t have energy. Why that is? I don’t know, but that’s just the way it is. You want that good energy and today you saw it. When guys are making right turns to the dugout all the time, it doesn’t look so good.”
What have these difficult first 32 games told Girardi about his team?
“We’re resilient,” he said. “We’ve been through some streaks and bounced back. I’ve been happy with the effort. The effort hasn’t translated into numbers, but the effort hasn’t changed.”
The Yankees are starting to use their head as a team.
“We’ve been playing in horrible weather,” Damon said. “And yet we go up and we’ve been swinging at everything and the other team is not staying on the field and we’re hardly coming in and having a chance to sit. The last two games we’ve been finally able to pick up the pitch count and not worry about taking a strike. Let them stay out on the field a little longer. These were two big games for us.”
He smiled and added, “Now we’ve got 130 to go.”
This is what Girardi wants from his pitchers.
“Throw strikes and compete,” he said. “You can’t strike everyone out. You don’t want to get in long counts all the time, just go out there and compete. And let the guys behind you play. Keep them moving. Keeps the line moving.”
Basic but true. In 452/3innings, Hughes and Ian Kennedy have surrendered 33 walks. Mussina did not walk a batter over six innings as he struck out five. That was a season high in strikeouts for Mussina. Over the last five games Mussina has walked two batters. The win was the 254th of his career, tying Jack Morris and Red Faber, one of the last of the spitballers, for 39th on the all-time win list.
There are still many issues confronting the Yankees, including the lack of hitting from Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano in a lineup that has lost MVP Alex Rodriguez and All-Star Jorge Posada. Damon, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu and Melky Cabrera all had multi-hit games as the Yankees took it to phenom Felix Hernandez.
“You know what,” said hitting coach Kevin Long. “We stopped feeling sorry for ourselves. We said, ‘Hey, we’re the Yankees. Let’s go.’ ”
Hank Steinbrenner couldn’t have said it better.