The Yankees bounced back from Friday's poor bullpen showing yesterday as the Yankees defeated the Royals by a score of 15-4 thanks to some solid hitting all around the lineup and a good performance from Chien-Ming Wang although he did eventually allow four runs in 7 innings. Ron Villone and Scott Erickson each pitched a scoreless inning. Kelly Stinnett's bat finally woke up, going 3-4 with a double, a home run and 4 RBI. The win keeps the Yankees within two games of the Red Sox for the A.L. East lead.

Alex Rodriguez was 2-3 with two walks and two homers. He's now got 13 home runs (7th in the A.L.), 39 RBI (6th in the A.L.), and he has raised his average to a respectable .291. However, yesterday's home runs don't count because they were hit against the Royals with the Yankees way ahead. Ugh, why can't he just hit 50 "clutch" home runs, all against first place teams like every other great player does!?

On another note, what usually gets lost in blowout games like these where the winning team scores a lot of runs is the performance of the pitching staff. Wang gave up four runs, but he pitched 5 shutout innings before he started to have to wait a half hour between innings and allowed two runs each in the 5th and 6th. Ron Villone was great again, striking out two in the 8th and lowering his E.R.A. to 1.83.

Today the Yankees will send Jaret Wright to the mound to face Runelvys Hernandez. Wright comes in with a record of 2-3 but has pitched well lately. Hopefully the Yankees can take two of three in this series before heading into Detroit for a tough four-game set.