A Bitter Sweet Victory, and Nat's Drop 5th in a Row

Yanks 6 Rays 1

The good news is that Mike Mussina looked strong last night (although I am still not fully convinced) and Abreu contributed a two run blast to help lift the Yankees over the Rays 6-1. The bad news of course is that it came at the expense of Derek Jeter who Girardi says will be day to day for at least a week with a strained left groin.* While unlikely, the possibility of an extended absence by Jeter begs the question....should A-Rod fill in for him at short? Aside from the fact that Alex hasn't played short since coming to the Yankees, in a perfect world were ego's don't matter and where Jeter and A-Rod were still friends this would be a no brainer, of course he would fill in at short. This isn't a perfect world though and I think that Girardi would be sending the wrong message to Jeter and the team by sliding Rodriguez into his spot. A-Rod has made no secret about the fact that he thinks he is the better short stop (he may be right actually). The last thing the Yankees need after getting off to a tepid start is a turf battle between their most beloved player, and their most productive one (regular season stats that is). Besides, Wilson Betemit could use the exercise.

Marlins 10 Nationals 7

The Nationals slide continued last night as the Marlins bested the Nats 10-7. My pre season predictions about pitching problems came true last night in the form of Tim Redding who gave up five runs in the third. What I hadn't counted on was that the Nat's would give up 6 unearned runs against a team who they should be able to beat. I suppose that it is better to slump at the beginning of the season rather than in August, but in reality the Nationals haven't been as bad as their record would lead you to believe. Even with all the errors and basemen left on they were still able to string together hits for seven runs last night. In fact, despite being out matched for much of the past week the Nats have been holding their own keeping the deficits to 1 run for the most part. In a situation like what we have here you want to see a team come together and figure out how to get those extra runs. This club has great unity and I have no doubt that they will be able to figure out the kinks and find ways to knock batters in. I still predict that they finish second behind the Mets in the NL East.

*Courtesy of my Red Sox friends I expect to receive a plethora of pictures of Jeter with a broken crotch today