Yankees take last two games in Tampa; Wang in your face

The Yankee offense offset early-inning struggles from Chien-Ming Wang and Mike Mussina to beat the Devil Rays 6-4 on Saturday and 7-6 this afternoon. Bobby Abreu homered and had 5 RBI's yesterday, while Jeter led the way today with a two-run shot. Also, in his 52nd at-bat of 2007, Yankee backup catcher Wil Nieves, whose mighty presence at the plate sends chills down the spine of even the league's most seasoned pitchers, notched his first extra-base hit of the season, boosting his ISO to an intimidating .019. Back before I finally snapped during a YES broadcast and took an axe to my TV set to forever purge my living room of Michael Kay's nefarious aural presence, it made me wretch to constantly hear his insistence that Wil Nieves is "the nicest guy in the world". This isn't the Special Olympics, you dolt, this is Major League Baseball. If I were the manager of the Yankees, my first move would be to invest in a very lifelike Wil Nieves scarecrow that I could send up to the plate while the human version lay safely chloroformed in the clubhouse.

The Yankees are now over .500.

Chien-Ming Wang is the coolest pitcher in the majors. Watching him induce out after out on the ground is just hilarious. I was looking at his statistics from last season, in which he was the runner-up in Cy Young voting. His startlingly low 76 strikeouts in 218 innings made me wonder what was the last time anyone had a more successful season than Wang's 2006 campaign while striking out less batters. So, I ran an Access query using the handy (and free) Lahman Baseball Database, and found out that the most recent pitcher to throw over 218 innings, strike out less than 76 batters, and have an ERA under Wang's 3.63 was Andy Hawkins with the Padres in 1985, 22 seasons ago. Coincidentally, Hawkins was a Yankee later in his career and became the only pitcher in franchise history to lose a game in which he threw a no-hitter, suffering a 4-0 loss at Comiskey Park. Go figure.

The greatest thing about Chien-Ming Wang, though, is that he is thoroughly unflappable. Even when things aren't going his way, he never loses focus on the mound, which is probably a by-product of his gradual desensitization to the runs of bad luck that a pitcher of his style will inevitably encounter. Another challenge that Wang has faced and will probably continue to face throughout his career is the recurring blister that develops on the middle finger of his throwing hand. For many pitchers, a little finger blister means a trip to the DL, but Wang pitches through it even when his fingernail begins to split and bleed. What a badass.