The Yanks pulled one out of their collective hindquarters yesterday against the A's. They're 6-2 against Oakland, and if the A's had ANY decent relief pitching, that score would be reversed. Consider: in the first game, the Yanks trailed 8-4 in the bottom of the 8th before scoring six runs on five soft hits with some walks; in the first game in Oakland, the Yanks trailed 7-1 before rallying in the 7th to pull out another 10-8 win; in the second game in Oakland, A-Rod blasted a two-run dinger in the ninth to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 win and beat Arthur Rhodes. And then yesterday -- when Sheffield cranked a ninth-inning homer off Dotel to tie the game and A-Rod whacked one off Durscherer to win it in the 11th.
Sheffield is the man no pitcher wants to face: he has the bat speed to catch up to ANYTHING (just ask Danys Baez, whom Sheffield took out on a 97 mph fastball) and can adjust to rip breaking balls. His homer last night = hanging breaking ball from Dotel. His single that preceded A-Rod's walk-off homer -- pulled a low breaking ball through the shortstop hole. Having A-Rod behind Sheffield means no one walks the Sheff intentionally.
And Sheff is doing this with an EXTREMELY sore left shoulder. Two words: bad a*s.
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