Yankees 1, Indians 0

I don’t have total recall of all 86 games Chien-Ming Wang has started for the Yankees, but if he has pitched a better game than today’s 1-0 win over the Indians, someone will have to show me the tape in order to convince me.

He may have given up only two hits in Boston two weeks ago, but that was far from vintage Wang. He served up a smorgasboard of flyball outs, and he was lucky J.D. Drew’s solo home run was the only ball that left Fenway Park. Sunday’s duel with Cleveland starter C.C. Sabathia showed an infinitely better Wang.

Nine strikeouts is the stat that immediately jumps off the scorecard. That’s three more than Wang’s previous season high this year. But Wang was even better than his strikeout total. Only one Indian baserunner made it as far as third, and that was due to a wild pitch.

But even more impressive than that was the way Wang never let himself become rattled. His difficulty pitching from the stretch is well-known to Yankee fans, yet on Sunday, after allowing the leadoff batter to reach base in four of the first five innings, Wang had no trouble settling in to his stretch move and getting the next three batters out. Only in the first inning did the Indians put two runners on base.

By the fourth inning, Wang was cruising. Over his final four innings, seven of the 12 outs came via the strikeout. Any Yankee fan can be forgiven for wanting to see Wang come back out for the eighth inning. With that two-hit, complete-game gem in Boston, Wang proved he is durable enough to go nine innings. But Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera are paid to perform in the late innings of tight games, and with the Yankees nursing a skinny 1-0 lead, manager Joe Girardi had seen enough of Wang.

But only for today. Wang is now the American League’s only pitcher with five wins on the season (he’s 5-0 with one no-decision in six starts), and anyone associated with the Yankees will be looking forward to seeing as much Wang as possible over the next five months.

And as a healthy, heterosexual male, I never thought I’d write a line like that……

Seen enough C.C.

Wang’s wasn’t the only brilliant performance from the mound on Sunday. Cleveland ace and returning American League Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia was in top form, holding the Yankees to a single run. For once, however, that was enough for the Yankees to pull out a victory.

Sabathia tossed 111 pitches (and a whopping 78 for strikes) through eight complete innings, striking out eight and walking only one. It was a tough-luck loss that dropped Sabathia to 1-4 for the season, but lowered his ERA by nearly three runs.

What kept Sabathia in the game was his ability to do what nearly every other pitcher has done to the Yankees this season – get outs when the Yankees had runners in scoring position. The Yankees were 0-for-5 on Sunday in that department, dropping them to a miserable 2-for-24 (.083) in this series with Cleveland.

Monday’s starter for the Indians, Class AAA call-up Aaron Laffey, will hopefully provide a few punchlines for the Yankees as they try to get a woeful offense back on track.

And your home run leader is…

Wait for it…… Melky Cabrera, ladies and gentlemen!

If there was an offensive hero for the Yankees on Sunday, it was Cabrera, who clubbed a one-out, fifth-inning solo home run that provided all the offense for either team. It was Cabrera’s team-leading fifth home run of the season. The Yankee centerfielder hit only eight all of last season.

And it is worth noting that Cabrera’s home run was thirty seconds from being a two-run blast, if not for the continued hard luck of Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano. After Cano legged out an infield single (to boost his .151 average), he was picked off and caught in a run down between first and second. One pitch after he made the out, Cabrera went deep.

And so it goes…

Hip, shoulder, Jorge!

For the first time in his career, Yankee catcher Jorge Posada is on the disabled list. The most durable of Yankees over the past 13 seasons, Posada will now watch as his shoulder problems heal and the Yankees try to turn around a 13-13 start without him.

The Yankees have been lucky this season in only a few departments, and back-up catcher is one of them. Jose Molina and Chad Moeller have been as good as can be expected. Now, the back-up label will be off Molina for the foreseeable future. With Moeller uncertain to return (he is still on the “designated for assignment” list, which means the Yankees cannot reclaim him until at least Tuesday, perhaps Wednesday, if no other team in the major leagues takes him first), the Yankees now will be scrambling to fill the back-up catcher position. Journeyman Chris Stewart has been called up from Scranton to join the team on Monday.

Get well soon, Jorge. The team won’t be the same without you.

Too early for MVP votes?

Of course it is, but if the Yankees have a player in early contention for MVP, or at the very least April Player of the Month, it has to be Mariano Rivera.

The aging closer has put last April’s swoon – and premature talk of retirement in the media – behind him and is now seven-for-seven in save chances in 2008. But that perfect save percentage is hardly River’as most impressive stat.

Rivera has allowed four baserunners (all hits) in 10 innings, and has 10 strikeouts to go along with his 0.00 ERA.

Just a year ago, we were wondering if Mariano was near the end, and six months ago we were wondering if he was worth another long-term deal from the Yankees.

After another brilliant outing on Sunday – Rivera followed Joba Chamberlain’s perfect, two-strikeout eighth inning with a perfect, two-strikeout ninth -- who’s wondering now?

Season to date

The Yankees are 13-13 and in fourth place, one and a half games behind Baltimore, Boston, and Tampa Bay, all tied atop of the AL East standings. Sunday’s win broke a three-game losing streak, the team’s second three-game losing streak of the season.

Monday’s pitchers

Yankees: Mike Mussina (2-3, 4.94 ERA)
Last start: Mussina won his 252nd career game with a solid performance in Chicago, giving up just two runs in seven innings. (Both runs came on solo home runs.) He is 4-3 lifetime at Cleveland’s Jacobs Field, with a 5.88 ERA.

Indians: Aaron Laffey (0-0, no major league starts this season)
Last start: Laffey is 3-1 with a 3.13 ERA for Class AAA Buffalo this season, with 20 strikeouts and six walks in 26 innings pitched. Last season, in nine starts for the Indians he went 4-2 with a 4.56 ERA, including 4 and 2/3 scoreless innings against the Red Sox in Game 6 of the ALCS.