Burnett saves season

Well we Yankee fans can all breath easier now. The Great A.J. Burnett put us on his back and carried us to our first victory of the year. Now we can begin our road to 160 straight victories. Anything less it would be a failure.

But seriously, it's good to finally put one in the one column and at least shut up the naysayers until the Yanks drop another one. Burnett was solid but not dominant. At this point that's all the Yanks needed. He struck six which were the first strikeouts for Yankee starters all season. Aside from the good signs from Burnett the Yanks also had some promising results from several other players.

Mark Teixeira started to find his grove a little and jacked one out for the first time as a pinstriper. Robbie Cano continued to show that his new and improved stance is for real and that he intends to be a force in the lineup again. Just an aside on him, he took his third walk of the season this year. He only had 26 all of last year. Now if that is a signal that something will be different for him this year I don't know what is. But the biggest story of all today was the stellar play of Nick Swisher. Swisher had three hits including a double and homer and tied a career high with five RBI.

I have to say that I loved the Swisher pick up this off season by Cashman. He bought low on a guy that the White Sox had no use for and had just had the worst year of his career. All he gave up was Wilson Betemit and a throw away minor leaguer. Yea he'll never come close to hitting .300, but if his OBP is near his career mark of .355 then does it really matter? His versatility will be useful this year off the bench and when 2010 rolls around he will give the Yanks a man to step into one of the corner outfield spots. Girardi is good at getting people in games that have earned time, he's shown that in his bullpen management, hopefully he keeps Swish happy and gets him plenty of at bats.

The Yanks move on to KC now and we get our first looks at Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain while CC Sabathia gets a shot at redemption.

Oh and of note: Carl Pavano still sucks. Couldn't be happier to see him fail. Check that, I'm angrier at the Indians for being dumb enough to give him that much money after what he's done these past four years. Should have read the warning label Shapiro, would have saved you some coin.