Back On Track, At Least For A Day

Sometime you have to hit rock bottom before you can start your climb back to the top and the way last night's game started, you can be sure the Yankees hard hit bottom. The Yankees failed to score a single run in their first 14 innings against the Braves, including five perfect innings to start game two of the three game set.

But then Brett Gardner worked a walk and after he was picked off first, Francisco Cervelli picked the best time to hit his first career home run. From there the Yankees seemed to realize that they did in fact have bats in their hands and, if used properly, they could indeed score runs by using them.

Joba was again solid. He hasn't been spectacular and the reality is he doesn't have to be as a number five starter. All he has to do is continue to give the Yankees a chance to win. 6 1/3 innings, 3 runs, 2 earned... that's as good a chance as most teams will get from their fifth guy. If he keeps that up and starts to gain more command and learn to be more economical then he'll be fine.

This team is not as bad as the past twelve games would indicate, and with their bullpen and rotation starting to come to form (pending a healthy start from CC Sabathia on Friday) they can be so much better.

One game does not mean the world in baseball, and it would be nice for the Yankees to get a vintage start from Andy Pettitte on the road against Braves ace Derek Lowe, but this game could help the Yankees turn things around.

On a side note, how about the U.S. soccer team? That has to be the biggest win in American soccer history. I didn't have a chance to see it live, but I watched the replay and was impressed by the U.S. resilience against a formidable Spain. Spain clearly had a superior team, but the Americans scraped and clawed on defense to protect that fragile one goal lead until Clint Dempsey put the match away in the 74th minute. This was one of those games that can be infinitely frustrating if you have ever played soccer.

Your team is constantly keeping the ball deep in the opposition zone and you are seemingly dominating the game, but you get caught off guard by three or four counter-attacks and boom... you lose to an inferior team.

Hopefully this is a turning point for U.S. soccer, which was all but dead before Sunday's miracle win. The only thing that could top beating Spain would be beating Brazil in the finals... here's hoping for miracle #3.