New York Yankees ease past Kansas City Royals 8-3 – MLB Update
New York Yankees eased past Kansas City Royals 8-3 at Yankee Stadium in New York, NY on Wednesday, May 23 in the decisive finale of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Curtis Granderson had an excellent time on the plate as he homered in the first inning to help New York take a 1-0 lead. Alex Rodriguez finally showed some signs of form as he homered to left in the second to extend Yankees’ lead to 3-0.
Joe Girardi and company continued to attack the pitching rotation and they scored three runs in the fifth inning to push their opponents completely out of the game. Starting pitcher Andy Pettitte allowed eight hits in seven plus crafty innings to work out of some difficult situations.
"I faced him before he retired and now after he came back, and I actually see things different that he's doing," Billy Butler said. "He's throwing more off-speed stuff, more curveballs and changeups. Before it was 90 to 94 (mph) with hard cut in on you. You knew he was throwing it and he knew you knew he was throwing it, and it was going to beat you. But he's crafted his game and his last two starts have been great."
"I feel like I'm moving the ball around the zone, and that makes it difficult to hit," Pettitte said.
In some ways, the win will be of great significance for the Yankees who had managed to win just two out of their last eight games prior to this game. It will be interesting to see if New York can take advantage of this winning momentum to put themselves in a commanding position before the All Star Break.
Kansas City, on the other hand, will be disappointed to lose the series after doing all the hard work in the opener. Ned Yost and company had shown considerable improvement in their game play over the last few weeks and they were hoping to take another step towards right direction. It will be interesting to see if the Royals can put up a fighting performance in their next series to change the course of their destiny.
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