Game 38: Sweep?

The Yankees go for their first legitimate sweep of the season (they swept a two-game series against Oakland) tonight, as Andy Pettitte takes on fellow southpaw Glen Perkins.

Pettitte's coming off a strong start in Toronto, when he held the best offensive team in the league to one earned run over six innings. In his career, Pettitte is 8-5 with a 3.61 ERA over 124.2 innings against Minnesota, including one mediocre start last season when he allowed 10 hits and four runs in seven innings.

Perkins is having a solid season at the age of 26: 4.27 ERA over 46.1 innings; but he's coming off a poor start against Detroit when he allowed five runs in 5.1 innings. His career against the Yankees hasn't been good (from the Twins point of view): 5.00 ERA in 18 innings over three starts (all in 2008).

I'm going to add something new to Monday Game Threads: the hot and cold list. Who's on fire coming into the game, and who's ice cold?

- Brett Gardner is the hottest hitter at the moment. Last week (19 PA) he hit .313/.421/.938 (and as we're fond of pointing out in Yankee-land, he has more homers in the past week than David Ortiz has all year).

- Johnny Damon (26 PA) hit .375/.400/.708.

And on the cold side:

- Nick Swisher (24 PA) has dropped precipitously since his torrid start, hitting just .105/.261/.105 in the past week.

- The same can be said for Robbie Cano (23 PA): .143/.217/.190.