The Kansas City Royals had a Star Wars promotion night at their stadium Monday. Quick notes:
Yes, Luke "SkyWalker" Hudson was shutting down the Yanks by getting out of jams and striking out ten Yankees before he left in the seventh with a 5-1 lead.
In comes Gobble and the rest of KC's Imperial Storm troopers out of the bullpen and that's the ballgame. All those poor Jedi Knights in the audience couldn't change the outcome as the force was with the Yankees. They batted around for the 34th time this year--blistering Darth Vader's forces--scoring ten runs in the top of the eighth.
"Rod" Cano had four hits including a monster HR to raise his average to .338. He has 385 AB's and I wonder if he'll be able to qualify for the batting title. Last year after a terrible August, he hit well over .300 down the stretch so there's no reason he can't keep it up this year. And with a limited number of AB's-he might be able to edge out everyone. Jeter is just 2 points behind Mauer now.
Wang was OK and really only had one bad inning which was the bottom of the sixth. If Cano could have come up with a hot shot to second that was a double play he might have escaped with no damage. He did gave up three run and his pitch count was high for him (96) so Joe made the move with the bases full and young Bruney struck out Berroa to end the threat. I believe Yoda Torre is meditating long and hard about this kid. In seven innings of work he has twelve strikeouts, but five walks. If he gets his control a bit tighter, he may become a go to guy.