This is why C.C. Sabathia averages $23 million dollars a season until 2015.
Two weeks ago the Yankees had a one game lead over Boston for the division. Since then we've gone 4-7 and fallen 3 games back.
So the Yankees have to win today.
Arod comes back, and hopefully the rest will put some pop back into his bat. The man has only 28 hits in 39 games, but there may be some bad luck involved: he has a .192 BABIP. His previous career low was .288 in his injury shortened '99 with the Mariners, and his career average is .324.
For those of us who were worried about Jorge Posada's game calling, Pete Abe points out that the staff has managed to look dominant with Jorge behind the plate. A.J. Burnett went out of his way to give credit to Posada for calling the right mix of pitches in his great (but losing) performance last night.
On the mound for the Marlins will be another unknown (at least to the Yanks): Chris Volstad had a stellar rookie campaign, posting a 2.88 ERA off a 1.33 WHIP. While the ERA gods haven't been as kind this season (4.75), Volstad's performance is about equal to last season. He's still averaging a hit per inning, his BB/9 has dropped a full point to 2.7 while his K/9 has increased a full point to 6.59.
If we're going to hit him it'll have to happen early. Volstad has gone 6 innings in 10 of his 14 starts.