Defeat the Empire

Al Leiter gave the Yankees a strong outing yesterday. And, they needed it. Badly.

Al went 5.2 innings of shutout baseball to earn his 5th win of the season, and 2nd with the Yankees. But before the game, the Yanks got some bad news on two pitchers and their respective injuries.

Randy Johnson, who tweaked his back covering first base on Saturday in Toronto, prbably will miss his next start. He's been uncharacteristically brittle this season, which is troublesome for the Yankees because Johnson is a month away from being 42. Johnson's 2005 is more likely a result of dimishing skills do to age than it is an adjustment period or tough-luck yet.

Carl Pavano might be done for the year. After tossing a rehab start, he was expected to be able to go on Tuesday, but was scratched. Pavano proclaimed that his shoulder "didn't feel right", and now is off to Alabama to see the dreaded Dr. James Andrews. Don't expect him back for anytime soon.

So without Johnson for a start or two, and Pavano for a long time, here's the Yankees rotation as we stand now:

1. Mike Mussina
2. Aaron Small
3. Shawn Chacon
4. Al Leiter
5. Hideo Nomo

Priceless.

The Yankees won yesterday but didn't gain ground on Boston, who remained 3.5 up on the Yanks by squeezing out a win at Minnesota. Manny Ramirez homered, and Curt Schilling earned another save.

Home Cooking

Nobody can beat the Mets at home. It's just too bad the Mets can't beat anybody on the road.

The road is where the Mets are headed now, after sweeping Chicago. We're off the to the West Coast, for 3 against the NL-West leading Padres and 3 against the Dodgers. While we should beat these teams, don't bank on it. the Mets are just 21-31 on the road, good for a .403 winning percentage.

Victor Zambrano pitched a great game last night, going 8 strong innings. The only blemishes were back-to-back doubles by the Cubs' Michael Barrett and Jose Macias that plated a run. Zambrano won his 6th game of the year, and lowered his ERA to an even 4.

Cliff Floyd and David Wright provided most of the offense for the Mets. Floyd was 3-for-3 with two RBI, including a long solo home run, his 26th of the season. Although Wright had only 1 hit, he drove in 3 runs, 2 on productive outs. Wright has 64 RBI on the season, second on the team, and is on pace to drive in 93. He has an outside shot at 100, very impressive for a 22-year-old.

Other Notes

-Three Cy Young frontrunners pitched on Sunday: Dontrelle Willis for Florida, Roger Clemens for Houston, and Chris Carpenter for the Cards. Clemens continued to pull away from the pack. Willis and Carpenter both had fantastic outings, but their ERA's no longer compare to that of Clemens, who now gets some run support to go with it. With 7 innings and no earned runs against San Francisco, Clemens improved to 11-4, 1.38 on the season. He also lowered his unreal road ERA to 0.37.