Got Melky? Rookie inserted as part of Game 4 shake up

With the season on the line, manager Joe Torre is pulling out all the stops to awaken a dormant offense. Dubbed by many as one of the best lineups in history, the Yankee offense has produced a meager three runs in their two losses. They looked especially meek in last night's 6-0 loss, a product of 7 2/3 innings of strong starting pitching by Detroit's Kenny Rogers and an inability to hit with runners on base. In all but the ninth inning the Yankees managed baserunners, but were woefully ineffective at moving them around. The Tigers, Kenny Rogers in particular, were playing at a much greater intensity level and really seemed to thrive off the home crowd. Losing pitcher Randy Johnson showed great velocity early, but really ran out of gas late. However, as pointed out on the broadcast, he could have pitched a shutout and still would not have won. Although the big knock on this year's Yankees has been their pitching deficienices, the vaunted offense has failed to pick their pitching staff up. Discounting the 5 run burst in the bottom of the third inning in game one, the Yankee offense has scored just 6 runs in the other twenty six innings.

With the glaring problems the Yankees have had offensively, game four will feature a different lineup which hopefully will produce more runs. The A-Rod saga continues as the slumping slugger has been demoted to the eighth spot in the lineup. Rookie Melky Cabrera has been inserted in left field to hopefully prevent Tigers runners from taking extra bases that have sparked their offense in their two wins. Also, Torre is expecting his energy to boost the team the way it did when the offense was without Sheffield and Matsui. Missing from today's lineup is Jason Giambi, who is being benched for low career numbers against Bonderman. However, one has to wonder whether his wrist injury may be the real reason for his absense. Whatever the case may be, Torre's new lineup must produce or the Yankees will suffer their 6th consecutive disappointing playoffs.