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A-Rod may have saved Yankees with one swing

Embattled Bronx Bombers come back from brink to defeat Red Sox

Image: Alex Rodriguez AP
Alex Rodriguez watches his winning home run during the ninth inning in a 6-5 win over the Red Sox.

The pitching is still anything but settled, and over the remaining 108 games, that will be the determining factor. Pettitte left in the fifth Sunday and there was no word immediately after the game what might be wrong with him. Roger Clemens is still delaying his comeback because of what he’s calling a fatigued groin —

whatever that is. Mike Mussina has been just OK, leaving only Chien-Ming Wang as a starter on whom the team can rely to take his regular turn and do something competent with it.

Pettitte has been solid, but if he’s hurt, it’s back to the rookies who have been filling in all year. Philip Hughes, the one rookie who could be a savior, is still on the DL, and nobody can say for how long. Clemens will eventually join the rotation and will also eventually find that his groin needs another two-week nap.

There are too many six-inning guys in the rotation and too many innings already on the odometers of the middle relievers. Manager Joe Torre, who keeps repeating his mantra that everything will be okay, is well on his way to wearing set-up man Scott Proctor down to a nub, and he’ll eventually do the same with Kyle Farnsworth, because that’s what Torre does.

Was it a great win? You bet it was. But it was one of the few classic wins the Yankees have had, and they may have lost Pettitte in the process.

They’ll need to get a lot more, A-Rod will need to keep hitting in the clutch and Mo Rivera will have to pile up the saves before we can say it was the win that turned the season around.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for MSNBC.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.


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