August 14, 20113, Bronx, N.Y. — A friend who showed up in the top of the third inning of the Wednesday evening Angels/Yankees tilt in the Stadium looked up and said, “Look. Eight the hard way!” The gambling reference may be obscure, but there is no doubt the digits on the Scoreboard were pretty startling, side by side 4’s, with the Yanks up 8-0 in the third inning.

The lack-of-offense lament has become commonplace in the Bronx in 2013, but dare we think that, finally, the worst has passed? Scanning the fourth through sixth spots in the Yankee order, the returns of Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson, and the move to re-acquire left fielder Alfonso Soriano, appear to have made all the difference. And no Yankee has had a better offensive two-day span than Soriano in decades. Coming off a three-hit, two-home-run, six-rbi game Tuesday, Alfonso pounded Anaheim ace right-hander Jered Weaver for a grand slam to dead center in the first, delivered a two-run double in the second (contributing to the quick 8-0 lead), and added a deep drive to left in the fifth for the ninth Yankee run, and his seventh rbi.

Sori did have help. Robinson Cano, who has been a lonely offensive stalwart all year, went 4-for 4 with an rbi and two runs scored, Granderson produced two runs and an rbi on two hits and a walk, Rodriguez contributed a key double in the first, and even struggling catcher Chris Stewart knocked in two runs and scored once on a 2-for-4 night.

Tweets and Facebook posts will tell you that starting pitcher Ivan Nova continued his streak of solid starts, going seven innings for the seventh straight start, the only Yankee hurler to achieve that aside from CC Sabathia since David Cone did it in 1998. But this was not Ivan’s night, a fact that becomes clear when you look at the final line: The Yankees beat the Angels 11-3, but each team stroked 12 hits; only two by the visitors came after Nova left.

Although he did not walk anyone while striking out six, the hard-throwing righty with the hard fastball and mesmerizing curve struggled to control the former much of the night. Nova threw just four first-pitch strikes to the first 18 Angels batters. While the Angels were using three of their hits to score two in the third, his strikes/balls ratio was a barely functional 30/25. He improved to 66/43 by the time he left one out into the eighth inning, but only a Yankee fan with short-term memory issues would not be concerned that the visitors plated their third run on three more hits in the fifth. The former pinstriped offense would have been imperiled.

But as it was, 8-3 was as close as a struggling Anaheim would come. Grant Green’s seventh-inning double was their only extra base hit, and they bounced into two double plays. With 13 baserunners, including one hit by pitch, they never did equal the four-spot that dotted the scoreboard 12 minutes after the game began when Soriano turned on Weaver’s 0-1 pitch with three aboard.

It was as perfect a night for baseball as one could hope for in the Bronx; some might even have found it a little too cool, but that’s too foreign a concept for me to grasp. Another tough one to get my head around? A laugher. The two runs in the top of the third notwithstanding, if you couldn’t relax that your team was on the way to an easy win this time, well, maybe you (and I) just don’t bend that way.

Singer/songwriter Dash Crofts, who teamed with James Seals on a series of hit songs in the 70s, celebrated his 63rd birthday today. The title of one of the duo’s biggest hits not only paints a perfect picture of the kind of night it was in the Bronx Wednesday; it described the game too. This one was a

Summer Breeze

BTW,TYW
YANKEE BASEBALL!!!