Instant Reaction: Thanks for the help Mariners, but we had ya anyway

Gut Reaction

Great Win. Good pitching. Good hitting. Took advantage of mistakes and created runs on our own.

https://twitter.com/Jomboy_/status/901899727507046400

Tanaka Time

Everyone go find their friends and relatives that are still harping on Tanaka being bad and get them up to date. Show them these stats.

https://twitter.com/JamesSmyth621/status/901896659461918720

https://twitter.com/Jomboy_/status/901890615612289024

He hasn't been the reason we lost a game in a long time. This is the guy he is and this is the guy we need to compete down the stretch. I'm very happy to have him back.

The Offense

Did the Mariners give us a ton of gifts early in the game? They sure did. It was very nice of them. I appreciated it. Did we need them? Nah. Put the errors aside and we still had 15 hits and 4 walks today. That's 19 guys on-base. Of those 19, we scored 10 of them. That's pretty good!

Castro has immediately proved how important he is to our lineup. Torreyes continues to show us he's not going away. Bird steps into the box mid-game and shows us he's for real this time. Everything clicked.

Joe

I love the fire Joe is bringing to the field each day. A lot of people were saying Joe needs to relax there because it's already a laugher of a game and Headley should have caught that ball anyway. Listen up... we're in a pennant race. These games matter! You think 5 runs in the 3rd means we're safe? No way. Joe knows this. Joe cares. That was a BS missed call and everyone knows it. Joe sends a message to every guy in a uniform that we're playing for keeps right now and EVERYTHING MATTERS.

https://twitter.com/Jomboy_/status/901869791081775104

This next week is going to be tough. We need to win, bottom line. I'd like to see the Yankees call up Montgomery on Wednesday to pitch against Cleveland. That would push the rotation back a day and would leave us with CC, Sonny, Tanaka and Sevy versus Boston.

I think CC needs to throw against the Sox. He's thrown around 20 innings this season against them with 2 earned runs. Pushing everyone back would also mean Jaime Garcia doesn't pitch against the Sox and makes it that Sevy matches up with Sale. It seems like a no-brainer to me. Hopefully, the Yankees think so as well.

Follow me on Twitter to chat during the game tomorrow @Jomboy_