The Yankees haven’t won a series in almost two weeks. Having split series’ against the Rangers & Red Sox and have lost the two series’ before that to the Blue Jays & Rays, the Yankees are in need of a series win and some consistent victorious play.

As per usual CC Sabathia pitched a gem last night and seemed to have set the tone for this series against the Royals. The Yankees are expected to beat the Royals every time they play and there really is no reason why they shouldn’t win this series. CC made that clear going 8.2 innings and allowing only 3 runs before surprisingly handing the ball off to David Robertson to close out the game and get the save.

CC improves his record to 15-5 with a 3.14 ERA. Sabathia has won his last two starts and has entered the part of the season where he becomes virtually unbeatable. There isn’t another pitcher in the league you’d rather have as an ace heading into September and even more so for October.

The Yankees had played a couple of games Texless (His wife gave birth to their third child this week, a boy). And while he didn’t hit particularly well last night you have to admit that it’s pretty symbolic that they won by 1 run and he had 1 RBI. It wouldn’t be too far fetched to claim he was the difference maker. He has turned it around since his abysmal May and his .256 average doesn’t reflect how well he’s been hitting lately.  But in case you still doubt him take a look at his 26 Homers and 86 RBI.

I can’t quite figure out which way A-Rod is going. He hasn’t really been hitting that well with an average of .260 but the man can’t stop driving in runs. He went 0-5 last night but managed to drive in his 91^st run of the season, that’s only 2 behind MLB leading Miguel Cabrera (DET).  I really want him to hit more consistently he should be well above .260 and should be getting on base more than 33 percent of the time.  But when your clean-up hitter is 2^nd in the league in RBI’s and you have the best record in baseball, what can you really say?

It’s nice to see that the trade deadline pick-ups have worked out: Kearns is hitting over .300 for the Yanks so far and went yard in last night’s victory and Kerry Wood is 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA so far as a Yankee reliever. Lancer Berkman hasn’t been playing well and just looking at him makes you want to stop by the barbershop and hop on a treadmill but everyone keeps saying he’ll come up with hits down the stretch; for now I’ll continue to hold my breath.

It’d be nice to sweep the series and head into the second half of the dog days with a lot of swagger. Pettitte’s replacement, Dustin Moseley, will look to grab his 3^rd win with the Yanks and improve on his 3.86 ERA.  I predict he’ll have no problem.