Well well, Freddy Garcia. I was pleasantly surprised, that’s for sure. Garcia has absolutely nothing going for him in the way of velocity, and I think he threw as many changeups as fastballs, but that made his control and planning all the more impressive. Oney Guillen, apparently still a supporter from Garcia’s White Sox days, put things a bit more bluntly. Given that the Yankees put off allowing either Garcia or his catcher today, Gustavo Molina, to appear in a game for as long as they possibly could, things went rather well today and the Yankees won 5-2.

While Garcia kept the Rangers off the board through six, allowing just two hits and a walk in a fairly badass performance, the Yankees started off their scoring in the first inning with a two-run Mark Teixeira home run.Teixeira tacked on with a sac fly in the third, and it remained a 3-0 game until the 8th inning, at which point I noted that if the current score held, the Yankees would notch their first win of the season in which they scored less than 4 runs. At that point, Rafael Soriano labored through an awkward inning that ended with the score 3-2; and shortly thereafter  Robinson Cano jacked a two-run homer. So it wasn’t meant to be, not that the Yankees are complaining, I’m sure.

Mariano came in for the ninth so I don’t feel it’s necessary to elaborate on what happened there. How many of these Garcia-Nova-Colon games can the Yanks expect to win? i don’t know, but so far things have gone better than I’d expected.