Lean Back…

For the first part of the game tonight, the Yankees hit one fly ball after another deep into the outfield at Kaufman Stadium. They just didn’t hit anything hard enough or far enough to carry over the fence. Whole lot of warning track outs. Mark Teixeira kept the Yankees in the game with a series of brilliant fielding plays–leaping, diving, picking–and eventually the fly balls started to carry. Alex Rodriguez broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the sixth with a solo home run to dead center. Jorge Posada and Curtis Granderson added solo shots of their own and the Yanks were up by three.

The Royals scored a couple to make it a game but then Rodriguez hit a pair of two-run homers (another one to center—the “lean back” shot pictured above,  and finally one up in the water fountain in left field). That was more than enough to finish the Royals. All three of Rodriguez’s homers came off fastballs, low and over the plate.  And that’s the fourth three-dinger game of Rodriguez’s career. He DH’d tonight and now has 21 homers on the season, to go 97 RBI.

Final Score: Yanks 8, Royals 3.

[Photo Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images]