Yankees Sweep June, Brewers Aside

CC's 13 strikeouts lead way to easy Yankees victory

Josh Hamilton of the Rangers recently blamed blue eyes for his struggles during day games.

Based on Thursday's result, it would seem that being 6-7 and almost 300 pounds is no disadvantage when playing on a field bathed by sunshine. CC Sabathia tied a career high for strikeouts and led the Yankees to a sweep of the Brewers in a 5-0 matinee at Yankee Stadium.

Sabathia struck out 13, the most for any Yankee since Roger Clemens struck out the same number back in 2002, and the Yankees scored two early runs to make things nice and easy for the remaining eight innings. The win leaves the Yankees 17 games over .500 at the end of June, their biggest bulge of the season, and they've got interleague play to thank for that.

Sabathia has found himself as the stopper of losing streaks quite often this season, but he was the man keeping the winning streak rolling on Thursday. His own personal run is now up to eight wins in nine starts, yet another reason to believe that Sabathia is the best free agent signing in Yankee history.

The team is 11-4 overall against the National League with a 9-3 record this month. That means a debt of gratitude is due to the scheduling office and it also means that the much-discussed sweep at the hands of the Red Sox doesn't loom quite as large any longer.

The Yankees finish the month with a three game edge on the Sox in the loss column, one more game than they had in hand when the month got underway. Plenty of people are still going to harp on the team's 1-8 record against their biggest rival this season, but it is clear that those losses haven't done much to affect the psyche of the Yankees as they wrap up the first half of the season.

Also not affecting the Yankees is the fact that they often find themselves running out a semi-regular lineup for games that loom large in the standings. The bottom four in their order Thursday was Andruw Jones, Eduardo Nunez, Francisco Cervelli (who actually had two RBIs) and Ramiro Pena, but Sabathia's arm meant that the B-Team was more than good enough to polish off a team that's in first place in their division.

Want more good signs? The Yankees have now won five straight games for the first time all season and they are about to get a slew of players back from the disabled list.

Good times all around and the big man is in the center of it all.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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