Five Weeks In, Rays Pennant Hopes Alive

Sports by the Numbers NYY Stat of the Week

17 The season is fully five weeks old and the Yankees have finally surpassed the Rays in the victory column after winning their third straight on Sunday for win number (17) on the season. The Yanks begin week six 3.5 back of the Red Sox, but they remain tied with Tampa for second in the division because New York has one more loss than Tampa as well.
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Honorable Mentions

6 Chien-Ming Wang now has (6) wins in seven starts this season and is tied for the league lead after beating the Mariners 5-1 in his last outing on May 2. He has yet to suffer a loss, but in his only no-decision he gave up eight earned runs in only four innings of work against the Red Sox - though the Yanks won 15-9 anyway. In his six wins, Wang has given up only seven earned runs total.

324 Hideki Matsui leads the club with a (.324) batting average and a .411 on-base percentage. Matsui and Derek Jeter both have 35 hits so far, trailing the 38 by Bobby Abreu for the team lead.

515 The winning percentage (.515) for manager Joe Girardi and the Yankees after posting a 17-16 record through 33 games. So far the Yankees have not been more than two games above or two games below .500 the entire season - they have yet to spend a day on top of the division standings, and the 3.5 games they trail the Red Sox by as of today is their largest deficit of the year thus far.

527 Johnny Damon leads the club with a (.527) slugging percentage - yes, that Johnny Damon. His average is up to .295 after a slow start and he leads the club with 17 extra-base hits.
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563 The winning percentage (.563) for manager Joe Torre and the Los Angeles Dodgers after posting an 18-14 record through 32 games. LA is three full games back of the Diamondbacks, but the Dodgers are just coming off an eight-game win streak and have won nine out of ten overall.