Today’s performance by Hiroki Kuroda was just what Joe Girardi and the Yankee bullpen needed. It stopped a two-game skid, preserved some arms and also prevented the possibility of a White Sox series sweep. If the Yankees can win tomorrow’s series finale, they’ll salvage a split.

Kuroda was marvelous, tossing seven innings of three-hit, no run ball with a season – and career -high 11 strike outs and only surrendering one walk. He improved to 8-7 on the season.

David Robertson recovered nicely from his shaky performance on Thursday night. He struck out two in his inning of work. The bullpen – Robertson, Boone Logan and Rafael Soriano – kept the White Sox hitless in two innings of work.

The hitting stars of the game were Curtis Granderson, Robinson Cano and Dewayne Wise who all hit home runs. Wise finished the day 3-3 with two RBI and Granderson’s jack was his 23rd of the season. Cano finished his torrid month of June by going 2-4 today.

Some awesome Robinson Cano facts:

• From ESPN Stats & Info: Cano has now recorded an RBI in 10 straight games vs White Sox. That’s the longest such streak by a Yankee since Babe Ruth in 1931.
• Today’s home run was his 11th this month.
• He’s now batting .308 on the season. (Yeah, yeah, I know BA isn’t that important blah blah blah.) And yet, even more!
• From YES Network’s research guy: Cano finishes June batting .340 (34-100), but he started the month 2 for 12, so he’s hitting .364 since June 5th.

I think it’s safe to say Cano will be the Yankee Player of the Month.