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I was there. Yo, I was watching the whole thing next to Steve Lombardi who invited me along on the count of he had an extra ticket. Steve has a season ticket package that he shares with a group of co-workers in the lodge section. He’s been to hundreds of games at the Stadium and it’s safe to say that last night’s will rank amongst the most memorable. Back in 1998, I bailed out on going to a game against the Orioles which saw the lead change numerous times and ended with Jorge Posada hitting his second homer of night. “I can’t believe you didn’t come,” one of my friends said, rubbing it in. But I was able to see that game from home and never felt badly about not being there in person. There would be other nights, I thought. Then, I was at the game where Jason Giambi hit the grand slam in the rain in 2002 but I was sick and left in the fifth inning. When I saw the papers the next morning, my heart sunk briefly when I realized I had missed something special. Now, I’m not going to say I called the comeback last night exactly, but after Shawn Chacon was down 2-0, I turned to Steve and said, “I can see the Yanks getting down 4, 5-0 and coming back.”

It was a happily noisy night at the Stadium yet for the first forty-five minutes the loudest sounds came from the Rangers’ bats. It seemed like they hit everything hard against Chacon. At least everything they hit was loud. But even when the Yanks were down 9-0, the fans still seemed cheery enough. After Johnny Damon–who is playing with a chipped bone in his right foot–singled to start the bottom of the third, the crowd roared when Derek Jeter lined a double over Gary Matthews’ head in center field. Jeter made a huge turn past second and was actually caught between the bag and third. But Michael Young was still way off the bag after making the cut-off throw in the outfield. The cut-off throw had gone to the pitcher John Koronka instead, who looked at Jeter. Both men froze for an instant, then Jeter raced back to second as Koronka ran towards him. Young sprinted to the bag as well. Koronka threw to Young who arrived at the bag just after Jeter. The crowd erupted again. This kind of see-saw play and corresponding reaction from the fans characterized the game.

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Okay, so the dopest jersey I’ve seen so far this spring? Last Saturday I’m walking through Union Square and I see a skinny Spanish kid rocking one of those classy home Tiger uniforms. He had number 7 “Rodriguez” on the back. Sweet. Those Tiger home whites are beautiful in the same way that the Giants home jerseys are–or the Red Sox, Dodgers or Yankees for that matter.

The Yankees got another solid performance from Mike Mussina yesterday, who pitched seven innings and allowed just two runs. But Kevin Millwood was also very good and by the time Mussina left the game, and the rain started pouring down on Kyle Farnsworth, the Rangers rallied for two runs in the eighth and held on for a 4-2 win. Farnsworth made a few poor pitches and though Texas did not hit him hard, they capitalized on his mistakes. Gary Matthews, jr and Bubba Crosby made sensational catches while Derek Jeter committed another error.

The major concern for the Yanks, however are injuries. Jason Giambi, a slugger the team can ill-afford to lose, left the game in the eighth inning due to a sore neck (injured earlier in the game). His status is day-to-day. Losing Giambi’s offense right now would be tough. As Steven Goldman recently noted:

With Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui out, the Yankees now have three players who can be described as power hitters — Jason Giambi, Alex Rodríguez, and Jorge Posada — and the last isn’t in the class of the first two. While Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, and Robinson Canó are all productive hitters in their own way, and Melky Cabrera may yet be a productive hitter, the lineup now lacks explosiveness.

Another bat is going to have to be added. Sadly, the focus is going to have to be on taking at-bats from Bernie Williams. However you slice it, whether by lines of .245/.282/.333, or a .220 EqA, Williams is not capable of doing the jobs he has been asked to do. Should the race with the Red Sox stay close, than the lack of production from this one player can make a fatal difference. This is doubly true now that injuries have depleted the offense.

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No matter how far up you sit in Yankee Stadium, you always have the feeling that you are right on top of the action. On Saturday afternoon, I sat in row W (second to last row) with a great bunch of baseball fans–Mike Carminati, Chris DeRosa, loyal Bronx Banter readers Mike and Murray Markowitz, and their pal Alex. Mike Markowitz took a couple of flicks and in turn, I’d like to share ’em with you.

Check out the top left-hand corner and you can see the Grand Concourse.

Our Field of Dreams

The Gang (from right to left): That’s me, Mike C, Chris DeRosa, Murray and Alex.

The M&M Boys. Talk about taste. And dig the hat Murray’s rocking–it’s fabulously hideous. His wife made him buy it when they were vacationing in Holland.

Yup, these are the kind of Yankee fans I’m proud to have as friends. And yo, I’d rock a Bobby Meachum shirt, or at least a Pasqua or Pags joint any day of the week.

Although it was overcast for most of the weekend–with more rain due throughout the week, we’ve been able to steer clear of the wet weather that cancelled two of the three games in Boston (and shortened another). Saturday turned out to be sunny and breezy, as the Yankees edged the A’s 4-3, on the strength of home runs by Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Taynon Sturtze appeared and was awful and is now on the disabled list. (Hey, at least he’s been replaced by Scott Erickson!) Kyle Farnsworth wasn’t brilliant, but he was better, and he worked around a critical error by Jeter to save the game by a run.

Randy Johnson’s pitching woes are still here. While he showed signs of improvement on a pink and gray Mother’s Day in the Bronx, Freddie Sez it is clear that Johnson is in the process of working through a career crisis of sorts. A first-ballot Hall of Famer, a dominating force like Johnson just doesn’t transform into Frank Tanana overnight. According to Tyler Kepner in the New York Times:

“A lot of it is probably mechanical,” [pitching coach, Ron] Guidry said, before pointing to his head. “Some of it is probably still up here.”

…”It’s absolutely frustrating to not be pitching the way I’m accustomed to pitching,” said Johnson, who has 268 career victories. “But I’ve been through a lot in my career, and that’s why I appreciate everything I’ve done in my career.

“If everything were easy, it would be easy. Right now is frustrating because I’m not pitching the way I’d like to or even close, and I realize that. Nobody has to tell me that.”

Unfortunately for the Yankees, Oakland’s starter, Danny Haren, was terrific, throwing a complete game. Final score: A’s 6, Yanks 1. The Yanks start the week tied with the Red Sox in first place with the well-rested Rangers team coming into town for a four-game series.

Last night I got together with Cliff, Jay Jaffe, Mark Lamster and SI.com’s Jacob Luft for a bite to eat. We caught the game–or at least portions of it–and obviously, it was a devastating night for the home team. Both Cliff and I got home way too late to be able to write a thorough recap of the nights events, which is too bad because it was an absorbing game. The Yanks lost 5-3, with Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter contributing key defensive errors, but the critical moment of the game came early when Hideki Matsui fractured his left hand trying to make a shoestring catch.

Anyone who saw the replay knows how bad the injury instantly looked. It might not have been Joe Theisman/Jason Kendall horrific, but it was painful to watch (oddly enough, it was a night for highlight reel injuries–we must have seen the replay of Philadelphia’s Aaron Rowand crashing into the centerfield fence 58 times). Matsui’s consecutive game streak–which dates back to his days playing Japan–is over (1,768 straight). Godzilla is scheduled to have surgery today and after the game Yankee GM Brian Cashman commented that it is possible that Matsui could be lost for the year. According to Tyler Kepner in the New York Times:

“It’s going to be a long time,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “Whether we get him back before the season’s over, we won’t know for a while.”

With Gary Sheffield still out, the $64,000 question for the Yankes is who will replace Matsui? The lines are open. What do you think?

Bubba Crosby and Johnny Damon both made outstanding catches at the wall, and it looked as if the Sox were not going to be able to get a break (they stranded 15 on base for the game). Their luck would change however as they took advantage of New York’s fielding mistakes and good pitching from Tim Wakefield, Mike Timlin and Jonathan Papelbon for the win. The Yankees’ fortunes continued to go south. Both Jeter and Williams reached second base in the late innings, making up for their errors, and both were stranded when their teammates could not drive them home. Mariano Rivera allowed a run in the ninth. He was livid with himself when he left a fastball over the plate which Kevin Youkilis drove into center for an RBI single. To make matters worse, Damon hurt his shoulder and right foot when he robbed Doug Mirabelli of extra bases.

In the end, it was a painful night in the Bronx. And losing to the Sox was the least of it.

Bronx Banter Interview: Joel Sherman

This is a tidy year for baseball anniversaries here in New York: Thirty years ago, the Yanks returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1964; twenty years ago, the Mets enjoyed the best season in their organization’s history and won the World Serious, and ten years ago, of course, Joe Torre managed the Yankees to their first Serious victory since 1978. So it is entirely fitting that Joel Sherman’s first book, “The Birth of a Dynasty”–an insider’s account of the 1996 Yankee team–has just been released. Sherman has been a columnist for the New York Post since ’96 and his book is a must-read for both casual and die-hard Yankee fans. I consumed the book in a few days and was excited about how much I learned (I never heard of a six-tool player before, but Ruben Rivera apparently fit the profile).

Sherman took some time out this week to discuss “The Birth of a Dynasty.” Hope you enjoy our chat.

Bronx Banter: You are a veteran baseball writer–first as a beat reporter, then as a columnist. Both of those jobs require different skills, but in both positions you are still working on a deadline and have only a limited amount of space to get your point across. This is your first book. What challenges did you encounter with the new medium? What was the most difficult transition for you, and what did you learn about yourself as a writer?

Joel Sherman: This is an excellent question. My whole temperament is built to be a newspaperman. I am almost a New York stereotype. I like to work quickly and move on to the next thing. The column feeds that. At the New York Post, you work on three deadlines a day. So you are constantly working all day on the days you write and then, boom, you are done. It is in the paper for various editions and you are on to the next day. When you write a book, there is no instant gratification or negative reaction, at all. It is a long-term process and my Brooklyn mindset had a tough time with that. As for what I learned during the process was more something that was re-established in my own mind, which is how much I love to report. The 1996 Yankees were an extremely well covered team and interviewing folks to try to find new information and new avenues to tell these stories really energized me.

BB: Did you enjoy the process?

JS: Mostly no. It was a difficult time for me to take on this process. My wife and I had our first children, our twins Jake and Nick, and trying to research/write as an extra job during first a pregnancy and then the early months of the lives of my children was straining. Also, a relationship with a publishing house is like a brief, shot-gun marriage. You are forced to deal with people for a very short, intense period that you probably would not associate with at other times.

BB: How long did it take to write?

JS: The research and writing took about 18 months, but there was no continuity to it because of the pregnancy. I went long stretches of doing nothing.

BB: It sounds like it was a humbling experience for you, going from the immediate gratification of newspaper writing, to the grind of a longer project. The scope is so much larger as you mentioned. Also, book writing is often a collaborative situation, which means you don’t have as much control as you have been used to. How important were the contributions of your editor–or colleagues who looked at different versions of the manuscript–in terms of helping you compose a dramatic arc for a book as compared with a column?

JS: The publishing house provided very little guidance. But I am blessed with great, talented friends. Mike Vaccaro, a columnist at the Post, was terrific at encouragement. When he was interested or intrigued by a topic, I knew it was a topic to pursue. I wanted to have moments all over the book where even people who follow the team religiously would go, “wow, I didn’t know that.” Mike was fantastic at helping me with that. Lou Rabito, an editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and I went to school at NYU. Among Lou’s many skills is that he is the best line editor I have ever worked with and he is brutally honest. So he not only cleaned up the copy, but he told me frankly when items did or didn’t work. His touch is on nearly every page of the book. Also, Ken Rosenthal, now of Fox Sports, worked at the Baltimore Sun in 1996 as a columnist. He was in fact, a great columnist. The Orioles were the Yankees’ foil in 1996 and I had Ken read passages about the Orioles just to make sure I was getting them right. He was invaluable, as well. I think the key thing all three did was give me confidence. With no instant gratification, I needed people along the way to tell me, you are going right or you are going wrong. They did that.

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After belting a two-run homer into the upper deck in his first at bat, David Ortiz tapped a single through the right side of the infield with two outs in the top of the third. Had the infield been positioned normally, it would have been an easy out, but Ortiz, who has been slumping of late, generally finds a way when playing at the Stadium (he went 4-4 on the night, yet he only hit the ball hard twice…”just” two times, oy). When Ortiz reached first he shared a smile with Yankee first baseman Jason Giambi, who also sees an extreme shift employed when he bats (Giambi would crank a two-run homer of his own in the bottom of the inning). The scene was notable only because it demonstrates that, with a few exceptions, the players on the Yankees and Red Sox are not engaged in the same kind of rivalry that you see and hear in the stands. Yes, I’m sure the players feed off the intensity of the fans, and the hype in the papers, but this isn’t 1977 and for the most part, you don’t get the feeling that the participants hate one another too tough.

The rivalry has become more about the fans than anything else, and often it brings out the worst in us. The electricity in the crowd–at either Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park–is palpable and that brings an acute tension to almost every pitch, every at bat. I think this is great as you just don’t see the same kind of excitement elsewhere around the majors for a regular season in game. But the downside is that the crowd entertains itself with lewd chants that have nothing to do with the action on the field. The so-called class acts in the Bronx last night spent a good portion of the game riffing how much the Red Sox suck. C’mon now. I just find it pathetic.

But nobody heard boos last night like Alex Rodriguez did after his second at bat. Rodriguez struck out looking (on three pitches) in the first inning, and then popped out weakly to first base the next time up. The boos showered down on the reigning AL MVP. As Mike Lupica notes in a refreshingly sharp column today, “Sometimes the place isn’t nearly as cool as we make it out to be, or want it to be.”

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Steve Lombardi has an revealing post on Alex Rodriguez vs. the Red Sox, and David Pinto has an equally good one on Randy Johnson. Check ’em out.

Anything interesting going on this week for the Yanks? Ah, yes, baseball’s version of the WWF returns to the Bronx. In-Your-Face Action! No, it’s not Madden 2006, it’s the most over-hyped rivalry in professional sports. But even with the customary hoopla, there are three fun pitching match-ups to be had in Boston’s first trip to the Stadium this year, starting tonight with Randy Johnson vs. Josh Beckett. Cliff will be round a bit later with a thorough series preview. On a softer note, erstwhile Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez is featured on the front page of the New York Times this morning as a gardner of all things. When he was with Boston, I feared and loathed Martinez. He was an easy villian. But I have to say, in spite of his faults, I can’t continue to hate the guy–I’m a sucker for his charm, his sense of humor and his sense of theater. This article accentuates the sensitive side of Pedro.

While Cliff and I were busy with our lives this weekend, the Yanks took two more from Texas (6-1 on Saturday, 8-5 on Sunday) to extend their winning streak to five games. Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez had strong weekends, while it appears as if Gary Sheffield is headed for the DL. Yesterday’s win was the 1000th of Torre’s Yankee career. But it didn’t come without some tense moments from the usual suspects. Tyler Kepner reports in the Times:

The Yankees’ bullpen has not blown a lead for a starter this season, but Tanyon Sturtze did not help Sunday. He is struggling at a crucial time, because the Yankees may need to find room in their bullpen if Octavio Dotel returns in a few weeks.

It is clear now that Scott Proctor is going nowhere, despite having minor league options. Proctor bailed Sturtze out of a seventh-inning jam after Sturtze walked the leadoff man, threw away a grounder with an off-balance heave to second and walked the No. 9 batter.

“I wanted to wring his neck,” Torre said of Sturtze, referring to the error. “You’ve got to keep in mind the score. He looked like he was trying to get rid of the ball so we can get a double play, but we just needed one out there. He dug himself a hole. Fortunately, Proctor dug him out of it.”

Sturtze, Torre: wringing necks. Does any of this sound familiar to any of our readers?

“If the guys behind me would have come in and it would have been smooth, nobody would have thought anything of it,” [Mike] Mussina said. “You’ve got to believe those guys can come in and pitch, and they can. Today was the day when it was tough to get through that one inning.” (New York Times)

Yeah, and if Woody had gone straight to the police, none of this would have ever happened…

The Yanks and Rangers played two games on Friday night in Arlington. The first saw Mike Mussina continue his stellar early-season pitching, while the offense patiently beat the bejesus out of the Rangers’ pitching. Alex Rodriguez, dropped to fifth in the order, had two hits, a walk and three RBI–nothing like being back in Texas. The first game ended when Moose allowed a single to open the bottom of the eighth and was relieved by Aaron Small. Certainly Mussina could have continued to pitch, but with a huge lead, it didn’t seem odd that he was pulled.

Then the second game began. The one where the Rangers rallied for six runs against the Bombers’ bullpen in the same eighth inning. Aaron Small, then Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera were slapped around as the home team pulled to within 8-7. With a runner on first and one out in the ninth, Michael Young hit a hard ground ball to the hole between shortstop and third base. Derek Jeter moved to his right and made a nifty, mid-play adjustment, stabbing at the ball which had taken a late, high hop. There would be no chance to get Young at first; Jeter’s only play was to second. As his body carried him out to left, Jeter spun and fired to second to nab Gary Matthews, Jr by a half a step. It was a fine play and most likely helped save the game for Rivera, who then retired the Rangers’ slumping Mark Teixeira on a well-struck line drive to right to end it. (Rivera’s location was off all night and he was hit relatively hard.)

In a Sports Illustrated poll released earlier this week, Jeter was voted by his fellow-players as the most overrated player in the game. I haven’t mentioned it earlier because this doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t already know. Jeter makes a lot of money, and has had the good fortune to be the star player on a string of championship teams in New York. He is as over-exposed as a player can get. You could say he’s overrated, but I think if you asked players who the most respected player in the game is, Jeter would find his way to the top of the list too, so you’ve got to take these things with a grain of salt.

I don’t need to argue Jeter’s case–his numbers speak for themselves: the man is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. One thing that I think is interesting is that in the same issue of SI, there is a piece on the Rangers’ Michael Young, talking about what a stand-up guy he is, what an overachiever he’s been. One of his teammates said that if Young played in New York he’d be bigger than Jeter. Now, I don’t know about that, but Young is very much like Jeter–a hard-working gamer.

There is a little blurb in the Young article about the three great shortstops in the American League right now–Miguel Tejada, Michael Young and Derek Jeter. Ten years ago, Jeter was the weakest link in the Rodriguez-Nomar-Trio of great young shortstops. Nomar fell off that list due to injuries a few seasons back, and Rodriguez has shifted positions. But Jeter still remains. I’m not saying he’s better than Tejada or Young, but he’s right up there with them, and if either of those two players are still amongst the best in six, seven years, that’ll be something too, wouldn’t it?

Last week, Emily and I were watching the game and she says, “Isn’t Al Leiter there tonight?” Indeed he was. It was just that, without anything pressing to say, Leiter had actually been silent for several minutes. Go figure that. Generally, new announcers are so geeked-up, they go the other way–they never shut up. They don’t actually say anything, but that doesn’t stop their mouth from running. Of course, this happens to some veteran announcers as well. Earlier this season, Michael Kay and Bobby Murcer were calling a game, and for the life of me, bless ‘ol Bobby, but I don’t think either came up for air all afternoon. It was exhausting, because it was as if they were talking just to talk.

Al Leiter’s sense of reserve is appealing–he’s learning the ropes and being cautious and respectful in the process. His insights into pitching have been outstanding. He’s still not completely sure of himself, but is obviously being encouraged to be more forceful in selling his thoughts. (Richard Sandomir has a good piece on the man-behind-the-scenes at YES, John Filippelli today in the Times.) Last night, he talked at length about how Randy Johnson is still making the transition from menacing flame-thwrower to crafty veteran. He discussed why this would be more difficult for a guy like Johnson, who used to be able to overwhelm hitters with his stuff, than for guys like Maddux or Glavine. Leiter even snapped at Kay at one point, and then made sure to soothe any hard feelings moments later.

It has been a pleasure following Leiter’s progress thus far. That he’s willing to keep his trap shut, listen, and learn already sets him apart. Good job by the YES in landing him.

The Yankees beat the Devil Rays 10-5 last night, but the game was closer than the final score indicates. There were five lead changes and the Bombers didn’t break the game open ’til late. Here are a few things that caught my eye:

Randy Johnson, who had another uneven game, smirking to himself and then laughing as he came off the field in the second inning. The guy is so private you don’t normally see him smile. I wonder what struck his funny bone.

In the fifth, Robinson Cano lined a double to right field (Cano would also line out hard to the outfield twice) and Bernie Williams followed with an RBI single, also to right. It’s funny, we’ve been busting on Bernie for his lack of pop. His single missed being a home run by a few feet–it was a line drive that just didn’t get up enough, but it was hit too hard for him to get to second. I was laughing, thinking, “Even when he strokes one, it’s still a single.”

The Yankees went ahead for good in the top of the seventh. The most encouraging part of the inning was that the Bombers rallied after recording two quick outs. Gary Sheffield started it off with a pinch-hit single to right (he would later line out to right field too). This was Sheff’s first appearence since colliding with Shea Hillenbrand last weekend and it was a pleasure to see him again.

Alex Rodriguez went 0-4 but had the go-ahead RBI (he was plunked on the first pitch of his at bat with the bases loaded). How’s that for clutch? Har-har-hardy-har-har.

Jason Giambi had “driven in” the tying run one batter earlier when he walked with the bases loaded. It was another impressive at bat for Giambi who was down in the count 0-2. He took two very alluring change ups with the count 2-2, and then 3-2, showing tremendous restraint.

The strangest moments of the game came in the top of the eighth inning. After Jorge Posada walked to start the inning, Dan Miceli entered the game for Tampa Bay and promptly booted a little tapper hit by Cano. Then, Bernie Williams stepped in and sqaured to bunt. He took the first pitch right-down-the-pipe for a strike. It looked like an ideal pitch to bunt, but then again, what does Bernie know from bunting? Well, he laid down a nice sarifice on the next offering and almost beat the throw to first. The YES announcers said that Bernie had one sacrifice bunt last year, one in 2004, but prior to that his last sacrifice came in 1996. That’s three in eleven seasons.

The Rays chose to intentionally walk Sheffield, and the first pitch came a little high to the catcher, Toby Hall. Then Miceli stuttered off the mound and chucked one way over Hall’s head. Talk about a pysch job. Posada, who is not one of the team’s best base runners, screamed for a balk then didn’t get a great jump, so he did not try to score. The ball actually bounced off the fence behind home plate and right back to Hall, so Posada would have likely been out had he tried to come home. Larry Bowa, and then Joe Torre, joined Posada in arguing about the missed balk. The umps didn’t change their mind, but they clearly blew the call. Actually, they were probably as caught off guard as eveyone else was, but it was as obvious a balk as you are likely to ever see. So of course, Miceli completes the intentional pass, then serves up a grand slam to Johnny Damon. He then fell behind Jeter 2-0, was taken out of the game and later placed on the DL with a sore shoulder and hurt feelings.

I usually don’t play armchair manager at home, but I was thinking about a lot of our readers who enjoy that sort of thing, watching Torre manage the bullpen last night. It seemed as if Torre was over-managing taking out Scott Proctor (heck, even taking out Sturtze), but for one night, all of the moves worked out.

Even with Johnson not pitching especially well, I had all the confidence in the world that the Yanks would come back and win that game. It was great to see the two-out rally. These are games good teams need to win. The Rays were without some of their best hitters and man, thier bullpen is just plain lousy. In the end, it was a satisfying, though slightly odd night. Hey, we’ll take it, right?

Hey, I forgot to mention it earlier, but just how digusting was the last pitch of the game last night? Joey Gathwright, a slap hitter was batting against Mariano Rivera, and he kept fouling pitches off. Rivera threw cutter after cutter. Then at 2-2, he tried to go away with a fastball. It was up and away and Gathwright took it for a ball before fouling off a few more pitches. I thought Rivera might try going away again, but no. He throws a cutter on the inside corner at the knees–the best pitch of the sequence. Gathwright didn’t offer at it–he didn’t have a chance. Wow.

In his latest mailbag column, Tom Verducci was asked about Carl Pavano:

Remember, teams such as the Tigers, Mariners and Red Sox also wanted Pavano badly, even indicating that they would have paid more than the $39.95 million over four years that New York did. There is no way to be delicate about this: The Yankees have come to question Pavano’s toughness. Now, injuries are always sensitive subjects, because only the player knows for sure about the severity. But this is two years running where Pavano seems to be doing nothing but playing catch in Tampa. Could all of those teams have been wrong about measuring his character? So far, and until he takes regular turns in the Yankees’ rotation, yes.

Though he’s only be out for a handful of games, how much do you guys miss watching Sheffield?

Lastly, fellow Yankee bloggers, Pete Abraham and Mike Plugh note how even when he does something well, Alex Rodriguez gets precious little love. Is it ridiculous to say that Rodriguez is to Winfield what Jeter is to Mattingly?

No two Yankee hitters have struggled as much of late as Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui. Rodriguez struck out in the fourth inning last night, swining through a hittable slider that Casey Fossum left over the plate; with the Yanks trailing 2-0 in the sixth, he tapped into an inning-ending double play. Normally, Rodriguez is so fluid that it almost seems as if the game is easy for him. However, in the middle of a rough stretch, everything looks difficult for him, from recognizing pitches, to being able to put a good swing on the ball. On the other hand, Matsui had a single but was robbed of two hits. While Rodriguez looked out-of-whack, Matsui’s at bats were encouraging. He was simply running into hard luck, just off. Yet the Bombers eventually tied the game–and received some fine pitching from starter Jared Wright and relievers Ron Villone and Kyle Farnsworth (my boy Farnsworth, was particularly sharp).

The game went into extra innings and Johnny Damon doubled to start the tenth. Derek Jeter followed with a walk, and Jason Giambi’s ground out advanced the runners. Rodriguez had another chance and got ahead in the count, 2-0. He fouled off a slider bearing in on his hands and on TV, he appeared uncomfortable, though Joe Torre had given him a bit of encouragement just before he went to bat. According to Tyler Kepner in the New York Times:

While Rodriguez waited to hit, Torre tried to get his attention. The bench coach Lee Mazzilli whistled him over from the on-deck circle, and Torre gave him a message.

“Just hit the ball on the good part of the bat,” Torre said, repeating what he told Rodriguez. “Just trust the ball will find a hole somewhere. Have an at-bat where you just make good contact.”

Rodriguez stroked the next pitch into center field for an RBI single. Matsui followed with a ground ball single that snuck through the infield, driving in another run. A-ha. Nice and easy. No 500 foot dingers, just two singles. It was enough, as Mariano Rivera closed the door and the Yanks came away with a tidy 4-2 victory in Tampa Bay.

Flipping around the tube last night, I caught portions of the Met game, which was mostly played through a steady rain out at Shea. I was surprised to see how many fans stuck it out, getting soaked in the process. Many simply seemed oblivious to the conditions. Man, you’ve got to be a devoted–or slightly crazed–fan to sit and get rained on for that long, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t have that kind of tolerance. The Mets have an exciting team who has performed well early on, and it’s cool to see the fans have responded to them. Met fans deserve to have a great guy like Carlos Delgado on their team. Great win last night.

Yankee fans love to talk about which players are “real Yankees,” and which players are not. Joe Girardi was murdered here in New York when he replaced the popular Mike Stanley in 1996. Tino Martinez took over for local legend Don Mattingly the same year and felt the heat as well. Now, both Girardi and Martinez are considered “true Yankees.” Jason Giambi, of course followed Martinez, and because of the size of his contract as well as his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs, learned how difficult it can be to be embraced by Yankee fans. But after a fine performance in 2005, and a terrific start this season, how long before Giambi is considered a bonafide Yankee? Last year at this time, it looked that would never happen, but now? It’s closer than you think. He’s a productive hitter, Don Mattingly’s boy, and a likable lug. I think if he has another good year, he’ll win over the remaining doubters.

Steven Goldman has some cherce material in the latest edition of his Pinstriped Bible over at YES: Larry Bowa talking about Derek Jeter’s fielding:

Where Jeter can improve:

“One area we’ve talked a little bit about is playing more to his right on some ground balls. But for the most part, he follows our game plan. When we say straight away, he’s there. When we say, ‘Pull,’ he’s there. I think what happens is people, they’re used to him making every single play, and if he just misses a ball, it could be the pitch. A lot of times when you’re playing shortstop, and location’s away, you’re mentally saying, ‘Okay, the pitch is this way, it’s going to be hard for this guy to pull.’

“Now the pitcher misses this much inside, that has a lot to do with it also. You have pitchers who hit spots and pitchers who don’t hit spots. Everything is thrown into the hopper when you talk about how he’s making plays and not getting balls he should have gotten. Maybe he was playing up the middle like we said and [pitchers] kept pounding him inside because they were missing their target. These things, people, when you break it down, they don’t look at stuff.

“It’s very important. And it’s even more so important when you get on these fast fields like when we go down to Tampa or when we play in Minnesota or when we play in Toronto, we have that turf. There are some fields that are faster than others. Big-league pitchers, you hope they hit their spots about 10 out of 10 times, or six or seven out of 10 times. A pitcher on a bad day will maybe hit his spots three out of 10. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

Terrific stuff from Bowa. Thanks, Steve.

As impressive as Boston’s new young closer Jonathan Papelbon has been, and as easy as it is to dislike–though impossible not to admire–Curt Schilling, I’m prepared to regard Josh Beckett as Red Sox enemy number one by the end of the year. He’s good enough to fear and arrogant enough to loathe. John Harper has a piece on Beckett in the Daily News today which indicates just how volatile the pitcher can be:

Beckett is ultra-cocky, and seems to consider himself something of a guardian of the game’s unwritten rules regarding conduct on the ballfield. Four times over the last two years he has publicly criticized players for what he considered showing him up, and in two of those incidents he nearly ignited brawls.

Late in spring training he got into it with Ryan Howard when the Phillies’ slugger was slow to leave the batter’s box on a long fly ball that wound up being caught at the wall. Beckett yelled at Howard to run, using rather salty language to tell him to tell him to stop acting like a prima donna, and then to get back to the dugout.

“I wanted to make a point,” Beckett explained later that day. “You look like a jackass whenever you hit the ball like that and you’re pimping it, and you’re out. I’m kind of about respecting the game, and I’m not the type of guy to not say anything.”

I wonder what he’ll say to his teammate Manny Ramirez, who can be timed getting around the bases with a calendar after one of his majestic home runs. Harper concludes:

Last night a former teammate of Beckett’s, a player who is a member of neither the Red Sox nor Yankees, predicted trouble ahead.

“He’s not afraid, I’ll give him that,” the player said. “But one of these times he’s going to say something to the wrong guy. It’s more likely to happen when emotions are high, like when Boston and New York play. One of these days somebody’s going to go after him.”

Last night’s rain-out will be made up as part of a twi-night double header in mid-August. Instead of a tense four game series at Fenway Park, it will kick off what is now scheduled to be a five game series. Now, that’s serious.