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The Angels entered this series with a chance to clinch the AL West and have closer Francisco Rodriguez tie or even break Bobby Thigpen’s single-season saves record, but they exchanged blowouts with the Yankees in the first two games, forcing Rodriguez, stuck at 55 saves to Thigpen’s 57, to wait to make history against some other team. Meanwhile the second-place Rangers failed to help the Angels out last night, and it’s only with a Rangers loss that the Angels could clinch with a win today. The Rangers’ game in Seattle starts more than an hour after today’s afternoon tilt in Anaheim, so even if the Angels do clinch today, they’ll likely be back in their clubhouse when it happens, sparing the Yankees the indignity of watching another team celebrate.

Andy Pettitte, who is now officially in line to start the final game at Yankee Stadium two turns from now, takes the hill for the Bombers. Pete Abe has a story on Pettitte today that blames Andy’s recent struggles on the disruption of his usual off-season conditioning caused by his inclusion in the Mitchell Report:

The workout regime that he believes has been the base of his success was not abandoned. But Pettitte did not put in the amount of time he usually does.

“There were times I didn’t want to leave the house, much less go work out and focus on baseball,” he said last night before the Yankees played the Angels.

Pettitte tried to catch up in spring training, scheduling early-morning workouts and pestering teammates to join him and provide a push. For a while, it appeared to work. Pettitte was 12-7 with a 3.76 ERA through his first 22 starts. Pettitte’s history suggested that he would only improve as he season went on.

He has struggled instead. He is 1-5 with a 6.57 ERA over his last eight starts, putting 82 runners on base via hit or walk over 49 1/3 innings. Opponents have hit .325 against him.

“I was very happy with the first half I put together, then I won my first two starts after the break and I thought, ‘Here we go.’ Personally, it’s been frustrating,” he said.

Though he doesn’t come right out and say it, Pettitte strongly suggested to Abraham that he wants to return to the Yankees next year both to pitch in the new Stadium, and because he believes he can recover his form of a year ago by avoiding any other interruptions to his offseason program. If he does, he stands a very good chance of moving past Lefty Gomez into third place on the franchise’s all-time wins list. Gomez isn’t quite Babe Ruth, but I’d be all for bringing Andy back next year given the struggles of the team’s pitching prospects this season.

In other news, Ivan Rodriguez and Torii Hunter will both serve two-game suspensions starting this afternoon as punishment for their dust-up on Monday night.

Don’t look now, but Alfredo Aceves has passed Ian Kennedy on the Yankees’ prospect list. The two pitchers are very similar. Both are right-handers of unexceptional stature with similar repertoires (91 mile per hour fastball, changeup, curve). Both went from high-A to the major league rotation in their first year of pro ball, and both have impressed in their September call-ups.

The difference between the two is that Aceves did last night all of the things the Yankees have been trying and failing to get Kennedy to do all season. He threw strikes, worked quickly, and mixed in all of his pitches. That last is the most significant. In his various unsuccessful stints in the major leagues this year, Kennedy has been a two-pitch pitcher, throwing straight fastballs to spots (and often missing) and trying to get his outs with his changeup. Last night, Aceves varied speeds and breaks on all three of his pitches (really four as his best pitch is a cut fastball with some impressive movement) giving him an assortment several times more varied than Kennedy’s.

Of course, Aceves maturity on the mound comes from his maturity off it. Aceves may be in his first year of “pro ball,” but he has six years of professional experience in the Mexican League behind him while Kennedy was pitching in college in 2006. Despite that, Aceves is just two years older than Kennedy. It’s possible that Kennedy could learn what Aceves knows in the next two years, but even if he does, he’s unlikely to be much better than Aceves is now. The real question is exactly how good is Aceves now? He’ll certainly be in the mix for next year’s rotation, but is he just a younger, wilier Darrell Rasner, the sort of pitcher who can fill a vacant rotation spot and slide back into a long relief role when the rest of the starters get healthy, or does he have the potential to be a mid-rotation guy like many hoped and even assumed Kennedy would be as early as this year?

Whatever he is, it’s worth recognizing that in one short season he’s passed fellow 25-year-old Alan Horne, Jeff Marquez, and even Kennedy on the Yankees’ list of starting pitching prospects, which may tell you as much about Horne, Marquez, and Kennedy as it does about Aceves.

Last night’s game started off a lot like Monday night’s 12-1 humiliation. Bobby Abreu erased a Derek Jeter single* with an inning-ending double play in the first. In the second, the first three hitters reached on a single, a hit-by-pitch, and a double resulting in a run and putting men on second and third with none out, but Ervin Santana struck out Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano before getting Chad Moeller to line out to end the threat. In the third, Abreu delivered a two-out single, but was promptly thrown out stealing second with Alex Rodriguez, who had singled to lead off the previous inning, at the plate. The Yankees stranded another two-out single in the fourth and went down in order in the fifth.

What was different was Alfredo Aceves. Making his first big league start in front of 31 friends and family members and 43,011 strangers, Aceves worked quickly, mixed his pitches, threw strikes, and made quick work of the Angels. Pitching to contact, Aceves got into just two three-ball counts all night, both of them full counts, one of which ended in a strikeout of rookie Brandon Wood, and didn’t walk a batter. He consistently got ahead early, throwing first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 26 batters he faced, and after three of his first four outs traveled a fair distance in the air, he got ten of his last 17 outs on the ground and two more by strikeout.

To be sure, the defense behind Aceves’ helped out. The first out Aceves recorded came when Robinson Cano made a great sliding stop to his right, then spun to his feet to throw out the speedy Reggie Willits. Alex Rodriguez made several nice plays at third base including eating up a hard hopper in the second and making a nice backhanded play on a shot down the line in the third.

Robinson Cano made another nice play in the fourth with a diving stop to his left that he tried to turn into a 4-6-3 double play, but Derek Jeter let Cano’s throw clank off his glove as both runners reached safely. That came after the runner on first had reached by lining a ball off the right wrist of a diving Jason Giambi. Though both plays would have been exceptional, they should have been made. Undeterred, Aceves took matters into his own hands by reaching across his body to stab a comebacker and start an inning-ending 1-6-3 DP. Aceves has a face of stone on the mound, but after escaping that jam he pumped his fist and shouted a few words in Spanish.

With the score still 1-0 entering the sixth, the Yankees finally gave Aceves some insurance. Derek Jeter led off with a deep fly into the gap in right center. Gary Matthews, who had just been put into the game in place of Torii Hunter, whose back was acting up, got to the ball, but had it clank off his glove for what was initially ruled a triple (later changed to a three-base error). Bobby Abreu followed with a five-pitch walk, and Alex Rodriguez cashed it all in with a three-run jack that made it 4-0.

Those runs came just in time as Aceves appeared to be fatiguing a bit in the bottom of the sixth. Though he had thrown just 60 pitches through the first five frames, allowing just a trio of scattered singles, his pace slowed in the sixth. Reggie Willits took five pitches to ground out to Cano. Garret Anderson then worked a nine-pitch at-bat (just the second three-ball at-bat of Aceves’s night), eventually winning the battle with a groundball single in the gap past Cano. Mark Teixeira followed by lacing a high fastball into right center for a double, pushing old man Anderson to third. Aceves then got Guerrero and Matthews to groundout, but Anderson scored in the process.

Given two more insurance runs in the seventh thanks to a Chad Moeller single and a Johnny Damon dinger that drove Santana from the game, Joe Girardi sent Aceves out for the seventh. Six pitches later, Aceves was back in the dugout getting congratulated on seven strong innings of one-run baseball against the team with the best record in the majors.

Aceves didn’t blow anyone away last night, and he didn’t show any particularly overwhelming pitches, but, as advertised, he mixed his pitches to a dizzying degree. Aceves throws a fastball, a cutter, a changeup, and a curve, but seems to have a variety of breaks and speeds on each one. His fastball topped out at 93 miles per hour and tended to sit around 91, but he threw some 92 mile per hour pitches that dove like sinkers and some 88 mile per hour pitches that almost looked like splitters, as well as cutters in that same range that stayed level but moved side to side. His changeup sat in the mid-80s, but seemed to have a curve-like hop to it. Later in the game, he threw back-to-back straight changeups at 81 and 78 mph to get the final out of the sixth. His curve tended to be in the high 70s and have a moderate break, but in pursuit of the final out of the fifth, he threw Sean Rodriguez a 76 mph back-door yakker that was a called strike (a generous strike zone from home plate ump Ed Rapuano also worked in his favor), then got Rodriguez to groundout on a less-severe 78 mph curve.

All totalled he gave up one run on five hits (four of them singles) and no walks in seven innings while striking out two and throwing just 89 pitches, 71 percent of them strikes. Save for the lack of strikeouts, that’s a near repeat of his line from his two relief appearances. Dig:

RP: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K
SP: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 2 K

As for the rest of the game, Damon added a solo homer off Justin Speier in the ninth and Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte slammed the door without incident. So the day after taking a 12-1 whooping, the Yankees dropped a 7-1 score on the Halos, who came no closer to clinching as the Rangers beat up on Felix Hernandez to beat the M’s 7-3.

In the other notable out-of-town game, the Rays, leading Boston by just a half game, took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the eighth at Fenway only to have Dan Wheeler give up a two-run homer to Jason Bay and hand Jonathan Papelbon a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth. Joe Maddon sent Dan Johnson, who had just been called up before the game, in to pinch hit, and Johnson greeted Papelbon with a game-tying homer over the Red Sox’s bullpen in right center. After a Willy Aybar lineout, rookie Fernando Perez, who had pinch-hit in the seventh, doubled to left and then Dioner Navarro doubled him home to make it 5-4. Troy Percival then walked the leadoff man in the bottom of the ninth, but struck out Jason Varitek, and got David Ortiz to fly out. With two outs, pinch-runner Jacoby Ellsbury stole second and went to third on Navarro’s throwing error only to have Coco Crisp pop out two pitches later to end the game and inflate the Rays’ lead to 1.5 games.

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The Angels can clinch the AL West tonight if they beat the Yankees and Mariners beat the Rangers, but from the Yankees’ perspective, the big story is Alfredo Aceves, who will make his first major league start. A 25-year-old Mexican League product, Aceves is in his seventh year of pro ball, but his first in the U.S. He started the year with high-A Tampa, where he posted a 2.11 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, and 4.63 K/BB in eight starts before being promoted to double-A Trenton, where he posted a 1.88 ERA, a 0.86 WHIP, and a 5.83 K/BB in seven starts.

Aceves was promoted again at the end of June, this time to triple-A Sranton, but a groin injury delayed his first triple-A start. After four abbreviated rehab appearances for Scranton, Aceves returned to his normal starting role, but with less success than he’d had at the lower levels. Aceves’ first four post-rehab starts saw him allow 16 runs in 20 2/3 innings, but he seemed to make the necessary adjustments from there, posting this combined line in his last two triple-A starts before being called up to the majors: 12 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 5 BB, 16 K. In two major league relief appearances thus far, Aceves has been similarly effective: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K.

Here’s a note from Chad Jennings following those final two starts for Scranton:

After his last start . . . Aceves was talking about using his body more to generate a little more velocity on his fastball. There was in fact a little more velocity last time and this time, but Aceves said he has looked at tape of his last start and no longer thinks he’s doing anything mechanically different. It just felt that way. The key for him is working faster, getting himself in a groove and not thinking about things too much. He picks the pitch he wants to throw, and he throws it. The game moves faster and he works a lot better.

Earlier in the year, less enthusiastic scouts dismissed Aceves as a strike-throwing junkballer who lacks an out-pitch and tops out as a number-five starter in the majors, but I was at his major league debut, and the Yankee Stadium scoreboard was registering his fastball at 94 to 95 mph. That’s likely an inflated number, but there was definitely some zip on his heater, and he complimented it well with his secondary pitches.

Here’s a scouting report from his double-A catcher P.J. Pilittere, courtesy of Thunder Thoughts’ Mike Ashmore:

He’s a guy that’s going to have no patterns when he pitches. He’s got four pitches that he commands real well, and he can throw them at any time in the count. That’s a definite talent to have. He kind of makes my job a little easier because he’s got a really good gameplan, and he really knows himself well. He does a good job on his own of trying to set up hitters, so it’s different and kind of refreshing, almost, to work with someone like that who’s thinking about the game along the same lines I am.

He’s got a really good cutter. What makes it so successful, is it’s not a lot different in speed off of his fastball. It’s pretty similar in miles per hour to his four-seam fastball. His cutter’s a good pitch, and when you have command of a pitch like that and you can throw it when you’re behind in the count, it can really bail you out of some stuff. Him being able to throw it on both sides of the plate is a definite plus for him.

Because he came on so fast and seemingly out of nowhere, it’s hard to say what the Yankees have in Aceves, but with a few good starts in these dog days of September, he could throw his hat in the ring for next year’s rotation.

The Yankees looked like they might have something going against Jon Garland early in last night’s game. Johnny Damon led off with a single up the middle. Derek Jeter followed with a walk. After Bobby Abreu ground into a fielder’s choice, Alex Rodriguez dropped an opposite-field flare in front of Vlad Guerrero to plate Damon. Jason Giambi got ahead of Garland 3-1, but the Angels starter came back to strike him out on a called strike down and in for the second out. Xavier Nady reached on a Baltimore chop to loaded the bases, but Garland got Hideki Matsui to ground out weakly to strand all three runners.

That was all the Yankees would get. After Robinson Cano led off the second with a single, Garland retired 12 men in a row, taking him through the fifth. Meanwhile, the Angels tied the game on a manufactured run in the bottom of the first when Chone Figgins singled, stole second, moved to third on a groundout, and scored on a sac fly. They then took the lead in the third when infield prospect Brandon Wood led off with a solo homer off Carl Pavano.

The Yankees finally got back on base against Garland in the sixth when Bobby Abreu led off with a four-pitch walk, but Alex Rodriguez erased Abreu with a 6-4-3 double play. Jason Giambi tried to reboot the inning with a ground-rule double, but Xavier Nady grounded out on the first pitch he saw to end the inning.

Then the roof fell in. Rookie second baseman Sean Rodriguez led off the bottom of the sixth with a solo homer off Pavano. A hit batsman, a single, and a groundout plated another run, ending Pavano’s night after 75 pitches. Dan Giese came on, fell behind Vlad Guerrero 3-0, got two strikes on foul balls, then gave up a monster two-run jack that ran the score to 6-1.

Torii Hunter followed that homer with a single then stole second and third around a walk to Juan Rivera. When Mike Napoli grounded to third, Hunter broke for home, but he was out by a good 20 feet. Hunter slowed his momentum as he approached Rodriguez, who tagged him out while standing in front of the batting circle, but Hunter still dipped his shoulder a bit and made solid contact with the Yankee catcher. As he proceeded behind Rodriguez, Hunter slipped on Napoli’s bat and bumped into Rodriguez’s back. Rodriguez, already a bit miffed that Hunter didn’t slow up even more than he did, answered back by elbowing the Angel center fielder out of his way as he walked the ball back toward the pitcher’s mound. Hunter took offense to Rodriguez’s elbow, ran up and shoved Rodriguez in the back igniting a bases-clearing scrum that saw little action, but got both players ejected.

Moments later back in the dugout, Yankee pitching coach Dave Eiland, who had been in the middle of the scrum, passed out and fell off the dugout bench. Eiland immediately regained consciousness and was able to walk back to the trainers room with the help of some of his players, but no one really knew why he had fainted. After Wood singled home two more runs to make it 8-1, Girardi went out to the mound to replace Giese with Edwar Ramirez and could be seen explaining to his players that Eiland just flopped over and that he had no idea why. Fortunately, after being examined by one of the Angels’ doctors, Eiland was given a clean bill of health.

Said Girardi after the game, “He’s been fighting a cold, and he worked out hard this morning, and I think last time he ate was 1:00, and he took some medicine during the game. He got lightheaded and dizzy and passed out, but he’s okay now.”

The Rodriguez/Hunter affair also had a happy ending, as the two apologized to one another and hugged it out after the game. Said Hunter of the incident, “The ghetto came out. I hate that.”

That just left the Yankees to wallow in what swelled to a 12-1 humiliation at the hands of the Angels, who could clinch the AL West tonight with a win and a Rangers’ loss. The Yankees are playing the role of jobber to the hilt.

A “jobber,” in pro wrestling terminology, is a no-name wrestler whose primary purpose is to give the popular heroes and villains someone to beat in between hyped-up grudge matches. At this point in the 2008 season, the Yankees are nothing but a jobber. Of course, the jobber can’t let on that he’s only in the ring so that the more famous wrestler has something to do, so they strut about and flex their muscles just the same as the other guy. Joe Girardi has become quite practiced at this, but much like Iron Mike Sharpe or Leaping Lanny Poffo, he’s not really fooling anybody.

In this week’s three-game series in Anaheim, the Yankees could be the jobber against whom the Angels clinch the AL West. Our own Bobby “The Brain” Timmermann believes that could make the Halos the first team to clinch a division against the Yankees since the Blue Jays did so in 1985 (though, unlike those Jays, the Angels won’t be eliminating the Yankees in the process). The Angels magic number entering this series is three. Any combination of Angels wins or Rangers loses totaling three will give the Angels their fourth AL West title in the last five years.

The Yankees could also be the jobber against whom Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez ties or even breaks Bobby Thigpen’s 18-year-old single-season saves record. Thigpen saved 57 games for the White Sox in 1990. Rodriguez has 55 saves so far this year. Heck, it’s entirely possible that Rodriguez could tie the record and clinch the division all at once against the Yankees. That’s pretty special. It’s a good thing MLB sent one of their most talented jobbers to take the fall.

The Yankees remain mildly interesting because of their starting pitchers. Carl Pavano will make his fourth consecutive start tonight facing Jon Garland. Hot prospect Alfredo Aceves will make his first major league start tomorrow against Jered Weaver, who was pushed back a day after accidentally cutting his hand in on the bench in the visitors dugout at Comerica Park last Tuesday. Wednesday will find Andy Pettitte, whose Yankee career could be winding down, back on the bump against Ervin Santana.

The Yankees’ primary interest, however, will likely be in scouting pending free agents Garland, first baseman Mark Teixeira, and perhaps even left fielder and former Yankee Juan Rivera. I don’t expect the Yankees to show much interest in Garland, though he could be useful as a league-average innings eater if Pettitte doesn’t return, or Rivera, who is yet another former Yankee farmhand whose reluctance to draw walks undermines his other talents, but they’ll certainly be in the mix on Teixeira, a Gold Glove defender and switch-hitter who has hit .360/.441/.610 since being acquired from Atlanta. Of course, given those credentials, his $12.5 million salary this year, and his agent, Scott Boras, the Yankees may have to take out a second mortgage on the new Stadium to meet Teixeira’s price.

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The Yankees called up Melky Cabrera before last night’s game, but according to Pete Abe’s article on Melky this morning, that had as much to do with the team’s concern over Bobby Abreu having jammed his wrist sliding into second base on Thursday night as with Cabrera’s performance over his three weeks with triple-A Scranton.

Melky’s traveled a winding path since hitting .280/.360/.391 as a 21-year-old rookie in 2006. He opened last season on the major league bench and struggled, but after taking over in center field on June 1, he hit .325/.375/.482 for three months before slumping in September for the second straight year. When Cabrera opened this season with a .299/.370/.494 April (including five home runs against a previous full-season high of eight), it looked like Melky was emerging as the star player the Yankees had hoped he’d become, but he hit just .226/.274/.293 from May 1 through his, by then, overdue demotion in mid-August.

According to Pete’s article, when Melky was sent down, he was charged with improving his play in three ways: “Be more selective at the plate, try to steal more bases and be more vocal in the outfield.” Two of those goals can be measured objectively, while the third pertains to Melky’s defense, which was the least of his problems at the time of his demotion. With that in mind, here’s a quick look at how Cabrera’s reeducation went over the past three weeks.

From May 1 through his demotion, Cabrera walked 18 times (four of them intentional) in 339 plate appearances, a rate of one unintentional walk every 24.2 trips. In 66 plate appearances with Scranton he walked eight times (none intentionally), a rate of one unintentional walk every 8.25 trips. It’s a small sample, to be sure, but I’m willing to believe that improvement can be maintained. As a rookie in 2006, Melky walked 56 times (three intentional) in 524 plate appearances, a rate of one walk every 9.9 trips. What’s hidden in those numbers, however, is the fact that four of those eight minor league walks game in a single game. Factor those four plate appearances out and he walked once every 15.5 plate appearances over the rest of his time at triple-A. That’s still a marked improvement, but not one that gets him back to that 2006 rate, which is really where he needs to be.

In the majors this year, Cabrera stole 9 bases and was caught twice (an 81 percent success rate) in roughly 129 times on base (not counting times he reached on errors or fielders choices). In the minors, he stole one base in four tries in roughly 27 times on base. Its clear that Melky was forcing things on the bases in Scranton. With the Yankees, he attempted a steal once every 11.7 times on base. In Scranton, he attempted a steal once every 6.8 times on base. Then there’s these comments from Chad Jennings pertaining to Scranton’s games on August 22 and 23:

Melky Cabrera got thrown out trying to steal third base in that decisive ninth inning. At the time, the tying run had already scored and Cabrera was in scoring position with one out. [Manager Dave] Miley said Cabrera was running on his own and was none to happy with his decision to go. . . . I understand that Melky Cabrera wants to prove to the Yankees that he’s willing to play hard — and you can’t deny he’s run out every ball and play good, hustle defense — but he was just caught stealing second. Last night he was caught stealing third in tie game in the bottom of the ninth. Sunday he was thrown out foolishly trying to stretch a single into a double. Cabrera needs to show he’s willing to hustle, but right now the greater concern might be whether or not he’s a bonehead.

With regard to the time he was thrown out stretching, Jennings reported that Scranton hitting coach Butch Wynegar said Melky told him he was just trying to show hustle. Wynegar responded by explaining the difference between hustle and bad baserunning. Melky’s a fast player, but he’s not a blazer, and he was stealing at a high percentage in the majors this year, which is the most important thing to consider when evaluating a base thief. Again, the minor league sample is extremely small, but the early returns suggest that the Yankees would be best off leaving well enough alone when it comes to Melky’s basestealing and focusing on smart baserunning instead.

Overall, Cabrera hit .333/409/.368 in Scranton, which isn’t a far cry from what his rival Brett Gardner did down there this year (.296/.414/.422). Going back to Jennings conversation with Wynegar, Melky showed up two days before he was required to report to Scranton and, if nothing else, is aware of the fact that he needs to prove himself to the organization. Melky told Pete Abe, “I tried to have a good attitude. I want to do the work,” and Pete reports that Joe Girardi’s heard good things about Melky’s work ethic with Scranton.

Right now, I expect Melky to start the 2009 season back in Scranton and have to earn his way back up. He’ll still be just 24 next season (he’s almost exactly a year younger than Gardner) so there’s plenty of room for hope and for him to still come away with a long, productive major league career, and the demotion appears to have served as a sufficient wake-up call. The only question now is if the Yankees can focus his renewed determination into the necessary skill set for him to succeed as a major league starter.

It was nice to see the Yankees take two of three from the division leading Rays. It was nice to see them score 33 runs in their last four games. Unfortunately, neither really means much. They Rays still have a double-digit lead on Bombers, and the Red Sox are still 7.5 games ahead of them in the Wild Card chase, now with just 22 games left in the regular season.

Tonight, after a 3,000-mile flight, the Yanks take on the only team in the league that has been mathematically eliminated, the 54-85 Seattle Mariners. The M’s are back in spring training mode, using their meaningless September to audition some of their minor leaguers and try some others out in new roles. The big story tonight is 23-year-old fireballer Brandon Morrow, who will make his first major league start after having made 100 relief appearances for the M’s over the last two seasons. Morrow posted a 1.47 ERA in relief this year, has struck out 10.17 men per nine innings in his big league career, and supposedly has a six-pitch repertoire.

If that sounds like a recipe for a frustrating night of Yankee baseball, focus on the fact that the Yankees are also auditioning a starter tonight. Andy Pettitte is pitching on a one-year deal, so the Yankees will likely be watching his last few starts for signs that it would be worth offering him another one-year deal for 2009. Last year, Pettitte’s strong second half helped propel the Yankees into the playoffs, but this year, the veteran lefty has posted a 5.54 ERA since the All-Star break, a 7.04 ERA in three season starts against the Red Sox, and his ERA+ on the season is below league average for the first time in his 14-year career. In his last two starts, Pettitte has been roughed up for 12 runs in 11 innings.

Pettitte’s value this season has been largely tied up in his ability to take the ball every five days and pitch deep into games. He and Mike Mussina are the only Yankees not to have missed a start this season, and the 36-year-old Pettitte is averaging more innings per start (just less than 6 1/3 innings per turn) than the 39-year-old Mussina. Given that, the solution to the Pettitte question ultimately has more to do with how the rest of the 2009 rotation shapes up than how Pettitte himself performs this September. If the Yankees can fill up the five rotation spots without him, they should probably do so, but if they’re going to need an innings-eater to take one spot, bringing back fan favorite Pettitte on a discounted one-year deal would be the smartest and safest option.

The other options for next year’s rotation include Chien-Ming Wang (who will be returning from the foot injury that ended his season in June), roughly 150 innings of Joba Chamberlain (minus any that might be used in another workload-limiting stint in the bullpen), the 40-year-old Mussina (who looks likely to re-sign), a big-ticket free agent the team might not land, and a group of youngsters and minor league vets led by Phil Hughes and Alfredo Aceves. Given that, having Pettitte on hand to eat up 200 innings would likely be worth the one-year investment, particularly as a backup plan to that big-ticket free agent, but if Andy’s unable to pull out of his current slump, it will force the Yankees to think much harder about whether or not they really want him occupying a rotation spot that a prospect could emerge to fill and Darrell Rasner or his like could fill in the interim.

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The Yankees jumped out to an early lead on Edwin Jackson and the Rays last night. After four innings, the score stood at 6-3 Yankees, but the next four frames went by without another tally. With two outs in the top of the ninth, Bobby Abreu worked Troy Percival for a 12-pitch walk, fouling of six full-count offerings before taking ball four. Abreu then stole second on Percival’s 0-2 pitch to Alex Rodriguez, which was a ball. Rodriguez fouled off the 1-2 pitch, took ball two, then crushed a pitch down the left-field line that sailed over the foul pole.

The ball was ruled a home run, but Rays catcher Dioner Navarro animatedly disagreed, and his manager, Joe Maddon, convinced the umpires to use instant replay for the first time in major league history. Three of the four umpires, including crew chief Charlie Reliford retreated through the visitor’s dugout to the replay area and emerged two minutes and 15 seconds later to uphold their call. Reliford emerged first from the dugout and twirled his left index finger over his head to affirm third-base umpire Brian Runge’s original call on the field.

Watching the replays shown on YES, the ball appeared to sail over the left-field foul pole, then hook foul behind hit, clanging off a catwalk near the back wall of the stadium. Still, there remained some confusion due to the fact that there was a yellow foul pole extension attached to that catwalk, despite the fact that it was set significantly back beyond the outfield wall. The ball clearly hit the catwalk to the left (foul) of that yellow indicator, but only after sailing over the actual foul pole when leaving the field of play, which is exactly how all four umpires saw it both live and in the replays.

Said Reliford after the game, “We all believed it was a home run, but since the technology is in place we made the decision to use the technology and go look at the replays. . . . If there had been no argument, obviously we wouldn’t have because all four of us believed the call was correct on the field. Because [Maddon] disputed it, and it was very close, and now the technology is in place, we used it.”

Rodriguez’s double-checked homer gave the Yankees an 8-3 lead, bounced Percival from the game, and pushed Rodriguez past Mike Schmidt on the career home runs list. The Rays picked up run in the bottom of the inning off Jose Veras to set the final score at 8-4 Yanks.

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Joe Girardi got some heat for taking Carl Pavano out of his last start after just 72 pitches despite the fact that Pavano had allowed just one run on three hits through six innings. I had no problem with it. The Yankees had a slim one-run lead, the one run Pavano gave up came in the sixth, he’d only struck out one batter, and the Blue Jays had been hitting the ball hard but right at the Yankee fielders all night. The Yankees won the game 2-1, but that didn’t seem to take much heat off the Yankee manager.

Pavano was actually better in his first start, when he struck out five and got nine ground balls (as opposed to the three he got against the Jays). In his two starts, Pavano has walked just two and allowed no home runs. It’s tempting to argue that letting Pavano audition for a contract for 2009 is against the Yankees’ best interests right now, but he’s actually been the Yankees second-best starter the last two times through the rotation.

Pavano takes a clean 2-0 record and a fine 3.27 ERA into tonight’s game against the Rays. He’ll be opposed by Edwin Jackson, who is one of the unsung heroes of the first-place Rays. A failed Dodger prospect acquired for relievers Danys Baez and Lance Carter prior to the 2006 season, Jackson entered this season with a 5.64 career ERA and a 5.02 career BB/9. This season, he’s boasting a 3.81 ERA and an improved 3.98 BB/9. Over his last seven starts, he’s 6-1 with a 2.59 ERA; over his last 12 starts, he’s 7-2 with a 3.07 ERA. In four starts against the Yankees this year, he has a 2.59 ERA, a 3.33 BB/9, and has allowed just one home run (to Hideki Matsui), though the Rays are just 2-2 in those games. One of those loses was by a score of 2-1 in a game started by Jackson and Sidney Ponson. Tonight’s game could prove to be a similarly unlikely pitchers duel.

Xavier Nady hit a ball to the moon in the fourth inning of last night’s game. Well, it would have gone to the moon, but the catwalk suspended from the Tropicana Dome roof got in the way. That bomb gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Bombers added two in the fifth, one in the sixth, and capped it off with Alex Rodriguez’s 30th homer of the year leading off the eighth. Meanwhile, Mike Mussina scattered ten hits, allowing just two runs over six-plus innings, struck out ten and picked up his 17th win of the season, leaving him with five chances to get the three more wins he needs to set a career-high in that category.

Joba Chamberlain and Dan Giese both made strong returns from shoulder tendonitis. Chamberlain needed one pitch to kill a Rays rally in the seventh and working around a walk and a single for a scoreless eighth. Giese worked a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out Carlos Peña to seal the 7-2 Yankee win. Chamberlian’s velocity was a bit down, but he said after the game that his mechanics were a bit out of whack from the time off and that he expected everything to fall into place in his subsequent outings. Most importantly, his shoulder felt just fine.

B.J. Upton made the play of the game on a drive by Rodriguez in the top of the second. Running full speed toward the wall in center, Upton snow-coned Rodriguez’s line drive in the webbing of his glove before taking one step up the wall to slow his momentum. In the bottom of the inning, Eric Hinske made the boner of the game (in a game that had its share) when he raced around the bases for a triple while watching Nady and Johnny Damon chase after the ball in left center. Hinske slid safely into third base head first. Only then did he discover that Willy Aybar, who had singled before him, had been held up at third. Forced to vacate the base, Aybar was throw out easily at home. Hinske then failed to score on a subsequent groundout by Jason Bartlett, leaving the game scoreless entering the third inning.

Rodriguez’s homer tied him with Mike Schmidt for 12th in major league history. Barring injury, he’ll be chasing 600 this time next year.

Congratulations to the Rays on their first winning season, playoff berth, and division championship: You’ve come a long way, baby.

The Yankees are 7-5 against the Rays this year, which is a solid showing against a team that leads them by 12 games in the standings. Sadly, it’s done them little good. The Yankees could sweep their remaining six games against Tampa Bay, match their record against third-part opponents, and still finish six games out in the AL East.

We’re in an odd stage of the Yankees’ season. Best I can tell, just about all of the fanbase and most of the media have come to grips with the reality that the Yankees will miss the postseason for the first time since 1993, but because they’re still “just” seven games out of the Wild Card with 26 left to play, the team itself, as well at its broadcasters, need to at least pretend they’re still in it. It’s true that it ain’t over ’til it’s over, but the Yankees have to gain one game on the Red Sox over the course of each remaining series to arrive in Boston on September 26 in position to pass Boston with a series win, and even that doesn’t account for the second-place team in the AL Central, whom the Yankees also trail in the Wild Card race. It’s just not going to happen.

What’s left now is saying farewell to Yankee Stadium, preparing for next year–be it by giving Alfredo Aceves a start or two in place of Pavano or Ponson, letting Brett Gardner start in center field, or hoping Hideki Matsui gets on a hot streak to increase his trade value–and Mike Mussina’s pursuit of 20 wins, which continues tonight in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Mussina enters tonight’s game with 16 wins and will have five starts left afterwards (against the Mariners, Rays, White Sox, Orioles, Blue Jays, and Red Sox). The Yankees have won Mussina’s last six starts, but Moose earned the win in just three of them due to late-breaking run support. Still, Mussina’s been excellent over that stretch, posting 2.93 ERA and averaging 6 2/3 innings. In fact, over his last 17 starts, Mussina has a 2.92 ERA and has averaged nearly 6 2/3 innings per start. Only once over that stretch has he failed to complete six innings and only once has he allowed more than four runs (both coming in the same game against the Orioles). Still, he has just 9 wins in those 17 starts, due in part to losing scores such as 4-2 (twice), 3-2, and 2-1. That makes four wins in six starts a tall order, and four wins in five starts should he lose tonight extremely unlikely.

Moose’s mount opponent tonight is Matt Garza, who has displayed a Verlander-like inconsistency. Over his last nine starts, Garza has held the opposition scoreless four times, including two shutouts. In the other five games, he has allowed 24 runs in 27 1/3 innings. The trend: three of those four scoreless outings came against Toronto. The exception: one of the shutouts was a two-hit, nine-K performance against the Rangers in Arlington. Garza has faced the Yankees once this year, shutting them out over seven innings back on May 12. In his next start, he gave up seven runs in 4 1/3 innings. Such is Garza.

No Excuses

Both Garza and ace Scott Kazmir (who faces Darrell Rasner on Thursday) spent time on the DL early in the season. Carl Crawford and rookie sensation Evan Longoria are on the DL now, with Crawford likely out for the year. Rocco Baldelli missed most of the season, though he’s recently returned as Cliff Floyd’s platoon partner at DH. Floyd also spent time on the DL earlier in the season, as did Longoria’s predecessor/replacement Willy Aybar, All-Star catcher Dioner Navarro, infielder Ben Zobrist (who is currently platooning with Eric Hinske in left field), last year’s breakout star Carlos Peña, shortstop Jason Bartlett, and a handful of relievers, among them closer Troy Percival, who is due to return from his third DL stint tonight, and last year’s closer Al Reyes, who pitched himself off the team after returning from his DL stint. Beyond that, Crawford was below average when healthy, Bartlett’s been a huge disappointment on both sides of the ball, and B.J. Upton is slugging a mere .397 with just 8 homers after slugging .508 with 24 jacks in fewer plate appearances last year.

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Back on May 11, the conclusion of the Yankees’ lone series in Detroit this season got rained out, so the Yanks are stopping off in the Motor City for a Labor Day matinée on their way down to face the first-place Rays. The Yanks are 1-4 against the Tigers thus far this season, the one win coming in Detroit in the last game the two teams played. That was Darrell Rasner’s second start of the year, in case you weren’t sure just how long ago that was.

Back then, the Tigers were a disappointing team that was hitting a bunch, but not enough to overcome the awful performance of their starting pitchers. Though the Tiger hitting has cooled off a bit and their pitching has improved, the team is still a disappointment, lingering below .500 in a season in which they were expected to crush their division.

Justin Verlander starts for the Bengals this afternoon. He’s been wildly inconsistent. In eight second-half starts, he’s allowed one run or fewer three times and five runs or more the other five with nothing in between. He’ll face Sidney Ponson, who has allowed 11 runs in his last 6 2/3 innings over two starts. Neither pitcher has faced the opposing team this season.

Today is September 1, which means major league teams are allowed to expand their rosters beyond 25 men. With their top two minor league affiliates in the postseason (a good sign for the future of the major league club), the Yankees have started slowly by bringing back Chad Moeller and calling up lefty reliever Phil Coke. That’s a pretty wild turnaround for Coke. Barely more than a month ago he was a double-A starter who thought he had been traded to the Pirates in the Xavier Nady deal. Now he’s a major league relief pitcher with the Yankees. Not bad.

Coke, who is 26, combines with 25-year-old Alfredo Aceves to give the Yankees a pair of potential long-men in the pen down the stretch, though Aceves’ performance yesterday suggests he could emerge as a high-leverage guy with a quickness. Coke posted a 2.51 ERA in 20 starts and three relief outings for double-A Trenton this year, then moved up to triple-A and spent most of his time there pitching out of the pen with superior peripherals (22 K, 5 BB, 0 HR in 17 1/3 IP), but worse results (4.67 ERA). On closer inspection, that ERA is inflated by his adjustment to his new level and his new role, as his ERA over his last ten outings was 2.70.

Word is the bullpen will receive further reinforcement tomorrow when Joba Chamberlain is activated, though if Ponson has a third-straight bad outing today, Joba, Aceves, or even Coke could wind up taking Sir Sidney’s next turn in the rotation.

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The Yankees took a 6-2 lead into the seventh inning yesterday afternoon. Robinson Cano and Ivan Rodriguez had delivered consecutive solo home runs in the fourth to break a 2-2 tie, and Hideki Matsui had delivered a two-run double with the bases loaded in the fifth, all four runs coming with two outs in their respective innings. Darrell Rasner was cruising, having thrown just 67 pitches through six innings, 52 of them strikes.

Adam Lind singled on Rasner’s first pitch of the seventh. Lyle Overbay then hit what looked like an easy double play ball to second base, but rather than side-arm the ball to Derek Jeter for the pivot, Robinson Cano tried a back-handed flip from a bit too far away. The ball dove and skipped past Jeter and both runners were safe. Jose Bautista, who was 0-for-August entering that inning, capitalized by singling Lind home. Rasner then walked Gregg Zaun to load the bases and got the hook in favor of Brian Bruney, a pitcher more capable of a much-needed strikeout. Bruney delivered exactly that, striking out rookie Travis Snider, but Joe Inglett followed with a single that plated Overbay and Bautista to bring the Jays within one run. After Brandon League struck out the heart of the Yankee order in the seventh, the Jays got back to work against Bruney, Damaso Marte, and Edwar Ramirez in the eighth, tying the game on singles by Vernon Wells (off Bruney) Adam Lind (off Marte), and Bautista (off Ramirez), and taking the lead when Gregg Zaun just barely beat out a double-play relay on a dribbler to the left side on which Alex Rodriguez made a nice play.

Facing Scott Downs in the eighth, the Yankees put a runner in scoring position with two outs on an Ivan Rodriguez infield single and a stolen base by pinch-runner Brett Gardner, but Johnny Damon grounded out to strand Gardner. Facing B.J. Ryan in the ninth, the Yankees mounted a bigger threat when Derek Jeter led off with a single and Bobby Abreu followed with a walk to bring Alex Rodriguez to the plate. Rodriguez, who had driven in the first run of the game in the first, worked the count full, then ripped the payoff pitch hard down the third base line, but that man Bautista made a slick play on the ball, raced to third to force out Jeter, and fired across the diamond to get Rodriguez by inches (the total distance by which Zaun was safe and Rodriguez was out couldn’t have added up to more than a foot). With that double play, the rally was reduced to Abreu on second with two outs and Cody Ransom, who had come in as a defensive replacement for Giambi in the eighth with the Yankees still leading by a run, at the plate. Ransom swung at the first pitch he saw and flew out to left to end the game and hand the Yankees a painful 7-6 loss.

Today they face Roy Halladay.

Oy.

With Roy Halladay pitching tomorrow, one suspects it’s today’s game, which pits Darrell Rasner against John Parrish, that will decide which team wins this series.

Since he was briefly removed from the rotation, Rasner has posted a 4.19 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP in four appearances (three starts). The best of those was his 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball against the Blue Jays in Toronto two starts ago. The worst was his last, when he failed to get out of the fourth inning against the Orioles.

Parrish, who spent most of his major league career as a lefty reliever for the Orioles, was recently recalled from triple-A Syracuse. He’s making his fifth major league start of the season and his first in more than a month. He posted a 4.71 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP in the first four. His only other start against the Yankees was his major league debut in July 2000.

Joe Girardi’s lineup makes no concessions to the opposing lefty.

For those who missed it, the Yankees swapped David Robertson out for Alfredo Aceves before Thursday’s game. The 25-year-old Aceves, who pitched well in his final two starts for Scranton (12 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 16 K) and posted a 2.62 ERA in 140 2/3 innings across three minor league levels in this his first professional season, will work out of the bullpen. He’s also the first Yankee to wear number 91 during the regular season.

Or maybe it’s just that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again. Either way, the Yankees finally beat A.J. Burnett last night, and did it largely thanks to six strong innings from Carl Pavano, who has now won both of his starts since returning from his long injury-induced exile, thereby doubling his win total from the previous 38 months.

Pavano wasn’t great. Typically a slight groundball pitcher, he got 13 of his 18 outs in the air, many of them hard hit balls either right at infielders or to the deepest parts of the outfield. Still, he gave up just three hits in those six innings, walked just one, and held the Blue Jays to one sixth-inning run when Jays’ rookie Travis Snider bounced a ground-rule double over the fence in center for his first major league hit, and Marco Scutaro singled him home.

Pavano needed just 72 pitches to get through those first six innings, but Joe Girardi decided to count his blessings at that point as the Yankees held a slim 2-1 lead.

The Yankees got their runs in a wacky fourth inning. Johnny Damon led off by hitting a ball off the top of the right field wall, directly on the white stripe of the foul line. In the first Yankee game eligible for replay, first base umpire Jeff Nelson got the call right without argument and Damon pulled up with a 314-foot single. Two pitches later, Damon stole second. Catcher Rod Barajas’s throw beat Damon, as did second baseman Joe Inglett’s tag, but Inglett caught the ball high in the webbing of his glove and the force od Damon’s slide knocked it loose as he slid by. Burnett struck out Derek Jeter on three more pitches, one of Burnett’s eight strikeouts in his eight-inning complete-game loss, but Bobby Abreu served a 3-1 pitch into the gap in left-center for a double that plated Damon with the game’s first run. When Alex Rodriguez chopped Burnett’s next pitch in between third base and shortstop, Abreu, somewhat misguidedly, took off for third base, perhaps thinking that the ball would get through. Shortstop Scutaro made an awkward attempt to backhand the ball, bobbled it, then threw late to third base as Abreu made an even more awkward slide into the bag, deciding at the last second to slide and almost stopping his momentum before dropping into a bent-knee split and touching the bag with his back foot. It wasn’t pretty, but it put runners on the corners with out out. Jason Giambi then flared the next pitch foul down the left field line where left fielder Snider almost overran it and had to leap backwards to make the catch, allowing Abreu to tag and score what proved to be the winning run.

Buoyed by that extra run, Girardi had Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte split the seventh inning, then brought out Jose Veras for the eighth. Veras gave up a leadoff double to Barajas, then walked Scott Rolen on five pitches, so Girardi brought in Edwar Ramirez to face the lefty Snider, whom Ramirez struck out. Going for the throat, Girardi then called on Mariano Rivera, who got a groundball and a strikeout to strand both runners, then worked around a one-out single by Vernon Wells to nail down the win in the ninth.

The 2-1 win was particularly uplifting for the monkeys it brushed of the team’s back (specifically Burnett and Pavano), and because it lasted a mere two hours and 36 minutes. The Red Sox, Twins, and Rays all won as well, so it did little to revive the Yankees moribund postseason hopes, but small victories like this are what they have left to offer this season, and the last two games have done a lot to remind the spoiled Yankee fanbase that there’s joy to be had in small victories, too.

The Yankees are 1-6 in games started by A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay this season. Burnett (3-0, 1.61 ERA vs. NYY this season) starts again tonight against former rotation-mate Carl Pavano. Halladay (3-1, 2.48 ERA vs. NYY this season) starts Sunday against Andy Pettitte. That is a major reason why the Yankees’ failure to sweep the Red Sox this week all but officially eliminated them from the playoff hunt.

No Excuses

The Jays lost Dustin McGowan for the season in early July, Shaun Marcum hit the DL a few weeks later and is currently back in the minors trying to straighten himself out. Second baseman Aaron Hill suffered a season-ending concussion on May 30. Vernon Wells broke his wrist in May and strained his hamstring in July, missing a month with each injury. Scott Rolen broke a finger at the end of spring training, which cost him most of April, and he just got back from a second stint on the DL earlier this week. B.J. Ryan made a quick and successful return from Tommy John surgery, but within weeks of his return, last year’s closer, Jeremy Accardo, was lost for the season. Set-up man Casey Janssen has missed the entire season. Several les- significant relievers have also missed less-significant time due to injury. Shortstops David Eckstein and John McDonald landed on the DL on the same day in early May, and Gregg Zaunn, Shannon Stewart, and now Brad Wilkerson have also spent time on the DL. Rolen has been barely league average when healthy, and Stewart and Matt Stairs slumped their way off the team entirely.

Despite all of that, the Blue Jays could pull even with the Yankees by sweeping this weekend’s series, which given the fact that both Burnett and Halladay are due to pitch, isn’t as unlikely as it might sound. Meanwhile, the Jays’ Pythagorean record is already four games better than the Yankees’.

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Yesterday’s game was the last the Red Sox will ever play at the first Yankee Stadium. It was also the last I’ll ever see from the seating bowl of the old ballpark. I have two games remaining in the bleachers this season, including the Stadium’s final game against the Orioles on September 21, but that final game will be overrun with hype, anxiety, and mixed emotions. In providing two other, more specific “last”s, yesterday’s game provided me with a sense of personal closure regarding the old park.

Twenty years ago almost exactly, I saw my first game at Yankee Stadium from a seat in the front row of the upper deck in right field. The Yankees won that night on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth by Claudell Washington. Yesterday afternoon, I was a few rows higher behind home plate and the Yankees won on a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth by Jason Giambi. I’ll save my reminiscences of the games in between for another time, but I wanted to share a few of the photographs I took of yesterday’s game.

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I was at the game today (Emma will be along later with the recap), and the Yankees were giving away DVDs of a “Virtual Tour” of the new Yankee Stadium. I haven’t watched the thing yet, but opening up the front flap I saw this:

If nothing strikes you as odd about that, look a little closer:

I’m speculating wildly here, but that image in the background looks a lot like a mock-up designed for companies interested in acquiring naming rights to the new Stadium. I’ve not seen any other conceptual image of the new Stadium with any letters to the right of the center field video screen, so I’m guessing whomever layed out this DVD package is in a boat load of trouble right now.

Update: I watched the DVD and, again, there is no lettering to the right of the video screen in any image shown.

The Yankees needed to sweep their current series against the Red Sox, so their having lost the first game by the convincing score of 7-3 takes a lot of the excitement out of the remaining two games. Heading into last night’s game, the Yankees were counting on Andy Pettitte to come through in what may prove to have been the Yankees’ biggest game of the year. He didn’t:

“It’s extremely frustrating. I hate it. I didn’t get it done. I didn’t get it done tonight. I wish I could say I felt terrible, but I felt pretty decent. I got out of synch in the first inning and walked a couple of guys, but after that I felt that I was able to throw my all pitches pretty much where I wanted to. I couldn’t get anybody out, though.”

Johnny Damon staked Pettitte to an early 1-0 lead when he led off the bottom of the first by wrapping a solo homer around the foul pole in right field. Pettitte, who worked around those two two-out walks in the first, got two quick outs in the top of the second, but then the last two men in the Boston order reached on slow rollers up the third base line and Jacoby Ellsbury plated one of them with a single to left to tie the game.

The Yankees answered right back with a run in the bottom of the inning on two-out singles by Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano, and Jose Molina, but Pettitte gave that run and one more back in the top of the third on doubles by David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis and a single by Jason Bay. It was still 3-2 Sox in the top of the fifth when Jason Bay singled back up the middle off Pettitte to spark a two-out rally.

“I had two outs and was hoping to have a 1-2-3 inning and then the inning turned into a horrible inning. Just frustrating. I felt like it was a pretty good pitch on the outside corner to [Bay]. I think he got into a count [2-2] where I had to throw a little bit more over the plate than I wanted to out there. I thought I threw a good back-door curveball to the next kid [Jed Lowrie] and he hit it, ground ball [single] in between second and third, and then, again, I thought I threw a good changeup in a good count [1-2] to [Jeff] Bailey, and he just rolled it right down the line on the bag. It’s frustrating. I gave up those three runs early. I broke out my changeup in the fourth, and I was throwing it for strikes when I wanted to. It was a game where I thought that as soon as I started throwing that for strikes the way I was, the way I was locating my fastball, it was a game I could carry into the seventh inning or so and hold them to three right there, but obviously it didn’t work out like that. I just, I didn’t get the job done.”

In between Lowrie’s single and Bailey’s infield hit, Coco Crisp singled Bay home to make it 4-3. Bailey’s hit would have been a two-run double, but it ricocheted off the third base bag to Alex Rodriguez, who quickly fired it across the diamond to Jason Giambi, but Bailey beat the throw and Crisp, who had stolen second, never hesitated and scored anyway to make it a two-run infield hit aided by Giambi mistakenly thinking Bailey had been ruled out and thus not throwing home.

That sequence of events made it 6-2 Sox and bounced Pettitte with two out in the fifth. Damon added a second solo homer off Wakefield in the bottom of the inning, but Brian Bruney gave that run back in the top of the sixth on a Jason Bay sac fly after walkking the bases loaded.

From there things got ugly, though the 7-3 score would remain unchanged. The Yankees loaded the bases with one out in the seventh against Manny Delcarmen, bringing Alex Rodriguez to the plate as the tying run against Justin Masterson. Rodriguez took a fastball down the middle at the knees, then took and ill-advised hack at a slider down and in and ground into an inning-ending double play, bringing out the boos for the first time this season.

The Yankees got the first two men on in the eighth against Masterson, but Hideki Okajima came on for an eight-pitch battle with Matsui that ended in curveball that dove across the zone for called strike three. Okajima then got Cano to pop out on a full-count, and Jonathan Papelbon came on to retire Ivan Rodriguez on one pitch. An error by Lowrie in the bottom of the ninth simply allowed Rodriguez to come to the plate to make the last out with a runner on base.

On the night, Rodriguez went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts, two double plays, and an error in the field, and left seven runners on base. He fell on his sword after the game:

“It was an awful night. For me personally, it was a long night, pretty much screwed it up anyway you can screw it up. . . . My team expects me to get big hits and make plays, and tonight I didn’t do that. Johnny, Jeet, and Bobby worked great at-bats all night [combined 6 for 11 with two walks] and I just killed the rally . . . . No one’s more frustrated than me. Everyone’s desperate for wins. A night like tonight, I was booing myself. . . . We’ve always said you want to get a good pitch to hit and put an A swing. On that double play [in the seventh], it wasn’t a good pitch to hit, and it wasn’t an A swing. . . . Today we sucked. I sucked. I played terrible, and they hit balls all over the place down at the corner at third base, and I left men all over the field. . . . tonight you can put it on me.”

I’d actually put it on Pettitte, if I had to point a finger, but Rodriguez was his accomplice. With that in mind, I found this post-game comment from Johnny Damon interesting:

“[Alex is] out there busting his butt. He still works harder than all of us in here. He had that off night and that’s unfortunate. This was a night when we needed to get something and unfortunately, we couldn’t get anything from him. He expects to be the greatest player ever, and unfortunately on a day-by-day basis that doesn’t really translate at times. It’s tough to be the best player on the field every single day. He expects to be, and unfortunately tonight he wasn’t.”

The Yankees weren’t a playoff team last night, either.