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Offense: The Yankees scored 6.25 runs per game against a Tigers team that had been allowing 6.70 runs per game over their previous 27 games. I’m going to call that disappointing, especially as they got a few lucky hops along the way.

Studs:

Bobby Abreu 8 for 16, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 5 R, 2 BB, 2 SB
Andy Phillips, 6 for 11, 2B, 4 RBI, R, BB
Jason Giambi 4 for 13, 2B, 2 HR, 2 RBI, 2 R, 5 K
Jorge Posada, 5 for 16, HR, 2 RBI, 3 R, 2 BB
Johnny Damon 4 for 11, HR, RBI, 2 R, 2 BB
Wilson Betemit 2 for 6, 2B, 4 RBI, 3 K

Duds:

Derek Jeter 3 for 12, 3 R, BB, 2 K, GIDP
Melky Cabrera 3 for 12, BB, 3 K, CS

Shelley Duncan struck out in his only at-bat of the series. Jose Molina did not appear.

Rotation: A solid showing with three quality starts followed Mike Mussina’s stinker (5 IP, 7 R) in the opener. Andy Pettitte was again the best, holding the Tigers to one run on five hits and a walk over eight while striking out five. Roger Clemens and Chein-Ming Wang combined to strike out 14 Tigers in 12 innings, though they also allowed 19 hits. Clemens allowed two runs and walked no one. Wang allowed three, walked two, and also balked and bounced to wild pitches.

Bullpen: Farming out Jeff Karstens and Jim Brower and bringing back Edwar Ramirez has done wonders for a bullpen that had already benefited from replacing Scott Proctor with Joba Chamberlain. Sean Henn (who replaced Karstens) was the only reliever who didn’t appear in this series and together the remaining six men allowed just one run and only five baserunners in 11 innings while striking out 14.

The Good:

Edwar Ramirez struck out three in two perfect innings in the finale. Joba Chamberlain faced the meat of the Tiger order twice and allowed just a single while striking out three in two scoreless innings. Kyle Farnsworth allowed just a walk while striking out two in two scoreless innings. Luis Vizcaino did the same replacing the walk with a single. Mariano Rivera pitched around a walk to earn the save in Saturday’s game, striking out one.

The Bad:

Ron Villone struck out three men in his two innings in the opener, but also allowed a solo homer to Ivan Rodriguez. Then again, Rodriguez was Villone’s only baserunner in those two innings.

Conclusion: If Joe Torre starts trusting Edwar Ramirez late in close games like he did in the finale, something he already does with Chamberlain, and Farnsworth can continue to succeed in the earlier innings (his two innings in this series came in the sixth on Thursday and seventh on Saturday), Vizcaino won’t be overworked and can slot in either the middle or late innings as needed, and Mariano Rivera will get the rest down the stretch that he’s seemed to need in recent years. That means that, save perhaps for swapping Villone out for Chris Britton, the bullpen is as fixed as the bench, which puts the onus now on the starting pitchers to perform up to their abilities and reputations. If that happens, this team could be unstoppable.

Prior to Friday’s game I said that, despite the Yankees’ ugly loss in the opening game of their series against the Tigers, I had feeling that they’d win the remaining three, just as they had done against the lowly Devil Rays four weeks earlier. It says something about a team when you can make a statement like that about a series against a playoff contender and have the team fulfill that expectation, which is exactly what the Yankees did, concluding their series win with a 9-3 victory in yesterday’s finale.

Chien-Ming Wang wasn’t particularly sharp again yesterday, but he battled through to turn in a bare minimum quality start (6 IP, 3 R). Wang didn’t get his second ground ball out until the fourth inning, but did record six strikeouts, four of them coming in those first three innings. I can only assume that Wang was working his slider more in the early innings then shifted back to the sinker as his final three innings saw him record just two more strikeouts, but six of his seven ground-ball outs. Unfortunately, they also saw him cough up his three runs.

The Tigers cut the Yankees’ early 2-0 lead in half with a run in the fourth, then took the lead on Wang in the fifth. Wang, who stranded five men through the first four innings including men at second and third in the fourth, really struggled with men on base in the fifth. Curtis Granderson led off the inning with a single then moved to second on a groundout. Granderson’s dancing off second resulted in a pickoff throw that bounced into centerfield. Granderson didn’t advance on that, but he took off on the next pitch, causing Wang to balk giving Granderson third. Wang then walked Gary Sheffield and gave up an RBI single to Magglio Ordoñez that moved Sheffield to second. Sheffield and Ordoñez then pulled a double steal on Wang and three pitches later, Wang bounced a pitch past Posada to allow Sheffield to score the go-ahead run. Wang rallied to strike out Carlos Guillen, and Ryan Raburn did the Yankees a huge favor by bunting with two outs and a man on third. I can only assume he was trying to catch the Yankee defense by surprise, but his bunt went right back to Wang, who threw to first to end the rally.

The Yankees tied things up right away in the bottom of the fifth against Jeremy Bonderman. Bobby Abreu led off with a single back through the box. Alex Rodriguez shot a grounder right through Brandon Inge’s legs for a two-base error that moved Abreu to third, and Hideki Matsui plated Abreu with a sac fly to left. Wang struggled through the sixth, throwing another wild pitch with two runners on, but escaped with out further damage, and Johnny Damon gave the Yankees the lead in the bottom of the inning with a towering upper deck home run that just stayed fair down the right field line.

Then the fun started.

With a one-run lead and the heart of the Tiger order due up in the top of the seventh, Joe Torre called on Joba Chamberlain, who received a hero’s welcome from the packed Stadium, then earned it. Chamberlain retired Gary Sheffield, Magglio Ordoñez, and Carlos Guillen on nine pitches, eight of them strikes, striking out Ordoñez and Guillen on seven pitches with Ordoñez going down on three fastballs, the slowest being clocked at 98 miles per hour. Perhaps most impressively, Chamberlain had faced the same three hitters in the ninth inning on Friday night and did better against them yesterday.

Buoyed by Chamberlain, the Yankees added a pair of insurance runs against Zach Minor in the seventh and three more against Aquilino Lopez in the eighth. One of the fun subplots of the these late innings was the fact that the Tigers twice intentionally walked Robinson Cano to pitch to Wilson Betemit, who started at shortstop in place of the generally banged up Derek Jeter. Betemit had struck out in his first two at-bats against Bonderman. In the fifth, with two out and Rodriguez at second, Bonderman intentionally walked Cano to pitch to Betemit, who hit a sharp sinking liner to right field but right to Ordoñez for the third out. In the same scenario in the seventh (two out, Rodriguez at second), Miner also intentionally walked Cano to pitch to Betemit, who this time hit an RBI single back up the middle, setting up another RBI single by Andy Phillips. In the eighth, Betemit came to the plate with the bases loaded against Lopez and cracked a bases-clearing double into the gap in right center that put the game out of reach.

Also putting the game out of reach was Edwar Ramirez, who struck out the side in the eighth to preserve what was then a three-run lead, then came back out in the ninth with a six-run lead and retired the Tigers in order on seven pitches. Together Ramirez and Chamberlain pitched three perfect innings of relief, striking out five and throwing just 31 pitches. Torre, meanwhile, used them perfectly, bringing in Chamberlain to face the heart of the order in the seventh, then calling on Ramirez to face the weaker hitters in the eighth and sticking with him to avoid using Mariano Rivera with a six-run lead in the ninth. Here’s hoping Ramirez, who has now pitched 4 1/3 innings since being recalled, struck out six, and allowed just one baserunner on a bunt single, becomes as important a part of the Yankees’ end-game as Chamberlain has.

The Yankees now sit three games ahead of the Tigers in the Wild Card race and are a game and a half ahead of the AL Central-leading Indians for good measure. The Mariners, however, refuse to lose, and still hold a half game advantage on the Yankees and lead the Wild Card by two games in the loss column. Two weeks from today, the Mariners come to the Stadium for a three-game showdown. Time to circle that one in red.

The day after his best bud Andy Pettitte broke the Yankees’ three-game losing streak by shutting down the Tigers over eight innings, Rocket Clemens turned it into a winning streak with six strong frames of his own. As has been his way this season, Clemens used up a lot of pitches and gave up a fair number of hits, but he clamped down with runners on base yesterday afternoon, didn’t walk anyone, and used a particularly crisp and accurate fastball to rack up eight strikeouts, four of them coming with runners on base.

One of those strikeouts started an extremely rare 2-1 double play in the third inning. With one out, rookie Cameron Maybin on first via his first major league hit, a groundball through Robinson Cano’s vacated second base position on a hit-and-run play, and Brandon Inge on third, Marcus Thames battled Clemens to a full count. Maybin took off on the next pitch, which Thames swung through for Clemens’ sixth strikeout of the game (91 mph fastball up and in). Jorge Posada then fired to second, but Clemens cut the ball off and charged Inge, who had taken off for home when Posada released the ball. Inge was a dead duck as Clemens applied the tag for the final out. According to the FOX broadcast, the last time a runner was caught stealing by a throw to the pitcher was a whopping 21 years ago, when the Cardinals Vince Coleman was nabbed by the Giants Bob Melvin and Juan Berenguer in the fifth inning of this game (note how the play-by-play differs from the play in the second inning of this game, on which a runner was thrown out at home trying to advance on a wild pitch with the pitcher covering the plate), and even that wasn’t a double play. I find it both difficult to believe and very disappointing that no pitcher has caught a runner by cutting the throw from his catcher with runners on the corners and the man on first stealing second in 21 years. I am, however, encouraged by the fact that, in this case, the play was entirely premeditated as Posada and Clemens had conferenced at the mound before the previous pitch.

Despite nailing Inge (and nail him he did, Clemens almost knocked Inge into the Tiger dugout with the tag) and stranding eight other men, Clemens left the game trailing Detroit. In the fourth, Clemens got into a one-out, bases loaded jam and escaped after allowing only one run on a sac fly. In the fifth, the rookie Maybin led off the inning by hitting what looked like either a lame splitter up in the zone or a rare curveball (Clemens’ fourth if not fifth best pitch) to dead center for his first major league homer and just second career hit. The Yankees, meanwhile, had managed just one run off quadruple-A journeyman Chad Durbin, who was making just his third start since mid-June.

Durbin allowed just three hits and a walk through the first five innings, one of those hits being a solo Jorge Posada homer to the retired numbers in the second inning. He then allowed three more hits to start the sixth, including a two-run Bobby Abreu tater off the left field foul pole that would give Clemens the win. The Yanks then scratched out two more in that inning against relievers Tim Byrdak and Jason Grilli and shut the door with Farnsworth, Vizcaino, and Rivera each pitching a scoreless inning to wrap up the 5-2 win.

For what it’s worth, Farnsworth looked as good in the seventh inning yesterday as I’ve seen him all year. It took him ten pitches to get leadoff hitter Sean Casey to fly out, but he came back from that to strike out Gary Sheffield and Magglio Ordoñez, the two most dangerous hitters in the Detroit lineup, on a total of eight pitches, finishing both off with high heat in the upper 90s. The last pitch to Ordoñez was 98 mph, but the third strike to Sheffield was the most exciting as it was 97 miles per hour and literally head-high. In his last four outings, Farnsworth has allowed just one baserunner, no hits, and struck out five in four scoreless innings. That’s his best multi-game stretch of the season.

The Yanks look to take the series this afternoon in a matchup of excellent young pitchers who have struggled of late. Chien-Ming Wang has allowed 20 baserunners and 13 runs in his last two starts totaling just 8 2/3 innings. Most of that was his disaster outing in Toronto, but his last start was one of just three others in which he’s allowed five or more runs this season. Jeremy Bonderman was actually excellent in his last start in Cleveland (7 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 8 K), but before that he put together a 11.28 ERA across his previous four, all losses. Like Wang, most of that damage came in a single disaster start (Bonderman’s came in Anaheim), but he still posted an 8.10 ERA in the remaining three starts from that rough patch.

The good news about last night’s loss to the Tigers was that it came in the game with the least favorable pitching matchup for the Yankees. In a way, it reminded me of the team’s 14-4 loss to the Devil Rays in the opening game of a four-game series in the Bronx four weeks ago. Mike Mussina got torched in that game (4 2/3 IP, 6 R), and then the Yankees torched the Devil Rays over the remaining three games.

Indeed, tonight’s matchup favors the Yankees quite a bit. Nate Robertson is 1-3 with a 6.39 ERA over his last five starts, while Andy Pettitte has recovered from his stumble just before the All-Star Break to go 5-1 with a 3.15 ERA in seven post-break starts. Five of those seven have been quality starts and the only two that weren’t saw Pettitte fall just one out short. The biggest difference between the two of late has been extra base hits. Opposing hitters have hit just one home run and slugged just .352 against Pettitte over those last seven games while hitting four jacks off Robertson in his last five and slugging .557 against the bespectacled Bengal. Altogether, 41 percent of Robertson’s hits allowed over that span have gone for extra bases, while just 23 percent of Pettitte’s have.

Finally some roster notes on the Tigers. Remember in yesterday’s preview when I said “Monroe has been so bad . . . that he appears to be losing his job.” I meant his job as the starting left fielder. Turns out, he just lost his job as a Detroit Tiger, getting designated for assignment this afternoon so that the Tigers could call up top prospect Camron Maybin. Maybin, a 20-year-old righty-hitting outfielder, is a classic five-tool prospect who was the organization’s minor league player of the year while in low-A ball last year, but this might be a little too much too soon. Maybin just hit double-A this month and comes to the majors with just six games above A-ball under his belt. Of course he went 8 for 20 with four homers in those six games, but it’s still just six games. He also struck out 83 times in 83 games in high-A and six more times in those six games in double-A. Nonetheless, he’ll make his major league debut in left field at Yankee Stadium tonight in a game with playoff implications. But no pressure, kid.

Less exciting is the swap of right-hitting backup infielders Omar Infante and Ramon Santiago. A lot less exciting.

Meanwhile, Joe Torre seems unconcerned about Robertson’s left-handedness and rather fierce platoon splits. Torre’s keeping Bobby Abreu in the lineup, starting Jason Giambi at DH, and giving Melky Cabrera a day of rest, which puts Johnny Damon in center field. Save for Abreu, who should be platooning with Shelley Duncan, there’s really nothing wrong with that lineup. Andy Phillips starts at first over Duncan as well, but with the groundballing Pettitte on the mound, that’s legit, too.

This is it. The make-or-break part of the Yankees’ season has arrived. The team’s next fourteen games all come against playoff contenders, six against the division leading Angels and Red Sox and, starting tonight, a whopping eight games against the Tigers, who are currently tied with the Indians atop the Central. After that, the Yanks have just three in Boston, three at home against the Wild Card-leading Mariners amid 21 more games against the cupcakes (though that 21 does include six more matches with Baltimore). Two weeks from tonight the Yankees will either be heading toward the playoffs or reeling from a harsh dose of reality.

The good news is that they’ve played contenders well since flipping the switch in July, going 5-1 against the Indians and Angels with an addition 3-1 against the pretending Twins. The Tigers, meanwhile, have been heading in the other direction.

The Detroit Tigers’ high water mark came at the conclusion of a three-game sweep of the Twins in Minnesota on July 19 when they were 21 games over .500 and held a two-games lead over the Indians in the AL Central. Detroit hasn’t won a single series since then and counts among their loses two of three at home to the Royals in which their only win came in extra innings, six of eight to the White Sox, four of seven to the A’s, and a four-game split at home against the Devil Rays. In total, the Tigers have gone 9-18 since leaving Minnesota and have fallen into a tie with the similarly slumping Indians atop the Central and a game behind the Yankees in the Wild Card race.

Whereas the Indians problem of late has been scoring runs, the Tigers’ problem has been preventing them. Over those last 27 games, Detroit has allowed 6.70 runs per game, this despite 21 of those contests occurring in the typically pitcher-friendly Comerica Park and the even more pitcher-friendly Oakland McAfee Coliseum. Curiously, Comerica has been and oddly neutral park this season, and the Tigers have been better at preventing runs on the road, where they’ve allowed 4.79 runs per game as opposed to 5.52 runs per game at home. As a result, they’ve been a much stronger road team, but that hasn’t held true over the last 27 games, as the Tigers have been equally terrible at home (5-9, 6.86 R/G allowed) and on the road (4-9, 6.53 R/G allowed).

The reason for the Tigers’ pitching struggles throughout the season has been injuries. Ace set-up man Joel Zumaya hasn’t pitched since May 1 following surgery on the middle finger on his throwing hand (he’s due back soon, but not for this series). Kenny Rogers, who was a huge part of their pennant-winning season last year, had offseason shoulder surgery and was active for just about a month beginning in late June before landing back on the DL with elbow inflammation after posting a 9.98 ERA in the last three of his six starts. Andrew Miller, the team’s top pitching prospect and 2006 draftee who was promoted to fill the rotation spot vacated when the struggling Mike Maroth was traded to St. Louis, strained a hamstring in his August 3 start against the White Sox and landed on the DL. Filling in for those three are 33-year-old journeyman Tim Byrdak, who didn’t see major league action from 2001 to 2004 and had his own DL stint in July due to elbow tendonitis, journeyman Chad Durbin, who last started in the majors in 2004, and rookie Jair Jurrjens, who made his major league debut in a loss to the Indians last night.

Further complicating the issue, remaining starters Nate Robertson and Jeremy Bonderman have underperformed. Bonderman was expected to have a break-out season, but has been merely average, spending some time on the DL himself in May due to a blister, and posting a 9.20 ERA over his five starts since that Minnesota series. Robertson pitched over his head last year, but has gone too far in the other direction this season and was actually DLed in June due to what was termed a “tired arm.” Similar things can be said about incumbent set-up men Fernando Rodney, who was awful earlier in the season and spent all of July on the DL with shoulder and elbow tendonitis, and Jason Grilli, who’s been overused as a result of the injuries to Zumaya and Rodney and has seen his performance suffer as a result.

The Tigers can’t even count on 2006 Rookie of the Year and current staff ace Justin Verlander to hold the wolves at bay. Verlander, who starts tonight, has a 5.14 ERA over his last eight starts despite solid peripherals, has lasted more that six innings in only one of his last five starts, and has turned in quality starts in just two of his last six and three of those last eight. To all of that you can add the flu, which has been going around the Tiger clubhouse of late and could impact Verlander’s performance tonight.

On the flip side, the Tiger offense is second only to the Yankees in runs per game this season. The key difference being that, unlike the Yankees, the Tigers have some soft spots in their batting order, specifically third baseman Brandon Inge (.239/.316/.391), 35-year-old catcher Ivan Rodriguez (.278/.288/.426), and left fielder Craig Monroe (.222/.264/.373). Monroe has been so bad, in fact, that he appears to be losing his job to the recently reactivated Marcus Thames, starting only when Thames shifts to first base to spell Sean Casey against lefties.

At the same time, the tough spots in the Tiger order are very, very tough. Gary Sheffield, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Guillen, Placido Polanco, and especially Magglio Ordoñez are all having outstanding seasons. Sheffield’s season is a dead ringer for his two healthy seasons in New York except he’s been far more active on the bases, stealing 18 of 22, and even harder to strike out. Granderson appears to have made the leap at age 26. The most remarkable thing about his season isn’t necessarily his 18 triples, but the fact that 12 of them have come on the road. Polanco is enjoying a career year with a performance that’s a dead ringer for what he did over the remainder of 2005 after being acquired from the Phillies. Guillen is merely playing to his usual high standard. Finally, Ordoñez is a legitimate challenger to Alex Rodriguez’s MVP hopes, matching Rodriguez in the cumulative total-performance stat VORP despite fewer plate appearances. In third place in the AL: Jorge Posada. In fact, the Yankees and Tigers combine to employ ten of the top 22 VORP totals in the American League. The five Tigers are the men just discussed. The three Yankees after Rodriguez and Posada are Jeter, Matsui, and Cano.

The man who will try to tame those Tiger bats tonight will be Mike Mussina. Moose has been on a roll of late, posting a 2.84 ERA over his last four starts, all wins. He’s not walked a batter in his last 22 innings pitched. He will, however, have to cope with Jason Giambi at first base tonight, as G’Bombi will get the start at first for the first time since May 3. Hideki Matsui will DH, Johnny Damon’s in left, and the Yankee lineup is utterly seamless. Wow.

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Offense: Once again, the Yankee offense went missing in action against the Orioles, this time going 17 straight innings without a run between Tuesday’s shutout and Erik Bedard’s performance yesterday afternoon. Shelley Duncan’s three-run homer with two out in the ninth yesterday drove in all of the runs the Yankees have scored since Melky Cabrera’s game-winning run in the bottom of the ninth on Monday night.

Studs:

Alex Rodriguez 6 for 10, 2 BB, 2 R, 2 SB
Hideki Matsui 4 for 10, 3 BB, 2 R
Shelley Duncan 2 for 6, HR, 3 RBI, R, BB, 3 K

Duds:

Derek Jeter 1 for 12, RBI, HBP, 2 K
Robinson Cano 1 for 10, 3 K
Wilson Betemit 1 for 9, HR, 2 RBI, R, BB, 6 K
Melky Cabrera 1 for 10, 2B, RBI, R, 3 BB, HBP, K
Jorge Posada 2 for 11, RBI, R, 4 K
Andy Phillips 0 for 5, K
Jose Molina, 1 for 5, K

Rotation: Not s’good. Not a single quality start. The Jeff Karstens’ disaster can be dismissed as he’s been optioned and was merely spot-starting for Clemens anyway, but Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes, the present and future aces of the Yankee rotation, combined to allow eight runs (seven earned) in a mere 11 innings. Wang’s last two starts have increased his ERA by 0.60 runs, pushing it above 4.00 for the first time since the beginning of June. His next start comes on Sunday after an extra day of rest due to Clemens’ return on Saturday.

Bullpen: Due to the lack of a quality start from the quality starters and Karstens’ disaster, the pen was called upon to pitch as many innings as the rotation in this series. Things rarely go well when that happens, and indeed they did not.

The Good:

Just typing this is fun: Joba Chamberlain struck out two in a perfect eighth inning on Monday, and Edwar Ramirez struck out three while allowing only a bunt single in 2 1/3 innings yesterday afternoon. Edwar also stranded the two inherited runners he picked up from Sean Henn, who was also solid, allowing just those two singles, one of which didn’t leave the infield, in 1 2/3 innings. Luis Vizcaino and Kyle Farnsworth both struck out one in very efficient 1-2-3 innings to finish up the Karstens disaster. Farnsworth threw eight of nine pitches for strikes in his frame.

The Bad:

Jim Brower poured gas on Karstens’ fire and thus joined Jeffrey on the trip to Scranton. Here’s hoping he had a one-way ticket. Ron Villone allowed all four of his inherited runners to score and added one of his own. Finally, Mariano Rivera blew a one-run save on Monday night only to vulture the win as the Yankees rallied. Brought into the tenth inning of a tie game yesterday, he coughed up the lead after two batters, then heaped on some insurance to take the loss.

Conclusion: The seven runs in the opener and the two bottom-of-the-ninth rallies were nice, as were the performances of the rookie relievers, but otherwise the Yankees stunk up the jernt. Here’s hoping this works the way the last Orioles series did to get that bad play out of the Yankees’ systems and wake them up for the very tough stretch of fourteen games that begins tonight against the Tigers, continues on a road trip through Anaheim and Detroit, and concludes with three against the Red Sox back home. If the Yankees can’t at the very least split those 14 games, all the good work they’ve done since the calendar turned to July might have been for naught.

I often wonder about the common practice of sending righty-heavy lineups against dominant lefties at the expense of starting a team’s best players. I’m not saying that Joe Torre was necessarily wrong to use a day game after a night game to give Robinson Cano and Bobby Abreu days off or to give Jorge Posada a spell as the DH while putting Jose Molina behind the plate. Indeed, one of the advantages of the strong Yankee bench is that the lineup doesn’t actually suffer that much when such moves are made. I just wonder if the practice artificially inflates the performance of both the lefty pitchers who face these second-rate lineups and the lefty batters who come down with what has been referred to as the 24-hour Randy Johnson flu.

Take for example some of the statistics quoted in the comments early in yesterday’s game thread. Erik Bedard entered yesterday’s game holding righties to a .208/.261/.335 line, and lefties to .230/.329/.385, but, as reader NJYankee41 pointed out, a lot of that left-handed production is courtesy of Carl Crawford, who is 7 for 12 with two doubles, a triple, and a homer against Bedard on the season. Even without his performance against Bedard, Crawford has a pretty even split this year, but historically he’s had a more typical platoon split. Who’s to say that some of the other high-profile lefties who have been sitting against Bedard wouldn’t find similar success against him (or Johan Santana, or whomever) if given enough exposure? In fact, I can guarantee that some of them would simply because they’re good hitters. What’s more, while Bedard is undoubtedly one of the elite pitchers in the game this year, would his performance against righties be as strong if it weren’t for the fact that a great many of them are reserves rather than his opponents’ regular starters?

Yesterday’s Yankee lineup had Wilson Betemit batting from his weaker right side in place of lefty Robinson Cano, righty Shelley Duncan in place of lefty Bobby Abreu, and righty Jose Molina pushing switch-hitter Jorge Posada to DH (Jorge’s numbers are pretty even from both sides of the plate) and thus starting in place of either Jason Giambi or Johnny Damon, both lefties. For good measure, switch-hitter Melky Cabrera was batting from his weaker side as well. That lineup struck out five times before Alex Rodriguez picked up the first hit off Bedard leading off the fourth and was held scoreless by Bedard over seven full innings with Rodriguez (twice), Hideki Matsui (the only lefty in the starting lineup), and Duncan (who also struck out twice) picking up the only four hits against Bedard.

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It’s an absolutely perfect day in the tri-state area. Beautiful, sunny, low humidity, a nice crisp breeze. What a day for a stellar pitching matchup in an afternoon rubber game at the Stadium. Orioles ace Erik Bedard has been one of the best pitchers in the league since April (2.32 ERA, 9-2, 87 hits and 157 Ks in 128 innings, quality starts in 17 of 19 games) and is a legitimate Cy Young contender. Yankees rookie Phil Hughes has a 4.64 ERA in just four major league starts, but two of those starts can be written off as one was his major league debut and the other was his first in the majors after three months on the DL. The two starts that followed those two have seen him post this combined line: 12 1/3 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 4 BB, 12 K, with the lone run coming on a solo homer. Hughes threw a career-high 95 pitches in his last start in Cleveland finishing six strong, so endurance is no longer a concern. Sit back and enjoy this one.

Aiding the enjoyment is the knowledge that Jeff Karstens and Jim Brower have both been jettisoned from the roster (via option and likely DFA, respectively) and replaced by Edwar Ramirez (who was back to his old tricks in Columbus, striking out 22 in 12 1/3 innings while allowing just 12 baserunners and two runs since being demoted) and Sean Henn. In his most recent major league stint and subsequent work in triple-A combined, Henn has posted this line: 11 1/3 IP, 13 H, 5 ER, 5 BB, 13 K, which yeilds a 3.97 ERA.

For those of us who grew up listening to Phil Rizzuto during the lean years (be it the days of Horace Clarke or Stump Merrill) it seemed oddly fitting that the Yankees got their clocks cleaned last night, allowing Michael Kay and Ken Singleton to reminisce about Scooter uninhibited by compelling game action. In the seventh inning, with the Yankees already trailing by the eventual final of 12-0, Kay shared the fact that the Yankee booth had received a memorial box of cannolis from one of Scooter’s favorites, Artuso Pastry in the Bronx. That set Kay and Singleton off on remembrances of Scooter during which they talked straight through a pitching change with hardly a mention of the on-field action until Kay caught himself as the reliever warmed up:

“. . . he was such a student of Yankee history and he knew exactly what was going on . . . and, by the way, this, I feel like Phil, the Orioles just changed pitchers, they brought in Paul Shuey . . . but, he was such a student of Yankee history . . .”

And so forth. In general, YES did a great job honoring Rizzuto, compiling several clip packages, including a hilarious collection of his famous on-air antics supplemented by additional clips scattered throughout the broadcast. They even replaced the commercial break in the middle of the first inning with an excellent montage of Rizzuto’s playing career. It’s one thing to pay lip service, but by skipping that break and the break that would have come during Shuey’s warmup pitches, YES showed that they were willing to put Rizzuto’s memory in front of the bottom line for a night, which, in this day and age, may be the classiest move of all.

As for the game, spot-starter Jeff Karstens got rocked and bounced after throwing 74 pitches and allowing five runs in just three innings, four of them scoring on a third-inning grand slam by Aubrey Huff. Jim Brower was just as bad in his two-plus innings of work. He let two runs in on his own, then left the bases loaded with no outs for Ron Villone, who finished the job by allowing all three of Browers’ bequeathed runners to score and adding a solo homer by Kevin Millar in the following frame. With the pen otherwise empty, Kyle Farnsworth and Luis Vizcaino turned in 1-2-3 frames to finish things off. The Yankee offense, which had scored seven or more runs in ten straight home games prior to last night, one short of the franchise record, managed just two hits off Daniel Cabrera and none off of his two relievers, Shuey and Rob Bell, but walked nine times only to strand all 11 runners without so much as a double play or caught stealing. Only one Yankee got as far as third base all night. If ever there was a night to leave early to beat the traffic.

It sounds like a curse word, or a sneeze. It’s tonight’s starting pitcher. This is what Rod’s “Ha!” hath wrought. The O’s counter with the untamable fastball of Daniel Cabrera. Three of the last four Oriole games have ended in the victor’s last at-bat, all to the Yankees’ favor. Could more late-inning heroics be in the works? That might be the only way the Yanks get out of this one with a win.

There’s a certain irony to the fact that the last game the Yankees played during Phil Rizzuto’s lifetime ended with a situation taylor-made for a Scooter squeeze bunt only to see the team decline the opporunity to put on the play. It’s also fitting that that game was won in that situation on a dink hit by the Yankee shortstop, a player who won the Rookie of the Year award in Rizzuto’s final season as a Yankee broadcaster much to the enduring delight of the Scooter himself, and a player who has come to replace Rizzuto as the greatest Yankee shortstop of all time.

Rizzuto was a tremendously important figure in my life given the importance that baseball and Yankee baseball specifically has taken in it. Rizzuto was the voice first, but more than that the spirit and the passion and the humor that lured me back to the game day after day during the lean years of the 1980s when my fandom coalesced. I put a few words together about Scooter over on SI.com. As you’ve done in the last thread, please continue to post your memories, anecdotes, and feelings about Scooter below. And feel free to repost things here that you’ve said elsewhere, it would be great to have all of them in one place.

The Orioles are the only team to take a series from the Yankees since the A’s won a rubber game in the Bronx on July 1. Now 25-22 under replacement manager Dave Trembley, the O’s have gone 5-7 since taking two of three from the Yankees in Baltimore three weekends ago. Included in that 5-7, however, is a six-game split with the Red Sox which the O’s just completed by taking two of three from the Sox at Camden Yards. On Friday night the O’s rallied four four runs in the eighth against Eric Gagne and Hideki Okajima, then pushed accross the winning run against Okajima in the ninth following a leadoff double by Brian Roberts. Yesterday, the O’s rallied for two in the eighth against Okajima and Gagne (in the opposite order) to tie, then won on a three-run Kevin Millar walk-off homer in the bottom of the tenth.

So the O’s are feeling good, but so are the Yanks, who should be extra determined to put Baltimore in their place as they visit the Stadium over the next three nights. The only problem is they’ll have to start things off against Jeremy Guthrie, who has already beaten New York twice this season (12 1/3 IP, 13 H, 4 R, 1 HR, 4 BB, 10 K — Johnny Damon hit the homer). The good news is that Guthrie’s last start, which came against those inexplicable Mariners, was one of his worst of the season and he’s allowed nine runs (eight earned) in 9 1/3 innings since last facing the Bombers, who are bombing a lot more now than they were back in Baltimore as they were suffering from a brief team slump that weekend. Of course the O’s could say similar things about Chien-Ming Wang, who is coming off the worst start of his major league career tonight.

Jorge Posada is finally back in the lineup. Wilson Betemit curiously draws the start at first behind the groundballing Wang. Damon starts at DH, perhaps because of that homer. As for the O’s, they have Melvin Mora, back, but have lost Jay Gibbons to the DL for the season following labrum surgery and Chris Gomez to the Indians via waivers (in case you didn’t notice who started at third base for the Tribe yesterday). Sorry for cutting this one so close, folks. Game on!

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Offense: The Yanks got to one of the league’s best pitchers (this year at least) in the opener, then dropped 11 runs on the Tribe in the second game. Another very strong offensive performance.

Studs:

Robinson Cano 6 for 12, 2B, RBI, R, BB
Alex Rodriguez 4 for 10, 3 HR, 5 RBI, 3 R, 2 BB, HBP
Derek Jeter 7 for 15, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 R
Hideki Matsui 5 for 12, RBI, 5 R, BB
Jose Molina 5 for 13, 2 2B, RBI, R
Jason Giambi 3 for 5, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R

Duds:

Andy Phillips 1 for 7, RBI, R, BB, CS

Wilson Betemit went 0 for 2 with a sac bunt in the opener. Shelley Duncan did not come to bat in the series. Don’t look now, but Andy Phillips has become Doug Mientkiewicz.

Rotation: The Yankee pitching was outstanding over the weekend. The only concern is that the scuffling Cleveland offense might have been part of the reason. Phil Hughes dominated for six innings in the opener. Mike Mussina turned in his best start of the season on Saturday night, and Andy Pettitte cruised through the first six innings of the finale allowing just one run before being removed with one out in the eighth.

Bullpen: The pen only had to pitch six innings and go figure that Mariano Rivera would give up the only run (though Luis Vizcaino did allow an inherited runner to score in the finale).

The Good:

Joba Chamberlain was incredible in the opener, pitching two perfect innings and striking out four.

Mo, Vizcaino, and Ron Villone were the only other relievers who appeared in the series. Mo dominated in his first outing, but was shaky in his second. Neither Vizcaino, nor Villone was especially impressive, but neither did much damage either.

Conclusion: The Yankees have been catching a lot of teams at the right time, missing their ace starters, catching them during slides, etc. The good news is that they’ve taken advantage of every single one of them. Sweeping the season series against Cleveland is huge. Everyone had this series circled on their calendars at the All-Star break, and the Yankees made it look like they were playing another cupcake. In doing so, they knocked Cleveland back out of the AL Central lead and now hold a 1.5-game lead over them in the Wild Card race (though they’re still trailing Seattle by that pesky game in the loss column, but they play the M’s at home in three weeks–circle that one too). Perhaps best of all, they seem to have taken the sweep in stride, like it’s no big deal. This team is dangerous.

The Indians got five men on base last night and only one of them scored. Place your bets as to when they’ll equal those totals tonight against Mike Mussina. Before you do, note that Moose has gone 3-0 in his last three starts with a 3.06 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP. Going back further, Moose has a 3.68 ERA and 1.29 WHIP over his last 11 games. Not so bad for a guy who might just be the Yankees’ fifth starter if Phil Hughes can put a few good starts together.

Paul Byrd is the same guy he’s always been: a shade better than league average, control/contact junkballer, and Kelsey Grammar look-alike with an odd crouching-dragon delivery straight out of the 1930s. Byrd faced the Yanks twice last year, his first with Cleveland. The first time he held them to one run over seven innings but lost 1-0 to Chien-Ming Wang. The second time he got rocked for nine runs (only four earned) in 3 2/3 innings as the Tribe lost 11-3. Byrd is 4-1 with a 3.34 ERA over his last nine starts and is coming off a shutout of the Twins in Minnesota. Key stat: Byrd has walked just 1.07 men per nine innings on the season. The Yanks will have to hit their way on tonight, not that they’ve had much trouble with that of late.

Jorge’s still out with that stiff neck. Jim Brower’s away to be with his wife and newborn baby. And Pete Abe reports that the “Joba Rules” stipulate one day off for each inning pitched, so no more Joba in this series.

Update: Joe Torre suggested that Posada is actually feeling better and will likely return to the lineup in tomorrow’s day game.

If this is a dream, don’t wake me:

Phil Hughes 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 6 K
Joba Chamberlain 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K
Mariano Rivera 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K

Wow.

The turning point of the game came in the first inning. Hughes started each of his first four batters with balls, mostly fastballs that just missed outside. He got the first two to fly out, but Victor Martinez ripped a two-out double to right field and Ryan Garko battled to draw a seven-pitch walk on a questionable ball four on the inside corner. Jhonny Peralta then battled Hughes as well, taking to a 1-1 count, then fouling off three straight pitches. With two on and two out, the outcome of Peralta’s at-bat looked like it might set the tone for the night with the Yankees having gone down in order to Fausto Carmona in the top of the first. Hughes, who had stuck mostly to his fastball to that point, mixing in a pair of curve balls, broke off an absolutely nasty slider that appeared to head right toward Peralta’s belt before making a sharp right turn back over the plate for strike three. Alex Rodriguez led off the next inning with a second-pitch home run to dead center and that was that. The Yankees added one here and another there to run their tally to six, while the Indians lone score was a Josh Barfield solo homer off Hughes in the fifth.

I literally got chills watching Hughes carve up the Indians last night with well-located fastballs in the low-90s, off-the-table 12-to-6 curveballs in the low-70s, and the occasional low-80s slider or changeup. Hughes was throwing all four pitches for strikes and, much like in his aborted Mayday no-hitter in Texas, looked every bit like the ace he’s projected to be. Chamberlain, who threw easy heat in the high-90s and that nasty corkscrewing slider that dives at the feet of lefthanders, looked to be nearly Hughes equal in relief of his fellow 21-year-old.

Unfortunately, the Yankees will have to pick their spots with Chamberlain, who is a young starter pushing his innings limit for the season. Right now it looks like they might try to get a couple innings from him every other day, which would keep him on a start/throw day schedule. However, both Chamberlain and Hughes should be members of the Opening Day rotation next spring. The mere thought quickens my pulse.

Returning to the present, the Tigers and Mariners both lost last night, putting the Yankees in a virtual tie with Seattle for the Wild Card lead (a game behind in the loss column) a game ahead of Detroit.

In other news, Joe Torre served his one-game suspension last night and Roger Clemens declined to appeal his five-gamer, which thus began last night. The thinking behind Clemens decision was surely that the start he’ll miss now will come against the Orioles, the worst team the Yankees will face over the next 19 games. Chien-Ming Wang has been moved up a day to take Clemens’ spot on Monday (he’ll be on full rest due to Thursday’s off day). The Tuesday start against the O’s will then be taken by a spot starter, with Jeff Karstens and Ian Kennedy, who has dominated in three starts for triple-A Scranton, being the leading candidates.

Final note, the entire Indians team wore number 14 last night in honor of Larry Doby, who broke the American League’s color line in 60 years ago, less than three months after Jackie Robinson did the same in the National League. I’m not sure why they chose August 10 (Doby’s first game was July 5 in Chicago, his birthday was Dec. 13, and he died four years ago on June 18). Perhaps the date was chosen to use the high profile matchup with the Yankees to bring added attention to their recognition of a player whose been somewhat slighted by history.

Okay, now things get serious. Going 20-8 against the cupcakes was a lot of fun, but now the Yankees face a twenty-game stretch in which 17 games come against contenders (with the other three coming against the Orioles, the only cupcake team to win a series from them over that last 28 games). Of those 17 games against contenders, 14 of them come against teams the Yankees are chasing for a playoff spot including this weekend’s opponent the Cleveland Indians.

This weekend’s series, which will conclude the season set between the two teams, was supposed to be a battle for Wild Card supremacy, but a few things have gotten in the way in recent days. To begin with, the Indians aren’t technically in the Wild Card picture anymore as they slipped past the freefalling Tigers to reclaim the AL Central lead a week ago. What’s more, it’s those pesky Mariners, who I remain convinced are all smoke and mirrors, not the Tigers, that hold the Wild Card lead entering tonight’s action. In fact, the Yankees are in a perfect tie with the Tigers this afternoon, both one game behind the M’s and a game and a half behind Cleveland. That’s a four-team cluster that could be completely rearranged come Sunday evening as the M’s visit Chicago, the Tigers host the A’s, and the Yanks and Tribe to battle in Cleveland.

The Yankees and Indians last met in April, just nine games into the Tribe’s snow-shortened season. The Yankees won the first two games of that series by a combined score of 19-5 behind Chase Wright’s major league debut in the opener and what would prove to be Kei Igawa’s best start of the season. The Yankees sent Darrell Rasner to the hill in the finale to complete their rookie troika, but Rasner was inexplicably pulled in the fifth and Luis Vizcaino coughed up four runs in the seventh. The Yanks entered the bottom of the ninth trailing 6-2 and facing Indians closer Joe Borowski. Borowski retired the first two batters, but Josh Phelps cracked a solo home run to keep the Yankees alive and bring them within three. Jorge Posada singled. Johnny Damon walked. Jeter singled Posada home. Abreu singled Damon home. And Alex Rodriguez hit a three-run homer to win the game 8-6.

Curiously the Indians were a better team then than they are now, while the Yankees were far worse. For the Yankees, the changes are obvious from the players they’re putting on the field. Simply compare this weekend’s starters–Phil Hughes, Mike Mussina, and Andy Pettitte–to the trio of Wright, Igawa, and Rasner that started the April series. For the Indians it’s more about their level of play. After posting a .635 winning percentage in April and May combined, the Tribe has gone 32-31 (.508) since, including a 15-18 record over their last ten series.

One reason Cleveland has been scuffling has been a lack of offense. Over those last ten series they’ve averaged just 4.18 runs per game. Now they enter this weekend’s series with DH Travis Hafner nursing a knee he injured sliding into second on Tuesday night. Hafner was removed from the following night’s game, hasn’t played since and likely won’t play tonight. Then again, Hafner, who’s hit just .234/.335/.388 since June 1, was already part of the problem. The Indians will likely replace him in the lineup with one of their platoon outfielders (see roster below) or by shifting Victor Martinez to DH and having Kelly Shoppach catch.

Less of a problem has been the Indians’ pitching, particularly tonight’s starter Fausto Carmona, who has turned in a quality start in 18 of 22 appearances and his last seven straight. Over those last seven starts, the groundballing Carmona has gone 5-2 with a 1.68 ERA and just one home run allowed. That’s further evidence of how much the offense has been struggling as Carmona has lost his last two starts by scores of 3-1 and 1-0. Carmona also started that wild series finale in the Bronx back in April, holding the Yankees to two runs (one of them on a Jason Giambi solo homer) on a walk and six hits over six innings.

Phil Hughes was in triple-A back then, but he’ll be on the mound in Cleveland tonight looking to build his stamina. After throwing 91 pitches in his final rehab start, Hughes threw 92 pitches in his last start against the Royals, but appeared to tire around 70. Jose Molina will catch Hughes as Jorge Posada has a stiff neck. Wilson Betemit gets the start at first base. Despite that April homer, Giambi is not in the lineup, rather Damon gets the start at DH.

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The second half of the Yankees’ season breaks into three distinct parts. The first, completed on Thursday, was what I’ve been calling the “cupcake” portion of their schedule, 28 games against the weaker teams in the league including Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Baltimore, Chicago, and the roughly-.500 Blue Jays. The Yankees went 20-8 (.714) over that stretch to propel themselves into the playoff hunt. Tonight they begin the second leg of their second half, a stretch of 20 games in which 17 come against contending teams, and 14 come against Cleveland, Detroit, and Boston, the teams they are chasing in pursuit of a playoff spot.

With that in mind, here’s a look at how the Yankees have performed against the cupcakes, and some thoughts about how that performance might translate against the contenders.

Offense: While the Yankees have risen to the challenge against the weaker teams in the American League, it still remains to be seen if they can continue their success against the contenders. One encouraging sign is that they didn’t just defeat the cupcake teams, they destroyed them, averaging 7.64 runs per game over the last 28 games.

Studs:

Robinson Cano .419/.479/.743, 18 XBH
Jorge Posada .385/.505/.692
Hideki Matsui .342/.382/.694, 12 HR, 29 R
Bobby Abreu .350/.409/.612, 33 RBI
Melky Cabrera .368/.405/.604, 10 2B, 3 3B
Shelley Duncan .314/.385/.743 (5 HR in 39 PA)
Wilson Betemit 5 for 14 (HR, 6 RBI, 3 R, BB)
Wil Nieves 4 for 11 (4 2B, 4 RBI, 4 R, 4 K)

Counting stats listed for Cano, Matsui, and Abreu are team bests over the last 28 games.

Duds:

Andy Phillips .279/.309/.356
Miguel Cairo 1 for 8 (2B, 2 BB, 3 K, SB)
Jose Molina 2 for 11 (2B)

Johnny Damon hit .129/.333/.129 and was 1 for 2 on the bases through the first ten games after the break, then hit .371/.444/.532 and went 4 for 5 on the bases over the final 20. He played in nine of those first ten games, but only 15 of the last 20, and his hot-hitting began after his first game off of that stretch. Of course, that game was game one of the double header against Tampa Bay on July 21, so Damon didn’t really get a day off as he played in the nightcap, but the obvious conclusion is that Damon is more productive when given regular rest, which is exactly how Joe Torre has been using him over the past three weeks.

One wonders if the presense of Wilson Betemit should prompt Torre to start giving Derek Jeter additional days off as well. Jeter hit .338/.377/.477 with four stolen bases in as many tries over the first 15 games of the cupcake schedule, but just .234/.345/.340 with one steal in two tries since then, picking up just three extra base hits in his last 60 plate appearances. Jeter played in all 28 cupcake games, starting 27 of them.

Alex Rodriguez hit .278/.412/.630 through and including the game in which he hit career home run number 499. He then endured an 0-for-19 slump (though he did walk six times, twice intentionally, and was once hit by a pitch). Since snapping that slump two games before hitting number 500, he’s hit .348/.414/.522.

Rotation: Here’s where I start to worry. The Yankees only received a quality start in half of the last 28 games. Of the four primary starters, Andy Pettitte was the only one not to have a disaster outing (more runs allowed than innings pitched). Indeed, per the stats below, Pettitte, not Chien-Ming Wang, has been the Yankee ace in the second half. Admittedly, Wang’s fluky disaster outing against the Blue Jays on Wednesday soured his numbers considerably, but even before that game, Pettitte had a better ERA over six starts than Wang had over five (though Wang did lead Pettitte in WHIP).

Andy Pettite 6 GS, 4 QS, 3.29 ERA, 4-1, 8.69 K/9, 3.76 BB/9, HR, 1.49 WHIP
Chien-Ming Wang 6 GS, 4 QS, 5.66 ERA, 4-2, 4.89 K/9, 2.31 BB/9, 0 HR, 1.57 WHIP
Roger Clemens 6 GS, 3 QS, 4.45 ERA, 2-2, 5.57 K/9, 2.51 BB/9, HR, 1.42 WHIP
Mike Mussina 5 GS, 3 QS, 4.76 ERA, 3-1, 5.72 K/9, 2.22 BB/9, 3 HR, 1.62 WHIP
Kei Igawa 3 GS, 0 QS, 5.74 ERA, 0-1, 10.34 K/9, 5.17 BB/9, 4 HR, 1.91 WHIP

Phil Hughes and Matt DeSalvo both made one start, neither did particularly well.

The x-factor here, of course, is Phil Hughes. Based on his one start after coming back off the DL, Hughes simply needs to build up his endurance, as he appeared to tire very quickly. If Hughes can start giving the Yankees quality starts out of the fifth spot in the rotation (something that spot failed to do in five tries over the last 28 games), it would not only help the Yankees’ chances of winning every fifth day, but would also reduce the bullpen’s workload, increasing the Yankees’ chances of winning on days the other four starters take the ball.

Bullpen: The Yankee bullpen posted a 3.74 ERA over the last 28 games, but if you factor in unearned runs that number jumps to 4.55, which means this pen has been allowing a run every other inning. That’s a problem. The good news is that, as with Cairo and Igawa above, some of the worst offenders have been shown the door.

The Good:

Mariano Rivera 11 G, 0.00 ERA, 6 SV, 12.75 K/9, 0 BB, 0 HR, 0.58 WHIP
Luis Vizcaino 16 G, 1.13 ERA, 4-0, 9.00 K/9, 1.69 BB/9, HR, 0.69 WHIP

The Bad:

Brian Bruney 11 G, 7 1/3 IP, 7.36 ERA, 6.14 K/9, 6.15 BB/9, 0 HR, 1.77 WHIP
Scott Proctor 7 G, 6 2/3 IP, 5.40 ERA, 4.05 K/9, 6.75 BB/9, 4 HR, 2.70 WHIP
Jeff Karstens 2 G, 6 1/3 IP, 7.11 ERA, 4.26 K/9, 4.26 BB/9, 1 HR, 1.74 WHIP
Kyle Farnsworth 11 G, 11 IP, 5.73 ERA, 6.55 K/9, 4.91 BB/9, 4 HR, 1.64 WHIP

Farnsworth is still around, but at least he’s being used in low leverage situations now, such as with his team down 11 runs as was the case on Wednesday when he threw just his seventh 1-2-3 inning of the season (in 48 tries). Karstens most recent failure came in the finale of the Toronto series, so I’m holding out hope that he’ll be replaced on the roster in the very near future.

Conclusion: Great hitting, questionable pitching. That’s not how you beat good teams. Beginning with the promotion of Shelley Duncan on July 21, the Yankees have upgraded their bench (replacing Kevin Thompson, Miguel Cario, Wil Nieves and Chris Basak with Duncan, Wilson Betemit, Jose Molina, and Jason Giambi), their rotation (with the return of Hughes), and their bullpen (mostly addition by subtraction thus far, though Joba Chamberlain looked extremely promising in his one appearance in Toronto). The latter two will have to result in significant improvement, however, if the Yankees want to stay in the playoff hunt over the next 20 games.

Offense: Six runs per game almost feels like a slump the way this team has been hitting, but it’s still better than the season average of the best offense in the majors, which just happens to be the Yankee offense anyway.

Studs:

Melky Cabrera 7 for 12, 2 2B, 2 3B, RBI, 4 R
Robinson Cano 3 for 9, 2B, 2 HR, 5 RBI, 3 R, 3 BB, HBP, SB
Jorge Posada 3 for 9, 2B, 2 RBI, 2 BB, HBP
Johnny Damon 4 for 8, 2 RBI, 3 R, 2 BB, SB

Duds:

Andy Phillips 2 for 12
Derek Jeter 2 for 12, 2 RBI
Bobby Abreu 2 for 10, 3B, 4 RBI, 2 R, BB, 3 K
Wilson Betemit 0 for 4, K
Jason Giambi 1 for 5, R

Jose Molina went 0 for 1 after Joe Torre put the subs in yesterday’s blowout finale.

Rotation: Just one quality start, though Andy Pettitte came close, getting the hook with two outs in the sixth in the opener. Roger Clemens was dominant, but also had a short outing lasting just six full (yes, he was ejected for throwing at Alex Rios, but he was at 90 pitches and knew what was going to happen). Chien-Ming Wang had the worst start of his major league career by far.

Bullpen: Despite turning over nearly half of the personnel, the Yankee pen still allowed ten runs in 11 2/3 innings. Lack of length on the part of the starters can be blamed to a certain degree, as can a pair of lopsided scores that allowed Torre to try out some of those untested arms. Still, that’s unacceptable.

The Good:

Believe it or not, Kyle Farnsworth, who pitched a perfect inning, striking out one and throwing nine of 12 pitches for strikes in the finale. Of course, he did that with his team behind by 11 runs. Mariano Rivera struck out the heart of the Jays order on 16 pitches (11 strikes) to nail down a one-run lead in the opener.

The Bad:

Jeff Karstens has pitched twice since being activated from the DL. Both times he was brought in after a disaster start and asked to escape a jam and eat innings. Both times he escaped the jam without further damage and ate up three innings, but he also allowed a total of eight runs in those 6 1/3 frames. Last night he allowed five runs (though only two earned) in three inning on three hits and three walks and had to be pulled with two outs in the sixth. He has a 10.12 ERA on the season. He needs to go. Jim Brower needs to go as well, though he hasn’t been nearly as bad in his two opportunities thus far. Brower allowed a run on three hits and a walk over an inning and a third in this series, also allowing an inherited runner (1B, no outs) to score. I think that’s the best that can be expected of him. Ron Villone picked up where Karstens left off in the sixth last night allowing two runs on four hits and two walks over 1 1/3 innings and needing 51 pitches to do so, though he did strike out three.

Conclusion: Heading into the tough part of the schedule, I’m still concerned about the pitching, but the offense is so strong that even against the league’s best it may be enough to compensate. Still, while the bench is suddenly the best it’s been since the days of Darryl, the pen continues to be a work in progress. I’ll have more on the overall state of the team heading into Cleveland tomorrow morning in a “Series Wrap” of the entire now-completed cupcake portion of the schedule.

What better way to wrap up a fantastic stretch of the season than with a great pitching matchup. That’s exactly what the Yankees will do tonight as they look to win their sixth straight by sending Chien-Ming Wang to the mound to face Toronto ace Roy Halladay. Halladay’s had more than his usual share of struggles this season, but held the Yankees to just one run over seven innings when these teams last met in mid-July. He followed that by shuting out the Mariners and losing a complete game to the White Sox 2-0. His last start, which game at home against the Rangers, was less impressive, but did see him strike out nine in six innings. Altogether he’s posted a 2.10 ERA over those last four starts while allowing just 25 hits and 8 walks in 30 innings while striking out 25. Wang, meanwhile, has a 2.76 ERA and a 6-1 record over his last seven starts, the one defeat being a 3-2 loss to Toronto.

Alex Rodriguez will sit tonight while nursing the calf that was hit by a Josh Towers pitch last night. Wilson Betemit starts at third base, while Jason Giambi gets the start at DH. Enjoy tonight, tomorrow the Yanks arrive in Cleveland, and things get serious.

First of all, the Yankees beat the Blue Jays 9-2 last night. With that they won the series, giving them wins in nine of their last ten series. Prior to that, the Yankees had won just ten of their first 26 series. The Yankees were 38-41 (.481) prior to these last ten series, and are 25-9 (.735) since. With one game left in the cupcake portion of their schedule, the Yankees have gone 20-7 (.740). They are now 63-50 (.558) on the season and a half-game behind in the Wild Card race behind the Tigers (who also won last night). Revisiting my post-All-Star-break math, if the Yankees go 12-11 against the contenders left on their schedule (Detroit, Cleveland, Boston, Seattle, and the Angels), and win all of their remaining series against the cupcakes (Orioles, Devil Rays, Royals, and Blue Jays), they’ll finish the season 92-70. Based on their current winning percentage, the Tigers are on pace to win 91.2 games. If the Yankees can do better than 12-11 against the good teams (especially in their whopping eight games against those Tigers), the Wild Card should be theirs.

Second of all, Roger Clemens was aces last night, allowing just two hits through six innings while striking out six and walking just one. Oh, he also hit a batter.

You see, Jesse Litsch threw at Alex Rodriguez in Monday’s game as likely retaliation for the Rod Said “Ha!” incident. The only problem is that Litsch missed. Last night’s starter Josh Towers is known for his excellent control, so he didn’t miss when throwing at Rodriguez’s knees last night after allowing an RBI triple to Bobby Abreu which broke the scoreless tie in the third. Rodriguez didn’t take kindly to Towers reopening what he had figured was finished business after Litsch’s pitch on Monday and informed Towers of such. Just to be sure they were clear on the matter both teams came out onto the field to make sure they understood. With that cleared up, Rodriguez took first base and everyone else took their seats, but apparently Towers had one more point to make and Rodriguez summoned the teams back out to the field to make sure things were properly resolved. The umpires, apparently displeased by the length of these deliberations, warned both benches that they would not be allowed back on the field to debate the subject any further and thus when Clemens drilled Alex Rios in the back with his second pitch of the seventh inning, they asked him to leave the field. Having thrown 90 pitches and with his team up 7-0, Clemens was happy to oblige, thanking home plate umpire Angel Hernandez effusely on his way toward the Yankee dugout.

Incidentally, those other six runs scored thanks to a two-RBI double by Jorge Posada that immediately followed the initial discussions, a Melky Cabrera triple that was plated in the fourth, and three more runs that scored in the sixth. That sixth inning started with Shelley Duncan singling to drive Towers from the game. Cabrera, who had doubled and tripled in two trips to that point and would add another double later, attempted to bunt Duncan over to second, but Blue Jays catcher Gregg Zaun pounced on the ball and fired to second where, just as John McDonald was about to receive the ball, Duncan barreled in with a flying drop kick slide that not only knocked the ball into shallow right, but knocked the glove off McDonald’s hand and McDonald on his keister. The best part about Duncan’s slide, other than the fact that all hands were safe and the Yankees rallied to score three runs in the inning, was that it was perfectly legal. McDonald was on the bag, as was the slide. No one felt the need to converse about it.

Jim Brower replaced Clemens in the seventh and proved that he’s still not a major league-quality pitcher (he’s the “2” in the game’s 9-2 final). Joba Chamberlain did quite the opposite in getting the final six outs.

Chamberlain, who walked just 2.75 men per nine innings in the minors, walked two and allowed a single, but didn’t allow a run and struck out two. The walks were the result of nerves and, as both Torre and Chamberlain said after the game, his flying open a bit early on his fastball. That’s unlikely to persist. What will persist is his mid-90s velocity on that fastball and the nasty break on his curve and slider, the latter of which nearly corkscrews down and away from right-handed batters. All I really needed to know about Chamberlain, however, I learned from the way he handled his very first batter in the major leagues.

Rey Olmedo is hardly what you’d call a major league hitter, but he was the first man Chamberlain faced in a major league game. With the switch-hitting Olmedo batting lefty, Chamberlain’s first major league pitch was a 96-mile-per-hour sinking fastball that just missed the outside corner. His next pitch was the same but lower and a bit further outside, 2-0. He then poured a 95-mile-per-hour fastball right down the middle at the knees for a strike and again just barely missed outside with a 96-mile-per-hour belt-high fastball. So here he is behind 3-1 on his first major league hitter. Chamberlain takes the throw back from Posada, looks in and shakes Posada off once. Then twice. Then a third time. Finally, he calls Posada out to the mound. With his glove over his mouth, he meets his catcher at the base of the mound and starts telling Jorge what he wants to do as Posada’s still jogging toward him. Jorge responds briefly. Chamberlain nods, pats Posada on the chest protector, returns to the rubber and fires a 95-mile-per-hour sinking fastball that catches the outside corner for strike two, then breaks off a wicked 12-to-6 curve (or was it a splitter?) that starts out at the letters, dives to the knees as Olmedo swings over it, and finishes in the dirt. Straight nasty. Welcome to the big leagues, Joba. Get comfortable.

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