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The Yankees have scored 47 runs in their last three games and 54 in their last four. Mike Carminati has the historical significance of that outburst covered. The only question remaining is how much they’ll add to it tonight against Scott Elarton, who comes off the DL sporting a 9.17 ERA. Elarton is a famously homer prone pitcher who has given up 185 home runs in 169 career starts. This year he’s given up a dozen dingers in just eight starts. Though he’s been hurt most of the year (offseason shoulder surgery and most recently a sprained right foot), Elarton has not finished the sixth inning in any of his eight starts thus far, and has allowed fewer than four runs in only his first start of the year, which came against the hitless White Sox in mid-May.

By comparison, Chien-Ming Wang, who takes the mound for the Yankees tonight, has allowed just six home runs in 17 starts and none in his last four, over which he has posted a 2.03 ERA. An interesting side note, opposing basestealers are 0 for 3 against Wang in those four games, this after they started the season with five successful steals against him.

Johnny Damon will DH with Melky in center, Abreu back in right, and Shelley Duncan on the bench tonight.

In other news, Phil Hughes will make what could be his penultmate rehab start for triple-A Scranton tonight. He’ll be joined in the dugout by fast-rising 2006 draftees Joba Chamberlain and Ian Kennedy, who were just promoted from Trenton (Tyler Clippard and Chase Wright have been demoted to double-A to make room).

This just in: the Kansas City Royals don’t suck. At least they don’t suck as much as they usually do. The Yankees’ next three series are against the Royals, Orioles, and White Sox and the Royals just might be the most dangerous of those three teams as they are currently tied in the AL Central with Chicago and just one game behind Baltimore in the overall standings, but have been much hotter than either of late.

Since the end of interleague play, the Royals have gone 13-8 while taking series from the Angels (a three-game sweep), Mariners, Red Sox, and Tigers. They also lost two of three to the Indians by a combined three runs and their only loss to Detroit came in ten innings. Over those 21 games, they’ve outscored their opponents 124-81, which works out to a .701 winning percentage (or a 15-6 record). By comparison, the Blue Jays are 11-13, the Orioles are 12-10 (not counting their suspended game with the Yankees), the White Sox are 14-12, and the Devil Rays are 5-20 since the end of interleague play.

Why have the Royals been so good against the league’s best teams? Their bullpen has a lot to do with it. Led by a finally healthy Octavio Dotel (3.34 ERA, 10 SV) and Rule-5 steal Joakim Soria (2.34, 10 SV while Dotel was hurt), and rounded out by the setup duo of veteran righty David Riske (2.42 ERA) and 25-year-old lefty Jimmy Gobble (2.67), the Royals’ pen has the sixth-best ERA in the American League, and things are only getting better as Zack Greinke is thriving in his new middle-relief role with a 1.88 ERA since June 10.

That strong performance by the pen means that the Royals can hold onto the leads handed to them by their surging offense, which scored 5.9 runs per game over that 21-game stretch. The leaders there have been veteran second baseman Mark Grudzielanek, who has hit .431/.453/.510 since coming off the DL on July 6, utility man Esteban German, who has hit .371/.443/.548 while starting 15 of those 21 games (initially in place of Grudzielanek at second, and since then spotting in at third base and pushing struggling überprospect Alex Gordon to first base), and rookie designated hitter Billy Butler, another top prospect, who has hit .373/.422/.590 since being recalled on June 20.

There’s something amiss, however. It seems no one else has really hit much at all over those last 21 games, and, since Grudzielanek and German essentially split second base over that span, that means the offense has been riding on two hot bats, Butler’s and the second baseman’s. Catcher John Buck, who leads the team with 16 homers (more than twice the total of second-place Mike Sweeney), has slugged .524 over that stretch, but with only three taters and a .292 on-base percentage. Reggie Sanders has the next-best season line on the team, but injuries have limited him to 16 starts on the season. He was just reactivated from the DL a week ago and has made just three starts since then, going 2 for 10 in those games. First basemen Ryan Shealy and Mike Sweeney (surprise) are back on the DL. Ross Gload, who seemed redundant earlier in the season, has instead been merely punchless filling in for Shealy. Despite occasionally threatening to fulfill his promise, Alex Gordon has hit just .240/.301/.320 over those last 21 games. David DeJesus and Mark Teahen have been better than that, but not by enough. Tony Peña Jr. was never supposed to hit in the first place, and hasn’t, but is still outperforming Emil Brown (.228/.288/.319 on the season).

Are the Royals all smoke and mirrors? Yeah, probably. Butler is the real deal, and German is a criminally neglected player who deserves to start somewhere (the Indians should be banging down the Royals’ door for him), but Grudzielanek is obviously in way over his head, Gordon is really the only hitter likely to rise up to replace his production, and it just might be that Gordon isn’t as ready for the Show as the Royals thought he was. The bullpen is likely to cool off at some point as well, which leaves this team in the hands of Butler, German, and Gil Meche. There’s no doubt that the Royals are a better team than they were a year ago, but they’re still a legitimate last-place team (despite the White Sox’s best efforts). The only real danger is that they’re having a lot of fun playing the spoiler right now, and there’s nothing that says that’s going to stop this week with the Yankees in town. There are still eight players on this Yankee team who remember the devastating sweep the team suffered in Kansas City in 2005.

Tonight, Roger Clemens looks to get the Yankee road trip off on the right foot against lefty Odalis Perez. Clemens has a 2.63 ERA over his last three starts despite taking the only loss in the Yankees’ second-half-opening series in Tampa Bay. Perez, meanwhile, has a 7.47 ERA over his last three starts, but still managed to pick up a win against the Red Sox in his last outing (5 IP, 5 R) thanks to the four runs the Royals scored off Julian Tavarez in the fifth inning of that game. The big hits in that inning? Doubles by Grudzielanek and Butler. It sounds a bit extreme, but the key to this series may be making sure those two don’t get anything to hit in big spots.

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Offense: Forty-nine runs in four games? I’d say that’s pretty good.

Studs:

Robinson Cano 11 for 16, 2B, HR, 6 RBI, 6 R, BB
Shelley Duncan 4 for 12, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 3 R, 2 BB, 4 K
Hideki Matsui 7 for 19, 3 HR, 7 RBI, 5 R, BB
Alex Rodriguez 5 for 11, 2 2B, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 6 R, 4 BB
Bobby Abreu 7 for 17, 2B, HR, 6 RBI, 6 R, BB, 2 SB
Andy Phillips 7 for 18, HR, 4 RBI, 5 R, BB
Johnny Damon 4 for 11, 3 2B, 5 RBI, 4 R, 2 BB, SB
Wil Nieves 3 for 5, 3 2B, 3 RBI, 3 R

Duds:

Uh, Miguel Cairo (1 for 5, 2B, 3 R, BB, 3 K)?
Sean Henn struck out in his only at-bat after Joe Torre decided he didn’t need a DH anymore in the finale.
Really, that’s about it.

Rotation: In four games, the Yanks got one start from their fifth starter and another from a minor league spot starter, so you knew it wouldn’t be pretty going in, but no one expected that Mike Mussina would have the worst start of the weekend (4 2/3 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 3 BB, 5 K, 1 HR). Andy Pettitte turned in the only quality start in the finale, doing just that (6 IP, 3 R) while allowing 11 baserunners (8 H, 3 BB), but striking out eight for good measure. Not a good weekend for starting pitching.

Bullpen: The pen actually did worse than Mussina in the opener (8 R, 7 ER in 4 1/3 IP). In the remaining three games they allowed 3 runs in 11 1/3 innings while allowing 15 baserunners, which is almost exactly what they did in the Toronto series (11 2/3 IP, 2 R, 15 baserunners). Take out Friday night’s disaster and that’s a 1.96 RA (that is Run Average, with unearned runs included) over seven games and a 1.30 WHIP. That’ll work.

The Good:

Sure, Sean Henn was facing a demoralized Devil Rays squad that was already down 18-3, but he still tossed two scoreless innings in his first major league work in nearly a month and a half, striking out three. Luis Vizcaino picked up both wins in Saturday’s double header on the basis of 2 1/3 scoreless innings. Mariano Rivera tossed a scoreless inning striking out two in his only work of the weekend in Saturday’s day game. Shockingly, Kyle Farnsworth did the same.

The Bad:

After a 14-day layoff, Edwar Ramirez had a disaster outing on Friday night. He entered the game with the Yanks down 5-0, a man on second and two outs. He then walked two men on nine pitches to load the bases and gave up a grand slam to Dioner Navarro, a sub-.200 hitter who had one prior home run on the season. He then walked two more men on eight more pitches before Mike Myers was brought in to get the one out Ramirez proved incapable of recording. Brian Bruney gave up four runs on four hits and two walks while getting just three outs. Scott Proctor gave up two solo home runs in addition to two other hits in two innings, possibly scuttling the rumored Proctor-Wigginton swap in the process.

Defense: Three errors in four games (Matsui, Nieves, Cano), curiously two of them led to unearned runs charged to Mike Myers, the only runs Myers allowed on the weekend.

Conclusion: The Yanks beat the snot out of the worst team in their division, as they should have, but all that offense hid some less than encouraging pitching. Still, three series into the cupcake part of their schedule, the Yanks are 9-3. They’re now alone in third place in the Wild Card race, 6.5 games behind Cleveland, but just six back in the loss column.

During the nightcap of yesterday’s double header, the Yankees announced that they had traded minor league relief pitcher Jeff Kennard to the Angels for catcher Jose Molina. Molina will become the Yankees’ new backup catcher as soon as he arrives in New York (or Kansas City if he doesn’t make it today), at which point Wil Nieves will be designated for assignment.

First, let’s dispense with Kennard. He’s a right-handed relief pitcher who throws a mid-90s fastball with no movement and gets a bit wild from time to time. He turns 26 later this week and has yet to crack triple-A. This describes Scott Proctor in mid-2003 just before the Yankees acquired him in the Robin Ventura deal, except that Proctor had some experience as a starter and Kennard has made just one start as a professional. Besides, who needs two Scott Proctors? The Yankees used to have another Scott Proctor named Bret Prinz. Prior to the 2005 season, they traded Prinz, then 28 and with 95 major league games under his belt, to the Angels for Wil Nieves. Prinz has since pitched his way through the Rockies and White Sox organizations and is getting lit up for the triple-A Iowa Cubs in the Pacific Coast League. These guys are a dime a dozen, so there’s no harm using one to try to upgrade a position that’s sorely lacking at the big-league level. Kennard had been on the 40-man roster only because he’d been in the minors so long that the Yankees had to add him to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft. They did that because they thought they had made a breakthrough by dropping Kennard’s arm slot. Kennard was pitching well for Trenton, but he was no Edwar Ramirez.

As for the catching situation, Wil Nieves went 2 for 3 with two doubles in last night’s game. That makes him 4 for his last 10, all four hits being doubles. That recent surge pushed Nieves’ season line to .164/.190/.230. It’s obscene that the Yankees waited this long to make a move. Given that Nieves hit .259/.298/.346 in triple-A last year, there was nothing to wait around for. Anyone, even last year’s failure Sal Fasano, would have been an improvement (in his brief time with Toronto this year, Fasano hit .178/.229/.311, which is a hair better than what he did for the Yankees last year). By acquiring the middle Molina, the Yankees have done better than Fasano: The Sequel, though not by a whole lot.

Molina is ultimately little more than Wil Nieves four years in the future (though without a big brother clearing the way for him, Nieves is unlikely to get the opportunity Molina has had). A career .245/.314/.319 hitter in the minor leagues, Molina first sniffed the majors with the Cubs in 1999 at the age of 24 (Nieves did the same at the same age with the Padres). After brief appearances with the Angels in 2001 and 2002 (though more extensive than the ones Nieves had with the Yankees over the last two years), Molina finally cracked the 100 at-bat mark in 2003 with a Nieves-like .184/.210/.219 line. The next year, however, Molina got all the way to 203 at-bats and looked like a major league backup catcher, hitting .261/.296/.374 (hey, that’s what these guys hit). It’s been downhill from there, however, as Molina’s production has declined annually, bottoming out at .228/.246/.293 thus far this year.

Yes, Jose Molina, 32-year-old, righty-hitting backup catcher, is a terrible hitter (ML career .238/.276/.339), but even that dreadful career line would be better production than the Yankees have had from a backup catcher since 2004. Read it and weep:

2005: John Flaherty (.165/.206/.252)
2006: Kelly Stinnett (.228/.282/.304)
2006: Sal Fasano (.143/.222/.286)
2007: Wil Nieves (.164/.190/.230)

The Yankees had no idea how good they had it with Kelly Stinnett.

Molina has one other advantage over Nieves: he can throw out baserunners. Nieves has thrown out only six of 27 baserunners this season (22%), and 10 of 43 on his career (23%). Molina has thrown out 28 percent of baserunners this season and a far more impressive 41 percent in his career. Over the last three seasons (2004 to 2006), Molina has thrown out 47 percent of the men trying to steal on him.

So the Yankees have made a very modest upgrade at their least important position (only Kevin Thompson, Chris Basak, and Shelley Duncan have had fewer plate appearances for the Yankees than Wil Nieves this season) for a minimal expense. They say nothing ventured, nothing gained. Both may be true in this case, but if Molina gets hot (last year he hit .377/.414/.642 from the beginning of July through mid-August), it’ll be a great move. If he tanks like Fasano did last year, he’ll replicate Nieves’ production and provide better defense. In that way this is something of a win-win for the Yankees. If nothing else, the fact that Edwar Ramirez and Shelley Duncan have had recent callups and that Wil Nieves has been replaced (and not by triple-A duds Raul Chavez or Omir Santos) proves that Brian Cashman is paying attention. Every little bit helps, even if it’s a very little bit. I just hope Mike Mussina can handle the disruption.

What better way to rebound from a dispiriting loss on Friday than to pummel that same opponent in a double-header sweep on Saturday? That’s exactly what the Yankees did, rebounding from Friday night’s 14-4 drubbing to win a pair by a combined 24-8 score yesterday.

The Yanks fell behind early in game one as Kei Igawa gave up solo homers in the first and second innings, but Igawa got out of a bases-loaded jam in the third when Delmon Young lined into a 4-3 double play, and Hideki Matsui tied things up with a rocket two-run homer into the right field seats in the fourth. Igawa again left the bases loaded in the fifth. Luis Vizcaino took over in the sixth, and in the bottom of that frame, the Yanks dropped a five-spot on reliever Jae Kuk Ryu. That rally almost didn’t happen. Following a leadoff single by Bobby Abreu and a pitch that drilled Alex Rodriguez in the lower back (later prompting Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano to good-naturedly mock Rodriguez’s dance of pain in the dugout), Ryu struck out Matsui and Jorge Posada. Fortunately, Cano delivered a tie-breaking two-out single that plated Abreu, then took second on the throw home, which allowed him to score on Andy Phillips’ subsequent game-breaking two-RBI single. Shelley Duncan then drove the nail in the D-Rays coffin with his first major league home run, and the Yankees got more laughs out of Duncan’s overly enthusiastic hi-fives (he almost beheaded Andy Phillips after crossing the plate, and nearly tore Kim Jones’ shoulder out of the socket when she tried to join in the fun by asking for a hi-five during the post-game interview).

Scott Proctor gave one back in the eighth on a solo homer by backup catcher Raul Casanova (whose beard and batting scowl make him look more than a little like Ice Cube) to set the final score at 7-3 Yanks.

The Yankees would be doing more laughing in the nightcap as Tampa Bay spot-starter J.P. Howell appeared to be throwing batting practice. Johnny Damon set the tone. Akinori Iwamura hit Matt DeSalvo’s first pitch deep into the corner in left where Damon, starting in left field in place of the DH Matsui, made a brilliant leaping catch, slamming in to the wall on his way down and then flexing at Melky Cabrera in celebration. After DeSalvo struck out the next two men, Damon drew a four-pitch walk from Howell, then stole second to jump start the Yankee offense. A single by Derek Jeter and doubles by Abreu and Alex Rodriguez make it 3-0 Yankees before Howell had recorded an out. The Rays countered with two, but the Yankees added one more in the second and three more in the third, with a double by Wil Nieves, of all people, being the big blow in the latter inning. That made it 7-2 Yankees, much as the first game had been, but this time the Rays rallied scoring two in the fifth to drive DeSalvo from the game and one in the sixth off reliever Brian Bruney. That was as close as they’d get, however, as the Bombers greeted former Yankee Jay Witasick with another five-run sixth inning, this one capped by Alex Rodriguez’s 497th career home run (and 33rd of 2007). Brian Stokes got thet same sort of greeting in the seventh with Hideki Matsui’s second homer of the day capping off another five-run inning that set the final score at 17-5.

Thus the Yankees keep the dream alive with the opportunity to win the series today as Andy Pettitte takes on James Shields, a match-up the Yankees won in Tampa to kick off the season’s second half thanks in part to fourth-inning home runs by Jeter, Rodriguez, and Abreu off Shields.

As for yesterday’s starters. Igawa again bent, but didn’t break and struck out six men in five innings along the way, earning another start. DeSalvo de-salvaged (sorry) his standing a bit with a passable outing that saw him strike out more than he walked for the first time in a major league appearance. Nonetheless, he’s headed back to Scranton and will be replaced by Sean Henn, who heads to the bullpen to take Edwar Ramirez’s spot. Since he was last optioned down to triple-A in late-June, Henn has posted a 2.03 ERA in 13 1/3 innings, striking out 10 against just one walk. Luis Vizcaino, meanwhile, earned the win in both games yesterday. Vizcaino, who also picked up the win on Opening Day, is now 8-2 on the season. That four of those wins have come in the last week is a testament to Joe Torre’s increasingly and surprisingly wily use of his most effective set-up man.

The Yankees have done exactly what they’ve needed to thus far in the second half, taking three of four from both the Devil Rays and Blue Jays. Along the way they won five games in a row prior to yesterday’s loss, but the only one of those games that was decided by more than two runs (Wednesday’s 6-1 win), saw the Yanks trailing 1-0 in the seventh. Perhaps these close games are helping the team maintain its focus and avoid any bad habits that might emerge in garbage time at-bats, but I’d think they could use the emotional respite that a nice blowout win could provide (certainly Luis Vizcaino and Mariano Rivera could use an extra day of rest having pitched in six and five of the last eight games respectively).

The pressure won’t ease up until the Yankees either clinch a playoff spot or get eliminated, and it’s right back on them tonight. Having taken three of four from the Devil Rays last weekend, they need to do the same this weekend, and with Matt DeSalvo and Kei Igawa getting the starts in a double header tomorrow that’s sure also see Wil Nieves get a start behind the plate, there’s extra pressure to win tonight behind Mike Mussina, who will be caught by Jorge Posada for the first time since he gave up seven runs in 6 2/3 innings to the Red Sox on May 22. (For the curious, Mussina has posted a 3.40 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP in 11 starts with Nieves behind the plate and a 9.00 ERA and 1.89 WHIP in four starts with Posada behind the plate, one of them being his injury-shortened outing in Minneapolis in April).

As for the Devil Rays, after losing three of four to the Yankees, they took two of three at home from the scuffling Angels by a combined score of 15-8. The Rays have also made a trio of roster moves since the Yankees were in town. Most importantly, they’ve activated closer Al Reyes from the DL, farming out lefty Jon Switzer in the process. They also just tipped their roster from 11 to 13 pitchers in preparation for the four games they’ll play over the next three days in the Bronx. Specifically, they optioned out infielder Jorge Cantu and designated outfielder Dustan Mohr for assignment while calling up righties Jae Kuk Ryu and Scott Dohmann. Word is the Rays will make yet another move to bring up J.P. Howell for a spot start in the second game of Saturday’s double header, while Ryu could get the start in the day game if Jason Hammel is needed to eat innings for Edwin Jackson tonight.

They Yankees, have made a roster move of their own, calling up Shelley Duncan and optioning Kevin Thompson back to Scranton, while moving Doug Mientkiewicz to the 60-day DL to make room for Duncan on the 40-man roster. Duncan has been raking at Scranton, hitting .295/.380/.577 with 25 homers and 79 RBIs, but also 88 strikeouts. A big (6’5″) outfielder/first baseman who’s not particularly adept at either position, he’s got the Adam Dunn skill set, but from the right-hand side of the plate. Duncan is no Dunn, however. He’s 40 days older than Dunn, was a career .251/.334/.468 hitter prior to this year, and didn’t crack triple-A until late last year on the verge of his 27th birthday. Duncan has 128 home runs in his minor league career. Dunn has 224 in his major league career. That Duncan went to college (University of Arizona), but Dunn didn’t is not enough to explain even a fraction of that discrepancy. Still, it’s worth a shot to see if Duncan can keep his bat hot (he’s hitting .367 with four homers since the break) as the Yankee DH, which is where he’ll start tonight (Johnny Damon will play center as Melky Cabrera’s sitting due to the abdominal strain he suffered in yesterday’s game).

Tonight’s mound match-up of Mussina and Jackson is a rematch of Sunday’s finale in Tampa, which the Yankees won 7-6 after some shoddy work by both bullpens. In that game, Jackson, who sports a season ERA of 7.14, held the Yankees scoreless for four frames before coughing up a four spot in the fifth. He finished after six innings having allowed just those four runs on six hits and two walks while striking out six. Mussina got the better of Jackson by allowing just three runs over six innings, but he also allowed five more hits and struck out none. Jackson has been a significantly better pitcher on the road this year, while Mussina has been a touch worse at home, so tonight is no given for the Yanks. They’ll have to keep on fighting.

Offense: Blew hot and cold, scoring six runs in games one and three and a total of five runs in games two and four. In their defense, they faced Roy Halladay in game two.

Studs:

Robinson Cano 6 for 16, 2B, HR, 3 RBI, BB
Hideki Matsui 7 for 16, HR, BB, SB
Alex Rodriguez 4 for 15, 2B, HR, 5 RBI, 4 R, BB, HBP
Derek Jeter 5 for 16, 2B, BB, SB

Duds:

Johnny Damon 0 for 13, 4 BB, 3 K
Wil Nieves 0 for 3, K

Rotation: The worst of the four starts was, predictably, Kei Igawa’s. While he looked pretty awful, the end result wasn’t all that bad (5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 4 BB, 7 K). Indeed, the Yankees won his game. The other three men turned in quality starts, with Pettitte and Clemens allowing just one run each and Pettitte and Wang both finishing seven innings. Overall, a solid performance against a lineup that contains some dangerous hitters.

Bullpen: Allowed just two runs in 11 2/3 innings, but 15 base runners, and both runs resulted in lead changes.

The Good:

Luis Vizcaino pitched three scoreless innings, one hit, no walks. Mike Myers was brought in twice to face a lefty. He retired both to end Blue Jay rallies. The first time he left the bases loaded. The second time he made a great play on a comebacker to turn an inning-ending double play. In total he threw six pitches, four of them strikes, and got three big outs. Mariano Rivera picked up two more saves, one of them a five-out save. He did allow a triple to Troy Glaus in to lead off the ninth in game one, but stranded him on third by striking out the next two batters. Although Joe Torre got fed up when he walked the first batter in the eighth with a 4-1 lead in game three, Bruney retired four of the five batters he faced in the series.

The Bad:

Proctor and Farnsworth again. Proctor allowed eight base runners in 2 2/3 innings including a solo home run by Alex Rios that tied up Monday’s game at 4-4. It was Proctor that loaded the bases for Myers in game three. Farnsworth came into a tied game on Tuesday, gave up a leadoff single, made a wild throw to first with the runner standing on the bag, then gave up a double to plate the go-ahead run.

Defense: Farnsworth’s wild throw was the only Yankee error of the series, though their overall play was less spectacular than in the previous series in Tampa.

Conclusion: Torre seems to be sorting out the bullpen and the rotation seems to be getting on its feet in the second half. The offense is spreading things around (Andy Phillips had some big hits, Bobby Abreu drove in the only runs in the finale, and only Damon didn’t come through in one way or another). Overall, the team is playing well, though the offense is still a bit underwhelming. An offensive outburst could give the team an emotional breather and allow Vizcaino and Rivera to get some real rest and Edwar Ramirez to get some work (though, regrettably, Ramirez will likely be farmed out on Saturday so that Matt DeSlavo can make a spot start in that day’s double header, so I guess it would be too little too late for Edwar for now). Overall, they Yankees are getting the job done, having won their last four series. They’ve also pulled into third place in the Wild Card race, though they still have a long way to go to catch the Indians.

With the Yankees having already taken the series by winning the first three games against the Blue Jays, this afternoon’s finale lacked much punch. Indeed, the game itself was rather listless. Bobby Abreu doubled home a pair of runs against Dustin McGowan in the first inning. Chien-Ming Wang retired the first 11 men he faced before Vernon Wells doubled with two outs in the fourth. There was a brief downpour in the third. Otherwise, nothing much happened until the seventh when the Blue Jays broke through with three runs off Wang on a leadoff double by Matt Stairs, an infield single off Wang’s shin (he was fine), a fly out that moved both runners up, an RBI groundout, RBI triple by Aaron Hill that shot past Melky Cabrera in the right field gap, and an RBI single by Gregg Zaun. The Yankees went down in order in the seventh and eighth against McGowan and reliever Casey Janssen. Alex Rodriguez lead off the bottom of the ninth with a flair single to right, but Hideki Matsui popped out, Melky grounded out, and Robinson Cano flied out to end the game. 3-2 Jays.

Other items of note: Wil Nieves caught the day game after night game, so Posada will catch Mussina tomorrow night. The two catchers will likely split Saturday’s double header. Melky Cabrera appeared to tweak a stomach muscle while at bat in the middle innings, but stayed in the game and showed no further discomfort.

Having taken the first two games of their four game set against the Blue Jays, the Yankees need only split the remaining two to stay on target and win the series. With Roger Clemens and Chien-Ming Wang set to pitch, that’s a pretty good spot for them to be in. Clemens, of course, had the one dud start in Tampa, but that came after two outstanding eight-inning gems, so one can expect some bounce back tonight. He’ll face 25-year-old Shaun Marcum who is 4-1 with a 3.14 ERA since joining the Jays’ rotation in mid-May. Marcum’s one bugaboo is that he’s a bit homer prone, having surrendered 12 dingers in his 12 starts.

In other news, down in Trenton earlier today, Phil Hughes struck out five in four innings while allowing one run on a pair of hits and a pair of walks. He’ll make one more rehab start for Scranton on Monday and could rejoin major league club after that. The Yankees also think that Jason Giambi, who is working out in Tampa, could rejoin the team in early August, which, combined with Andy Phillips’ solid play at first base, could fill the hole in the Yankee lineup, provided that Joe Torre recognizes that the hole is currently being created by Johnny Damon (.238/.339/.330 and .207/.312/.281 since June 1) not Melky Cabrera (.282/.335/.384 and .333/.382/.453 since June 1) or Phillips (.300/.354/.433 and .375/.419/.500 in July). Of course, if Torre realized that he might have stopped batting Damon leadoff by now seeing as even Robinson Cano has gotten on base more often than Damon since June 1 (Cano since June 1: .288/.333/.474).

Andy Pettitte and Roy Halladay both entered yesterday’s game trying to get on track after a series of ugly outings. After the first inning, it looked like this just wasn’t going to be their night. Pettitte threw 25 pitches in the top of the first, allowed a run on a single, a walk, and a Frank Thomas double, and was fortunate to strand runners on second and third. Halladay threw 28 pitches in the bottom of the first starting with a five-pitch walk to Johnny Damon, who moved to third on a pair of groundouts. With two outs, Alex Rodriguez drove Damon home with a single and the Yankees proceeded to load the bases only to strand all three men when Robinson Cano grounded out.

To recap, that’s 53 pitches, seven base runners, and a 1-1 score after a single frame.

Pettitte threw another 23 pitches in the top of the second, but avoided giving up a run when Reed Johnson’s two-out double near the line in left bound into the stands, forcing Royce Clayton, who had singled, to hold up at third. Pettitte then struck out Alex Rios to preserve the 1-1 tie.

Then everything changed. Halladay retired the Yankees in order in the second. Pettitte did the same to the Blue Jays in the third on just nine pitches, including a three-pitch strikeout of Thomas. Suddenly it was the top of the eighth and the scoreboard still read 1-1.

Halladay and Pettitte matched each other almost exactly:

Halladay – 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 6 K, 112 pitches
Pettitte – 7 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 7 K, 116 pitches

With Pettitte staring down 120 pitches, however, Joe Torre needed to bring in someone else to pitch the eighth. Luis Vizcaino would have been the obvious choice based on recent performance, but he had pitched in each of the last two games and in four of the last five. Scott Proctor pitched two innings on Monday and has allowed eight base runners in his last 2 2/3 innings. Ron Villone’s last outing was a blown save. Edwar Ramirez hadn’t pitched since before the All-Star break and remains an unknown quantity. Mariano Rivera, having closed each of the last three games and four of the last five, was not a candidate to go two innings. Mike Myers is a specialty guy whom Torre is now refusing to use even for that purpose (more on that below). That left supposed “eighth-inning guy” Kyle Farnsworth and Brian Bruney, both of whom were fully rested. Torre chose the wrong guy.

I doubt there was a Yankee fan watching who didn’t assume the Blue Jays would take the lead when they saw Farnsworth taking his warmups in the top of the eighth. Indeed, Frank Thomas led off with a single. Toronto manager John Gibbons pinch-ran with Howie Clark, and Aaron Hill doubled Clark home to give Toronto a 2-1 lead.

It was actually a bit more interesting than that. Farnsworth, who made a wild throw to first in the 11th inning of a 1-1 game against the Angels just before the All-Star Break, yanked a pickoff throw past Andy Phillips to send Clark to second base. The best part is that Clark was standing on first base when Farnsworth threw over; he hadn’t even taken his lead yet. Curiously, Lyle Overbay then lined out directly to Phillips, who was playing back because he didn’t have to hold on Clark, but it was all rendered meaningless by Hill’s RBI double.

The Yankees staged another two-out rally in the eighth against lefty reliever Scott Downs. Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada both singled to put the tying run on second base with two outs, but Downs threw Robinson Cano six straight looping curve balls, and Robinson missed badly at the first two and the last to end the inning.

Having burned through Farnsworth, Joe Torre then called on Brian Bruney in the ninth. Bruney retired the heart of the Blue Jay order (Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, and Troy Glaus) in order on 11 pitches, seven of them strikes. Here’s hoping Joe noticed.

Andy Phillips, who had the game-winning hit in each of the previous two games, lead off the bottom of the ninth with a single against Jays closer Jeremy Accardo. Torre then pinch-ran for Phillips with Miguel Cairo, and Cairo stole second on a 1-0 count to Melky Cabrera to put the tying run in scoring position. Melky then attempted to bunt Cairo to third (as he should have), but bunted foul for strike two (he had purposely swung through the pitch on which Cairo stole second). Melky then followed that failed bunt attempt with a single through the hole into right field. Larry Bowa sent Cairo home as Alex Rios fired to the plate. Cairo slid to the outside of the plate as Gregg Zaun lept for Rios’s throw. As Zaun came down with the ball, he collided with Cairo, who was reaching in for the bag. Having received a hip-check to the head, Cairo was stopped cold and tagged out. Had Cairo headed directly for the plate, he would have been safe easily, but there was no way for him to anticipate that the play would unfold as it did.

Fortunately, Melky moved to second on the play, so, after all of that, the Yankees still had the tying run in scoring position with one out. With a 2-1 count on Johnny Damon, Cabrera stole third as Accardo appeared to have forgotten about him. Accardo then walked Damon and, as Cabrera and Damon danced of third and first respectively, Accardo came set, bent his back knee, and stepped off the rubber, balking home the tying run. Suddenly the Yankees had the winning run on second with one out, but Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, who were a combined 0-for-10 in the game, both grounded out to push the game into extra innings.

Called in for emergency duty, Luis Vizcaino, despite missing a few miles per hour off his fastball, pitched around a one-out single to send the 2-2 tie to the bottom of the tenth. Casey Janssen, in for Accardo, opened the inning by plunking Alex Rodriguez on the elbow pad with a 0-1 pitch. Janssen then threw a 2-2 pitch to Hideki Matsui in the dirt and Rodriguez alertly moved to second as the ball squirted into fair territory and Zaun stumbled attempting to corral it. Earlier in that at-bat, Matsui missed a game-winning home run by mere feet, pulling a ball about three seats foul into the front row of the upper deck in left. Janssen rallied to strike out Matsui on a bad pitch up in the zone that was such a miss that it fooled Matsui completely. With first base open, the Gibbons then walked Jorge Posada to pitch to Robinson Cano, who had twice failed to deliver the hit that could have made the difference in the game, leaving five men on base in the process. This time, Cano laced Janssen’s first pitch into the corner in deep left, plating Rodriguez and winning the game, 3-2 in ten innings.

It was a great win for the Yankees, and puts them in a great position as most had assumed that with Kei Igawa starting for the Yankees on Monday and Roy Halladay starting for the Blue Jays last night, the Yankees would lose at least one of those games. The game also comes with a lesson.

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The Yankees have won 9 of their last 12 games and the last four games they’ve lost have been started by Scott Kazmir, John Lackey, Johan Santana, and Dan Haren. You really can’t complain about that, though it is cause for concern heading into tonight’s game against another big name pitcher, Toronto’s Roy Halladay. Here’s the good news: after a fantastic April (4-0, 2.28 ERA), Halladay’s been something of a mess, posting a 6.35 ERA over his last eleven starts and a 6.85 ERA over his last four. The bad news is that it seems a significant part of that has been bad luck. Halladay has allowed 92 hits in his last 66 2/3 innings, which can be traced to his inflated .323 opponents average on balls in play. That cannot, however, be traced to the Toronto defense, which is fifth in the majors at turning balls in play into outs and puts a solid in field quartet behind the groundballing Halladay.

More bad news is that Andy Pettitte’s recent history is actually worse than Halladay’s. He’s posted a 6.99 ERA over his last eight starts, a 9.00 mark in his last five, and a whopping 13.14 in his last three. More encouraging signs are that Pettitte fell just one out short of a quality start in Tampa last week, and handled the Blue Jays expertly in a hard-luck loss back in late May when he was undone by poor defense and run support and Aaron Hill’s steal of home. Halladay last faced the Yankees in September of last year, leaving the game after 3 1/3 innings with a forearm strain.

The Yankees did what they needed to do by taking three of four from the Devil Rays over the weekend. They’ll now need to do the same against the Blue Jays at home this week. The Jays are the toughest opponent the Yankees will face until they head to Cleveland on August 10 and they’ll face them seven times prior to that date, adding a three-game set in Toronto to wrap up the cupcake portion of their schedule in the first week of August.

The Blue Jays, who have gotten Roy Halladay, Greg Zaun and Reed Johnson back from the DL since the Yankees last saw them in late May, have played well of late. They opened the second half by splitting a four-game set in Boston and concluded the first half by taking four of six from the Indians and A’s. That said, the Jays are the definition of a .500 team (a game below in reality, a game above according to Pythagoras), while the Yankees are desperately trying to prove that they’re more than that. In that way, this could prove to be a huge series for the Bombers.

The Blue Jays hold a 3-1 advantage in the season series entering tonight having beaten Phil Hughes in his major league debut in a rain-shortened one-game series in the Bronx in April and taken two of three in the “Rod Said ‘Ha!'” series in late May. Of course, the Yankees’ starting pitchers in those four games were Hughes in his debut, Matt DeSalvo, Andy Pettitte, and Tyler Clippard, so the Blue Jays have yet to really face the Yankees’ best.

Not that they will tonight either. Kei Igawa takes the mound in his fourth start since returning from the minors. In his first three he’s posted a 6.19 ERA while walking nine and allowing three home runs in 16 innings (all three dingers coming in the middle start against the A’s). The Yanks will have to outhit whatever Igawa gives them tonight and will look to do so against Josh Towers. Towers’ last start (on July 8) was far and away his best of the season as he held the Indians scoreless on three hits and no walks over eight innings. He was nearly as good against the Tigers back on April 15, but otherwise has been more of a five-inning, four-run starter. He won’t walk very many, but he’ll give up his share of hits and homers. The Yankees have only faced Towers in relief this year, plating a run against him in 2 2/3 innings in their only win over the Jays on the season.

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With the Yankees needing to win every series for the next month (and, really, beyond), I though I’d start a new feature here that takes a look at the individual performances of each just-completed series. It goes a little something like this:

Offense The Yankees scored an average of six runs per game against the Devil Rays, which sounds impressive when you consider the fact that the Tigers lead the majors by scoring 5.94 runs per game on the season. However, the Rays allowed an average of 6.17 runs per game over the first half of the season, which means the Yankees’ performance was actually close to average. I say close, because the Rays tend to give up a lot more runs on the road, so the Yankees were actually above average for a visitor at Tropicana Field, but it still wasn’t as impressive a showing as it might appear at first glance.

Offensive Studs:

Bobby Abreu: 6 for 16, 2 2B, 2 HR, 8 RBI
Hideki Matsui: 6 for 18, 2 2B, 2 HR
Jorge Posada: 4 for 9, 2 2B, HR, 4 BB, SB
Derek Jeter: 5 for 18, 2B, 2 HR, SB

Offensive Duds:

Robinson Cano: 2 for 12, IBB, RBI
Melky Cabrera: 3 for 12, 3 K, CS
Kevin Thompson: 1 for 8, 2B, 3 K
Johnny Damon: 3 for 14, 5 BB, SB, CS

Rotation Two of the four starters turned in bare-minimum quality starts, Chien-Ming Wang doing so while striking out six and walking none, and Mike Mussina doing so by gutting out six innings with bad stuff. Andy Pettitte missed a quality start by one out, leaving with two on and two out in the sixth. Roger Clemens had the only truly poor outing of the series, though it wasn’t a total disaster (5 1/3 IP, 5 R). Overall a poor showing by the rotation against a team batting Brendan Harris third.

Bullpen Allowed five runs in 12 innings, but only blew a lead once, that coming in the finale when Ron Villone entered a 4-3 game and gave up a two-run home run.

The Good:

Mariano Rivera collected two saves and closed a third game with a four-run lead. Altogether, he allowed a pair of singles and struck out four in three innings. Luis Vizcaino was perfect for 2 2/3 innings, striking out three and closing the door for Pettitte in the opener. Brian Bruney finished the sixth for Clemens on Friday, retiring his two batters on nine pitches, six of them strikes.

The Bad:

Kyle Farnsworth pitched three times, allowing two runs on a home run and a pair of doubles. In his three innings, he allowed six base runners and struck out one. Mike Myers and Scott Proctor teamed up to allow a run in their only work of the weekend on Friday. Myers faced two batters, striking out Akinori Iwamura, then allowing a double to Carl Crawford. Crawford is a career .333/.368/.722 hitter against Myers in 19 plate appearances. Proctor came on and, in the process of getting the last two outs, allowed Crawford to steal third, walked two, and gave up a single that plated Crawford. Ron Villone pitched a perfect inning striking out two on Saturday, but undid that good work by blowing a one-run lead on Sunday by surrendering a two-run homer. This after another base runner had been erased on a double play. Vizcaino had to finish his inning as well. Carlos Peña was the terror who hit both home runs against the Yankee pen. Edwar Ramirez was not used.

Defense The Yankees played fantastic defense all weekend. Their only error was Jorge Posada’s catcher’s interference in ninth-inning on Sunday. Melky Cabrera, Alex Rodriguez, and Andy Phillips, who made a game-saving play in the finale, earn special mention for their play in the field.

Conclusion The offense needs to build some momentum. The pitching staff needs to shape up. Joe Torre needs to switch Farnsworth and Vizcaino on his bullpen depth chart and give Edwar Ramirez a fair shake.

Just as they did on Saturday night, the Yankees fell behind 3-0 early yesterday as Mike Mussina showed his usual long-rest rust and spent as much time arguing with home plate umpire C.B. Bucknor as he did actually getting hitters out during the first three innings. Moose locked it down, however, and the Yankees rallied against Edwin Jackson in the fifth to take the lead, hitting for the cycle with a Robinson Cano single, an Andy Phillips triple that was badly misplayed by B.J. Upton in center (payback for Upton robbing him of a 400-foot extra-base hit on Saturday), a Wil Nieves double (his first extra-base hit of the year), and a two-run Derek Jeter home run.

Mussina fought his way through six innings with the help of some great defense, starting with his own, as he snagged a comebacker from the first batter he faced. Later in the first inning, with Carl Crawford on second and Brendan Harris on first, Carlos Peña singled to center to plate Crawford, but Melky Cabrera threw behind Harris to catch him rounding second base too far for the second out. The third inning came to a scoreless close when Hideki Matsui threw out B.J. Upton trying to score from second on a single to left thanks in part to Upton’s sore quadriceps and a great swipe tag by Wil Nieves. In the fourth, Carl Crawford ground to Andy Phillips deep at first, and Phillips beat Crawford in a footrace to the bag, colliding dramatically with the Tampa center fielder (thankfully, neither player was injured). The fifth ended on a 4-6-3 double play, and Melky again gunned out a runner at second base in the sixth as he caught Ty Wigginton trying to stretch a single.

Ron Villone came on in the seventh and promptly coughed up the lead by surrendering a two-run homer to Peña, but the Yankees quickly fought back in the eighth. Alex Rodriguez led off with a double to drive reliever Brian Stokes from the game. Hideki Matsui greeted Casey Fossum with a single that put runners on the corners. After Melky struck out, Robinson Cano plated Rodriguez with a sac fly on which Matsui alertly took second. Gary Glover then came on to face Phillips, who singled home Matsui to regain the lead and took second on the throw home. After pinch-hitter Jorge Posada was intentionally walked and Johnny Damon was unintentionally walked, Derek Jeter ground to third baseman Akinori Iwamura, but Iwamura couldn’t find the handle on the ball and all hands were safe, with Phillips scoring what proved to be a crucial insurance run.

I say crucial because Kyle Farnsworth opened the eighth by giving up a ground-rule double to Upton that missed being a home run by all of three feet. Wigginton then singled Upton home to pull the Rays within one. Rays manager Joe Maddon then pinch-ran for Wigginton with Josh Wilson with Dioner Navarro at the plate and one out. Navarro hit a hot shot to the left of Phillips at first, which Phillips snared on a full dive, then clamored to one knee and doubled Wilson off second for what would prove to be not only an inning-ending play, but a game-saving one.

Mariano Rivera wrapped things up with a heart attack ninth that started with a single by Iwamura, followed by catcher’s interference as Posada came out of his crouch to try to throw out Iwamura stealing second and tipped Carl Crawford’s bat with his glove in mid-swing. That put runners on first and second with no outs in a game the Yankees lead by just one run, but Brendan Harris ground into a 5-5-3 double play and Carlos Peña, who had driven in three of the six Devil Ray runs to that point, popped out to give the Yankees a 7-6 victory.

So, while it wasn’t a dominating performance, the Yankees did what they needed to do in taking three of four from the Devil Rays. They’ll have to play better ball to do the same against Toronto this week, however. Meanwhile, Andy Phillips, who is hitting .302/.362/.453 this season, is the story of the day. Pete Abraham kicks things off.

Chien-Ming Wang allowed three runs in the first inning last night, but quickly adjusted, mixing in more sliders and changeups to hold the Devil Rays to a lone single over the next four innings. Meanwhile, the Yankees chipped away with a run in the third, a Hideki Matsui solo homer in the fourth, and a two-run homer by Bobby Abreu in the fifth to take a 4-3 lead. Wang got into trouble again in the sixth, loading the bases with two outs, but struck out Jonny Gomes to end the inning and his evening. The Yanks tagged on an insurance run in the seventh thanks to some aggressive base running by Johnny Damon, who went from first to third on a single to left and scored on a groundout. That run was crucial, as, after Ron Villone pitched a perfect seventh, Kyle Farnsworth gave up a solo home run to Carlos Pena in the eighth, an inning he escaped only when Jorge Posada gunned out B. J. Upton stealing second. The Yanks got that run back in the top of the ninth, however, again thanks to Damon’s legs as Johnny walked, stole second, and scored on a Bobby Abreu double. Incidentally, speed made the first Yankee run happen as well, as, with the bases loaded and one out in the third, Bobby Abreu (there’s that man again) hit into what looked like a sure inning-ending double play, but burned up the first-base line to beat the pivot throw as Andy Phillips scored from third. Mariano Rivera shut the door in the ninth, nailing down the 6-4 win and picking up his 425th career save, which moved him past John Franco into third place on the all-time saves list. The other big numbers on the night were Abreu’s five RBIs and Chien-Ming Wang’s six strikeouts against no walks in six innings.

Today the Yanks look to wrap up the series by taking three of four, which is exactly what they need to do against teams such as the Devil Rays. The bad news is that Mike Mussina will be working on a whole bunch of rest. The good news is that he only has to be better than 23-year-old Edwin Jackson, who is 1-9 with a 7.23 ERA and a 1.89 WHIP on the season and also hasn’t started since July 4, when he gave up 7 runs in five innings against the Red Sox.

The Devil Rays send their young left-handed proto-stud to the mound tonight against the Yankees’ old right-handed hoss. It’s a pretty keen matchup that we’ll look back on if Scott Kazmir ever puts it together. Thus far injuries and walks have kept him from building on the potential he showed in 2005 at the tender age of 21. Last year, Kazmir was significantly better than in ’05, but was limited to 24 starts due to reoccurring shoulder problems that ended his season in late August. This year, he’s taken all of his turns, but his rate stats are down across the board. His .347 opponents’ average on balls in play, which is pure bad luck, isn’t helping, but his homer rate is up, his strikeout rate is down, and, most disappointingly, his 4.65 BB/9 has undone all of the progress he had made in that department last year. A significant side effect of that is that he’s not going deep into games because of swollen pitch counts. All of which is good news for the Yankees, as is the fact that Roger Clemens has dominated in his last two outings (2 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks in 16 innings), and the fact that the Yankee offense seems to be clicking, following Bobby Abreu’s lead as it has all season.

Entering the second half of the season, the Yankees’ record stands at 42-43, a game below .500. With 77 games left to play, they are tied with Toronto in second place in the AL East, 10 games behind Boston, and tied for fifth in the Wild Card race, 8.5 games behind the Indians (who were recently passed in the Central standings by the defending AL Champion Tigers).

Things look bad, and indeed they are, but 54 of those remaining 77 games will come against teams that currently have equal or worse records than the Yankees themselves. If the Yankees can simply break even in their 23 games against contending teams (say a 12-11 record in their remaining series against the Red Sox, Tigers, Indians, Angels, and Mariners), the fate of their season lies in their ability to take advantage of the cupcake portion of their second half schedule. If they win two of every three games (in other words, just win their series) against those weaker teams, the Yankees will finish the season 90-72. That might not be enough to make the playoffs as the Wild Card-leading Indians are on a 96-win pace, but if they can mix in a few sweeps and a few 3-out-of-4 series wins, they’ll be right in the thick of it.

That said, it has to start tonight. It’s now or never. Any sort of stumble against Tampa, Toronto, Kansas City, Baltimore, or the White Sox will put the final nail in the coffin currently containing the Yankees’ season. Exactly half of those 54 games come in 27-game stretch that begins tonight in Tampa Bay. The only time the Yankees have to leave the eastern time zone during that 27-game stretch is for a four-game series in Kansas City in two weeks. If they can’t play something in the neighborhood of .700 baseball over those 27 games, that last flickering ember of hope for this season will be extinguished.

The good news is that the Yankees ended the first half of the season on a positive note, taking five of seven from the Twins and Angels, a pair of winning teams ahead of them in the standings. What’s more, Phil Hughes is on the comeback trail (he’ll make a rehab start with double-A Trenton on Friday and, if that goes well, another on Wednesday). Hughes could replace Kei Igawa as the fifth starter by the end of the month, which would give him a couple major league starts before the Yankees hit the tough part of their second-half schedule in mid-August. At this point just about everything has to go right for the Yankees to even sniff the playoffs, but the opportunity exists for that to happen.

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The Yankees and Angels played and ugly, sloppy game on Friday night that saw two runs score on errors, another called back when Robinson Cano missed the bag rounding third, and several other poor plays (such as missed cutoff men and third outs made at third base) on both sides of the ball and both sides of the field.

The pitching was pretty crappy as well. Bartolo Colon, who was bounced with two on and none out in the third, allowed seven runs (including both bequeathed runners, who scored on Darren Oliver’s watch). Andy Pettitte made it into the sixth, but left with none out and a man on and was charged with eight runs on the night, including that bequeathed runner, who scored with Edwar Ramirez on the mound.

Ramirez allowed an additional run of his own in the sixth to run the score to 9-9. The Yanks broke that tie in the seventh when Johnny Damon drew a leadoff walk from Chris Bootcheck, stole second, moved to third on a Melky Cabrera single, and scored when Gary Matthews bobbled Melky’s hit in center. Alex Rodriguez then laced a line-drive homer to the seats in left that put the Yankees up 12-9. Remarkably, Ramirez, Scott Proctor and Ron Villone managed to shut the door at that point, while the Yankees plated two more in the eighth against Dustin Moseley to put the final score at 14-9. Ramirez earned his first major league win despite retiring just two of the seven batters he faced against their will (one of them sacrificed).

Yesterday, following a joyous Old Timer’s Game that saw Paul O’Neill and Scott Brosius lace hard singles in their first Old Timer’s action, and Bobby Murcer make a triumphant return to the field with a hard line out, the Yankees played a game that was very much the opposite of Friday night’s circus, but was also decided by sloppy play and poor decisions. Coming off his dominant two-hit performance against the Twins, Roger Clemens held the Angels to one run on five hits and a walk over eight efficient innings (98 pitches). Angels’ ace John Lackey matched Clemens almost exactly (one run on five hits and a hit batsman over eight innings), but upped the ante by striking out eleven Yankees (including Melky Cabrera four times) and throwing 72 percent of his 107 pitches for strikes.

The Yankees got their one run in the bottom of the second on doubles by Hideki Matsui and Bobby Abreu. The Angels got theirs in the top of the third on a leadoff double by Garret Anderson and a pair of productive groundouts. With the game still tied 1-1 in the ninth, both managers turned to their bullpens, doing so exactly as they should. Mike Scioscia got three scoreless innings from his set-up ace Scot Shields, then turned to his closer in a still-tied game on the road. Joe Torre worked his bullpen backwards as he should have, starting with a pair of shutout innings from Mariano Rivera, then a scoreless frame from Kyle Farnsworth, then turning to the fully rested Luis Vizcaino rather than Scott Proctor, who had thrown 21 pitches on Friday.

Vizcaino pitched around a two-out single in the twelfth, volleying back to Francisco Rodriguez, who stranded Hideki Matsui at second base following a one-out walk and a surprising stolen base by striking out Jorge Posada and getting Bobby Abreu to ground out. In for his second inning of work, Vizcaino gave up a leadoff double to Howie Kendrick, who had been making highlight reel plays at second base all day long (mostly on balls hit by Miguel Cairo). Jose Molina then attempted to bunt Kendrick over to third, but fouled off the first attempt, then missed the second, taking off the play. After ball one and a trio of fouls, Molina grounded to the left of Miguel Cairo, who was again starting at first base in place of the stiff-necked Andy Phillips. Cairo fell to his left and smothered the ball, but bobbled it as he came to his feet, then, perhaps forgetting that a Molina was running, made a desperation throw that sailed behind Vizcaino who was covering the bag. Cairo’s throw sent Molina to second and allowed Kendrick to score the tie-breaking run. Cairo was charged with two errors on the play, giving him four at first base in two games (on Friday night he made a nearly identical play throwing behind Pettitte covering first and allowing a run to score, he also flubbed a ball in the tenth inning of yesterday’s game) and pushing the Yankees’ total to five on the day (Kyle Farnsworth threw wild to first base in the 11th, and Hideki Matsui booted a single in the fourth to putt the batter on second). Vizcaino retired the next three men in order, but the damage had been done.

The Yankees staged a rally in the bottom of the 13th. Cairo, attempting to atone for his errors, singled with one out, stole second, then moved to third on a ball that Rodriguez threw clean over Molina’s head to the backstop. Suddenly the Yankees were a productive out away from re-tying the game.

In the third inning of Friday night’s mess, with one out, the Yankees up 6-3, and runners on the corners, Joe Torre called for a suicide squeeze, which was perfectly executed by Miguel Cairo with Jorge Posada charging from third base. Now, with Cairo on third and Johnny Damon at the plate, Damon stood tall as Francisco Rodriguez threw three more balls, resulting in the same set up (runners on the corners, one out) in a sudden-death situation (extra-innings, down by one). Unlike the meaningless squeeze on Friday, a squeeze bunt here would have tied a game that otherwise could have been lost on a single double-play grounder. The man at the plate was Melky Cabrera, who already had five successful sacrifice bunts on the season. In addition to the squeeze, having Damon, who had stolen two bases on Friday night, steal second on Rodriguez (who had already allowed a steal to Hideki Matsui of all people) would have eliminated the double play and could have resulted in either a delayed double steal or a throwing error that would have gotten Cairo home without any help from the batter.

I probably don’t need to tell you what happened, or rather, what didn’t. No steal. No bunt. Melky struck out for the fifth time in the game, and Derek Jeter, who had hit into an inning-ending double play in the eleventh, grounded into a fielder’s choice to give the Angels a 2-1 win in 13 innings.

I’ve lost track of the number of times Joe Torre has failed to employ the squeeze bunt when a successful one would either tie or win a game, but I can approximate that number by saying it’s every time. According to Baseball Prospectus 2007, Joe Torre did not call for a single squeeze from 2004 to 2006 and he sure as hell didn’t call for one in the 11th inning of Game 4 of the 2003 World Series. In a lineup that includes Damon, Cabrera, Jeter, Abreu, Cano, and Cairo, all of whom will lay one down from time to time, be they bunting for a hit or, in the case of Cabrera, Cairo, and, stupidly, Jeter, sacrificing, the squeeze bunt should come in to play regularly in sudden-death situations. Instead it never does, and the Yankees are 6-14 in one-run games.

Today they try to win the rubber game behind Chien-Ming Wang who threw seven scoreless innings against the Twins in his last outing. The Angels counter with Ervin Santana, who has a 6.88 ERA over his last three starts, though he did strike out 11 Rangers in his last outing.

Only one team in baseball has won more games than the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, that being the Boston Red Sox. This is not the happiest of seasons to be a Yankee fan, to say the least. The Angels swept the Yankees in Anaheim back at the end of May winning one high-scoring affair and two close, low-scoring games.

The upside for the Yankees this weekend, beyond Old Timer’s Day, is that they miss two of the Halos’ top three starters (Weaver and Escobar) and that they’re coming into the series on a relative high having done what they needed to do against the Twins, taking the three games not started by Johan Santana to finish their season series with Minnesota with a 5-2 record. Meanwhile, the Angels come in on something of a slide having dropped six of nine to the pitiful Royals, Orioles, and Rangers, the first of those having swept them in Angel Stadium.

Adding to the good news, tonight the Yankees get a crack at a favorite wipping boy in Bartolo Colon (career 5.32 ERA against New York). Colon is ripe for the picking having struggled with injuries all year and having posted a 7.91 ERA over his last seven starts, allowing eleven home runs along the way. Alex Rodriguez, who is a career .440/.460/1.133 hitter against Colon with a whopping eight home runs in 45 at-bats, will return to the lineup at third base looking to use that matchup to break out of a small 0 for 15 slump. Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, and Robinson Cano all have OPSs over 1.000 against Colon, and Johnny Damon (starting in left field tonight with Matsui at DH) falls just short of that mark.

On the flip side, the Angels’ hitters have pretty good numbers against Andy Pettitte as well, but only Garret Anderson and Gary Matthews Jr. have more than ten at-bats against him and only two others have ever faced him. Andy’s looking to rebound from his disaster outing his last time out.

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Who are these guys and what have they done with the 2007 New York Yankees?

The Yankees jumped out to an early 1-0 lead last night when Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera singled and Damon scored on a groundout. Chein-Ming Wang made that hold up by limiting the Twins to a double through the first three innings. In the fourth he ran into some trouble, walking the first three men and giving up a single to Justin Morneau, but he escaped with the lead because the first walk was erased when Jorge Posada caught Jason Bartlett stealing, and Torii Hunter followed Morneau’s bases-loading single by grounding into a double play. Wang got another DP following a leadoff single in the fifth. By then his lead had swelled to 3-0 thanks to a two-run Robinson Cano home run in the previous frame. Wang pitched out of trouble again in the sixth and then the Yankees went to town dropping a five-spot on Carlos Silva and Juan Rincon in the bottom of the inning.

The onslaught started when Jorge Posada hit a single to center that bounced past Torii Hunter allowing Posada to head to third as the Yankee dugout erupted in laughter as the sight of their 35-year-old catcher running out a would-be triple. Posada actually had two triples last year, but had gone three years without one before that (and remains without one this year as the hit was scored a single and a two-base error). Posada scored on a wild pitch, but the bases didn’t remain empty for long as Hideki Matsui doubled and Bobby Abreu, in the midst of another three-hit night, singled him home. Andy Phillips then flew out to the warning track in left driving Silva from the game. Abreu greeted Rincon by stealing second. Rincon reacted by hitting Cano in the foot. Johnny Damon moved the runners over with a groundout, and Melky Cabrera drove them home with a single, moving to second on the throw home, which Cano avoided by sliding outside of home plate and sticking his left hand in between Joe Mauer’s leg and tag. Derek Jeter then singled home Melky to complete the scoring.

Wang, Scott Proctor, and rookie Edwar Ramirez each pitched a scoreless frame to wrap things up, Ramirez dazzling by striking out the heart of the Twins’ order on 14 pitches in his major league debut. Ramirez is exactly as advertised. His uniform hangs on his skinny frame, but he throws 90-mile-per-hour fastballs mixed with sliders then puts hitters away with a changeup in the high-70s that just falls off a table when it reaches the plate. Michael Cuddyer, Justin Morneau, and Lew Ford (hitting for Torii Hunter who was ejected in the eight for jawing at home plate umpire Ron Kulpa from the dugout) each went down swinging, missing Ramirez’s change by a good foot each.

Some other items of note: Alex Rodriguez went 0 for 4 and came out of the game after popping up to end the Yankees’ sixth-inning rally, but didn’t seem to be favoring his sore hamstring. He’s expected to DH tomorrow, and remains one of just two players to start every game this season (Ichiro Suzuki being the other).

Johnny Damon has a hit in six of his last seven games (including the suspended finale in Baltimore), but he’s only hitting .267/.333/.400 over that span and did not play in the only game the Yankees won against Oakland over the weekend. Melky Cabrera, meanwhile, is hitting .320/.378/.469 since taking over in center field on June 1. In 1994, a 25-year-old Bernie Williams hit .289/.384/.453 in his fourth major league season, which made that the best year of his career to that point. At age 22, Melky Cabrera may just have arrived as the Yankee center fielder of the future.

In these first two games against the Twins, Derek Jeter is 5 for 10 from the three-hole. Robinson Cano, who was 2 for 22 coming into the series, is 3 for 6 with a homer and a walk while batting ninth. Hideki Matsui has figured out that he’s trying to pull the ball too much. Matsui, who had a single and a double in his last 23 at-bats coming into last night’s game, had a single and a double in last night’s game alone. Finally, Bobby Abreu, who was 4 for 41 coming in to this series, got a pep talk from Roger Clemens prior to Monday night’s game (Clemens told him he was the hitter he had feared most when facing the Phillies the last few years, and that he needed to go back to being that guy) and has gone 6 for 7 with a walk and a monster home run in the first two games against the Twins.

It’s my belief that Abreu is the key to the Yankees’ season. The offense seems to go in which ever direction he goes. Indeed, during last night’s game, YES posted a stat showing that Abreu has hit roughly .350 in Yankee wins and roughly .150 in Yankee loses. As the Yankees saw down the stretch last year, when Bobby Abreu’s on his game, he’s a difference maker. Alex Rodriguez may be having a monster season, but with Jason Giambi out possibly for the season, and Damon making me wonder how Kevin Thompson or Shelley Duncan might do as the everyday DH, Abreu needs to be the Bobby Abreu Clemens remembers.

Here’s hoping facing Johan Santana this afternoon doesn’t undo all of that good stuff.