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The Yankees continue their quest to gain ground on the Twins tonight as Chien-Ming Wang faces off against Carlos Silva. Last year this would have been a mismatch, but Silva has rebounded from his disastrous 2006 season to be roughly league average. The most noticeable change in his game is that he’s posting his highest walk rate as a starter (remember, this is the guy who walked just nine men in 188 1/3 innings in 2005). It could be that, after a season of serving up meatballs (246 hits and 38 homers in 180 1/3 innings in 2006), Silva has figured out that there’s a limit to pitching to contact.

Chien Ming-Wang, who is just a year Silva’s junior, has been exploring similar things this year, using his slider to increasing his strike-out rate by more than a K per nine innings, though that’s been countered by a corresponding reduction in his ground ball rate. Curiously, with Silva walking more men and Wang striking out more men, the two have very similar peripherals (Silva has exactly one more walk, strikeout and home run allowed, albeit in 8 2/3 more innings). Wang’s still the better pitcher, of course, and holds a comfortable advantage in hit rate, ERA, and WHIP. In fact, Wang has failed to complete the sixth inning just once in his 12 starts this year and has allowed more than four runs just once, while Silva has done each four times. Since May 16, Wang has posted a 2.64 ERA in eight starts, going 6-1 with one no decision while allowing just two home runs in 58 innings.

Of course, the big story tonight will be how Alex Rodriguez feels the day after straining his hamstring in a collision with Justin Morneau at first base. If Alex Rodriguez misses a significant chunk of time due to the injury, the Yankees can chip away all they want, but all they’ll have to show for it is a pile of rubble. One thing’s for sure, Miguel Cairo will be starting at third base tonight.

By the way, for those who stay up late enough, I’ll be making an appearance on Steve Thompson’s show on WCCO radio in Minneapolis tonight at midnight to talk Yankees. You can listen live on their website.

The 1995 season was shortened to 144 games because of the previous year’s strike. After 73 games, one game past the season’s half-way point, the Yankees were seven games under .500 (33-40), in fourth place in the AL East 7.5 games behind the division-leading Red Sox and ten games out of the Wild Card behind eight other teams.

At the end of this week’s four-game series against the Twins the Yankees will have played 82 games, one game more than half of the season. They are currently four games under .500 (37-41), in third place in the AL East 11 games behind the division-leading Red Sox and nine games out of the Wild Card behind five other teams.

In 1995 the Yankees won the Wild Card after signing Darryl Strawberry in late-June, swapping Danny Tartabull out for Ruben Sierra, and acquiring David Cone for a trio of minor leaguers at the trading deadline. Sierra represented only a modest improvement over Tartabull, but Strawberry, who joined the major league team in early August, represented a significant improvement over Luis Polonia, whom the Yankees promptly dumped on the Braves. Meanwhile Cone and Scott Kamieniecki completed a rotation that had been only three deep since Jimmy Key and Melido Perez went down to injury in May and June respectively.

Still, it took a nearly miraculous 25-6 stretch run combined with a similarly staggering collapse by the AL West-leading Angels (who lost 28 of 37 before rallying to force a one-game playoff with Seattle) and an otherwise weak league (just one other non-division winner finished with a winning record) for the Yankees to sneak into the postseason in 1995. This year will not be 1995 all over again. There’s only one spot to fill in the rotation and the Yankees won’t fill it with the defending Cy Young Award winner. There are no superstar reclamation projects toiling in the independent leagues (the closest the Yankees could come would be Clemens, who is already here). Meanwhile, the teams they’re trying to chase are not only good, but should get better.

Take the Twins, for example. Everyone and their mother knew that Sidney Ponson and Ramon Ortiz would be replaced in the rotation two of the organization’s four strong triple-A starters by now and indeed they have. Meanwhile, Johan Santana is a notoriously dominant second-half pitcher. Meanwhile, last year’s batting champ, Joe Mauer, is back after missing most of May due to injury and hitting .267/.380/.517 since June 16, and there’s still room for improvement at third base, designated hitter, and in Ron Gardenhire’s lineup construction.

The improvements in the rotation are the most dangerous however, as the Big Three in the Minnesota bullpen, Joe Nathan, Sideshow Pat Neshek, and Matt Guerrier, have been flat out dominant, combining for a 1.82 ERA, 8.9 K/9 and a 0.93 WHIP in 123 1/3 innings. That means opponents have six innings get a lead, which is a tougher trick without Ponson and Ortiz to kick around.

Tonight the Yankees try to get ahead against Boof Bonser, who hasn’t turned in a quality start in his last five tries, posting a 6.91 ERA over that span as opposing batters have hit .328/.362/.529 against him. The Yanks gave Boof his worst going over of the season back on April 10 when they plated seven runs off him, knocking him out in the fifth. Ah, remember that series? The Yankees had opened with a disappointing 2-3 showing on their opening home stand, but we all blamed it on the cold and were convinced we were right when they beat the Twins 18-3 in their first two games indoors in Minnesota behind strong outings by Andy Pettitte and . . . Carl Pavano? Seems like a lifetime ago now.

Rocket Clemens takes the hill for the Yanks looking to rebound from the 7.15 ERA he’s posted in his last three outings (two starts, one relief inning). The Yankees, who trail the Twins by four games in the Wild Card hunt, could really use a sweep this week, as unlikely as that may be. If nothing else they need to win the three games not started by Johan Santana, who was a 16-year-old free agent signee by the Houston Astros in 1995. Times have changed folks.

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The Yankees scored two runs off Joe Kennedy in the first inning of Friday night’s game against the A’s. Mike Mussina made that hold up for seven innings and, after Kyle Farnsworth let two men on in the eighth, Mariano Rivera came on to get the last four outs to secure a 2-1 win.

On Sunday, the Yankees were still looking for their third run of the series as they had been one-hit by Chad Gaudin and Rich Harden on Saturday in a 7-0 loss. Kei Igawa pitched well in Saturday’s game with the significant exception of the three home runs he allowed in 6 1/3 innings. One of those dingers was hit by Jason Kendall, who had previously hit a total of two home runs in his two and a half seasons with the A’s. Scott Proctor gave up hits to three of the four men he faced in relief of Igawa and, with Mike Myers’ help, all three men came around to score. After the game, Proctor, still reeling from walking in the winning run in Baltimore, burned his glove and spikes in front of the dugout.

The Yankees finally broke through to score five runs in Sunday’s finale, but it didn’t do them much good as Andy Pettitte got lit up for eight runs before a single Yankee crossed the plate. Pettitte, who said after the game that, despite a good warmup, he had absolutely no command and that his pitches were just centering themselves over the plate, got the hook with two outs in the A’s seven-run second inning. Ron Villone pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings as the Yankees rallied to make it 8-5, but Mike Myers and Luis Vizcaino allowed a trio of insurance runs (Myers’ again being an inherited runner, this time charged to Brian Bruney) to put the game out of reach at the eventual final of 11-5. Proctor, breaking in his new equipment, finished things off by retiring the four batters he faced on nine pitches (six strikes).

And so the Yankees’ slide continues as they fall to 2-9 over their last four series, all of which they lost. They’re now four games under .500, which is where they were on June 7, and a whopping nine games out in the Wild Card race behind five other teams including the departing A’s. Suddenly the AL East, where they’re in third place, 11 games behind Boston, seems more winnable. Tomorrow they begin a four-game series against the Twins, who are another of those five teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race (and one with a nearly identical record to the A’s). They pretty much need to sweep that one. Johan Santana pitches on Wednesday. (Do you see where I’m going with this?)

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When the Yankees visited Oakland in April, the A’s weren’t scoring very much, but neither were their opponents. Although the Athletics’ roster has been devastated by injuries, not much has really changed. The A’s have the stingiest pitching staff in the AL despite injuries to the top three men in their bullpen and would-be ace Rich Harden, who has been regulated to relief since being activated last week.

Meanwhile, the offense got Mark Kotsay and Dan Johnson back only to lose Milton Bradley and Mike Piazza, the former’s injury problems reaching the point that the A’s decided to designate him for assignment rather than deal with them. Jason Kendall is having a historically awful season (39 OPS+), but is still holding on to the starting catching job. Kotsay and former Rookie of the Year Bobby Crosby have been awful (both hitting roughly .240/.290/.350), but Kotsay is still starting over rookie sensation Travis Buck. Eric Chavez is having his worst season since he was a 21-year-old rookie and his third disappointing season in a row, prompting our Toaster colleagues to doubt his commitment to his game. Mix in Shannon Stewart slugging .391 from a corner outfield position and Dan Johnson and Nick Swisher each slugging roughly .450 from first base and right field respectively and you’ve got a pretty tepid offense that’s relying way too much on 28-year-old rookie cleanup hitter Jack Cust. Indeed, the A’s have scored the second fewest runs per game in the AL thus far (though Ryan Armbrust points out that they’ve been better of late–not necessarily good, but better).

What’s changed is that when the A’s and Yankees last met, the two teams were utter opposites: the Yankees scored a ton of runs and gave up a ton of runs, while the A’s did neither. The A’s haven’t changed, but the Yankees have solved their pitching woes only to see their offense stumble. On the just completed road trip, including the eight innings of last night’s suspended game, the Yankees scored 3.22 runs per game and allowed 4.67. The latter number isn’t a far cry from their overall season average (4.57), but the former belies their fourth-place major league rank in runs scored per game. In essence, then, the Yankees will have to try to outpitch the A’s this weekend, which means they’ll likely be helping yet another stumbling team (the A’s are 3-9 in their last dozen games entering tonight) get back on stride.

Tonight Kei Igawa tries to outpitch Joe Kennedy. The good news is that Kennedy has walked more than he’s struck out this year and has a 7.71 ERA over his last three starts. Igawa, meanwhile, will look to build on his four Steve Austin innings from San Francisco.

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The Yankees have scored in just one of 18 innings in Baltimore. Chein-Ming Wang faces off against Daniel Cabrera as the Yanks try to save face (too late), but Wang won’t matter tonight (like Clemens didn’t matter yesterday) if the Yanks can’t make hay against Cabrera, who has turned in a quality start in just five of his last 14 appearances, has a 5.93 ERA over his last seven, and has allowed six home runs in his last three.

Just one Yankee reached second base last night. That happened with one out in the ninth. Just three Yankees reached base against Erik Bedard, who struck out eight over seven innings thanks in large part to a tremendous 10-to-4 curveball. Of the three base runners he allowed, one came on a walk, and one came on an infield single. In total, six Yankees reached base and ten struck out. None scored. What Roger Clemens did, or how and when Joe Torre used his bullpen last night was completely irrelevant to the game’s outcome.

That said, Clemens, who struck out no one for the first time since a two-inning outing in April of 1999, was big enough to take the blame after the loss. Thanks to a first-inning double play, Rocket faced the minimum the first time through the Baltimore order. He ran into some trouble in the third when Brian Roberts lead off with a single, then tortured Clemens by dancing off first, drawing four throws and two pitchouts across two at-bats, before finally stealing second with ease. Roberts moved to third on a ground out, but was stranded. Still, Clemens threw 24 pitches in the fourth and 21 in the fifth, an inning that ended with runners on second and third. Clemens’s pitches were starting to stay up at the end of the fifth and the sixth began with Chris Gomez singling and Clemens walking Nick Markakis on four pitches. On the first pitch to Gomez, Clemens hit his right elbow on his left knee in his follow through, which brought the trainer to the mound. It proved to be of no consequence. Still, it was an occasion to get the bullpen warmed up that Joe Torre failed to make use of. After Markakis walked, Ron Guidry paid a visit to the mound, but the bullpen remained still. The third batter in that inning, Ramon Hernandez, singled to break the scoreless tie and put runners on first and second. Finally, Torre got his bullpen going, but it was too late. Three pitches later, Aubrey Huff hit a three-run home run just over the wall in left. Game over.

Adding insult to injury, Torre brought in Mariano Rivera to pitch the eighth inning down 4-0 after refusing to use Rivera with the score tied in the ninth inning of the previous night’s loss. Mo pitched a 1-2-3 inning, of course.

Two other items of interest:

1) I’m sure the Angels’ decision to designate Shea Hillenbrand for assignment will be a big topic of discussion today. Since being traded to San Francisco in July 21 of last year, Hillenbrand, who has a reputation for being difficult, has hit .251/.275/.374 in 431 at-bats. Andy Phillips hit .240/.281/.394 last year in a smaller sample, plays better defense, and is beloved by his teammates.

2) You have until midnight to vote for Jorge (25-times each)!

The Yankees are such a giving ballclub. The Giants had lost seven in a row entering last weekend’s series with the Yankees. “Don’t be glum, chums,” said the benevolent Yanks, “have two of three from us, please.” The Giants gladly accepted.

The Orioles had won three of five prior to last night, but had been in a freefall before that, going 2-14 with their big, mean owner firing their poor, defenseless manager. “Do not dispair, friends,” said the compassionate Yankees, “if you’re not ahead come your final at bat, we’ll find a way to get you a walkoff win that will lift your spirits.” The Orioles soon found that the Yankees were men of their word.

Tonight the Yankees look to continue their philanthropic tour of the gloomy gusses of baseball. Roger Clemens will make his fourth start of the season coming off an inefficient dud of an outing in Colorado (4 1/3 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 2 HR, 90 pitches) and a dispiriting relief outing in San Francisco (allowing an seventh-inning insurance run in what had been a 3-1 game).

There’s reason for hope, however. Clemens has thus far posted a career-best strikeout rate (11.21 K/9) and near-best K/BB ratio (4.40), but has been undone by a staggering .370 opponents’ batting average on balls in play. His distribution of singles and extra base hits has actually been very good (15 of his 20 hits allowed have been singles, that’s 75 percent compared to roughly 72 percent for both Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang, the team’s two best starters, who also happen to be groundballers). That means Clemens is not getting hit hard, he’s just been unlucky. His luck should even out as his performance is buoyed further by the fact that he’s still rounding into midseason form. The only real concern is that Roger has been remarkably inefficient, throwing a career-high 4.19 pitches per plate appearance, which means he’s pitching like a man facing an endless string of Jason Giambis and Bobby Abreus, just without all those pesky walks. Something has to give here somewhere.

Complicating matters is Clemens’ opponent tonight, 28-year-old lefty Erik Bedard. Bedard, the Oriole ace, hasn’t allowed more than three runs in a game since April, has failed to go six full innings just once since April 23, and hasn’t been knocked out before the fifth yet this year. In May and June combined, Bedard has a 2.32 ERA and has struck out 79 in 66 innings and has struck out seven or more men in eight of his last ten games. That strikeout rate, which he’s extended over the full season, marks a significant improvement in Bedard’s game. He’s always been a solid strikeout pitcher, K-ing about 7.9 men per nine innings in each of the last three seasons, but his rate is a staggering 10.89 K/9 this year, while his walk rate continues to decrease. More bad news: Bedard beat the Yanks in April, holding them to three runs on five hits and no walks over seven innings. Last year he posted a 2.25 ERA against the Bombers, striking out 14 of them in 12 innings while allowing just nine hits. None of this is encouraging for a team that has scored three or fewer runs in five of it’s last seven games.

The Orioles entered June in second place in the AL East with a .500 record. They then proceeded to go 2-14 to drop into last place, with the added indignity of being swept at home by the Nationals along the way. A week ago, eight games into the nine-game losing streak that concluded that 16-game slide, the O’s fired manager Sam Perlozzo. Perlozzo’s three seasons as Orioles manager perfectly illustrate how poorly run the team has been in its recent history.

The Orioles limped to a .438 winning percentage in the fourth and final year of Mike Hargrove’s skippership in 2003. Lee Mazzilli took over the team in 2004 and led it to a .481 winning percentage, it’s best mark since Hargrove’s first season in 2000 and good enough for a third-place finish, the first time the O’s had finished outside of fourth since they’d last won the division in 1997. Of course, that third place finish had more to do with the collapse of the Blue Jays than anything else, but still, the improvement was obvious.

In 2005, Mazzilli took largely the same O’s team to the top of the standings in the early going. Mazzilli’s O’s were in first place as late as June 23, when, suddenly, the bottom fell out. The Orioles went 9-28 from the final week of June through the beginning of August, falling all the way down to their customary fourth, and dropping from 14 games over .500 to five games under. On August 3, following an eight-game losing streak that capped a 1-14 skid, the O’s fired Mazzilli and replaced him with Sam Perlozzo.

When the O’s canned Mazzilli, the team had a .477 record. Having finished at .481 the year before, it seemed clear that the O’s were merely a .500 team that had played over its head in the first half of 2005 and had just experienced a rather cruel course correction. With Perlozzo at the helm, the O’s immediately halted their skid with a pair of wins, and proceeded to go 9-4 to climb back to .500, but that was as much as the new manager could get out of his charges. Baltimore went 14-28 the rest of the way and the players appeared to visibly quit on their new skipper, who posted a .418 winning percentage in his portion of the season. Mix in the Rafael Palmeiro drug scandal and the team was an ebarassment on field and off.

It’s an overused quote, but they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I’d counter that that’s actually the definition of incompetence, which describes the O’s to a tee. Baltimore retained Perlozzo in 2006, perhaps because they knew the manager would be able to lure his old buddy Leo Mazzone away from Atlanta to become the new Oriole pitching coach. Perlozzo got Mazzone, but it didn’t matter. The 2006 O’s settled in fourth place for good on April 29, the players once again sulked through the season, and the team finished with a .432 winning percentage.

So the O’s brought back Perlozzo again for 2007 only to finally fire him in late June with his sulking ballclub sporting a .420 winning percentage. In Perlozzo’s defense, the O’s didn’t do much to improve the team on the field during his time as manager. The team’s best players (Miguel Tejada, Brian Roberts, Melvin Mora, Eric Bedard, Chris Ray) were already in place in 2005. The best addition the team has made since then has been catcher Ramon Hernandez, who has missed time with a pair of leg injuries this year. Rookies Nick Markakis and Adam Loewen arrived in 2006, but Loewen is out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his pitching elbow. Meanwhile, the team’s imports have included include Kevin Millar, Aubrey Huff, Jay Payton, Corey Patterson, the $50 million-dollar bullpen of Danys Baez (currently on the DL), Chad Bradford, Jamie Walker, and Scott Williamson, and Steve Trachsel, who is only on the team because the trade of John Maine for Kris Benson blew up in the Orioles’ faces. Those players do not a winning baseball team make. Meanwhile, Mazzone has been unable to fix failed prospect Daniel Cabrera, and, with Perlozzo gone, Mazzone may decide to split himself. It’s no wonder Joe Girardi declined the Orioles job offer.

Speaking of trading for injured pitchers, the Orioles have the Jaret Wright trade to thank for one of the few bright spots in their 2007 season, tonight’s starter Jeremy Guthrie. After drafting him out of Stanford with the 21st-overall pick in 2002, the Indians tried to fast-track Guthrie to the majors, but instead stunted his progress. After being thrust into triple-A after just nine pro starts in 2003, Guthrie finally experienced success in his fourth attempt at the level last year, but that didn’t translate to the majors, where he posted a 6.98 ERA mostly in relief. The O’s plucked the former top prospect of waivers this January and stuck him in the pen as a long reliever after he aced spring training. That didn’t go so well (7.84 ERA), but the injuries to Loewen and Wright–the latter of whom has pitched in as many games for the O’s as Chris Britton has for the Yanks this season: three–forced Guthrie into the rotation in the beginning of May where he’s pitched like an ace, posting a 1.63 ERA, a 0.74 WHIP, going nine-for-nine in quality starts, and averaging 7 1/3 innings per game. Of course, on the Orioles that’s been good for three wins and six no-decisions as the team has managed to lose five of his starts including one he left in the ninth inning having surrendered just one unearned run (the final score of that game: 6-5 Red Sox). Another testiment to the wisdom of Joe Girardi.

Opposing Guthrie tonight is Andy Pettitte, who knows a thing or two about pitching in bad luck. Pettitte made news after his last start when he admitted that he “quit pitching” after Matt Holliday drove his changeup 442 feet into the left field stands (really over the left field stands) to turn a 1-0 Yankee lead into a 2-1 Rocky advantage in the sixth inning. What Andy really meant was that he abandoned his game plan after that pitch, and the results showed it. Holliday’s homer came with two outs and the Yankees only got out of the sixth because Todd Helton was thrown out trying to score on a single. Six of the eight batters Pettitte faced after Holliday hit safely including a Helton double and a Kaz Matsui triple that finally ended his night with the Yankees trialing 5-1. One imagines that both that performance, his post-game admission, and the Yankees 1-5 record on their current road trip will have him pitching with an increased intensity tonight. For that reason, I’m expecting a pitchers duel between Guthrie, facing a Yankee offense which seems to go whichever direction Bobby Abreu goes, which right now is down, and Pettitte facing the Orioles’ offense which is the fourth worst in the AL and features just one batter, Brian Roberts, who is meaninfully more productive than league average.

Incidentally, Pettitte did not start against the Orioles when they came to the Stadium in early April, but did throw a scoreless relief inning against them in the series finale. Guthrie, meanwhile, has faced the Yankees just once, doing so the second major league game of his career, which just happened to be the Indians 22-0 win at the Stadium on August 31, 2004. Guthrie threw the final two innings of that historic blowout.

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The Yankees lost the finale of their weekend series in San Francisco before they even took the field. Following a brutal extra-inning loss on Saturday, Joe Torre posted a lineup without Jorge Posada or Bobby Abreu, with Miguel Cairo playing first and batting second, and Kevin Thompson, Wil Nieves, and Mike Mussina comprising the final third of the order. Meanwhile the Yankee bench featured Andy Phillips and Chris Basak, two men who had combined for seven major league plate appearances this season, all of them Phillips’, and Johnny Damon, who has added a broken dental crown to all of the other aches and pains keeping him out of the lineup. This with the team’s fourth-best starter on the mound in the person of Mike Mussina, most of the bullpen used up in that extra-inning loss, and starting shortstop Derek Jeter nursing a strained hip flexor that forced him to leave Saturday’s game early.

To his credit, Mussina kept things close, but the Yankee offense just couldn’t be found. Giants’ starter Noah Lowry held the Yankees to one hit through five innings (though he did walk four) as the Giants took a 3-0 lead on Moose. Mussina and his personal catcher Nieves, meanwhile, were giving up stolen bases left and right (a total of five including steals by 40-somethings Barry Bonds and Omar Vizquel and first baseman Ryan Klesko), and Moose was done after having thrown 104 pitches in just five frames.

Chris Basak made his first major league plate appearance leading off the sixth for Mussina and lined out hard to Barry Bonds in left. Basak ran hard out of the box with his head down and somehow arrived at second base under the impression that he’d stroked a double into the corner. Basak stood proudly on the bag removing his batting gloves until Larry Bowa was able to signal to him to head back to the dugout.

Following Basak in the sixth, Melky walked, Cairo singled him to third, and Derek Jeter (whose hip appears to be fine) worked back from 0-2 to draw a full-count walk and load the bases for Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez fouled off Lowry’s first offering, took strike two and ball one, then fouled off seven straight pitches in what would prove to be an 11-pitch at-bat only to hit a double-play grounder to short that he fortunately beat out to allow the first Yankee run to score. That exhausting at-bat drove Lowry from the game, but did little to benefit the Yankees as reliever Jonathan Sanchez got Hideki Matsui to ground out to end the threat.

Brian Bruney needed help from Luis Vizcaino to get through a scoreless sixth, so Joe Torre turned to Roger Clemens in the seventh. Torre is to be commended for his willingness to use his starters out of the pen on their throw days this year, having used Andy Pettitte for a pair of scoreless relief innings earlier in the season. Clemens didn’t fair quite as well in what was just the second relief appearance of his 24-year-career, the last coming midway through his rookie season in 1984 (giving Clemens the longest gap between relief outings in major league history, shattering Steve Carlton’s 16-year record). Clemens rallied from a 3-1 count to strike out leadoff man Ray Durham, but, in a dud of a legendary showdown, walked Barry Bonds on five pitches (though ball three looked like a strike to everyone including Bonds). Clemens then gave up a single to Ryan Klesko and a sac fly before getting Pedro Feliz to fly out to end the inning.

With Clemens having surrendered the Yankees’ lone run back to the Giants, and the defanged top of the Yankee order having gone down in order in the top of the eighth, things got embarrassing in the bottom of the eighth inning. Kyle Farnsworth came on and got backup catcher Guillermo Rodriguez to fly out on his first pitch, but after Luis Figueroa singled, Derek Jeter booted a double play ball off the bat of Randy Winn and retired no one. Omar Vizquel then singled up the middle and Melky booted the ball allowing Figueroa to score and Winn to go to third. Ray Durham then hit a high fly to Cabrera in deep center that Melky lost in the sun for a two-run double. In Melky’s defense, Winn did the same thing on an Alex Rodriguez fly in the ninth that lead to a meaningless second Yankee run. Still, that three-run San Francisco eighth just felt right in a game in which the Yankees played like the walking dead.

And so the Yanks return to the east coast having gone 1-5 in the interleague portion of their road trip to slip back below .500. One wonders how long we have to wait for Brian Cashman to pull a Kenny Williams. Not that Cash has to go make a splashy trade, but the fact that the Yankees played without the DH for six games with Damon and Basak on their bench was an act of extreme negligence and stupidity on the part of the Yankee decision makers. Getting a healthy body in for Damon (who, in his defense, delivered a pinch-hit single in the seventh, stole second and went to third on the catcher’s throwing error–of course, he then failed to score from third on a groundout to first and didn’t go out to play the field), swapping out Basak for a player who could add some punch to the 1B/DH situation (donde esta Josh Phelps? Or even Shelley Duncan), and replacing Wil Nieves with anyone or anything (come back Sal Fasano, all is forgiven—that Josh Phelps and Ryan Doumit are now teammates is not) are all moves that need to happen now. Damon has made just one start in the past week and only started four of the six games prior to that. His hit yesterday was also his first since the previous Sunday. Basak has appeared in three games since being called up twenty days ago, in two of them he was a defensive sub who never came to bat and in the third he was a pinch-hitter who never played the field. Nieves, meanwhile, has been on the roster all season, that’s nearly three months, and is hitting .111 with a .149 on-base percentage and no extra base hits.

Even if satisfactory replacements are found for those three, the Yankees will need to add an extra bat sometime this summer. With Giambi out indefinitely, Damon consistently hurt and struggling to produce or even play, and the first base situation not only lacking entering the season, but with both halves of the unsatisfactory opening day platoon now either gone (Phelps) or out with a long term injury (Mientkiewicz), the Yankees have no one to play at first base or DH. No one. Melky Cabrera is thriving in center field (hitting .313/.358/.470 since May 30), but the Miguel Cairo joyride is over (he’s 3 for his last 15), and the team doesn’t have the time to wait around to see if Andy Phillips can finally deliver on his triple-A promise at the age of 30. That said, the Yankees would be better off missing the playoffs than sending the wrong pitching prospect to Texas for Mark Teixeira or, worse, sending the same hurler elsewhere for a lesser player. As things stand now, however, the Yankees aren’t going to do better until they get better.

Kei Igawa looked like Steve Austin for four innings last night (“we can fix him, we have the technology”), but turned into Steve Blass in the fifth. Igawa held the Giants scoreless on two hits through four while walking just one and striking out five, including Barry Bonds on three pitches in the fourth. Kevin Frandsen then lead off the fifth by hitting a good pitch for a double, and Omar Vizquel hit a chopper to drive him in. Igawa got the next two batters to fly out, but Randy Winn doubled to push Vizquel to third and Igawa lost the strike zone pitching out of the stretch. Given the opportunity to strand Barry Bonds in the on-deck circle, Igawa walked Ray Durham to load the bases, then threw six pitches a good three feet from Jorge Posada’s target (two of which Bonds fouled off) to walk Bonds and force in the second San Francisco run. Bengie Molina followed by cracking a screamer to the wall in left, but Hideki Matsui got on his horse and made a game-saving leaping catch, crashing into the wall with the final out.

The good news is the Yankees had a five-run lead heading into that inning and got one of those two runs back in the sixth. With two outs, Melky Cabrera, batting lefty against reliever Randy Messenger, fouled a pitch off his right shin. For a moment it looked like Cabrera might have broken something as he hopped around the plate then sat down as Gene Monahan checked him out. Melky stayed in the game, however, and cracked the next pitch past Dave Roberts in center for a stand-up triple. Once on third, he bent back over to rub his aching shin only to get a ribbing from Larry Bowa. The YES camera’s caught Melky angrily pushing the wise-cracking Bowa away as Bowa erupted in laughter. A nice moment that was followed by a nicer one as Jeter singled Cabrera home to make it 6-2.

Bonds cracked his 749th career homer off Scot Proctor in the eighth and Alex Rodriguez singled home a Derek Jeter triple in the ninth to put the final score at 7-3 Yanks.

This afternoon Mikey Moose looks to give the Yanks a quick series win against Noah Lowry on FOX.

From 1997 to 2004, the San Francisco Giants finished first or second in the NL West eight years in a row, thrice winning the division and once making the World Series as the Wild Card team. In 2005, Barry Bonds’ knee gave out on him, limiting him to 14 September games. Since then, the Giants have been a sub-.500 also ran. Always an old team, the Giants of the last three years have been downright ancient. When Barry Bonds joined the Giants in 1993 at the age of 28, the average Giants hitter was also 28 years old. Since then, the Giants hitters have steadily aged with Bonds. Last year, the average San Francisco hitter was 33.5 years old. This year they’ve shaved a few moths off that average age by doing things such as replacing the 41-year-old Steve Finley and the 39-year-old Moises Alou with 35-year-olds Dave Roberts and Rich Aurilia.

The creaky Giants ran off eight-straight wins in late April to slip into a first-place tie in the West, but the geezers ran out of gas there. They’ve been 18-33 since, are 5-14 in June, and have lost seven in a row coming into this weekend’s series against the Yankees. During that slide they’ve scored an average of 3.14 runs per game and allowed an average of 6.43. Overall, the Gians have one of the four worst offenses in baseball, ahead of only the Pirates, Nationals, and White Sox. Omar Vizquel looks to finally be finished at 40, those 35-year-olds have been nearly as bad (though Roberts can still run, stealing 11 of 12, and Aurilia’s on the DL, yielding first base to a resurgent 36-year-old Ryan Klesko). Worst of all, Barry Bonds, who’s up to his old tricks, is being protected in the lineup by Bengie Molina. Seriously. No surprise then that Bonds already has 70 walks, 26 of them intentional.

I should say, Bonds was up to his old tricks. This particular geezer’s been a bit winded himself, hitting just three homers in his last 36 games, batting .240 and slugging just .385 over that span. For those not keeping track, he’s seven homers shy of Hank Aaron’s career record. At that pace, he’ll barely make it this season.

Things are a bit brighter on the pitching side of the ledger as long as you don’t look too closely. Twenty-two-year-old Matt Cain, who starts tonight, leads the team in ERA and is fifth in the NL in least hits allowed per nine innings. He’s also second in the league in most walks allowed and is getting a little help from a low BABIP (.257). Matt Morris has rediscovered his 20-game winning form in his second season in San Francisco, or seems to have until you notice that his strike out rate is continuing it’s now six-year decline and his K/BB ratio is a dismal 1.55. Barry Zito is proving all his doubters right by echoing Morris’s strikeout rate issues. Similar afflictions have struck Noah Lowry, who lost 2 2/3 K/9 last year and has gained more than a walk per nine innings this year. Top prospect Tim Lincecum is another issue altogether, as the existence of major league game film on the rookie and some wildness issues appear to have torpedoed what had been a sensational start to his career. The Yankees won’t see him this weekend, which is unfortunate both because he’s been ineffective and because his delivery is an exciting thing to watch.

In the bullpen, the Giants cut bait on Armando Benitez, sending him to Florida for Randy Messenger and installing another strikeout-challenged starter, Brad Hennessey, as the closer. Set-up men Vinnie Chulk, who came over in the Shea Hillenbrand trade last year, and Kevin Correia, another converted starter, have been solid, but the pen’s trio of lefties have been less reliable. Veteran Steve Kline, for example, has struck out just five men in 19 innings thus far.

What is it about Corporation Ballpark that suppresses strikeouts anyway? The Giants hitters don’t really strikeout that much either. Only two NL teams have fewer batter strikeouts and only four have fewer pitcher strikeouts. That’s bad news for Kei Igawa, who will be making his return to the rotation tonight. Ks are a big part of Kei’s game, as he struck out 21 in his last 20 innings after sorting out his mechanics in Scranton. The good news for the lefty Igawa is that the Giants have only two righties in their everyday lineup and of their three switch hitters, Ray Durham and Randy Winn are much weaker from the right side and Vizquel isn’t hitting under any circumstances. Once again, here’s Igawa’s line over his last three starts in Scranton:

20 IP, 15 H, 4 ER, 6 BB, 21 K, 1.05 WHIP, 1.80 ERA

Let’s hope that translates back to the majors. If Igawa can keep the fifth spot in the rotation warm for Phil Hughes, the Yankees will not only have a better shot of climbing into the Wild Card race, but they’ll be able to be more cautious with Hughes coming off his severe ankle sprain, which is crucial to protecting his arm from a cascade injury caused by his adjusting his mechanics to protect his ankle.

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Through the first 16 games of June, the Yankees went 13-3, scored 6.94 runs per game and drew 4.31 walks per game. In the last two games against the Rockies, the Yankees have gone 0-2, scored exactly one run in each game, and drawn exactly two walks per game. Against the two Colorado starters, Josh Fogg and Jeff Francis, the Yankees drew a total of two walks in 14 innings. Of the four walks the Yankees have drawn in the last two games, three of them were by Alex Rodriguez, and one of those was an intentional unintentional pass (that came with two outs and a man on second in the sixth inning of a still-scoreless game and was the only free pass Jeff Francis issued in seven innings). It seems that the Yankees approach at the plate appears to be largely to blame for their power outage in this series.

This afternoon, the Yankees face Rodrigo Lopez. Lopez has had decent control in his career (2.82 BB/9IP), but that number jumps to 3.42 BB/9 in his career against the Yankees. Lopez also has a career 6.02 ERA against the Yanks and has given up 30 homers in just 121 innings against the Bombers, more than double his total against any other team, Boston included. Familiarity should help the Yanks this afternoon. Hopefully it will also give them the confidence to take a few more pitches. That said, Lopez is having a solid season in Colorado, perhaps buoyed by having finally escaped Baltimore. He spent nearly all of May on the DL, but has turned in three quality starts in four tries since.

On the flip side, Roger Clemens is two-for-two in quality starts in his second tour of duty in pinstripes. Based on the last two games, however, he may need to contribute even more than that to prevent a sweep. Clemens last faced the Rockies one week shy of two years ago and held the Rocks to a Preston Wilson solo home run, two walks and a trio of harmless singles over seven innings while striking out seven. His bullpen then gave up five runs in the eighth to blow the game.

Figures I’d predict a slugfest and the Yanks would lose a pitchers duel. Figures as well that the guy I said sucked would hold the Yanks to one run on four hits over seven innings and strike out Alex Rodriguez with junk low and away twice, skipping off the mound after one of them. Figures as well that Mike Mussina, who I said was cooked a few weeks ago, would hold up his end of things by limiting the Rockies to three runs over six innings. Yeah, he got fed up with Lance Barksdale’s umpiring in his final inning and served up a homer to eighth-place hitter Yorvit Torrealba on an 85-mile-per-hour “fastball,” but he was also keeping the Rocks off balance with a change-up in the high 60s.

So the Yanks dropped the Colorado opener 3-1 in a game that felt a lot like their 2-0 loss to the Mets in the last series opener. What’s far more compelling about yesterday’s action was the Yankees’ developing first base situation.

Before the game, the Yankees called up Andy Phillips, a move that was overdue seeing as they’ve been carrying both Chris Basak and Miguel Cairo on the roster and starting Cairo at first while avoiding Basak like the plague. Phillips, who has been playing second base at Scranton and crushing International League pitching as is his way (.301/.382/.494, 11 HR), gives them a superior defensive first base option who actually represents something of a threat at the plate. After all, Cairo has hit .342/.350/.421 as the Yankee first baseman, which is great, but it’s all singles and won’t last. Last year, in similar playing time, Cairo hit .239/.280/.320 and Phillips hit .240/.281/.394. Cairo might be a smidge better than that. Phillips, who was already a smidge better than Cairo, is definitely a lot better than that.

There’s one catch. Rather than demoting Basak, the Yankees designated Josh Phelps for assignment. Sure, Phelps and Phillips are a tad redundant, but facing six games without the designated hitter, having Phelps, who’s a career .294 pinch-hitter, rather than Basak, who’s still never come to the plate in the major leagues, seems like a no-brainer. Seems. Instead the Yankees will have to offer Rule 5 pick Phelps back to Baltimore, where current YES broadcaster and prospective Oriole manager Joe Girardi could very well be the man deciding Phelps’ fate.

Meanwhile, both Jorge Posada and Johnny Damon saw action at first base last night, Posada starting there to allow Wil Nieves to catch Mussina. Jorge made one nice play leaping for a high throw from Derek Jeter and coming down on the bag in time to make the out. Otherwise, neither was challenged, and neither had to play a ball off the bat. Most likely Phillips will start against the lefty Jeff Francis tonight, with Damon starting against righty Rodrigo Lopez on Thursday. Chris Basak will continue to do little more than cheer on his teammates.

For anyone looking for a comparison between Phillips and Phelps, I think I covered that plenty in spring training.

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This just in: The Rockies don’t suck. In fact, the Rockies have won as many games in 2007 as the Yankees have (though Colorado has lost two more). No longer Todd Helton and a bunch of scrubs, the Rockies are a legitimate .500 team that has some youth and promise that could represent the beginning of a small turn around for a franchise that has never won more than 83 games in any single season in its entire 14-year history. Note I said small. The Rockies are not the Brewers, Diamondbacks, or even the Marlins. Their future isn’t quite that bright, but it’s still about as bright as it’s ever been if not more so.

Start with the pitching staff. Josh Fogg and Rodrigo Lopez are filler, even if Lopez is having an excellent though injury-shortened season, but Jeff Francis, Jason Hirsh, and Aaron Cook (of whom the 28-year-old Cook is the oldest) form a solid top three with third-year lefty Francis showing continued improvement as the defacto ace, Cook serving as the National League’s answer to Jake Westbrook, and 25-year-old Hirsh (the key prospect in the Jason Jennings trade) succeeding despite a scary fly ball rate. With additional thanks to Lopez, the Rocky starters have posted a 4.52 ERA this far, which is a minor miracle for a team playing in Coors Field. Mix in strong showings from closer Brian Fuentes and hard-throwing, side-arming sophomore set-up man Manuel Corpas and surprising performances from lefties Jeremy Affeldt (more walks than Ks, but zero homers) and Tom Martin, and the entire staff’s ERA+ is a dead-average 101, while the team’s road ERA is 3.85, which is the third-best in the NL behind the Mets and Padres.

On offense, the Rocks have a solid outfield and left side of the infield, with the oldest of those five men being 28-year-old right fielder Brad Hawpe. Matt Holliday is a legitimate All-Star (.318/.374/.546 career and .321/.372/.522 on the road this year). Hawpe is a lesser version of same (.281/.371/.483 career on the road). Center fielder Willy Taveras (who also came over in the Jennings deal) is a fantastic defender in that big park and has solid on-base numbers both at home (.373) and on the road (.358), though he could stand to be more selective about his stolen base attempts. In the infield, Garrett Atkins got off to an awful start, but has turned it on in June (.327/.441/.673), and 22-year-old future-star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki has been playing gold glove defense while waiting for his bat to come around. Throw in solid contributions on both sides of the ball from reclamation project Kaz Matsui and a healthy Helton and, well, the Rockies don’t suck.

Josh Fogg kinda sucks, though, and he’ll take the mound tonight against the Yankees. One might not be surprised to find that Fogg’s only two wins came on the road and that his ERA at home is 2.77 runs higher than his road mark, though one might be surprised to find out that those two wins game against the Mets and Red Sox. What’s more, the Rockies have won Fogg’s last three starts and Fogg’s ERA over his last four starts (two home, two on the road) has been 3.91. Then again, opponents have hit .326/.375/.495 against him in those four starts, so, even when he does well, Josh Fogg sucks.

As for Mike Mussina, he was fantastic in his last two starts (13 2/3 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 11 K, 1.98 ERA), but I’m still not convinced, as the two teams Moose faced in those games, the White Sox and Diamondbacks, comprise half of the four worst offensive teams in baseball. The Yankees have visited Colorado during the regular season once before, in 2002. In those three games, the two teams scored a total of 70 runs. Coors Field isn’t quite the launching pad it was then thanks to the humidor (the 2002 park factor was 121 compared to 107 for 2006 and 2007), but I don’t think it’s out of the question to expect that kind of game again tonight.

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The Yankees won ugly yesterday afternoon, beating the Mets 11-8 in a game that saw almost constant scoring by both teams. The Mets scored in each of the first four frames, driving Tyler Clippard from the game in the fourth after taking a 5-4 lead on a one-out, two-run Ramon Castro homer and then putting two more men on base. Luis Vizcaino shut the door and the Yanks took back the lead for good in the bottom of the frame on a two-run Derek Jeter homer, but at 6-5 the game was far from over. Tom Glavine got bounced in the fifth and the Yankees scored two runs in each inning from the second through the sixth to build their lead to 10-5, but even that wasn’t all.

Kyle Farnsworth was up to his old tricks in the eighth, walking the leadoff man and number eight hitter, then watching him come around to score before striking out Carlos Beltran and David Wright to end the inning. The Yankees got that run back in the next half inning, but Mariano Rivera followed with his worst outing since April. Entering the game, Rivera hadn’t allowed a run in his last 10 1/3 innings and had allowed just six base runners and struck out 12 over that span. Yesterday, Mo was greeted by back-to-back singles by Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca, then, after a Shawn Green fly out, Ramon Castro singled to load the bases. Mo bore down and struck out Ruben Gotay on three pitches for the second out, but Carlos Gomez reached on yet another infield single (his fourth in two games) to plate Delgado and Jose Reyes singled off Rivera’s ankle to plate Lo Duca before Mo finally got Carlos Beltran to pop out to end the game.

The good news on Rivera is that there’s no conern over the ankle and he didn’t allow any extra base hits or walk anyone, and he was able to bear down and K Gotay (who had singled, homered, and walked twice in his previous four plate appearances), so odds are the outing was just a fluke, though the 33 pitches he threw likely eliminate him from tonight’s rubber game.

In other good news, Luis Vizcaino, who picked up the win yesterday, hasn’t allowed a run in his last five outings and has a 1.13 ERA over his last seven. He’s still walking a ton of batters, but he’s striking out even more, suppressing hits, and getting the job done. In other words, he’s gone from being a Kyle Farnsworth imitator to being a Brian Bruney imitator. Supposedly some coaching from Rivera has made the difference.

Finally, Clippard’s poor outing yesterday has opened the door for the return of Kei Igawa. In his last two starts, Clippard has a 14.14 ERA and a 2.43 WHIP. Igawa, meanwhile, has reworked his mechanics and posted the following line over his last three starts in triple-A Scranton:

20 IP, 15 H, 4 ER, 6 BB, 21 K, 1.05 WHIP, 1.80 ERA

The Yankees won’t need a fifth starter again until Saturday, but all signs point to the return of Iggy. Clippard has already been demoted, with the Yankees bringing up Kevin Thompson to finally expand their bench back to four men. With Randy Johnson back on the DL, Vicaino pitching well, Igawa due to return, and Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez carrying the team, Brian Cashman could look a whole lot smarter a week from now than he did just a few short weeks ago.

As for tonight’s game, this should be a real treat. Not only is it the rubber game of the home half of the subway series, with the Yanks poised once again to hit their high-water mark of the season by going three games over .500 with a win, a win which would also earn them a split of the season series with the Mets, but the pitching match up is Chien-Ming Wang versus El Duque. Seriously now, could it get much more fun than that?

The one concern going into tonight’s game is the fact that the Mets, particularly rookie speedster Gomez, have been getting an unusual number of infield hits and have stolen ten bases in two games against Jorge Posada and the slow-to-the-plate Yankee pitchers. Wang has allowed just five steals all year, but his ground ball tendencies could make him susceptible to the turnaround in the Mets line-up with Gomez and Reyes legging out infield hits. As for El Duque, he allowed just two runs in his first 19 innings after coming off the DL in late May, but had a rough go in his last outing against the Dodgers, though he still hasn’t allowed a home run in his last 38 2/3 innings. Here’s hoping he breaks out the eephus against Rodriguez and Alex gives it a ride.

The Yankees didn’t score last night, and they didn’t win. They did manage to put eight runners on against Oliver Perez, getting a man as far as second base in each of the game’s first four innings, but Perez rallied to strike out Bobby Abreu, and Alex Rodriguez in the first, Melky Cabrera in the second, and Jorge Posada in the third. Meanwhile a big fly to center in the third that looked like a two-run home run off Alex Rodriguez’s bat fell short and into Carlos Beltran’s glove.

Indeed, the Mets played fantastic defense all night. The key play came in the bottom of the fourth. After Hideki Matsui took six straight pitches to draw a leadoff walk, Perez walked Robinson Cano on four more tosses. Josh Phelps, DHing in place of late-scratch Johnny Damon, then took ball one, but swung through ball two to even the count before working it full and flying out to right for the first out. Miguel Cairo followed by looking at strike one, then yanking Perez’s next pitch to the top of the Cannon sign in the left field corner. Rookie Carlos Gomez, who showed his lightening speed in the third inning by reaching on a bunt single, stealing second, then scoring the game’s first run on a Jose Reyes single, drifted back to the wall and made nice leaping catch a foot above the wall to take a would-be three-run home run away from Cairo. Gomez then fired a one-hop strike from the wall to second base to double off Matsui, who had inexplicably ranged almost all the way to third base.

That ended the Yankee threat in both that inning and for the game. Reyes hit the only curveball Roger Clemens threw all night for a solo home run in the top of the fifth and Perez set the next ten Yankees down in order before a one-out Derek Jeter double in the eighth ended his evening. Jeter was followed by a shot off Bobby Abreu’s bat that imitated Alex Rodriguez’s third-inning fly out almost exactly–a two-run homer off the bat that died in deep center and settled in to Carlos Beltran’s glove. That was the last gasp. 2-0 Mets.

As for Clemens, he pitched well again, striking out eight in 6 1/3 innings and, other than Reyes’s homer of his lone curveball, allowing only six singles, two of them on bunts, and walked one. This was my first look at the 44-year-old version of Clemens and I can’t say I was terribly impressed, but you can’t argue with the results (12 1/3 IP, 12 H, 3 BB, 15 K, 3.65 ERA). Clemens looks a little chunky and his fastball now tops out at 91 miles per hour. According to the YES broadcasters, however, Andy Pettitte says that’s as fast as it’s going to get and that he wasn’t throwing any harder in Houston, where he posted a 2.40 ERA over three seasons. Instead Clemens’s game is now location and the still nasty Mr. Splitee, which was indeed his outpitch again last night (just ask Carlos Delgado). Hey, with Wang and Pettitte cruising, Clemens only needs to be one of the top three guys, not the full-blown ace, and the sort of performances he’s turned in in his first two starts this season are everything the Yankees had hoped for, and he’s likely still tuning up.

Today, the Yankees throw a pitcher 22 1/2 years Clemens’ junior at the Mets. Tyler Clippard made his major league debut at Shea, holding the Mets to one run on three hits and three walks (one intentional) while striking out six in six innings and earning the win. Clippard hasn’t been quite that good since, but he’s shown flashes. Unfortunately, he’s coming off his worst major league outing (3 2/3 IP, 6 H, 3 BB, 6 R), which came against the lowly Pirates. He’ll have to rebound from that this afternoon to keep the Yankees from thinking about spinning that fifth-spot revolving door again.

Clippard’s opposite number, 19 years his senior, is also coming off his worst outing of the year. Tom Galvine was lit up by the Tigers for nine runs on 11 hits and a pair of walks in 4 1/3 innings last weekend. Otherwise, he’s been remarkably consistent, turning in ten quality starts in his previous 13 games, only once failing to complete six innings and only twice allowing as many as four earned runs. Glavine’s job is not in danger.

In the big picture, the Yankees need a win today to avoid slipping back down to .500 and to have a chance to keep their four-series winning streak going.

On the morning of Friday May 18, before the first subway series of the season, the New York Post‘s back page headline was “Flying & Dying” and was accompanied by an illustration that made it clear that it was the Mets who were flying and the Yankees who were dying. Entering this weekend’s rematch, that headline still applies, but the the script has been flipped. The Yankees enter the weekend with an active nine-game winning streak while the Mets come to the Bronx riding a five-game losing streak and having lost nine of their last ten. Most recently, the Mets were swept by the Dodgers in L.A. by a combined score of 18-5. The Mets still hold a two-game lead in the NL East because the Braves have been nearly as bad, and the Yankees are still 7.5 games back in the AL East because of the huge deficit they have to overcome, but the Yankees enter this series with a record just three games worst than the Mets. That means that, if the Yankees can sweep the weekend series (a highly unlikley scenario given that it would extend their winning streak to an improbable 12 games), the two New York teams would have identical 36-31 records come Monday morning.

The Mets have been hit hard by injuries thus far this year, with their starting second baseman, three corner outfielders, two of their starting pitchers, and a key releiver spending time on the DL, but two of those injuries (to Pedro Martinez and Duaner Sanchez) were carried over from last year, and Shawn Green, Jose Valentin, and Orlando Hernandez have all returned to action in the past few weeks. Still, the Mets are down to plans C and D in left field while Moises Alou’s quad strain shows no sign of improvement. Meanwhile, Carlos Delgado has finally found his power stroke (seven homers in his last 16 games after hitting just three in his previous 44), but home runs are about the only way he’s getting on base (three walks and just nine other hits over the same span). Still, one has to assume the Mets are just slumping and the Yankees should be wary of the cross-town rivalry awakening this sleeping giant.

Tonight, Roger Clemens makes his second start of the year against Oliver Perez. Perez looks like he’s finding his lost 2004 form under pitching coach Rick “The Jacket” Peterson, though his last outing against the Tigers looked more like the pitcher the Pirates were eager to unload in last year’s Roberto Hernandez-Xavier Nady deal than the young ace that had baseball buzzing three years ago. Still, Perez is just 25 years old and has been murder on his fellow southpaws this year, allowing just one home run to a lefty batter. The good news is that the lefty in question was Hideki Matsui, who cracked a two-run job off Perez in the opener of the last series between these two teams at Shea. The bad news is that two-run dinger was the only score the Yanks were able to muster against Perez in that game as they handed Andy Pettitte another hard-luck 3-2 loss.

As for Clemens, he last faced the Mets in April of 2005. Clemens dominated in that game, allowing just a walk and two singles in seven innings while striking out nine. Then again, the Mets lineup that day featured Kaz Matsui, Eric Valent, Victor Diaz, Doug Mientkiewicz, very different versions of Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran (in his first year as a Met), and an over-the-hill Mike Piazza who was off to a very slow start.

Rooting incentive for tonight’s game: the Yankees are currently two games over .500 and have not been three games over .500 at any point this season. With a win, they’ll hit their high-water mark.

Fun fact for tonight’s game: Julio Franco will start at first base and bat eighth with Carlos Delgado as the DH. The first major league line-up Roger Clemens ever faced featured Julio Franco at shortstop and batting sixth. That was exactly 23 years and one month ago today. In that game, Franco singled, grounded out twice, and stole a base against Clemens. Fun fact footnote: The Indians stole six bases against Clemens in his major league debut.

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After an hour rain delay, the Yankees got the game they expected in last night’s matchup of premier groundballers Chien-Ming Wang and Brandon Webb. Actually, Wang didn’t have his best worm-killing stuff last night (nine grounders, ten fly outs, and his first start of the season without a double play), but after pitching out of a jam in the first he kept the Diamondbacks at bay, limiting them to a Chad Tracy solo homer in the fourth, five singles, and a hit-by-pitch over seven innings and 95 pitches. Brandon Webb countered in kind with seven strong of his own (including 12 groundouts and two DPs against four fly outs and four Ks). The key difference was that the homer Webb allowed came at the tail end of his first inning jam.

Johnny Damon led off the game with a grounder to second base that drew a rare throwing error from Orlando Hudson. Joe Torre then put on the hit-and-run and, as shortstop Stephen Drew went to cover second, Derek Jeter singled through Drew’s vacated position to put runners on the corners. The red-hot Bobby Abreu followed with a three run jack into the old Yankee bullpen.

That was all the Yanks would need. They added a fourth run off Webb in the seventh on a walk to Matsui, a Robby Cano double, and an unusual 4-3-6 double-play turned by Hudson on a Melky Cabrera grounder with the infield drawn in. Kyle Farnsworth made things interesting in the eighth, giving up a leadoff double to Drew and then walking Tracy with two outs after battling through a nine-pitch at-bat, but got out of the inning by getting Tony Clark to fly out to right. Mariano Rivera shut the door with 13 pitches (nine strikes) for a perfect ninth inning and his eighth save.

With the win the Yanks have extended their winning streak to seven games and reached .500 for the first time since May 9. With a win tonight, they can go over .500 for the first time since April 20, when they were 8-7.

Meanwhile, Doug Mientkiewicz had surgery on the broken bone in his wrist yesterday that involved a pin being put in the bone. He’s expected to be out until August, which means the Yankees will have to either have to learn to love Josh Phelps or make a deadline deal for a first baseman. Miguel Cairo won’t hit .348 as a first baseman all season and even now he has just one walk and one extra-base hit while playing the position. Then again, all of that was true when Minky was healthy as well.

The Arizona Diamonbacks are one of the most interesting franchises in baseball right now. The most obvious reason is that they’ve won more games than any other team in the NL thus far this season and the oldest player in their starting line-up is 31-year-old Eric Byrnes. In fact, Byrnes and old man Tony Clark (now 35) are the only two Arizona position players over 30. Meanwhile, four of the D’backs’ regulars were rookies last year and three of the men on their bench are rookies this year. Things are only slightly different on their piching staff as the oldest man in their pen is 28-year-old failed prospect Juan Cruz and their rotation is led by 28-year-old defending NL Cy Young award winner Brandon Webb and 24-year-old rookie Micah Owings.

Thus far it’s been that pitching staff that’s put them on top as the D’backs are tied with the Mets as the second stingiest staff in the NL (fourth in the majors), allowing just four runs per game. The average Arizona starter has lasted 6 1/3 innings per start and posted a 3.51 ERA. Of the seven men to start for the D’backs this year, only rookie Edgar Gonzalez had an ERA over Owings’ 3.76 in the role. Gonzalez has since been bumped to the bullpen (by Owings) where he is the only man with an ERA above closer Jose Valverde’s 3.33.

Things are less encouraging on offense, but Byrnes, who looked like a right-handed platoon player who was on his way out of baseball two years ago when he jumped from Oakland, to Colorado to Baltimore over the course of a single season, has been mashing (.319/.379/.518) and doing the bulk of his damage against righty pitchers (.332/.384/.508). Orlando Hudson, the second oldest Arizona starter, was worth keeping in the lineup for his glove while in Toronto, but since joining the D’backs has come into his own at the plate to the point that he’s legitimately the second best second baseman in baseball (behind Chase Utley and ahead of Robinson Cano). In his best season as a Blue Jay, Hudson hit .270/.341/.438. In his career as a Diamondback he’s hitting .288/.360/.456.

As for the youngsters, Conor Jackson is from the Mark Grace school of first-basemen: high average, high on-base, but not the sort of power expected from the position. Catchers Chris Snyder and Miguel Montero aren’t hitting enough to make Yankee fans regret the fact that neither was included in the Randy Johnson Deal. Right fielder Carlos Quentin started the season on the DL, then went 4 for 8 with three doubles and a walk in his first two games of the year, but has hit just .200/.289/.345 since. Shortstop Stephen Drew raked as a rookie in the second half last year, but has struggled over an equal number of games this year.

Then there’s center fielder Chris Young. Young is considered one of the top prospects in the game and was the ultimate prize from the original Randy Johnson deal (he came to Arizona from the White Sox in the Javy Vazquez-El Duque deal). Like fellow prospects Drew and Quentin, Young got off to an awful start, but he’s hit .315/.330/.528 since May 7 and was even hotter than that before a groin injury slowed him at the end of the month.

Of course the two Randy Johnson deals, along with the now-ancient 2001 World Series, provide ample opportunity for rivalry here, but the most compelling angle to tonight’s game is the pitching matchup of Webb and Chien-Ming Wang, last year’s NL Cy Young winner and AL Cy Young runner up and two of the most extreme and most successfull groundball pitchers in the business. Oh yeah, and if the Yankees win they reach .500 for the first time since May 9, when they improved to 16-16 by beating Robinson Tejeda and the Texas Rangers.

Here’s to wondering if either team will play a seven-man infield at some point tonight.

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It wasn’t pretty, but the Yankees succeeded in sweeping the Pirates at home for the second time in three years, running their regular-season record against Pittsburgh to 6-0, which just happens to match the Bombers’ record over their last six games.

The Yanks looked like they were going to cruise to victory after forcing Shawn Chacon to throw 39 pitches in a three-run bottom of the first that lasted 20 minutes, but Tyler Clippard had his worst major league outing, coughing up two of those three runs in the top of the second then, after the Yanks got those two back in the third, a four spot in the fourth to give the Pirates a 6-5 lead. Clippard’s day ended with two outs in the fourth after he surrendered a two-run double to Jose Bautista on his 90th pitch of the game. Fortunately, Chacon followed in kind, exiting with one out in the bottom of the fourth after surrendering back to back singles to Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, the later on Chacon’s 96th pitch. Jonah Sharpless, sporting a 12.27 ERA, replaced Chacon, fell behind Alex Rodriguez 2-0, the surrendered a three-run bomb that made it 8-6 Yanks. The laugher, at long last, was on.

In relief of Clippard, Sean Henn, Luis Vizcaino, Scott Proctor, and Mike Myers combined to pitch 5 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and three walks. Proctor and Henn, who earned the win in his first appearance since being recalled (Chris Britton was sent down to make room for Clemens on Saturday),did the bulk of the work with two innings a piece. Meanwhile, the Yanks added five more runs to their lead with a two-spot in the sixth on another Alex Rodriguez homer (off the freshly-promoted Musami Kuwata) and a three-spot in the seventh kicked off, believe it or not, by Miguel Cairo and Wil Nieves. The scoring was capped off by a two-run double by Bobby Abreu, who had tripled in the first and went 4 for 4 with a walk, four runs scored, and three RBIs on the day. Final score: 13-6 Yankees.

After winning just five of their first 18 series, the Yankees have now won their last three in a row. Their current six-game winning streak and 9-2 surge are their best of the season. They are now tied with the Twins for fourth in the Wild Card race, 5.5 games behind the Tigers, surprising Mariners, and injury plagued A’s. One thing they are not however, is a .500 team, though that could change if they can take their winning streak to a lucky seven with a win against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday.