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There are a lot of interesting stories surrounding the Tigers this year.

Miguel Cabrera, who drew headlines when police were called to break up a domestic dispute that got physical in his home on the morning of his team’s one-game playoff against the Twins last October (a game Detroit lost despite Cabrera’s three-run homer in the third), went to rehab for his alcoholism over the winter and has opened 2010 as one of the majors hottest hitters (.370/.457/.639 with a major league best 33 RBIs).

Dontrelle Willis, who arrived with Cabrera from the Marlins in a trade during the 2007 winter meetings but had been limited to one win in 14 starts over the past two years by leg injuries and mental illness, has emerged from his struggles to lead the rotation in ERA in the early going, though he’s been scratched from his start tonight due to the flu.

Jeremy Bonderman, the former Moneyball draftee who went to the Tigers in the Jeff Weaver/Ted Lilly deal with Carlos Pena, was a part of Detroit’s pennant winning rotation in 2006, but had been limited to three wins in 13 starts over the past two years by the after effects of heavy workloads in his early 20s, is also back in the rotation and pitching effectively. He’ll face Phil Hughes, whose innings limit was surely partially inspired by Bonderman, on Wednesday.

Joel Zumaya, the rookie fireballing relief sensation of the 2006 team who has suffered a variety of arm injuries since, including one stemming from too much Guitar Hero and one suffered while moving his belongings out of the way of the California wildfires of late 2007, is also healthy and dominating out of the pen having struck out 23 men in 18 1/3 innings without allowing a home run or a walk.

Then there’s Austin Jackson, the Yankee center field prospect sent to Detroit in the three-way deal that brought Curtis Granderson to the Bronx. It was widely believed that the 23-year-old Jackson needed a bit more seasoning in Triple-A, but the Tigers made him their Opening Day center fielder and leadoff hitter and he has responded by blowing everyone’s damn minds, leading the league with a .371 average, the majors with 49 hits, and producing a total line of .371/.420/.508 with six steals in seven attempts.

I was a Jackson doubter (his .300/.354/.405 average for Scranton last year looked like a lot of empty batting average, which is performance thus far this year might prove to be as well), but then I doubted Robinson Cano, too (he was, after all, a career .278/.331/.425 hitter in the minors). Sometimes talent and athleticism win out over prior performance, particularly with young players (Cano was 22 when the Yankees installed him at second base), and in Jackson’s case, particularly with a young athlete who had primarily focused on basketball before the Yankees backed a truck full of money up to his house at draft time.

If Jackson is anything close to the player he has appeared to be in the early going this year, the Granderson trade is going to look like a major bust. Remember, it wasn’t only Jackson, but Ian Kennedy, currently sporting a 3.48 ERA and 3.18 K/9 in the Diamondbacks’ rotation, and Phil Coke, who has been a big part of the Tigers major league best bullpen this year, who were dealt for the currently-injured and previously-slumping Granderson.

Seeing Jackson and Johnny Damon start things off for the Tigers while their replacements, Granderson and Nick Johnson languish on the disabled list won’t be much fun for Yankee fans in this series, nor will any game that pivots on the relative abilities of Coke and Boone Logan. Still, it’s important to remember that the Yankees are thisclose to the major league’s best record, while the Tigers are a decidedly average team.

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In a rare turn of events, I didn’t take a swipe at A.J. Burnett’s reliability in my preview of Sunday night’s finale at Fenway. Burnett was a key contributor to the Yankees’ 27th world championship in his first year with the team and had gotten off to a strong start in Year Two (4-0, 1.99 ERA entering last nights game). I was finally beginning to soften on the guy.

Then, with a chance to push his team into first place following a Rays loss earlier in day (to a perfect game by Dallas Braden, of all people), he shows up on the hill at Fenway without his fastball command and coughs up nine runs in 4 1/3 innings, setting the Yankees up for a 9-3 loss.

After dominating the Red Sox in his walk year with the Blue Jays, Burnett gave up 22 runs in 12 2/3 innings across three starts at Fenway Park last year, but in his first game of 2010, which also came in Boston, he pitched relatively well, allowing just four runs, three earned, in five innings as his team won 6-4. Sunday night was 2009 at Fenway all over again.

To be fair, Marcus Thames helped the Sox get on the board for the first time in the second by misplaying a catchable Jeremy Hermida fly ball that would have been the third out of the inning, taking a bad route, then having the ball glance off his glove for a two-base error that allowed J.D. Drew to score. Then again, Drew was in scoring position after singling and moving to second on a wild pitch by Burnett, and though Hermida’s drive was catchable, it was struck well and did require Thames to retreat toward the warning track in left.

Thames’s day wasn’t quite as bad as Burnett’s, but that error was ugly, he went 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch at the plate, and after his inning-ending strikeout in the fourth, he got his manager ejected by starting an argument with homeplate umpire Tim McClelland over the called third strike.

The Sox did the bulk of their damage in the third, loading the bases on walks to Marco Scutaro and Kevin Youkilis sandwiched around a Victor Martinez double. With one out, Drew scored Scutaro with a sac fly. David Ortiz then hit a ground-rule double to deep rightfield that plated Pedroia. Youkilis had to hold at third because the ball hopped into the stands, but he and Ortiz both came around on Adrian Beltre’s subsequent double, and Jeremy Hermida, who later drove Burnett from the game with a two-run homer over the Green Monster in the fifth, singled home Beltre to put the Sox up 6-0.

Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez got two back with solo homers over the Monster in the bottom of the third, but that was all the Yankees were able to get against Boston starter Jon Lester, who struck out seven and allowed just two other hits in his seven innings of work.

If there was a positive to this game, it was the 3 2/3 innings of one-hit relief provided by Romulo Sanchez, who not only pitched well, but finished the game for Burnett, saving the rest of the bullpen. Then again, with Sergio Mitre and Javier Vazquez starting the next two games, it would have been nice if the Yankees could have saved Sanchez for one of those two games.

So, Friday night I try to explain that the Red Sox don’t suck, and then they go and lose the first two games of this weekend series by a combined score of 24-6 against a Yankees team that is suddenly as fragile as Nick Johnson’s wrists (Alfredo Aceves, come on down . . .). Ingrates.

Not that I’m complaining. The Yankees have won four of five against the Sox and clinched yet another series win. All that remains in this set is for them to complete a sweep on national TV.

The Sox have their best chance at a win in this series tonight, not because the Yankees are throwing A.J. Burnett, but because the Sox have Jon Lester on the hill. Lester has been untouchable in his last three outings, allowing just one run in 20 2/3 innings while striking out 23 and not allowing a single home run.

Fortunately for the Yankees, Robinson Cano is back at second base, and Jorge Posada is taking Johnson’s place at DH, his first start at any position in almost a week. Following those two are Marcus Thames in left, the red-hot Francisco Cervelli, and Brett Gardner back in his customary nine hole thanks to Nick Swisher batting second. It says something about how well the Yankees are playing thus far, and how much every man on the roster is contributing, that this is a lineup I’m happy to see.

If Posada makes it through tonight in one piece, he should catch the opener in Detroit on Monday. That’s good news with regards to Posada’s health, but bad news with regard to lineup optimization as it will bench Cervelli and open the DH spot to a revolving door that means more starts for the rest of the bench.

Alfredo Aceves, who left Saturday’s game with a stiff lower back is day-to-day. Nick Johnson is on the 15-day DL with inflammation in a tendon in his right wrist. He missed most of the 2008 season due to a torn tendon in that wrist, so I wouldn’t expect him back soon, and the Yankees have already said he’ll be gone more than the minimum 15 days.

Kevin Russo takes Johnson’s place on the roster. Russo impressed in camp with a strong plate approach and the ability to hit the pitch he’s given. The 25-year-old second baseman can also play third and has been working at short and in the outfield, but he doesn’t have much power (as evidenced by his .302/.383/.425 line for Triple-A Scranton this year) and isn’t a natural defender. Still, he should provide some good at-bats and flexibility when needed. Russo had a nine game hitting streak going for Scranton when he was called up. His first appearance for the Yankees will be his major league debut.

The first five innings of Friday night’s series-opening tilt between the Yankees and Red Sox were crisp and closely contested. Josh Beckett came out blazing, spotting 96 mile-per-hour heaters and dropping hammer curves. He struck out the side in the first, two of three batters in the second, and struck out Derek Jeter for a second time to strand a Francisco Cervelli single in the third. Phil Hughes kept pace, retiring the first seven men he faced, then following a walk to Beckett’s personal catcher Jason Varitek with two strikeouts to strand him.

The Yankees finally broke through in the fourth when, with one out, Mark Teixeira battled back from 0-2 to work a walk and Alex Rodriguez followed with a single that moved Teixeira to second. Beckett rallied to strike out Robinson Cano on four pitches, then made Nick Swisher look silly on a check swing on a cutter inside before spotting a 96 mph heater on the outside corner for strike two.

At that, Swisher spun on his heel and took a walk out of the batters box, seemingly to gather himself. Swisher has a deserved reputation as a flake because he’s a motormouth and a goofball, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a smart ballplayer. In the bottom of the inning, he made a great play in right, sliding in front of a would-be double to cut it off and hold J.D. Drew to a single. On this occasion it was obvious that Swisher was determined to win the mental battle with Beckett as well as the physical one.

After stepping back in, Swisher took a fastball well high, then took a curve in the dirt and stepped out again. Bat under his right arm, lips drawn tight, eyes peeking out toward Beckett, Swisher had a look on his face like he had figured something out, as if he thought he knew something Beckett didn’t. He then stepped back in the box and hit a curve up in the zone over the wall in straight-away center to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. After the game, Swisher said he was lucky to run into one. He’s humble, too.

The Sox got one back in the bottom of the fourth on Drew’s single (the first Boston hit in the game), another by Kevin Youkilis, and sac fly by David Ortiz, but when Boston threatened again in the fifth with two out singles by Darnell McDonald and Marco Scutaro that put runners on the corners, Hughes got Dustin Pedroia to fly out to center to strand them.

Then came the top of the sixth. Alex Rodriguez led off with a low line-drive through the shortstop hole that was hit so hard it rolled all the way to the wall for a double. Beckett then threw a 1-0 cutter down and into Robinson Cano and hit the Yankee second baseman on the top of the right knee. The impact was loud and frightening as Cano let out an audible shout. After a visit from the trainer, Cano took his base, but two pitches later he took himself out of the game (he’s day-to-day and likely won’t play Saturday).

Beckett’s 1-1 pitch to Swisher was a fastball, but Varitek, expecting a curve, lowered his glove and the ball hit off his left arm and rolled toward the Yankee dugout, moving the runners (Rodriguez and pinch-runner Ramiro Peña) up. After the Red Sox’s trainer visited Varitek (who later came out with a bruised left forearm), Beckett struck out Swisher, but then curiously intentionally walked Brett Gardner to face Francisco Cervelli with the bases loaded and one out.

Here’s where things got weird. In his previous at-bat, Cervelli had called time while Beckett was taking a long set to freeze Gardner at first. Beckett responded by coming up and in to Cervelli and making him jump out of the way. In this at-bat, Cervelli battled the count full, then called time on Beckett again. Again Beckett’s next pitch was up and in, but this time it was ball four and forced in a run. The first time it was clearly intentional, but Beckett wouldn’t throw at a guy to force in a run in a two-run game . . . would he?

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This just in: the Red Sox don’t suck. Sure, they stumbled out of the gate, losing the opening series to the Yankees and falling six games out of first place just 13 games into the season after being swept by the Rays and falling to 4-9. Sure, they suffered an embarrassing sweep at the hands of the Orioles last weekend that dropped them to seven games behind the surging Rays.

Yet, over their last 15 games, the Red Sox are 10-5, the exact same record as the Yankees over their last 15, and if you push it to 16 games, the Sox are 11-5 to the Yankees’ 10-6. Setting aside the fluky Baltimore series, in which two of the O’s wins were one-run victories in extra innings, the Sox have lost just three other series all year, to the Yankees, Rays, and Twins, the cream of the American League who enter today’s action with a combined .702 winning percentage. The Sox followed up their embarrassment in Baltimore by sweeping a four game set at home against the Angels, which pushed their record over .500 for the first time since the second day of the season, and prior to their trip to Baltimore, the Sox had won seven of their last nine games. Oh, and they’re doing all of that with two thirds of their outfield on the disabled list.

Yes, the Sox got off to a bad start, but they’re not a bad team, and the Yankees and the rest of baseball would be foolish to write them off this early. Remember when everyone was wondering what was wrong with Jon Lester? Well he’s a perennial slow starter (5.40 ERA through six starts in 2008, 6.07 ERA through ten starts last year). After three duds, he has put up the following line over his last three starts: 3-0, 0.44 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 20 2/3 IP, 10 H, 1R, 8 BB, 23 K, 0 HR. He faces A.J. Burnett on Sunday.

Josh Beckett, who starts against Phil Hughes tonight, got off to an even worst start, but his last time out he held the O’s to two runs over seven innings, striking out six against no walks or homers. Twenty-five-year-old Clay Buchholz, who starts Saturday against CC Sabathia, has been very good for a fourth starter, posting a 2.97 ERA with solid peripherals. The Yankees are going to miss John Lackey in this series, but five of his six starts this season have been quaility, and if you take out his one dud against the Rays, his ERA drops to 2.14.

At the plate, J.D. Drew got off to a miserable start, but has hit .352/.422/.667 over his last 14 games. David Ortiz homered just once in April, but has three jacks already in May and is finally being platooned with Mike Lowell (a move I had been expecting all winter). Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia remain among the most productive players at their positions (Robinson Cano has nine homers and 21 RBIs, Pedroia has seven taters and has driven in 21 as well). Adrian Beltre is hitting .343, and Jason Varitek has found new life coming off the bench (11-for-34 with five homers), which is important as Victor Martinez is one of the few Boston hitters still scuffling (though he did go 6-for-17 with two doubles and a homer in the Angels series).

Mike Cameron, out with a sports hernia, and Jacoby Ellsbury, out with broken ribs, have both resumed baseball activities, and though he hasn’t pitched well in two starts, Daisuke Matsuzaka has returned from the disabled list, pushing Tim Wakefield to the bullpen and assorted detritus (Scott Atchison, Fabio Castro, Alan Embree) off the roster. The Red Sox are righting their ship. Given that they’ve been keeping pace with the Yankees for more than half of the season despite the struggles of various individual players, that’s a legitimate concern.

The Yankees enter this weekend’s series in Boston with a five-game lead on the Sox, but there are 135 games left on the Yankees’ schedule. Certainly those five games give the Yankees some margin for error, but with injuries cascading through the roster, they just might need it. Meanwhile, with the Rays off to a blinding start (in addition to their major league best 21-7 record and .750 winning percentage, they have tied the 1984 Tigers with the best run differential after 28 games by any team since 1961 [hat tip: @lonestarball]), the three-way battle in the AL East that we expected each of the last two years but didn’t get due to the shortcomings of the Yankees and Rays, respectively, looks like it will be a reality this year.

I still like the Yankees’ chances of taking this series, because of the starters they have lined up and because of how well they’ve been playing all year, but any thoughts of being able to kick Boston while they’re down are misguided. The Red Sox are good. You heard it here first. (more…)

The Yankees have gone 10-5 since I introduced this feature on April 19. On the season, they have won eight of their nine series, sweeping two. Their only series loss came in Anaheim against the Angels two weekends ago, a series in which both teams scored 15 runs in three games. The Yankees visited the White House and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center the Monday after that series and seemed to have a bit of a hangover from that day in their loss to the Orioles on Tuesday. Since then, they’ve won seven of eight despite a mounting list of aches and pains and one major injury to an every day player.

Curtis Granderson suffered a Grade 2 strain of his left groin in the Yankees’ one loss in the last eight days and is expected to be on the shelf for at least a month. With Brett Gardener shifting over to center field, Granderson’s place in the lineup is being filled by a left-field platoon of Randy Winn and Marcus Thames, while his place on the roster is being taken by Greg Golson. Golson has thus far made just one appearance, as a defensive replacement in center pushing Gardner back to left (a head-scratcher of a move, but one that seemed to pay off with Golson making a key eighth-inning catch up against the Yankee bullpen to preserve a 3-1 lead, though I imagine Gardner could have easily made the same catch).

Winn had made just three starts before Granderson’s injury and had just one hit in 13 plate appearances, but in his two start since, he’s gone 2-for-6 with a stolen base and a three-run home run that was the difference in a 4-1 win over the Orioles. In the game after Granderson’s injury, Thames took his first 0-fer of the season, but did get on base via a hit-by-pitch and is still hitting .429/.515/.643 on the season.

Gardner, meanwhile, is 12-for-27 in his active eight-game hitting streak, homered the day after Granderson’s injury, is second in the American League in steals (and has only been caught once), and is hitting .346/.430/.432 on the season. Rounding out the outfield, Nick Swisher seems to have finally conquered his home park, going 9-for-23 with three homers on the just-completed home stand, raising his season line to .295/.380/.547.

The Yankee offense as a whole has been remarkably reliable. Just once in their first 27 games have the Yankees scored as few as two runs in a game and they are averaging 5.6 runs per game, second only to the world-beating Rays in all of baseball. Robinson Cano remains among the league-leaders in most major categories, having hit .379/.446/.707 since I last checked in. Derek Jeter is off to another fine start (.310/.341/.474), is on pace for 25 homers and 130 RBIs (the latter thanks to strong performances from the bottom of the order, Gardner in particular), and has gone hitless just five times in 26 games. Mark Teixeira, a slow-starter who had his worst April ever (.136/.300/.259), has gone 7-for-20 since the calendar flipped to May. Alex Rodriguez, however, remains cold, having hit just .208/.241/.264 since last homering on April 20.

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A few years ago I realized that one of the qualities I appreciate most in people, and value most in friends, is enthusiasm. I’m not talking about perkiness or a simple excess of energy–unrelenting positivity can be grating, and someone who is revved up all the time can be exhausting–but the capacity to nerd out over something specific, to get almost inappropriately jazzed about some little thing in life that brings you joy, seems to me to be a key to happiness, and when I see someone I know showing that kind of oddball affection for something, it fosters affection in me for that person.

That has a lot to do with why I absolutely love watching Francisco Cervelli. It’s not that I think he’s a coming star in the major leagues (he’ll stick around due to his defense, but he has no power at the plate and seems headed for a career as a Plan B starter or well-regarded backup). I have no real desire for him to get more playing time as long as Jorge Posada is still active and hitting and Jesus Montero is still catching. Whenever Cervelli does get into a game, however, I can’t keep my eyes off him.

It’s not just his superficial resemblance to a young Chris Penn. Cervelli has enthusiasm for miles, and he’s not your typical sour-faced, hard-nosed baseball red-ass (Cervelli hits without batting gloves and wears his socks high, but he didn’t balk at wearing a silly-looking, newfangled batting helmet per his doctor’s orders), nor is he a Nick Swisher-style flake. Cervelli just loves to play the game. When he’s on the field, every move he makes broadcasts how much fun he’s having, whether he’s celebrating a big play, making a dramatic windup to throw strike three around the horn, cracking up his pitchers during his quick, energetic mound visits, or recounting the previous half inning in rapid-fire speech between explosive smiles in the dugout. Cervelli did all that and more Tuesday night as he went 3-for-3, made an entertaining circus catch on a foul ball, and scored two of the Yankees’ four runs in their 4-1 win over the Orioles.

A.J. Burnett cruised through the first two innings of Tuesday night’s game, using his fastball almost exclusively until Garrett Atkins led off the third with a single off Alex Rodriguez’s glove. Burnett’s command briefly evaporated while pitching from the stretch, leading to a five-pitch walk of Rhyne Hughes. Ninth-place hitter Cesar Izturis followed with a bunt to the third-base side of the mound, but Burnett’s throw sailed into the basepath and tipped off Robinson Cano’s glove at first just before Izturis crossed the bag, forcing Cano to pull his glove back to avoid injury.

That error put Burnett in a serious jam with one run in, men on second and third, and no outs, but with the lineup turning over, A.J. turned to his curveball and struck out Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Matt Wieters in order, getting all three swinging over curveballs and going to the curve for three consecutive pitches at the end of both the Markakis and Wieters at-bats.

The man who called those pitches, our pal Cervelli, hit the first pitch Baltimore starter Brian Matusz threw in the bottom of that inning into the right-center-field gap. Center fielder Adam Jones dove for Cervelli’s sinking liner but came up several inches short, and Cervelli legged out a stand-up triple, his first three-base hit since he was with High-A Tampa in 2007 and just the third of his professional career. Four pitches later, Ramiro Peña drove him home with a groundout and the game was tied.

In the top of the fourth, with two out and Miguel Tejada on second via a leadoff ground-rule double into the right-field corner, Atkins hit a foul pop toward the Yankee dugout. Cervelli raced back toward the camera pit, adjusted slightly, then made a lunging catch over the protective screen in front of the dugout. His momentum then tipped his center of gravity a bit too far, and he began to slide, on his belly, down the railing along the stairs only to be caught by his manager and hitting coach.

In the bottom of the fifth, with the game still tied 1-1, Brett Gardner led off by battling back from 0-2 to work a seven-pitch walk. Cervelli followed by also falling behind 0-2 on a pair of called strikes, then singled into right field to put runners at first and second. Peña followed with a sacrifice bunt to the third-base side of the mound only to have an exact replay of Burnett’s error on Izturis’s bunt unfold with Matusz’s throw tailing into the basepath and beyond second baseman Ty Wigginton’s reach allowing Gardner to come around with the go-ahead run. After a pair of outs, Matusz walked Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez (the latter after a nine-pitch battle) to force in Cervelli and give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.

An inning later, Cervelli came up with Marcus Thames on first via a single and one out and, after taking strike one, dropped down a perfect surprise bunt up the third-base line and beat it out for a hit. The Yankees failed to score in that inning, but when they did add an insurance run in the eighth, there was Cervelli again, bunting Gardner, who had beaten out a slow-roller up the third base line and stolen second, to third to set up a sacrifice fly from Peña.

Burnett, meanwhile, was excellent again, allowing just the one unearned run on his own throwing error while striking out eight in 7 1/3 innings against just two walks and five hits. Damaso Marte, who struck out switch-hitter Matt Wieters, and Alfredo Aceves, who needed every inch of the ballpark to retire Miguel Tejada on a fly that backed defensive replacement Greg Golson up against the Yankee bullpen, finished the eighth. Joba Chamberlain pitched around a harmless single in the ninth, striking out two (one of them on a curve) to earn his second save in as many days.

As for how the other half lives, Brian Matusz can’t catch a break. The rookie’s last two appearances were both quality starts against the defending champions, but he got a total of one unearned run of support in the two games and took the loss both times. The Yankees, meanwhile, have a backup catcher who is 12-for-31 on the season and leads the league in enthusiasm.

The Yankees got through April relatively unscathed, but hurtin’ time arrived this past week with Nick Johnson (stiff back), Jorge Posada (knee contusion/calf strain), Alex Rodriguez (sore knee/fatigue), and Mariano Rivera (side tightness) all missing games due to aches and pains of varying degrees. Amid all of that, Curtis Granderson suffered a major injury, a Grade 2 groin strain that will have him out until June, but thus far the injuries have only revealed the Yankees’ depth.

Joba Chamberlain saved Monday night’s game in Rivera’s stead. Brett Gardner and Randy Winn delivered unexpected home runs in Granderson’s absence, and Marcus Thames, who has been raking all season, actually made a nifty sliding play in left field with Gardner relocated to center. Francisco Cervelli has played well in Posada’s place, hitting .346 in his limited opportunities and even making his first regular season appearance at third base, adding to the team’s infield depth. Nick Swisher has flipped the switch in his home park, leading the Yankee charge of late by picking up eight hits, including two homers, in his last 12 at-bats, and Phil Hughes has been everything the Yankees had hoped Javy Vazquez would be and more, starting the season 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA.

That’s not to say that these aches and pains won’t start hurting the team as a whole if they keep piling up. Winn and Gardner aren’t likely to go deep again any time soon (after homering on Sunday, Gardner said “That’s my one for the year.”). Thames remains a butcher in left. Cervelli’s bat is cooling. Hughes is due for a big correction given his .158 opponents’ average on balls in play (though I think he’ll survive it). Not every starter is going to hand the ball directly to Joba the way CC Sabathia did last night. The good news is that Johnson and Rodriguez are back in the lineup, Rivera could be back as soon as tonight but more likely tomorrow, and Posada is merely day-to-day.

An encouraging sign regarding Posada, who is expected to return to the lineup for the opener of the Boston series on Friday and can pinch-hit in the meantime, is that outfielder Greg Golson, not a third catcher, is the minor leaguer being called up tonight to restore the “balance” on the roster to four men on the bench and seven in the bullpen. Sadly, Mark Melancon will once again board the Scranton shuttle to make room having made just one appearance in his time with the big club.

Golson is here because he’s on the 40-man roster, is a legitimate center fielder, and has good fifth-outfielder tools (speed and defense). Still, I’m a bit frustrated to see him because the 24-year-old wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire for Scranton (.253/.289/.430 with four steals in four tries), and it was my assumption that the Yankees claimed Golson off waivers as a high-upside fixer-upper. To be fair, his strikeout rate is way down (from one every 3.6 plate appearances in Double-A in 2008 to one every seven PA in the early going this year), which is a good sign, but I wouldn’t consider him ready for the big reveal just yet and there are other Scranton outfielders who are off to better starts and could have been added to the 40-man at the expense of perpetually injured righty Christian Garcia, who just underwent a second Tommy John surgery. David Winfree (.301/.344/.470) and Colin Curtis (.339/.435/.441) aren’t center fielders, but I’d be fine with Randy Winn as an emergency backup to Brett Gardner with Golson a game away should Gardner get hurt.

The other good news is that the Orioles are still in town for two more days. Tonight, O’s rookie Brian Matusz takes on A.J. Burnett. Twenty-three-year-old lefty Matusz, a first-round draft pick in 2008, is off to a solid start in his first full big-league campaign. His last three starts, including a game at Fenway and a loss to the Yankees in Baltimore, were quality starts, and he has struck out 29 men in 30 2/3 innings on the season while allowing just two home runs (one to Robinson Cano).

A.J. Burnett has been superficially better, but on closer examination has only been more dominant in his three quality starts, while posting inferior overall peripherals. Burnett flat-out dominated the O’s in his last start, holding them scoreless on three singles and a walk over eight innings, but he has struck out just seven men in his last 14 1/3 innings and struck out just one in seven frames in his second start of the season. Burnett hasn’t been walking as many men as he usually does either, and hasn’t had a real disaster start yet either, but his perfect 3-0 record and 2.43 ERA imply a consistent dominance that hasn’t really been there.

Of course, I’m always down on Burnett, always expecting his next start to be a disaster. Still, I think if the Orioles are going to pull out a win in this series, tonight’s their best chance, with Matusz on the hill, Posada on the shelf, Rivera’s availability in question, and Burnett (who, according to the two alter kockers in my section last night, “has a lot of jailhouse tats”) taking the ball for the home nine.

Joe Girardi’s lineup against the lefty Matusz has Marcus Thames in left, Derek Jeter at DH, Ramiro Peña at shortstop, and Francisco Cervelli catching, with Nick Swisher batting second and a bottom four behind Robinson Cano of Thames, Brett Gardner, Cervelli, and Peña.

When the Yankees arrived in Baltimore a week ago, the Orioles were 3-16 and I wrote that they weren’t that bad. This week, the O’s arrive in the Bronx coming off a three-game sweep of the Red Sox and have won five of their last seven games (four against Boston and one against the Yankees last Tuesday), and I’m here to say, the Orioles aren’t that good (I also believe the Red Sox aren’t that bad, but I’ll save that for Friday’s series preview).

Nothing has changed about the Orioles other than their luck.While the Yankees were in Baltimore last week, Alfredo Simon was called up and installed as the closer, with Kam Mickolio returning to the minors. Since then, the O’s have made just one roster move, sending former closer Jim Johnson to the minors in order to return Brad Bergesen to the fifth spot in the rotation. The Yankees won’t face Bergesen in this series and they’ve already seen Simon. Nothing has changed about the Orioles. (Incidentally, I noticed I forgot to fill in the “Who’s Replaced Whom” section in my O’s post last week, so I’ve included the full 2009-to-2010 comparison below).

The O’s swept the Red Sox by outlasting them. Two of the games were decided by one run in ten innings, and the other had a final score of 12-9. I like the Yankees chances of winning a slug-fest with the O’s, but with CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Andy Pettitte lineup as the Yankees starters in this series, I don’t see one developing. The O’s counter with Jeremy Guthrie, Brian Matusz, and David Hernandez. Hernandez, the only one of the three the Yankees didn’t see (and beat) last week has been a five-inning, keep-you-in-the-game sort of pitcher in the early going, but has walked nearly as many men as he’s struck out and gives up a ton of fly balls, which is a recipe for disaster when facing the Yankees in the Bronx. Matusz vs. Burnett Tuesday night looks like the O’s best chance of a win on paper as Matusz has been solid (three straight quality starts including his loss to the Yankees last week) and I always feel like Burnett is due for a stinker, no matter how well he pitches (and he flat-out dominated the O’s in Baltimore last week, allowing just three singles and a walk in eight shutout innings). Tonight, CC Sabathia faces Jeremy Guthrie for the fifth time since joining the Yankees. Sabathia is 3-1 those matchups thus far, including last Wednesday’s 8-3 Yankee win in Baltimore.

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There are hot summer days when a ballgame is a familiar companion, an occasion for a cool drink, a light snack, and an excuse to get off your feet and out of the heat for a while and do a whole lot of nothing. There are other days when the game slowly turns into a blackhole, adding to the oppressiveness of the temperature, ticking by minutes like hours, and leaving you exhausted and bitter about having failed to pull yourself away and done something constructive or even enjoyable with your day.

Saturday’s afternoon tilt between the White Sox and Yankees was the latter. On one of the first genuinely hot days of the year, the Yanks and Sox milled about on the field for nearly four hours, working the opposition for a total of 374 pitches, drawing 11 walks, stranding 15 runners on base, and ultimately leaving the home crowd deeply unsatisfied by the entire experience.

Javy Vazquez was again ineffective. The damage was slight early on. In the second, the Sox loaded the bases with no outs on an infield single and a pair of walks, but Vazquez escaped with just one run scoring thanks in part to being able to face Juan Pierre (who popped out on the first pitch) and Omar Vizquel (who plated the one run via a sac fly) and in part to A.J. Pierzynski getting caught off second when Mark Teixeira cut Curtis Granderson’s throw home on Vizquel’s sac fly. The White Sox also scored a lone run in the first and third innings, both times on a solo homer by Andruw Jones, who owns Vazquez (.392/.446/.824 with five homers in 56 plate appearances entering the game). The Yanks scratched out a run against Jon Danks in the third following a leadoff single by Brett Gardner to close the gap to 3-1, but Vazquez failed to get an out in the fourth.

After an infield single by A.J. Pierzynski, Vazquez gave up a long home run to Mark Kotsay, of all people, then walked the scuffling and typically impatient Pierre on four pitches before giving up a single on an 0-2 count to Vizquel. That single, with none out in the fourth, came on Vazquez’s 83rd pitch. Just 55 percent of those pitches were strikes, the walk to Pierre was the fourth he had issued, and the homer by Kotsay was the third he had allowed. YES didn’t put up it’s radar gun readings until the third inning, and then recorded Vazquez striking out Gordon Beckham on a 91 mile-per-hour fastball, but most of Vazquez’s fastballs were in the high 80s, and there was no bite on his breaking stuff. In other words, he was no better and probably a bit worse than he had been in his first four starts.

If Vazquez’s struggles weren’t mental to begin with, they likely are now. Despite his poor performance, the entire infield came to the mound to reassure him when Joe Girardi came to take him out of the game with two runs in, two men on, and none out in the fourth. Girardi seemed like he was trying to say something positive to Vazquez as well when he got to the mound, but Javy just handed him the ball and pushed past him (though he didn’t display any obvious anger and did stay in the dugout to watch Sergio Mitre strand both inherited runners).

Attempting to make lemonade out of the lemons Vazquez handed them, the Yankees scratched out another run against Danks in the fifth, albeit barely as Alex Rodriguez beat out a would-be double play with one out and bases loaded by mere inches, thanks in part to a hard, clean slide by Mark Teixeira at second. Though they didn’t cash in a big inning there, the Yankees did work Danks over thoroughly, sending him to the showers after that inning having thrown 118 pitches. They then jumped all over righty reliever Scott Linebrink in the sixth with one-out singles by Marcus Thames, Granderson, and Gardner, and RBI groundout by Derek Jeter, and a two-run home run by Nick Swisher, who seemed elated to get a big hit in his home park.

Swisher’s hit gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead, erasing Vazquez’s poor start, but even amid that rally there were more lemons, as Curtis Granderson pulled up lame rounding second on Gardner’s single and left the game with a Grade 2 strain of his left groin that has since landed him on the 15-day disabled list. Damaso Marte then came in and knocked over the glass of lemonade, relieving David Robertson to face the lefty Pierzynski with two out and men on first and second. Pierzynski launched Marte’s 1-0 offering deep into the left field gap, scoring both runners and giving the Sox a 7-6 lead that Linebrink, lefty Randy Williams, J.J. Putz, and Bobby Jenks cashed in for the win.

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Javier Vazquez has made just one start in the Bronx since being reacquired by the Yankees, and it ended with a bunch of blockheads booing what was actually a fairly solid start that just happened to come opposite a fantastic performance by the Angels’ Joel Piñeiro. What they were booing wasn’t really Vazquez’s performance that day, but his disaster start in Tampa Bay the turn before and the back-breaking grand slam he allowed to Johnny Damon in Game Seven of the 2004 ALCS, Vazquez’s last appearance in Yankee pinstripes. Never mind the absurdity of blaming Vazquez for the Yankees’ collapse in 2004 (or even for the four runs allowed on the Damon slam given that Vazquez was exactly the worst pitcher for Joe Torre to have brought in after Kevin Brown had loaded the bases). We all know there’s a thriving contingent of mouth-breathing jackasses in every ballpark, particularly those in the northeast. What worries me is that this afternoon’s game looks primed to dump more blood into the water as Vazquez is going up against one of the game’s hottest pitchers in White Sox lefty Jon Danks.

Vazquez, as we all know all too well by this point, has been struggling with his mechanics in the early going this year, rushing his delivery and thus causing his arm to drag, his slider to flatten out, and robbing his fastball of both location and velocity. Though he did pick up a win against the punchless A’s in Oakland, he has yet to turn in a quality start, and in three of his four outings he has missed both the innings and runs qualifications for that statistic. I still have faith that Vazquez will get on track, but more abuse from the home fans will only make the allegations of Eddie Whitson syndrome a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As for Danks, he’s the real deal. All of his four starts this season have been quality, and he’s averaging nearly 7 1/3 innings and barely more than one earned run per game. He leads the American League in WHIP (0.86), and boasts a 1.55 ERA and 4.33 K/BB. Like CC Sabathia, Danks has been hit-lucky in the early going (.224 opponent’s average on balls in play), but also like CC, he has the stuff to survive a correction. I’m willing to believe the 25-year-old is making the leap this year.

Danks faced the Yankees just once last year, allowing four runs in six innings but picking up a win. The Yankee who has faced him most is former Tiger Curtis Granderson, who has gone 1-for-19 with no walks against the lefty. Granderson is hitting .172/.200/.242 against lefties this year, but Nick Johnson is the man taking a seat to make room for Marcus Thames in the lineup. I understand not wanting Thames in the outfield behind a flyballer like Vazquez, but if Randy Winn doesn’t start this game, he shouldn’t be on this team.

Nick Swisher hits second. Jorge Posada is back behind the plate.

In the American League last year, only the Mariners allowed fewer runs than the White Sox, but only the M’s and Royals scored fewer runs. General Manger Kenny Williams has made a lot of changes to the White Sox dating back to his acquisition of a then-injured Jake Peavy at last year’s trading deadline, but despite all of his tinkering, I’m expecting more of the same from the Sox this year.

In April, the White Sox’ offense–restocked with Mark Teahen, Juan Pierre, controversial late-season waiver claim Alex Rios, and the ghost of Andruw Jones, the last being far and away the most productive of that quartet–has obliged by scoring just four runs per game (better than only the M’s, Indians, and Orioles), while the bullpen, stocked with veteran arms, leads all major league pens with 11.45 strikeouts per nine innings and is second in the AL to the Tigers with a 2.79 ERA. Twenty-five-year old lefty Jon Danks has been among the league’s best starters in the early part of his fourth season (3-0, 1.55 ERA, 4.33 K/BB, league-leading 0.82 WHIP). The Sox just need the rest of the rotation to shape up to fulfill the team’s destiny as an unbalanced mediocrity.

Fortunately for the White Sox, the guys who need to shape up are Jake Peavy, Mark Buehlre, Gavin Floyd, and Freddy Garcia. Peavy and Buehlre are givens. Floyd has allowed a .406 average on balls in play after four starts, so positive correction is guaranteed. Garcia, well, he’s 35, has made just 23 starts over the past three seasons, and has gone 0-2 with a 5.82 ERA this season despite a .217 BABIP, so maybe he won’t be there, but he’s the fifth starter, so the Sox will take what they can get there.

Looking at this weekend’s series, on paper, Garcia versus Andy Pettitte tonight is a win, and Danks versus Javy Vazquez on Saturday afternoon is a loss, which boils it down to a Sunday rubber game between Buehrle and Phil Hughes. I’m looking forward to that one.

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A night after opening their series in Baltimore with a bumbling loss, the Yankees won a comparatively clean, crisp game 8-3, making life easy for ace CC Sabathia, who wasn’t in top form, but still gave the Yankees 7 2/3 quality innings. The Yankees got to Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie early, putting up two runs in the first, three and the second, and holding a 6-1 lead after the third. The rest was just killing time.

Nick Swisher had the big day at the plate, going 3-for-5 with a two-RBI triple in the second on a ball off the base of the wall in center that O’s center fielder Adam Jones failed to field cleanly. The only Yankee who failed to reach base in the game was Alex Rodriguez, who still contributed with a sac fly in the first.

The only negative for the Yankees came when Guthrie hit Jorge Posada on the side of his right knee with his first pitch of the second inning. Posada stayed in to “run” the bases, jogging gingerly to second on Curtis Granderson’s single, then sauntering home just barely ahead of Granderson on Swisher’s triple. Francisco Cervelli went into the game in the bottom of the second and went 2-for-4 with an RBI the rest of the way.

The early diagnosis on Posada was that he just has a bruise and is day-to-day. Joe Girardi suggested that he won’t start the series finale, though Posada will be further evaluated on Thursday. For the short term, the Yankees should do just fine with the defensively superior Cervelli, who is 8-for-18 with a double and three walks in the early going, though there’s some concern about the fact that, with Posada out, Ramiro Peña is the backup catcher.

Failing to complete a sweep of the A’s, that was no big deal. Losing two of three to a good Angels team in Anaheim, you almost expect that. Losing the opener against a struggling Orioles team that had only won three games all season then looking back and realizing you have lost four of their last five, that’s a wake-up call. The Yankees need to win the next two games in Baltimore to avoid an embarrassing series loss to the lowly O’s as well as a losing record on their three-stop road trip. Fortunately, they have CC Sabathia on the mound tonight to help get the team back on track.

Sabathia’s last three games have been a near no-hitter and a pair of shortened complete games (six innings in a rain-shortened game, eight innings in a 4-2 loss), which makes this one of his better Aprils on record. One point of warning: CC has been pretty hit-lucky, holding opponents to an absurdly low .197 batting average on balls in play. As is typical for CC in April, his walks are up a bit, and his strikeout rate is no better than it was last year (which was a four-year low for the big lefty). We all know he’ll only get better from here, but those peripherals show there’s actually room for him to do so.

With Nick Johnson back in the lineup as the DH, Sabathia will pitch to Jorge Posada for the first time since Opening Day Night. That shouldn’t effect his performance, but Sabathia’s breakout game as a Yankee came here in Baltimore with Francisco Cervelli behind the plate just less than a year ago, on May 8, 2009. The opposing pitcher that night, Jeremy Guthrie, is on the hill for the O’s again tonight. All four of Guthrie’s starts this season have been quality (three of them against the Rays and Red Sox) and he has walked just five batters total. Despite that, the Orioles have lost all four of those games due to poor run and bullpen support. Guthrie faced the Yankees five times last year and turned in three quality starts, but his and the Orioles’ only win in those five games was Guthrie’s Opening Day matchup against, yes, CC Sabathia. In fact, tonight Guthrie and Sabathia face off for the fourth time dating back that Opening Day tilt. CC holds a 2-1 advantage in those matchups.

Despite struggling with his command and walking four, two of those free passes forcing in a run in the second inning, Phil Hughes managed to pass a 2-1 lead (courtesy of a Jorge Posada solo homer in the top of the fourth) to his bullpen after 5 2/3 innings and 109 pitches. Unfortunately, the Yankee bullpen coughed up three runs before getting the final out of the sixth. Boone Logan walked the only man he faced, and David Robertson, after getting ahead 0-2 on Ty Wigginton, hit the Orioles’ replacement second baseman in the backside, then gave up a trio of RBI singles to the bottom three men in the Oriole lineup before finally striking out Adam Jones to end the inning. Alfredo Aceves took over in the seventh, but in the eighth Derek Jeter booted a leadoff groundball by Wigginton and Jorge Posada threw a rainbow into center field when pinch-runner Julio Lugo attempted to steal second with two outs, setting up a crucial insurance run.

Baltimore starter Kevin Millwood was similarly inefficient, but lefty Alberto Castillo and righty Jim Johnson held the Yankees to just two hits over 2 2/3 innings, handing a 5-2 lead to newly promoted Alfredo Simon in the ninth. A Nick Swisher one-out single and a pinch-hit walk by Nick Johnson set up, sandwiched between strikeouts of Curtis Granderson and Derek Jeter, set up a pair of two-out Yankee runs, the first of which scored on an error on a groundball by Brett Gardner (which, curiously, was also how the first Yankee run of the game scored), but after Mark Teixeira got the Yankees within one and pushed Gardner to third with a first-pitch single, Alex Rodriguez’s hopper up the middle was corralled for the final out of a 5-4 Oriole win, their fourth of the season.

Hughes’ performance was actually quite encouraging. He allowed just one run on two hits despite having far from his best stuff, but he was undermined by sloppy play around him. In addition to Logan and Robertson’s failures in the bottom of the sixth and Jeter and Posada’s errors in the eighth, the Yankees gave away two outs in the top of the sixth when Robinson Cano, who has been thrown out on 54 percent of his stolen base attempts in his career, followed a leadoff single by being caught stealing. Jorge Posada followed Cano with an ironic walk, then with two outs was caught rounding second too far on an infield single to the left side (Nick Swisher singled off Miguel Tejada’s glove, and Tejada wrangled the ball before Posada realized he never had a prayer of making it to third base). The Yankee offense also failed to score a run with the bases loaded and one out in the third when Alex Rodriguez lined out and Cano flied out.

I’m tempted to chalk this one up to a hangover from the team’s big day at the White House on Monday (Michael Kay said during the broadcast that he had never seen Joe Girardi look more exhausted than he was Monday night). Hey, Randy Winn got his first Yankee hit, so that’s . . . something. Of course, he also slipped when attempting a throw home in the bottom of the sixth, resulting in a throw that barely trickled into first base from shallow right field. It was that kind of game.

In other news, Johnson, who has reverted to number 36 which he wore in his first stint with the Yankees, should be in the starting lineup Wednesday night, but Chan Ho Park was unable to throw off flat ground and thus seems no closer to returning to the Yankee bullpen.

I like to think I have a firm command of the obvious. To wit, the Orioles, who at 3-16 are four games worse than the next worst team in baseball less than 20 games into the season, aren’t this bad. After all, no team in baseball history has ever finished with a sub .200 winning percentage (the O’s are at .158 entering this week’s three-game series against the Yankees in Baltimore), and the O’s don’t profile as one of the worst teams in baseball history. What’s more, their Pythagorean winning percentage has them at a less compellingly awful .316.

Coming into the season, I thought that this would be the year the rebuilding O’s would slip past the directionless Blue Jays into fourth place, and I still feel that way. The Orioles have a solid collection of good young talent, some of which is still in the process of establishing itself in the major leagues, some of which could arrive in the bigs as the season progresses, and some of which may not even make it until next year or beyond. For that reason, when prescribing off-season strategies for all 30 teams for SI.com back in November, I said the Orioles needed to “avoid trying to buy in too early . . . Once those pieces have established themselves, the O’s can open up the coffers and flesh out the roster, but for now they’ll let [free agent Melvin] Mora go and should stick with inexpensive veteran stop-gaps in the infield . . . while giving the youngsters their opportunities.”

That’s exactly what the O’s did in bringing back the 36-year-old Miguel Tejada to play third base for $6 million, signing deposed Rockies third baseman Garrett Atkins to play first base for $4.5 million, and sticking with Cesar Izturis, on the second year of a two-year, $5 million contract, at shortstop. In a way, wins aren’t really what the O’s are after just yet. General Manager Andy MacPhail has been in enough rodeos to know that there’s no point shooting for a fluky 83-win division title in a division that also contains the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays. Instead, he’s taking his time, trying to get his kids established and sort the prospect wheat out from the remaining chafe. That sort of strategy can lead to exactly the sort of growing pains the O’s are experiencing now, but misfortune can create opportunity.

With the team desperate to get off the floor, manager Dave Trembley has found an excuse to bench the struggling rental Atkins in favor of minor leaguer Rhyne Hughes. Hughes is a 26-year-old rookie and not among the team’s better prospects, but he hit .301/.357/.510 in his Triple-A debut last year, and his time is now if ever. Hughes was the return for sending Gregg Zaun to the Rays in early August of last year, and if Hughes turns out to be a solid major leaguer, that’s essentially free production. If that happens, the decision to effectively leave first base “open” by signing Atkins will have been key to getting something for nothing there. Hughes has gone 4-for-9 with a walk in his first two major league games, one of which was the O’s third win of the season. That’s not terribly meaningful, but it’s better than having starting off with an 0-fer. Hughes is additionally compelling because the O’s top first-base prospect, Brandon Snyder, really isn’t. Snyder hits for average with some doubles, but he doesn’t walk much, doesn’t have significant home run power, and isn’t anything special in the field.

The O’s are much better off at third base, where they can thank another slick late-season deal for Josh Bell, who arrived from the Dodgers for lefty reliever George Sherrill at last year’s trading deadline. Bell is a big, power-hitting third baseman who is making his Triple-A debut this year and could be among the O’s prospects to arrive in the majors mid-year. There’s some concern about Bell’s defense at the hot corner, which makes him a peripheral concern in the first base picture as well, but wherever he plays, he should be a mid-lineup presence for the O’s in the very near future.

Add Bell and possibly Hughes to a lineup that already includes Matt Wieters and the outfield of Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Nolan Reimold, and the O’s have a solid young core that can be complimented through free agency or more deft trades. Before that can happen, however, those youngsters have to get their feet under them in the majors, which only Markakis has done thus far. Wieters and Jones are just 24 and Wieters, off to a solid start this year, has less than a full season of major league experience under his belt. Reimold, who like Markakis is 26 this season, is closer to Hughes than the other four and still needs to prove he’s a major league starter. The flip-side of the Atkins-Hughes situation is that the team’s start has been so bad that is has shortened the leash for lesser prospects such as Reimold. Despite a significant injury which will keep his primary left-field rival Felix Pie out until at least mid-season, Reimold, off to a slow start, has begun losing playing time to the still-older, still-lesser ex-prospect Lou Montanez (though Montanez is in the process of playing himself out of the lineup as well).

On the mound, the O’s have upgraded their brutal 2009 rotation by acquiring veteran Kevin Millwood, on the last year of his contract and thus effectively on another one-year deal, from the Rangers for reliever Chris Ray, who struggled mightily last year in his first year back from Tommy John surgery. More importantly, they’re already getting strong work from lefty Brian Matusz, who was the fourth overall pick in the 2008 draft and is a budding front-of-the-rotation starter and a popular pre-season pick for the American League Rookie of the Year. Millwood and Matusz effectively push Jeremy Guthrie down to the third spot in the rotation. Guthrie is still overextended, even as a number-three, and the final two spots are still filled by pitchers who probably shouldn’t even be in the majors, but that major league mediocrity is again just thin cover for budding prospects including Chris Tillman–who came over with Jones, Sherrill, and reliever Kam Mickolio in the Erik Bedard deal and got a taste of the majors last year at age 21–Jake Arrieta, a 2007 draft pick out of college who could join Tillman in the big league rotation later this year, and Brandon Erbe, who is making his Triple-A debut this year at age 22.

So the O’s have half a lineup, half a rotation, and following a shoulder injury suffered by fragile free agent closer Mike Gonzalez, not much to speak of in the bullpen, but those component parts remain compelling and potential building blocks of a future contender in Baltimore. Right now the Orioles aren’t a good team, but they’re not as bad as they’ve looked in the early going, and are continually getting better. The Orioles should move into fourth place for the first time since 2007, but they’ll still finish with their 13th-straight losing season, yet there remains reason for optimism in Baltimore.

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Sunday wasn’t Joe Girardi’s best day as Yankee manager.

Things seemed to be going the Yankees’ way in the early innings of their rubber game against the Angels in Anaheim on Sunday afternoon. Angels starter Scott Kazmir seemed oddly determined to hit Robinson Cano leading off the second, missing him with a fastball up and in then hitting him in the rear with the next pitch. Kazmir’s next pitch was also a fastball, and Jorge Posada sent it into the new trees beyond the center field fence to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead. Marcus Thames followed with a ringing double, and the Yankees were in business.

Unfortunately, Thames was starting for the red-hot Brett Gardner (11-for-24 in the team’s last seven games) instead of the ice-cold (1-for-15 over the last six games) and lefty-challenged Curtis Granderson. So, it was Granderson who followed Thames in the lineup with a second-inning sacrifice bunt. Thames did score on a subsequent groundout by Derek Jeter, but (say it with me) when you play for one run, that’s all you get, and that’s all the Yankees got, letting Kazmir and the Angels off the hook with a manageable 3-0 deficit.

Bobby Abreu got the Angels on the board in the third when he homered off Yankee starter Javier Vazquez for the tenth time in his career (tying Manny Ramirez against Jamie Moyer for the most homers by an active batter off a given pitcher). Fair enough. Abreu clearly owns Vazquez, and though the pitch Abreu hit was a flat slider, Vazquez did start to get his fastball up to 91 mph in the third inning after starting out in the high 80s in the first two frames. In fact, Vazquez struck out the side in the third around Abreu’s solo shot, and he experienced a similar increase in velocity in the middle innings of his last start, a win over the A’s.

Unfortunately for Vazquez, he was no longer facing the punchless A’s in their forgiving ballpark, and in the fourth inning, things fell apart. After Hideki Matsui flied out. Kendry Morales singled, Juan Rivera was grazed on the forearm by a pitch, Howie Kendrick singled Morales home, and Mike Napoli worked a walk to load the bases. That brought up Brandon Wood, the Angels third baseman who has looked lost thus far this season and struck out swinging at a pitch that nearly hit him the previous inning. This time, Wood jumped on Vazquez’s first pitch, a hanging curveball, and hit a sinking liner to left field were Thames, again not Gardner, was playing. Thames broke late and made an awkward and unsuccessful dive toward what proved to be a two-RBI double that gave the Angels the lead. A Maicer Izturis grounder then scored Napoli to make it 5-3 Halos, and Vazquez’s day was over after 78 pitches in just 3 2/3 innings.

Pulling Vazquez there and then was the best decision Joe Girardi made all day, as Boone Logan and Alfredo Aceves combined to hold the Angels into the seventh, and Robinson Cano got the Yankees within one by extracting further revenge on Kazmir via a solo homer to left in the sixth (Cano’s third home run off Kazmir this season in just five official at-bats).

Then, with one out and none on in the seventh and Aceves having thrown just 15 pitches (13 of them strikes), Girardi brought in Damaso Marte to face Bobby Abreu. Marte walked Abreu on five pitches, but with David Robertson warm in the pen, Girardi stuck with Marte against righty Torii Hunter, whom Marte hit in the back knee with a slider. That put two men on for Hideki Matsui, a left-handed hitter whom, as Girardi should well know, has had considerable success against lefty pitching. Though he had yet to get an out, Marte stayed in the game and got a check-swing fielder’s choice for the second out, a lucky break that wasn’t quite enough to save the Yankees in this game.

Matsui’s tapper set up the key at-bat in the game. With men on first and second, two out, and the Yankees still just one run behind, switch-hitter Kendry Morales stepped into the right-handed batters box. Girardi initially called for Marte to intentionally walk Morales with the intention of bringing Robertson in to pitch to righty Juan Rivera with the bases loaded, but after one intentional ball, Girardi popped out of the dugout, seemingly to have Robertson issue the walk himself. Two steps out of the dugout, the Yankee manager froze, perhaps called back by one of his coaches, climbed back down into the dugout, called off the walk, then sent catcher Francisco Cervelli out to the mound, seemingly to stall for more time.

Marte’s next two pitches were balls anyway, and with the count 3-0, Girardi later admitted he thought of putting up four fingers again, but instead he, bench coach Tony Peña, and pitching coach Dave Eiland simply reminded Marte and catcher Francisco Cervelli that Morales would indeed swing on 3-0, implying that there would be no gimme strike. Nonetheless, Marte grooved a fastball, and Morales, true to the Yankee coaching staff’s warning, swung, connecting for a game-breaking three-run homer.

And that was that. Facing relievers Fernando Rodney and Scot Shields in the eighth and ninth innings, respectively, the Yankees managed only a leadoff walk by Mark Teixeira in the eighth that was erased by a Cano double play. The 8-4 loss handed the Yankees their first series loss of the young season and sends them back east with a sister-kissing split on their six-game trip to the west coast.

After the game, Girardi took full blame for his indecision in the seventh, uncharacteristically second-guessing himself for not going with his first instinct (the IBB plus Robertson). However, the amateurishness of that sequence of events overshadowed the other poor decisions he made in this game including starting Thames in the field when Nick Johnson was already on the bench with a stiff back leaving the DH spot open (Posada was the DH after a day off Saturday with Cervelli catching for the second day in a row), playing Granderson over Gardner then calling for a second-inning sac bunt from Granderson, pulling a cruising and efficient Aceves from a one-run game, and sticking with Marte at least two batters too long.

As for Marte, his description of the decisive pitch against Morales, delivered in his broken Dominican rasp, summed up this head-slapper of a loss: “Three ball, no strikes, you know. Waiting for a fastball. I throw the fastball in the middle. He hit.”

Yup.

With Joel Piñeiro going for the Angels this afternoon and Javy Vazquez taking the hill for the Yankees on Sunday, last night’s loss was a tough one for the Yankees to take, but while Kendry Morales’s two-run homer off Joba Chamberlain might have been the decisive blow, the more memorable one came in the third inning when Mark Teixeira, after being hit in the triceps by a pitch, rounded third and absolutely flattened Angels backup catcher Bobby Wilson, who was making his first major league start.

After the game, both managers (both former catchers) said they thought the play was clean, and despite a few more bits of accidental contact and hit batsmen later in the game, there was no jawing between the teams, no real sense of anger or conflict. Despite all of that, I thought it was a dirty play on Teixeira’s part, not only because Wilson had set up behind home, giving Teixeira a clear path to the plate, but because of Teixeira’s behavior in the immediate after math of the collision.

After leveling Wilson, Teixeira stood up and went back to touch home, clearly indicating that his initial target had been the catcher, not the plate. As he then spun back around to head toward the Yankee dugout, his eye caught Wilson sprawled out in the dirt, clearly in pain, but not only didn’t he ask Wilson if he was okay, he didn’t acknowledge him at all and showed no concern after returning to the dugout despite the fact that Wilson had to be helped off the field and carried down the dugout stairs. After the game, Teixeira spoke kindly of Wilson and said he intended to call him to make sure he was okay (Wilson was taken to a local hospital for a CT scan and was diagnosed with a concussion), but in the heat of the moment, I don’t believe Teixeira had any regard for the well being of his opponent.

Was it because of the hit-by-pitch? Because of the virulent booing he’d gotten from his former home fans at Angel Stadium? Was it boiled-over frustration because of his slow start? Probably not, though all likely helped bring out the red-ass in the Yankee first baseman.

We’ve seen that before. Last year, in a game against the Twins, Tex almost got into it with Carlos Gomez because the Twins’ center fielder was crossing first inside the bag and Teixeira was afraid of a potential collision. We’ve also seen him level catchers before. The first thing I thought of when I saw Tex flatten Wilson last night was the play in that wild triple-comeback game against the Rangers in May 2006 in which Jorge Posada was knocked back into the homeplate umpire on a collision at the plate but held on to the ball for the out. The baserunner on that play? Mark Teixiera. From Alex’s recap:

By the end of the next inning, the Yanks would have a one-run lead. But before the home team came to bat, Jorge Posada was involved in what will go down as one of the unforgettable plays of his career, let alone the 2006 Yankee season. With two men out, Hank Blalock laced a double down the left field line. The ball hugged the corner and Melky Cabrera fielded it nervously–he looks unfamiliar and uncomfortable out in left. Mark Teixeira, who had a great night with the stick and seems to have gotten his groove back, raced around second and now charged towards home. Cabrera finally got the ball to Jeter who fired to Posada. The ball skipped home in time, Posada fielded it and then was crunched by Teixeira, who lowered his shoulder and let him have it. It was as hard a collision as I can ever remember Posada being involved with. The blow knocked Posada backwards and into the leg of the home plate umpire. But he hung onto the ball and the place went nuts.

Best I can tell, Mark Teixeira didn’t play football in college (though he’s a big football fan, both college and NFL), but given his ability to lay a hit on an opponent, he should have.

So, Tex put a little extra heat in this series. We’ll see if anything comes of it. For now, the Yankees need to win two unfavorable pitching matchups to avoid their first series loss of the year. (I told you it wouldn’t be easy.)

This afternoon, Andy Pettitte takes on Joel Piñeiro on FOX. Both starters have been outstanding in their first three starts, Pettitte going 2-0 with a 1.35 ERA, Piñeiro going 2-1 with a 1.77, his one loss coming in a quality start in which he got just one run of support from the Angels’ offense. Piñeiro dominated the Yankees for seven innings in the Bronx last week, striking out seven against no walks while allowing just one run on five hits, the key hit being an RBI triple by Nick Swisher. The night before that, Pettitte held the Halos scoreless for six frames, striking out six.

The Yankees hosted the Angels for three games last week, facing the same three pitchers that they will in this weekend’s three-game set against the Halos, and took two of three. Doing that again won’t be as easy. That’s because, after leaving the Bronx with a 3-7 record, the Angels flipped the switch, pealing off five wins against the Blue Jays and Tigers; because Jeff Mathis’s broken wrist has pushed Mike Napoli’s superior bat into the lineup; because Scott Kazmir, who pitches against Javy Vazquez on Sunday, shook off the rust against the Tigers in his last turn; because Joel Piñeiro was as dominant against the Tigers as he was against the Yankees; and because these games will take place in Anaheim, where the Yankees went 3-6 last year.

Tonight erratic stuff-misers A.J. Burnett and Ervin Santana face off. Burnett has gotten better in each of his starts in the early going and is coming off seven impressive shutout innings against Texas on Saturday. Santana lost his first two starts–one of which came in the Bronx and saw him give up five runs on five walks and eight hits (including solo homers by Nick Johnson and Derek Jeter)–but is coming off a sharp, 106-pitch complete game win against Toronto in which he walked none while allowing just one run on another solo homer (by Adam Lind). I’ll be impressed if either can manage a second straight dominant outing tonight.

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Wednesday night, Phil Hughes held the first 22 batters he faced hitless. Thursday afternooon, CC Sabathia gave up a hit to the fourth man he faced. That wouldn’t have been particularly notable if that hit hadn’t been a three-run homer by A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki that effectively won the game for the A’s.

Sabathia couldn’t locate his fastball in the first inning on Wednesday, and after walking two of the first three men he faced, he was supposed to throw a fastball down and away to start off Suzuki, who had hit two home runs off Sabathia prior to yesterday and also homered of Javy Vazquez on Tuesday night. Instead, he grooved a 93 mile-per-hour pitch on the inside half of the plate (see photo). After Suzuki’s blast, Sabathia worked in more changeups and managed to settle down, facing the minimum until giving up a cheap run in the fourth on a walk, an throwing error by Robinson Cano on a would-be double-play pivot (the Yankees’ first error since the second game of the season), an infield single, and a sac fly. Sabathia got out of that inning when Francisco Cervelli picked Kevin Kouzmanoff off second base, then again faced the minimum until the eighth thanks to an around-the-horn triple play started by Alex Rodriguez in the sixth (more on that below the fold).

Down 4-0, the Yankees cut the deficit against A’s lefty Dallas Braden with solo homers by Marcus Thames (who has successfully shrugged off his awful spring training) and Mark Teixeira, but otherwise managed little more than a series of long outs that were contained by the spacious Oakland Coliseum. No other Yankee reached third base in the game against Braden (who didn’t take kindly to Alex Rodriguez crossing the mound after making an out in the top of the sixth), set-up man Brad Ziegler, or closer Andrew Bailey.

The 4-2 final includes the Yankees’ lowest run tally of the young season. Meanwhile, Sabathia, after tallying a six-inning complete game in a rain-shortened win his last time out, again went a shortened distance, this time to an eight-inning complete game loss, needing just 97 pitches to do so despite six walks and five strikeouts.

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