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Call the doctor, this ain’t gonna be pretty.

After showing signs of improvement in his three previous starts (18 1/3 IP, 14 H, 9 R, 3 HR, 8 BB, 20 K, 1.20 WHIP, 4.42 ERA, 2-0), Randy Johnson spit the bit in his last outing against a weak-hitting Oakland A’s team. With that start–which included the first homers of the year for Bobby Kielty and Antonio Perez (the latter of whom remains 1 for 31 off the rest of the league this year)–my hopes of Johnson finding his old form this season have been crushed like yet another hanging slider. To make matters worse, the Indians are the current employer of Mr. Eduardo Perez, the lefty-killer who brutalized Johnson while with the Devil Rays last year. Perez has faced the Unit more than any other Indian over the course of his career and is hitting .296/.387/.778 against him with four dingers in 31 plate appearances. Run and hide, Yankee fans. Run and hide.

On the flip side, facing the Tribe’s big Johnson, the 6’6″ Jason, could be just what the doctor ordered for Alex Rodriguez, who is 9 for 20 with a trio of taters against the former Oriole and Tiger. Jason’s been every bit as bad as Randy this year, but unlike with the 42-year-old in pinstripes, there are reasons to be optimistic about the 32-year-old with Chief Wahoo on his cap. Again, the hope lies in a trio of starts. In Jason’s last three outings he’s done this:

18 IP, 20 H, 7 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 9 K, 1.39 WHIP, 3.50 ERA, 1-2

Okay, so that’s not great, but it’s a whole heckuva lot better than his overall 5.71 ERA and a damn sight better than his 9.13 mark from May. Hey, maybe the grass is greener on the other Johnson, but the combination of Jason’s relative youth, his suddenly extreme ground ball tendencies, and the fact that the one guy in the Yankee line-up who owns him is all kinds of mixed up at the plate right now (thanks in part to the mooks who have been booing him of late) makes me more willing to believe that Jason Michael (not to be confused with left fielder Jason Michaels) is going to right his ship tonight than that Randall David is.

Either way, there will be more than one run scored tonight, I can guarantee that. And I’ll be there to see the bloodletting. Last year I wrote about taking my 67-year-old boss to his first Yankee game (which just happened to be the game after Alex Rodriguez smacked three dingers off Bartolo Colon). Tonight the same crew will be taking the now-retired Ray to his second game at the big ballpark in the Bronx. Here’s hoping we won’t be wishing we were at last night’s 1-0 gem. Hey, at least the weather is better. Uh, it will be better, won’t it?

On Friday we learned that the A’s disappointing season has largely been the result of injuries and massive offensive outage. The A’s then proceeded to sweep the Yankees, scoring an average of 5 2/3 runs per game.

Tonight the Yankees open a three-game series with the American League’s second most disappointing team, the Cleveland Indians. So what’s Cleveland’s problem? It isn’t injuries, only relief pitcher Matt Miller currently resides on the Tribe’s disabled list. It isn’t offense, the Indians have rivaled the Yankees for the major league lead in runs scored all year (both teams have scored 359 runs thus far, though the Indians have needed one more game to reach that total). What does that leave?

That’s right, pitching. Only five teams in baseball have allowed more runs than the Indians, the Brewers and post-Mazzone Braves in the NL and the terrible trio of Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Kansas City in the AL. One reason for that is that in the AL only those three embarrassments and the major-league worst Twins have less efficient defenses than the Indians, who are in a very bad way on both sides of the ball at third (ol’ buddy Aaron Boone) and second (the erratic Ronnie Belliard) and will be in right field as well as soon as Casey Blake’s bat crashes back to earth.

Curiously, the fact that two of the Tribe’s four infielders have had their gloves turn to stone hasn’t had a tremendously negative effect on extreme groundballer Jake Westbrook, but extreme flyballer Cliff Lee has been having a rough go of it. Meanwhile, new addition Jason Johnson has doubled his groundball rate and seen just about every other number on his stat sheet (save for Ks and homers) shoot up as well.

C.C. Sabathia continues to progress toward being a true ace, and Bob Wickman continues to get the job done in the ninth, but elsewhere things are, if you’ll pardon the term, thin. The three best bullpen ERA’s after Wickman are Rafael Betancourt’s 3.57, Jeremy Guthrie’s 4.63 and Rafael Perez’s 0.00, the last representing a single inning’s work. Other than those four and Sabathia, the only man on the staff with an ERA under 5.00 is Jake Westbrook. Guillermo Mota has been a flat disaster, closer of the future Fernando Cabrera has struggled with wildness, and would-be fifth starters Fausto Carmona and Jason Davis have been just plain hittable.

Still, as bad as things might look, that offense counts for a lot. In fact, the Tribe’s Pythagorean record is four games better than their actual mark and would rank them just a game and a half behind the Yankees in the East or all alone in first in the West. Cleveland has a supply of reinforcements in the minors. If things don’t shape up soon, expect to see some of them in Cleveland as we approach the All-Star break and the trading deadline.

Paul Byrd, the other big pitching addition for 2006, will take the Yankee Stadium hill for the Tribe tonight. The Yankees handled Fraiser pretty well in last year’s ALDS (though that fact was obscured by Randy Johnson’s own failings in Game 3). That’s reassuring as Byrd has settled down after a rough April to turn in quality starts in five of his last seven outings. Opposing him will be Chien-Ming Wang, who finally turned in a solid outing against the Red Sox in his last turn.

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Having just taken five of seven from two of the three best teams in the American League other than themselves, including the league’s most surprising and best team, the Detroit Tigers, the Yankees now have seven games against the league’s two biggest disappointments, the Oakland A’s and Cleveland Indians, two preseason playoff favorites whose records currently sit just below .500. Exactly what’s gone wrong in Cleveland (it certainly hasn’t been Casey Blake and Ben Broussard, who appear to have been traded to an alternate universe for their more talented evil twins) we’ll examine on Monday. As for the A’s, the answer is rather simple: injuries and a nearly complete offensive breakdown.

On offense Eric Chavez is putting together his best season and Nick Swisher has broken out to make Chavez’s production seem tame. Frank Thomas has stayed relatively healthy and, despite a .234 average, has put up on-base and slugging numbers befitting his Hall of Fame talents. But everyone else has been a tremendous disappointment.

Consider these stats:

Bobby Crosby: .291 OBP
Dan Johnson: .335 SLG
Jason Kendall: .327 SLG
Mark Ellis: .302 OBP

A knee injury put Milton Bradley on the DL for more than a month, creating playing time for this:

Jay Payton: .266 OBP
Bobby Kielty: .320 SLG

And now Mark Ellis is on the DL, putting this in the line-up:

Marco Scutaro: .191/.290/.255

That doesn’t even bring into account futility infielder Antonio Perez, who’s single against the Yankees in mid-May remains his only hit of the year in 35 plate appearances, 16 of which have resulted in a strikeout.

If not for Swisher, Chavez and Thomas, the A’s would be the worst offensive team in baseball. As it is, they’re the third worst in the AL, with only the lowly Devil Rays and Royals below them

Then there’s the pitching. Their young ace, Rich Harden, has made just six starts, the same number as replacements Kirk Saarloos and Brad Halsey. Harden is currently on the DL for the second time this year, this time with elbow problems that some believe could end in Tommy John surgery, which would be a huge blow to the franchise. The two A’s relievers with the best ERAs, Justin Duchscherer and Joe Kennedy, are also on the DL having thrown just 28 2/3 innings between them (by comparison, Scott Proctor has thrown 40 1/3).

Among the healthy, Joe Blanton has disappointed, posting a 5.60 ERA thus far. Meanwhile scheduled fifth starter Esteban Loaiza, one of four ex-Yankees on the A’s staff, has been both hurt and terrible, posting a 6.39 ERA in just five starts.

Tonight the Yankees face one of the few A’s to keep his head above water, 25-year-old Dan Haren. Haren has essentially repeated his 2005 season exactly save for a nicely improved walk rate. Indeed, in the last meeting between these two teams, Haren pitched a one-run, six-hit, no-walk complete game gem to beat . . . well look at that, tonight’s starter, Randy Johnson.

For all of his struggles, the Yankees have won Johnson’s last three starts and the Unit himself appears to be coming around some, having struck out eight in two of those three games and pitched six scoreless innings in the other. Here’s hoping he can take advantage of the week underbelly of the A’s lineup and doesn’t give Thomas anything to hit.

Derek Jeter will sit out yet again, but is expected to start tomorrow. Curiously, Torre has swapped Cairo and Cabrera in the order. Otherwise, with Jorge back behind the plate to catch the Unit, Andy Phillips is back at first base, and Bernie remains in right.

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Just like they did the last time he pitched against them in the Bronx, the Yankees hit three home runs off Curt Schilling last night. This time, however, all three were solo shots (by Johnny Damon leading off the game, Bernie Williams again batting lefty, and Robinson Cano snapping a 158 at-bat homerless streak). Otherwise, Schilling faced the minimum, walking none and allowing only one other hit, a Damon double in the third that was erased when Damon wandered off second expecting a Melky Cabrera fly out to center to drop in front of Coco Crisp.

Still, the Yankees carried a 3-1 lead into the sixth thanks to Jaret Wright’s first-inning Houdini act. After giving up singles to three of the game’s first four batters, the last off the bat of Manny Ramirez driving Coco Crisp home with the game’s first run, Wright walked Trot Nixon to load the bases with one out. With his team on the verge of giving Curt Schilling a big early lead, Jason Varitek hit a ball right back to Jaret Wright, who body-blocked the ball, picked it up and threw home to start an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play.

From there Wright settled down until the top of the sixth when he walked Ramirez, and allowed singles to Trot Nixon and Varitek, the latter plating Ramirez. Wright then clipped Mike Lowell on the jersey to load the bases, ending his day. With none out, the bases loaded and the Yankees clinging to a slim 3-2 lead, Joe Torre called on Scott Proctor to face the bottom of the Red Sox order.

Proctor got ahead of Kevin Youkilis 0-2 before getting him to fly out to center for the first out. That tied the game at three. Proctor the got ahead of Alex Gonzalez 0-2 only to have Gonzalez foul off three pitches and take what looked like strike three on the inside corner to everyone but home plate ump Tim McClelland and Gonzalez for ball one. Gonzalez then fouled off one more pitch before yanking a fastball down the middle past Alex Rodriguez for an RBI double. The ball, which was hit hard and took a sharp hop over Rodriguez’s glove, actually tipped off the pinky of Rodriguez’s mitt. Initially ruled a double, the scoring was briefly changed to an E5 before being reversed yet again. Proctor then fell behind Crisp 3-0, but the Red Sox’s lead-off hitter swung at the 3-0 pitch and grounded out and Mark Loretta flew out to left on Proctor’s next pitch.

Down just a run, the top of the Yankee order went down on seven pitches in the bottom of the frame, capped by Giambi striking out on three pitches.

Joe Torre stuck with Proctor to start the seventh against the Sox big guns. David Ortiz lead off with a double and the Yankees somewhat wisely decided to walk Manny Ramirez rather than let Manny’s personal whipping boy, Proctor, pitch to him. A better move likely would have been to pull Proctor there and then, but as was revealed after Proctor surrendered a game-breaking three-run homer to Jason Varitek five pitches later, the next man in line was Scott Erickson.

Erickson started his day by giving up a single to Lowell and cracking Kevin Youkilis on the elbow with a wildly errant fastball. He then allowed both runners to score on a two-out Crisp single, running the score to the eventual 9-3 final.

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No word yet on the fate of tonight’s game, but the rain has been much lighter in the city today and things appear to be drying up a tad on the streets. Having postponed yesterday’s contest and with double headers scheduled in both of their remaining series with the Sox (five games in four days in Fenway in August and four games in three days in the Bronx in September), you know the Yankees want to get this one in. If so, we’ll see the matchup we were supposed to get last night with Jaret Wright taking on Curt Schilling.

A mismatch on paper given that the Yanks are throwing their fifth starter against Boston’s ace, I have an odd feeling that the Yankees have a decen shot tonight. Part of that is that Jaret Wright has impressed of late, at least by fifth starter standards. His aggregate line over his last six starts is now:

33 2/3 IP, 36 H, 13 R (12 ER), 2 HR, 8 BB, 17 K, 1.31 WHIP, 3.21 ERA, 3-1

That’s plenty solid given the Yankees major league best offense. Jaret’s remaining bugaboo is length. He’s finished the sixth inning in just half of those starts and hasn’t answered the bell for the seventh in any of them. That seems unlikely to change against the Red Sox. Then again, Wright’s shortest outing in those six turns was five full and he left that game due not to poor performance (he had kept the Red Sox scoreless on 73 pitches), but because of a tweaked groin.

That was the only time Wright has faced the Sox thus far this year. Schilling, meanwhile, has faced the Yankees in two of his last five turns with markedly different results. Most significant about Schilling is that he hasn’t walked a single batter in his last four starts, which is a mighty powerful way to counter the Yankees historic on-base pace. That said, save for his last outing against the Yankees in Fenway, he hasn’t been particularly efficient in any of those outings, so while they might not get to ball four, there’s little reason for the Yankees not to continue to work the count tonight.

It’s been raining all day here in NYC and as I look out the window now around 4:45 pm EST, all I see are umbrellas with feet and shiny wet streets. Indeed, the Yanks and Sox have been rained out, which is a shame given the high the Yankees are riding after the last two days. Then again, there’s no harm in basking in the glory of last night’s contest and giving Cap’n Grumpypants an extra day to let his thumb heal.

No make-up plans have been announced just yet. I’ll update this post with that information as well as the impact the rainout will have on the Yankee rotation (will they skip Chacon’s turn on Friday to give him another rehab start?) when I know more.

Update: The game will be made up during the one remaining series between the two teams in the Bronx, turning the September 15-17 three-game series into a four-game set via an as yet to be determined double header. Torre meanwhile has decided not to skip anyone in the rotation, though there are conflicting reports about whether or not Mike Mussina will start as scheduled on Saturday, pushing Shawn Chacon to Sunday, or in turn on Sunday following Chacon’s return on Saturday.

When the Yankees dumped 13 runs on the Red Sox in the first three innings of Monday night’s contest it was the largest early-game outburst in the rivalry’s history. Last night’s game didn’t start out quite so promisingly for the Yanks. Chien-Ming Wang needed 47 pitches to get through first two innings, pitching into and out of jams in both frames. Then David Ortiz smacked Wang’s fourth pitch of the third inning off the facing of the upper deck in right to give the Red Sox an early lead 1-0. Red Sox rookie David Pauley, meanwhile, kept the Yankees scoreless through the first four innings, stranding four Yankee baserunners including the station-to-station Jorge Posada in scoring position twice.

But Wang settled down in the fourth, needing just sixteen pitches in the fourth and fifth combined and getting five of the six outs in those two innings on grounders. Bernie Williams then hit Pauley’s first pitch of the fifth over the fence in right center to knot things up at 1-1. The shot was Bernie’s first left-handed homer of the year and just his third overall.

From there, Wang and Pauley emptied their tanks to keep things locked up, Wang with a bit of help from Manny Ramirez, who decided to try to stretch a single into a double with one out in the sixth only to be easily thrown out by Johnny Damon of all people. Pauley again stranding Posada in the bottom of the sixth (Jorge was 2 for 3 with a double and a walk on the night).

Pauley finally ran into a mess he couldn’t escape in the bottom of the seventh. With two outs, Miguel Cairo hit a low hopper back to the mound that skipped right under Pauley’s glove for an infield single. As if distracted by the inning-ending play he should have made (after Cairo reached, Pauley stared at his glove searching for the hole that wasn’t there), Pauley proceeded to surrender a single to Damon and walk Melky Cabrera on four pitches to load the bases.

With the rookie up to 98 pitches, Terry Francona called on Rudy Seanez to face Jason Giambi, only to watch Seanez issue a full-count walk to the man with the highest on-base percentage in the American League, forcing in the go-ahead run. Seanez then struck out Alex Rodriguez on three pitches to end the threat.

With Wang having thrown his season-high 108th pitch to end the seventh–saving Scott Proctor, who leads the majors in relief innings and had been warming in the pen, from what would have been an American League-leading 29th appearance–Joe Torre turned to Kyle Farnsworth to face the heart of the Red Sox line-up in the ninth.

Mark Loretta flied out to Damon in center on Farnsworth’s first pitch, bringing Big Papi, the man responsible for the lone Red Sox run of the night to the plate. The highlight of Farnsworth’s season to this point has been his bases-loaded strike out of Ortiz in Boston on May 24. That K came on a high slider that dropped into the strike zone for called strike three. This time out, Farnsworth fed Papi cheese, pumping a pair of 97 mile per hour heaters past Ortiz up in the zone to come back from a 2-1 count and strike out the big man.

All seemed to be going the Yankees way. Then Manny Ramirez cracked a 1-0 pitch from Farnsworth some 400 feet to the gap in left center. As the ball rocketed off of Manny’s bat, Melky Cabrera broke for the gap, eventually leaping right at the 399 foot sign, colliding with the window in front of the Yankee bullpen and bringing Manny’s game-tying homer back, turning it into the third out of the inning as he landed back on the warning track and stumbled forward, landing chest-first on the grass, his glove extended with Manny’s shot tucked firmly in the webbing.

Johnny Damon, who had leapt at the wall several feet to the right of Cabrera (imagine and outfield defense that actually overlaps on a 400-plus-foot bomb), immediately started celebrating Cabrera’s catch, throwing his arms in the air as he came down on the warning track and throwing a round-house fist pump as Cabrera fell onto the outfield grass. Ramirez meanwhile had rounded second by the time Cabrera had completed the play and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that Cabrera had the ball, removing his helmet in a daze and muttering to himself in Spanish.

At that, all that was left was for Mariano Rivera, showing no ill effects from the back spasms that held him out of action over the weekend, to set the Sox down on five pitches in the ninth, which he did. The 2-1 victory gives the Yankees a guaranteed split in the current series, wins in their last four confrontations with the Sox, a 5-4 lead in the season series, a game and a half lead in the AL East, and ties them with the White Sox for the second best record in the major leagues, just a game and a half behind the Tigers, from whom they just took three of four last week. The Yankees, who have won nine of their last eleven and eleven of their last fourteen, are the hottest team in baseball right now despite a list of injuries and illnesses that would make Def Leppard blanch.

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The 2006 Amateur Baseball Draft is underway. With the 21st pick in the first round (compensation from the Phillies for Tom Gordon, moving the Yankees up from their original 28th pick, which went to Boston for Johnny Damon), the Yankees have drafted Ian Kennedy, a righty pitcher out of USC. Kennedy throws a low-90s fastball along with a curve, change and a slider. He also is represented by Scott Boras.

The Angles drafted Hyun Choi Conger, a switch-hitting catcher considered the best backstop in the draft with the 25th pick. The Dodgers then nabbed Preston Mattingly, Donnie Baseball’s shortstop son, with the 31st pick.

You can “watch” the draft live with MLB’s DraftCaster linked on this page and chat it up here, or over on The Griddle.

The Yanks supplemental round pick for Gordon (overall #41) is on deck.

Update: The Yanks’ supplemental round pick is another college righty, Joba Chaimberlain out of the University of Nebraska. He sounds like Kennedy minus the curve.

Update: The Yanks didn’t have a pick in the second round (it went to the Braves for Kyle Farnsworth), and in the third round they’ve chosen high-school hurler Zachary MacAllister, a 6’5″ righty from Illinios with the same repertoire as Chaimberlain.

The Orioles are a bad team. But unlike the Devil Rays, who have some exciting young players, or the Royals, who are historically awful, they’re also dull. Their pitching is somehwere between nonedescript (tonight’s starter Kris Benson) and awful (the re-pumpkinized Bruce Chen). Their best pitchers are young relievers, which won’t get them anywhere. As for their hitting, it’s the same old story, stop Tejada and Mora and you’re in good shape. The only interesting story here is that Corey Patterson is thriving as their starting centerfielder, hitting .291/.342/.496 with a whopping 21 steals in 22 tries.

Oops.

Jaret Wright opposes Benson tonight looking to build on his strong May (3-1, 3.25 ERA).

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Unimpressed by the Tigers’ young ace Justin Verlander, the Yankees staked Chien-Ming Wang to a 5-0 lead in the third inning last night, but the Yankee sinkerballer couldn’t hold it, giving back three in the fourth and loading the bases with no outs to start the fifth. Though a Jason Giambi solo home run had increased the Yankee lead to 6-3, Joe Torre had seen enough, Yanking Wang in favor of rookie Darrell Rasner.

It was a hell of a position for Rasner to make his Yankee debut in, and somewhat reminiscent of Torre bringing in a struggling and homer-prone Javier Vazquez in a similar situation in the seventh game of the 2004 ALCS. Indeed, Magglio Ordoñez laced Rasner’s first pitch into center to bring the Tigers within one, but Rasner recovered to set the next three men down in order and preserve the lead, finishing the inning by getting Omar Infante waiving at a nasty breaking ball.

The Yankees loaded the bases themselves with one out in the seventh against fireballer Joel Zumaya, but because of the injuries to Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield, had Terrence Long and Miguel Cairo due up. Long fouled out on the first pitch he saw and Cairo grounded out to end the threat.

Scott Proctor and Fernando Rodney then traded pairs of scoreless innings, leaving it up to Kyle Farnsworth to protect the Yankees’ one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth because Mariano Rivera–two days after pitching three innings in a regular season game for the first time since 1996, the third of which came with a five-run lead–strained his back putting on his spikes before the game.

Farnsworth was greeted by lead-off hitter Curtis Granderson, who worked him over for nine pitches before flying out to left. Marcus Thames did the same, but instead worked a walk, thanks in part to the small strike zone of home-plate umpire Laz Diaz. Farnsworth then got ahead of Ivan Rodriguez 0-2 on a called strike and a checked swing only to have Rodriguez yank a ball out of the dirt and into left field for a single pushing Thames to second. That man Ordoñez then poked Farnsworth’s next pitch into right for an RBI single, tying the game and pushing the winning run to second with one out. Farnsworth then fell behind Carlos Guillen 3-1. Guillen sent Farnsworth’s 27th pitch of the inning into right to score Rodriguez for the win, preventing a four-game Yankee sweep.

Hey, tough knocks. Whatchugonnado? The Yankees have bigger problems than taking three of four from the team with the best record in the majors. Gary Sheffield has a torn ligament and a dislocating tendon in his left wrist that, if it doesn’t respond to a few weeks of therapy, will require surgery that could keep the Yankee right fielder out for the remainder of the season. Derek Jeter was useless in Tuesday’s game after jamming a finger on Monday and hasn’t played the last two days. The severity of Rivera’s back problems is unknown, and Johnny Damon and Jorge Posada are both playing hurt, the latter’s torn hamstring tendon costing the Yankees a crucial run in the seventh last night when Jorge was unable to score from second on an Andy Phillips single and was instead stranded at third by Long and Cairo.

The good news is that Damon, whose foot injury has finally been identified as a broken sesamoid bone in his right foot, is feeling better after sitting out Tuesday and Wednesday and that Jeter is expected to play against the Orioles tonight. In addition, Shawn Chacon’s rehab remains on schedule with him set to make a rehab start with the Trendon Thunder on Sunday and, if all goes well then, return from the DL to start on Thursday. The Yankees are also hoping Octavio Dotel will be ready to join the team a week later following a minor league rehab assignment that’s expected to begin next week.

Oh, and Bubba Crosby’s recovery from his hamstring injury has been slower than expected. He’s now expected back next weekend, which is at least good news for Kevin Thompson.

If yesterday’s win was gravy, a victory tonight to finish off a four-game sweep of the Tigers, who despite the last three games still have the majors’ best record, would be icing on the cake. It won’t be an easy task, however, as the Yankees will get their first look at the Tigers’ young ace, Justin Verlander.

Drafted out of Old Dominion second overall in the 2004 amateur draft, Verlander signed too late to play that year, instead making his pro debut in the Florida State League (high-A ball) in 2005. Verlander dominated in thirteen starts there, then turned it up a notch with double-A Erie, allowing just eleven hits and one run (on a homer) in 32.2 innings across seven starts. That earned him a September call-up in which the 22-year-old looked plenty human.

Verlander won the fifth starters spot out of spring training this year and has since emerged as the Tigers’ ace in just his second pro season. His only non-quality start of the year came in his second start when he was roughed up by the World Champion White Sox. In his last seven starts he’s compiled the following line: 50 1/3 IP (7+ IP/GS), 44 H, 3 HR, 10 BB, 25 K, 1.07 WHIP, 1.61 ERA, 6-1. Again, this is a 23-year-old in his second pro season. Sick.

Trying to keep pace with Verlander will be Chien-Ming Wang, who has won four of his last five games and got a hard-luck no-decision in his sixth.

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Two out of two Bronx Banter bloggers agree, by winning the first two games, the Yankees have accomplished what they needed to do in their four-games in Detroit. That they did it in the first two games gives them an opportunity to come out ahead with another victory tonight or tomorrow, a win that would counter that unexpected loss to the Royals on Friday night. With rookie Justin Verlander set to start tomorrow, the Yanks would appear to have their best shot at a series win tonight behind Mike Mussina.

Moose’s May ERA has been nearly a run higher than his April mark, but remains an impressive 3.21 (he’s at 2.72 on the season). He’s also been pitching in a bit of hard luck of late, failing to earn a decision in his last three starts because of a lack of offensive support (he left the first game tied 2-2, the second trailing 2-0) and bullpen support (the pen lost that first game and blew a lead and lost the game in his last start against Kansas City). I wouldn’t be surprised to see Moose’s ND streak reach four games tonight with Gary Sheffield and Johnny Damon expected to sit out once again (with Sheffield staring down another DL stay), and the bulk of the bullpen having pitched last night (the exceptions being Darrell Rasner, who it turns out was just called up today and was not available last night–which explains why Torre didn’t go to him in extra innings in a tie game on the road–Ron Villone, who went two innings on Monday, and Mike Myers, who’s a non-factor against the Tigers who have just one lefty bat, lead-off man Curtis Granderson, on their roster).

Opposing the Moose will be bespectacled lefty Nate Robertson. Robertson’s preferred throwing hand is likely good news for Andy Phillips, T-Long haters, and Bernie Williams. But his performance thus far in May (a 2.32 ERA in five starts to go with a 3.02 season mark) is less encouraging, as is the fact that, if Damon is unable to play the field, Long will have to start against him anyway. If so, just remember that the Yankees have done what they came here to do. Another win in Detroit would be gravy.

It’s the battle of the spot starters in Detroit tonight with Aaron Small taking his second turn in place of Shawn Chacon, and Roman Colon making his first start of the year in place of the recently disabled Mike Maroth. Curiously, both assumed their rotation spots in relief of disaster starts by the pitchers they’ve replaced, eating up innings while their teams staged unlikely comebacks that ended with ninth-inning victories (though the Tigers’ comeback was against the Royals, so perhaps “unlikely” isn’t entirely appropriate).

On their careers both Small and Colon, who is nearly eight years Small’s junior, have been marginal types who haven’t managed to stick as starters or relievers. Colon came to the Tigers at the trading deadline last year as one of the two pitchers received from the Braves in exchange for Kyle Farnsworth.

In his previous start against the Mets at Shea, Small faced one more than the minimum through his first three innings, then collapsed in the fourth, escaping the hook only because of an inning-ending double play only to get pulled after retiring just one of the first three batters in the fifth.

Small’s next turn will come on Sunday, after which he may well be returned to the bullpen, if not the minors (enduring Scott Erickson while his ERA hovers around 4.00 is one thing, enduring Aaron Small while his is around 8.50 is another thing entirely). Shawn Chacon is scheduled to throw off a mound today and could return to the rotation after one more mound session and a rehab start. Assuming all goes well with both, that second mound session will likely synch up with Small’s throw day and the rehab start with his Sunday turn. That would have Chacon back in the rotation to kick off the Oakland series a week from Friday.

In the meantime, with Jorge Posada having made a triumphant return to the line-up yesterday, going 2 for 4 and feeling less pain thanks the removal of one of the straps on his left shin guard, the Yankees have returned third catcher Koyie Hill to Columbus in exchange for Darrell Rasner. Rasner, you may remember, was plucked off waivers from the Nationals this spring. Since then he’s been the Clippers’ best starter, posting this line in nine starts:

52 2/3 IP, 53 H, 3 HR, 11 BB, 42 K, 1.22 WHIP, 2.56 ERA, 4-0

Unfortunately, the Yankees don’t intend to have Rasner take over Small’s next two starts. Instead, he’ll rot in the bullpen behind Erickson.

Rasner was chosen because Matt Smith, who was demoted in favor of Hill on Friday, two days after being recalled, has to spend ten days in the minors before he can be called up again. But one wonders why they chose Rasner, who has been a pure starter in Columbus, over Ramiro Mendoza, who has pitched out of both the Clippers’ bullpen and rotation and been absolutely lights out overall. The only explanation I can think of is that they didn’t want to have to clear room on the 40-man roster for Mendoza, though moving Matsui to the 60-day DL is all it would have taken. Perhaps the Yankees have decided to convert Mendoza to full-time starting, either as added insurance, or to protect his surgically repaired rotator cuff from being Sturtzed up by Torre.

Speaking of which, Torre has finally figured out that he can use Ron Villone, who pitched two perfect innings yesterday, to lighten Scott Proctor’s load. This revelation gives the Yankees skipper a five-man end-game that includes the one-two punch of Farnsworth and Rivera set up by any combination of the lefty-righty duo Proctor and Villone and lefty specialist Myers. That’s scads better than the “Farns and Sturtze are interchangeable one-inning pitchers setting up Mo” concept that Torre broke camp with. While Villone is pitching as far over his head as Proctor was in April, he at least has some track record of major league success and a history of starting that should allow him to endure the extra work. For those not keeping track, Proctor’s current pace would result in 107 innings over the full year, a staggering total even by Torre’s standards. The last Yankee to throw over 100 innings in pure relief was Mariano Rivera in 1996. Coincidentally, Mo threw 107 2/3 innings that year.

At any rate, expect to see several if not all of these guys tonight. Rasner might even work his way into the game if Small gets an early hook. Perhaps he could swipe Small’s job the same way Small swiped Chacon’s (minus the injury, of course).

After dropping the opener to the Royals at home, the Yankees beat up on the majors’ worst team on Saturday (a 15-4 victory) and during the first two innings of Sunday’s game. They then went down in order (save a Johnny Damon single erased by a caught stealing) over the final seven innings of the series, squeezing out a 6-5 win in the finale.

Today they’re in Detroit for a Memorial Day afternoon special to open a four game series with the best team in the majors. The Tigers have a strong offense, which some of us saw coming, but have been winning with dominating pitching, which few if any of us did. This afternoon’s contest features the two disappointments of the two rotations, Randy Johnson, about whom more need not be said, and Jeremy Bonderman, who was the Tiger hurler ticketed for a breakout and, through an odd twist, the only one who hasn’t experienced one.

That’s all I’ve got for you right now. It’s a gorgeous day and Becky and I are going for a picnic. Enjoy!

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Mike Mussina, perhaps the best pitcher in the AL in this young season, against the Kansas City Royals, a historically bad ballclub on a thirteen-game losing streak. Sure thing right? Not if you believe in the Reverse Lock, a match-up that’s such a gimme it’s guaranteed to go the other way.

Indeed, the Royals broke their streak by beating the Yankees 7-6 last night in an odd game that was delayed for two hours in the middle of the ninth inning due to a sudden downpour.

To be fair, the Royals didn’t actually beat Mussina. They did score three runs against him in the second inning, but when Mussina left the game, after throwing 98 pitches and turning in his eleventh quality start in as many turns, the Yankees were winning 4-3.

With Mussina on the verge of 100 pitches after six innings, Joe Torre decided to go to his bullpen, apparently planning to give Scott Proctor, Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera an inning a piece. With the bottom third of the Royals order coming up, it wasn’t the worst decision Torre could have made. Unfortunately, it backfired immediately. Tony Graffanino lead off the seventh with a single, was bunted to second by Angel Berroa and singled home by Paul Bako, tying the game. That was the end of Scott Proctor’s night.

After Mike Myers got the last two outs of the seventh, Kyle Farnsworth came in to keep the game knotted at four in the eighth. Things started well when he caught Reggie Sanders, who had homered off Mussina in the third, looking, but righty-killer Matt Stairs laced Farnsworth’s very next pitch into right for a single. After Robinson Cano made a nice running catch on a foul pop up by Emil Brown for the second out, Farnsworth walked Graffanino on four pitches to put men on first and second with two outs. That brought up Angel Berroa, who had sacrificed in his last at-bat. On a 1-0 count, Farnsworth hung a slider and Angel Berroa launched it over the left field wall for a three-run home run.

The Yankees got one back in the bottom of the inning when Jason Giambi singled, Alex Rodriguez doubled and, after Jimmy Gobble got Robinson Cano to pop out on one pitch, Bernie Williams plated Giambi with a groundout off Joel Peralta, but Melky Cabrera grounded out to strand Rodriguez at third.

Then the rains came. Ron Villone pitched around a Reggie Sanders walk in a downpour in the top of the ninth and, with standing water all over the field, the umpires signaled for the tarp. Two hours later, the skies had cleared, tarp came off and the Yankees, in front of barely a thousand remaining hardcore fans, took their last licks against Joe Nelson.

With Kelly Stinnett scheduled to lead off, Torre sent up Terrence Long, who inexplicably singled against the young righthander. After Damon flew out, Derek Jeter drew a walk and Gary Sheffield laced a single to center that skipped by Esteban German, who had pinch-hit for Shane Costa in the seventh. Long came around to score, Jeter went to third and Jason Giambi came to the plate with one out, men on the corners, and needing just a sac fly to tie the game. What more devastating way for the Royals streak to be extended than by a ninth-inning rally following a two-hour delay in which the Royals had held a ninth-inning lead. But it was not to be. Giambi grounded into the shift and slipped on the wet dirt coming out of the batters box, resulting in a 4-6-3 double play (though Giambi, who runs like he’s standing in quicksand on dry ground, would have been out anyway).

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The Kansas City Royals have lost their last thirteen games. In April they had a streak of eleven straight losses. They’ve won just ten games all year. All totaled, they have a 10-35 record. That’s a .222 winning percentage. While the Royals aren’t quite that bad, even their Pythagorean winning percentage, a comparatively robust .261, would rank as the sixth worst since 1901, the twenty-first sub-.300 winning percentage in those 106 seasons, and just the fourth since 1945.*

Amazingly, the Royals, who are scoring an average of 3.78 runs per game, do not have the most inept offense in baseball. That distinction is held by the Cubs, who may soon add Tony Womack to the mix. Of course, the Cubs should also get Derrek Lee back in about a month, which should vault them past the Royals. The Royals, meanwhile, are playing without Mike Sweeney and David DeJesus, but the former is frequently disabled anyway and the latter has been sufficiently replaced by Shane Costa. No, what’s really dragging the Royals down is their pitching. The Royals are allowing 6.36 runs per game, which is to say that their pitching is so bad that it makes every team they face look like the pre-injury Yankees. Indeed, the Royals are on pace to allow 1030 runs this year, which would make them the first team since the 1999 Rockies and the first sea-level team since the 1996 Tigers, who lost 109 games while playing their home games in hitter-friendly Tiger Stadium, to allow more than a thousand runs in a single season.

Tonight the Royals will start Scott Elarton, the only Royals pitcher who has thrown enough innings to qualify for the ERA title thus far this season. Elarton has walked more men than he’s struck out this year and has yet to register a win, in part due to receiving just 3.3 runs of support per game (he does have four quality starts in ten tries).

The Yankee line-up he faces will be without Jorge Posada, who had an MRI yesterday that revealed a torn hamstring tendon. Posada has not been put on the DL, yet, but the Yankees are expected to call up either Wil Nieves or Koyie Hill to back-up Kelly Stinnett, which likely means Matt Smith will be on his way back to Columbus. I hope he didn’t bother unpacking. Neither Nieves nor Hill has hit a lick in Columbus this year. Alarmingly, Nieves, who has slugged just .289 thus far (yes, that’s actually his slugging percentage in triple-A), is clearly the better choice. Get well soon, Jorge!

With Posada out of commission, Stinnett will be catching Mike Mussina for the second time this season. Their last pairing was this past Saturday, when Mussina held the Mets to two earned runs on five hits, including a pair of homers by Carlos Delgado and Cliff Floyd, and no walks while striking out seven, Mussina’s tenth quality start in ten tries on the year.

Last year, the Yankees needed a tie breaker to win the division in part because they went 11-14 against the Royals and Devil Rays, a record that was much uglier before they swept their final three games against each team. This year the Bombers have gone 7-1 against those two clubs. The Yankees have done well to split the 14 games they’ve played since Hideki Matsui’s injury, but with Gary Sheffield back in the line-up (and despite Jorge Posada’s absence), they need to pad their win total against the historically awful Royals this weekend.

*The Terrible Twenty:

.235 – 1916 Philadelphia Athletics
.248 – 1935 Boston Braves
.250 – 1962 New York Mets
.252 – 1904 Washington Senators
.257 – 1919 Philadelphia Athletics
.265 – 2003 Detroit Tigers
.273 – 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates
.276 – 1909 Washington Senators
.278 – 1942 Philadelphia Phillies
.279 – 1932 Boston Red Sox, 1939 St. Louis Browns, 1941 Philadelphia Phillies
.283 – 1915 Philadelphia Athletics, 1928 Philadelphia Phillies
.291 – 1911 Boston Braves
.294 – 1909 Boston Braves
.296 – 1911 St. Louis Browns
.298 – 1939 Philadelphia Phillies
.299 – 1937 St. Louis Browns, 1945 Philadelphia Phillies

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Don’t look now, but Jaret Wright is turning into a legitimate number five starter. In four starts in May including last night’s victory over the Red Sox, Wright has posted the following line:

22 1/3 IP, 18 H, 7 R, 2 HR, 7 BB, 13 K, 2-1, 1.12 WHIP, 2.82 ERA

Last night, Wright held the Red Sox scoreless through five innings before leaving with a tweaked groin. Wright initially injured himself while trying to dodge a line drive by Kevin Youkilis leading off the first inning. The ball wound up sticking in Wright’s ribs for the first out. In the fifth, an attempt to dodge another comebacker by Youkilis, which Wright also turned into an out, exacerbated the injury, ending his night after the inning.

Given Wright’s predilection for being hit with flying objects in the later part of last season and the fact that the injury prone hurler has managed to stay healthy while the rest of the Yankee roster has crumbled around him, it seemed only a matter of time before Wright would get his. Fortunately, the Yankees don’t expect Wright to miss his next start, though one wonders if they’ll rethink their plans to skip Aaron Small’s turn this weekend, instead using Small on regular rest to give Wright an extra day off before his next start.

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Gotta do this fast . . .

Tim Wakefield vs. Jaret Wright tonight. Gary Sheffield returns to the line-up, but Giambi will sit to avoid exacerbating his slump by facing Wake’s flutterball. Just as well, he can’t hit that thing anyway, though Sheff can and tomorrow the Yanks should field their best line-up since Matsui broke his arm exactly two weeks earlier. Expect Cairo at first tonight based on his small sample success against Wake and despite his three Ks against him last time. Damon will likely DH again, hopefully Sheffield will push TLong out of the line-up, by bouncing Melky to left. Not a great outlook for the Yanks, but seeing Sheff in action should cushion the blow somewhat.

Curt Schilling’s season thus far has been defined by his 133-pitch outing against the Indians on April 25. Prior to that outing, Schilling was 4-0 with a 1.61 ERA, allowing 17 hits and four walks and two homers while striking out 23 in 28 innings. The Indians worked him over in that April 25 game, scoring five runs on nine hits and two walks and forcing him to throw 133 pitches in just 6 2/3 innings. Since then he’s 2-2 with a 6.46 ERA, allowing 31 hits, three walks and seven homers while striking out 21 in 23 2/3 innings. The good news for Sox fans is that Schillings walk and strikeout rates remain excellent. The bad news is that six of those seven homers came in his last two starts, the first of which was a 7-3 loss to the Yankees.

Chien-Ming Wang’s season also took a turn around April 25, though his was for the better. Before that date, Wang had a 5.48 ERA and had surrendered 30 hits and seven walks in 23 innings. Since then he’s gone 3-0 with a 2.65 ERA by holding the opposition to 25 hits in 34 innings. Wang’s only non-quality start during that span was a five-inning outing against the Red Sox in Boston, the Yankees’ only game in Fenway this year prior to tonight. Wang allowed three runs on six hits and four walks in the first five innings of that game, but appeared to have settled down by the end of the fifth. Despite the fact that Wang had thrown just 77 pitches to that point, Joe Torre decided to replace him with the newly activated Aaron Small, leading to yet another game lost to poor bullpen management.

Unlike Schilling, Wang has yet to throw 100 pitches in a game this year and needed just 166 tosses to get through sixteen innings over his last two starts. Here’s hoping these trends continue tonight as the Yankees head to Fenway for a three game series against the Red Sox, who, save for a bullpen move that will allow them to activate David Riske prior to tonights game, look just like they did two weeks ago in the Bronx.

Just when it seemed the Yankees injury woes couldn’t get any more woeful, things went from bad (a DL stay for Gary Sheffield) to worse (losing Hideki Matsui for the bulk of the season) to epidemic (season-ending surgery for Sturtze and Pavano and a DL trip for Bubba Crosby) to the point at which the players started searching for hidden cameras in the trainer’s room, sure that Ashton Kutcher is behind all of this.

As the Yankees headed across town to meet the Mets last Friday, it was revealed that a comebacker off Shawn Chacon’s left shin in the same game against Boston in which Matsui broke his radius was responsible for Chacon’s subsequent poor performance and would cause him to miss his scheduled start in the subway series finale. In the first game at Shea, Jorge Posada was pulled in the second inning due to back spasms and did not play for the remainder of the series, not even coming to bat on Sunday for Kelly Stinnett with the bases loaded and two out in the top of the seventh with the Yankees trailing by two. Friday’s game ended with Kyle Farnsworth also complaining of back problems. He did not pitch for the remainder of the series. And just to add insult to injury, Bernie Williams pulled a muscle in his behind (the second backside injury on this team this year) and was forced to skip Saturday’s game save for a pinch-hit appearance in which he was hit with the only pitch he saw and then promptly forced out at second on the next play.

Meanwhile, the Columbus shuttle has been in full effect, dropping off new arrivals such as Melky Cabrera, Kevin Reese, Scott Erickson, Mitch Jones, and Colter Bean. Yes, the answer to the question “how many guys have to go down before they’ll finally give Colter Bean a shot” appears to be eight (or four pitchers: Sturtze, Pavano, Chacon, and Farnsworth). Bean was called up Saturday because the injuries to Chacon and Farnsworth and the resulting move of Small into the rotation had limited the Yankees to a five-man bullpen, with Scott Erickson (a.k.a. The Thing That Wouldn’t Die) and the overworked Scott Proctor being two of the five, and two of the remaining three being left-handed. Bean replaced Mitch Jones, who had replaced Bubba Crosby the day before and saw no action in his one day in the major leagues. That transaction reduced the Yankees to a four man bench under NL rules at Shea. The bench was then further reduced to three men–Miguel Cairo, Andy Phillips and Kevin Reese–by Posada’s inability to play.

That bench situation has been rectified, but only technically. Shawn Chacon was placed on the DL this morning as the hematoma on his left shin is healing, but slowly. To fill his spot and flesh out the bench to four men under AL rules (here’s hoping Phillips gets the call at DH) the Yanks have promoted outfielder Terrence Long. The only encouraging thing about Long’s promotion is that the Yankees didn’t feel the need to promote a catcher, which suggests that Jorge Posada’s back is not a major concern. Indeed, Posada will supposedly be “available” for tonight’s series opener in Boston, though that doesn’t mean Stinnett be starting his third straight game.

As for Long himself, he’s an abysmal baseball player. He basically has the same skill set as the Ghost of Bernie Williams (can’t hit, can’t run, can’t field, is increasingly unlikely to draw a walk), except that Long is eight years younger and lacks the borderline Hall of Fame credentials to keep his career afloat. Last year, as the starting left fielder of the major leagues’ worst team, the Kansas City Royals, Long hit a Bernie-like .279/.321/.378. The Royals declined to offer him a contract for this year and he landed with the Reds triple-A farm team in Louisville where he hit just .229/.260/.292 in April, earning his release. The Yankees, desperate for triple-A outfielders with Cabrera and Reese in the majors and Kevin Thompson down with a hamstring injury, signed Long a week ago today. He’s since hit .353/.421/.588 in 17 at-bats with Columbus, numbers which include two walks and two extra base hits and thus define small-sample fluke.

The good news is that Terrence shouldn’t be here for long.

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