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While the Yanks remain in first place, the one-game lead they had on the Red Sox disappeared yesterday as Jaret Wright and B.J. Ryan each suffered a meltdown that would be directly responsible for handing their teams a loss. Wright’s was almost tragicomic.

In his previous start, also against the Blue Jays, Wright was forced to leave the game with one out in the third when a broken bat lacerated his pitching elbow. Less than three weeks before that, he had a start shortened when a comebacker ricocheted off his collarbone. This after spending more than three months on the disabled list with a reoccurrence of the shoulder problems that have plagued him throughout his career. Yesterday, Wright was again hit by a comebacker, this time in the chest. This time, however, the projectile did not prompt his removal from the game, though in retrospect, it might have benefited the Yankees if it had.

Wright surrendered singles to the first four batters he faced yesterday, putting him down 1-0 with the bases loaded and no one out by the time he had thrown a dozen pitches. Two pitches later, Erik Hinske hit what looked to be a sac fly toward the foul line in left field, which would have made the game 2-0 with one out and men on first and second. But Hideki Matsui, perhaps bewildered by the mid-afternoon sun, closed his glove before he had the ball, effectively swatting it toward foul territory, allowing two runs to score and putting runners at second and third, still with no outs. Two pitches later, Gregg Zaun hit a shot off Wright’s chest for a 1-3 groundout. Wright then surrendered a sac fly to Reed Johnson that made it 4-0 and struck out Gabe Gross to get out of the inning.

The Yankees got right back in it in the bottom of the first when Derek Jeter was hit in the back foot with a Scott Downs curve ball and Alex Rodriguez cashed both the Captain and himself in with a two-run dinger into the Yankee bullpen (tying Joe DiMaggio’s record of 46 home runs for a right-handed Yankee batter in the process). Unfortunately, Wright couldn’t get it together, allowing two more singles to start the second then walking Frank Catalanotto to load the bases. That was enough for Joe Torre, who replaced Wright with displaced starter Aaron Small. Brought into an unfair bases-loaded, no-outs situation, Small got Vernon Wells to foul out to Giambi at first, and got a hard ground ball to second base from Shea Hillenbrand. Unfortunately, Hillenbrand’s grounder was a little too hard and Robinson Cano, rather than getting his body in front of it, tried to scoop it to turn two and wound up having the ball ricochet off the inside of his elbow and into right field, scoring two runs and placing runners at the corners. Erik Hinske followed with a sac fly to make it 7-0 and Small struck out Zaun to end the inning.

Without the errors by Matsui and Cano (the first of which was far more egregious than the latter) the game would have been tied 2-2. Had Zaun’s comebacker driven Wright from the game, prompting Torre to bring in Small with one out in the first, the game likely would have stood at 4-2 after an inning and a half. Instead, it was 7-2 and, despite a tremendous performance from Small, who pitched 5 2/3 more scoreless innings, allowing just four singles, striking out three and walking none, the Yankee offense just couldn’t make up the difference.

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Jason Giambi returns to the line-up today as Jaret Wright and Scott Downs face off at the Stadium. The MVP bats second, Giambi three, Cano down to seventh with Bernie and Bubba rounding it out as the Yanks look to make it six straight.

So, any guesses as to what flying object will strike Jaret Wright today?

Man, can you believe it’s been a whole four days since the Yankees have played the Blue Jays? Feels like . . . Oh, right.

The Jays roster remains the same as it was last weekend when the Yanks took two of three in Toronto, though there’s a chance that Orlando Hudson could return to action this weekend after sitting since September 7 due to an ankle injury. Considering the fact that all three of last weekend’s contests were decided by a single run, and that the Jays are coming off a split with the Mariners in which they outscored their opponent by a single run over the course of four games, the Jays could use any advantage that might tip the balance in their favor. Still, one hopes that the upgrade from struggling rookie Aaron Hill to a less mobile Hudson wouldn’t be enough to overcome the disadvantage the Jays face as a .459 road team coming in to face a team playing .654 ball at home that has handled them nicely thus far this season (Yanks own the series 10-5).

While the Yanks play three at home against the Jays followed by four on the road against the O’s, the second-place Red Sox (now trailing by a nice, round full game) do the exact opposite (three in Baltimore, then four at home against Toronto), so one would hope that neither of these teams is ready to roll over completely. Still, it sure would be nice to see the Yanks clean house on their final home stand of the year.

One item already in their favor is that Joe Torre has decided to go with Chien-Ming Wang on Sunday (as well he should) moving Aaron Small to the bullpen, which can use all the help it can get. With that, I’ve been able to project the pitching match-ups for the remainder of the season on the side bar.

Tonight, the Yanks send Shawn Chacon to the mound. Chacon has owned the Jays in two starts since joining the Yanks (total line: 15 IP, 10 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 5 BB, 7 K), and turned in a gem in Toronto last Saturday. The next day, Ted Lilly, who starts against Chacon tonight, turned in his first quality start since Bastille Day, handing the Yankees their only loss since September 10, but was lit-up by the Bombers in two starts at the beginning of the season. One hopes the Jays aren’t overly familiar with Chacon at this point and that he can continue his dominance of the remaining Canadian team. Meanwhile, here’s hoping the O’s take the never-say die spirit that gave us all fits over the past three days and perhaps some individual anger and stick it to the Sox.

I covered the significance of tonight’s game in yesterday’s pre-game post, but there are two corrections that need to be made to what I said yesterday.

The first is that, while the Yankees will indeed erase the half-game in the standings between themselves and the Red Sox for better or worse tonight, they will not do so with regard to the Indians until Monday as Cleveland opens a four-game series in Kansas City tonight, but will be off on Monday. Of course, the Yankees hope that half game with Cleveland is a moot point as, with a half-game lead in the AL East entering tonight’s game, their focus is entirely on winning the division, as well it should be as they still trail the Indians by a half game and the White Sox by three.

The other correction is that Joe Torre appears to have backed off his six-man rotation idea. Last night the YES announcers reported that Aaron Small would be the odd man out, but on today’s Mike & the Mad Dog show on WFAN, Torre claimed not to have made up his mind yet, though the choice does appear to be between Small and Chien-Ming Wang, one of whom will start thus Sunday against the Blue Jays and, barring a disaster outing in that game, will return to the hill in Game One of the season-ending showdown with the Red Sox.

Assuming that Torre goes with Wang, who I think is not only the no-brainer choice between the two, but the Yankees second best starter at the moment (behind only Randy Johnson), this is how the rotation would project over the remainder of the year.

Thu 9/22 v Bal: Mussina
Fri 9/23 v Tor: Chacon
Sat 9/24 v Tor: Wright
Sun 9/25 v Tor: Wang
Mon 9/26 @ Bal: Johnson
Tue 9/27 @ Bal: Mussina
Wed 9/28 @ Bal: Chacon
Thu 9/29 @ Bal: Wright
Fri 9/30 @ Bos: Wang v. Wells
Sat 10/1 @ Bos: Johnson v. Schilling
Sun 10/2 @ Bos: Mussina v. Wakefield

Of course, having Small and Leiter in the bullpen gives Torre the option of using either one in place of Wright (should he struggle this Saturday) or Mussina (should he tank tonight and/or Tuesday), or of using either or both in tandem with the starter listed above to complete a must-win game (as if there are any that aren’t at this point). After all, if the season does wind up coming down to that final game on October 2nd, the starting assignment is merely a formality. Any sign of struggle and the hook comes out and everybody, perhaps even the previous day’s starter, will be available to pitch.

In other news, Jason Giambi will sit tonight due to the sore back that drove him from yesterday’s game in the middle innings. Tino Martinez, who walked and doubled in two plate appearances in relief of Giambi last night, will start at first base. Bernie’s back in center after last night’s day off. Matt Lawton, who went 2 for 3 last night with a two-run dinger that accounted for all of the Yankees runs last night, will start in right in place of Bubba Crosby (also 2 for 3 last night) against the left-handed Bruce Chen.

Speaking of Chen, he was bounced to the bullpen after a few rough outings in July, but quickly returned to the rotation and has turned in eight quality start in his nine outings since doing so, the one exception being an start against Cleveland in which he allowed just one earned run in five innings. Since returning to the rotation he’s posted a 1.84 ERA with a 0.92 WHIP.

Mike Mussina, meanwhile, will likely be on a short leash with Al Leiter ready to come in as a second-leg starter if need be. So that’s your match-up, Chen against Mike Mussina on 23 days rest for a guaranteed half-game swing in the AL East race. Gulp. Here’s hoping the first-place Yankees, the hottest team in baseball right now (yes, they’re even a game better than the Indians over the last ten games), finds a way to pull this out and go a full-game up on the reeling Red Sox.

If the Yankees win tonight and tomorrow to complete a four-game sweep of the Orioles, they will wake up on Friday in first place in both the AL East and the Wild Card race, and there’s not a damn thing that Boston or Cleveland can do about it. That’s because the half game by which the Yankees currently trail those two clubs is the result of the Bombers having played one less game thus far this season. On Thursday, the Sox and Tribe will be idle while the Yankees finish the current series with the O’s, thus that pesky half game will be gone, for better or worse, come Friday.

As a result, with the exception of the final three games of the season in Boston, each of which counts for a full game the AL East standings, tomorrow night’s game is the most important one on the Yankees remaining schedule, as it is guaranteed to effect a half-game swing in the race for the playoffs. Joe Torre knows this. Prior to last night’s game he made a comment about how much he was looking forward to eliminating that half game come Thursday. Thus his decision to give Mike Mussina his first start since Aug 29 tomorrow night is . . . well, maybe it’s just Joe being Joe.

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Bubba Crosby’s game-winning home run last night just might have solved the Yankees’ right field situation, which has been in flux since Gary Sheffield injured his leg at home against the Devil Rays two weeks ago. At the time of the injury, Matt Lawton had just “hit” his way out of the line-up, having gone 4 for 25 with a homer and three walks (.160/.276/.280) in eight games since joining the Yankees. Lawton’s benching forced Bernie Williams back into center (where Lawton’s arrival had temporarily placed Hideki Matsui), and created room for Ruben Sierra at DH.

Sheffield’s injury created another opportunity for Lawton, who promptly squandered it by playing abysmal defense in right while going 0 for 12 against the Devil Rays and Red Sox. That opened the door for Bubba Crosby, who proceeded to go 7 for 20 over the next five games, starting two of them in right and one in center.

However, Crosby’s grip on the starting job was jarred loose when Sheffield returned to the line-up as the DH, forcing Torre to give Ruben Sierra a trio of starts in right in order to get his favorite 39-year-old out machine in the line-up. However, Sierra also played his way out of Torre’s rotation, going 2 for 27 with a homer and a pair of walks in the wake of Sheffield’s injury, mixing in some costly defensive mistakes in the Yankees lone loss on the just-completed road trip.

Ultimately it was Sierra’s defense that prompted Torre to start Crosby against the left-handed Erik Bedard last night, as Joe told MLB.com, “Yesterday, we may have given away too much, defensively. Bubba probably gives us our best defense, so where it may cost you a little on the offensive side, you hope he can make up for it.”

Crosby, who is clearly the Yankees best defensive outfielder, responded by going 2 for 3 against Bedard by victimizing 320-pound Oriole firstbaseman Walter Young with a hot shot down the line and a bunt, then won the game by homering off of lefty reliever Eric Dubose in the bottom of the ninth.

With that 3 for 4 night under his belt, Crosby is now hitting .379/.379/.552 in 29 September at-bats (his triple against Tim Wakefield and last night’s homer being his only extra base hits of the year), which has brought his season line comfortably above the Womack line to an almost respectable .278/.307/.347 (speaking of whom, Womack has made just one plate appearance since August 24, which is exactly what has to happen for this team to make the postseason). Last night’s game has also thrown Crosby’s splits for a loop as he’s now hitting .357/.357/.571 against lefties in a mere 14 at-bats, three of his five hits and all of his extra bases against lefties coming last night.

Crosby made the Yankees’ 25-man roster out of spring training the last two years due to his ability to get extremely hot at exactly the right time, hitting .320 during spring training this year and .357 last year. Thus it would be foolish for Torre to do anything other than ride Crosby until he runs out of gas, particularly as he is leaps and bouds better than his other options defensively. Fortunately, Torre seems to have caught on, as Crosby will again get the start in right field tonight as Aaron Small looks to extend his perfect record to 9-0.

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My assumptions panned out this past weekend, with the Indians sweeping the Royals and the Yanks and Red Sox taking two of three in their respective series. As a result the Yankees are a game and a half out in both the East and the Wild Card race.

Meanwhile, the Indians have moved within 3.5 games of the White Sox and still have all six head-to-head match-ups remaining (including a three-game series that starts tonight in Chicago). That’s bad news for the Yankees’ Wild Card hopes as they still trail the White Sox by five games.

Tonight our heroes play the first of eight remaining games with the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles team that the Yanks will face in the Bronx tonight is drastically different from the one that last visited the House that Ruth Built back in late June. That team arrived in New York with a .543 winning percentage, but, starting with a pair of loses to the Yankees, went on to post a 18-33 (.353) record through the end of August. Along the way they changed managers, traded their left fielder, released their would be ace starter, and lost a pair of would-be hall of famers to a combination of injury and steroid suspension.

Things have been looking better for the O’s since the calander changed to September. The birds have posted a .500 record on the month, but that’s largely been the result of a pair of series wins against the lowly Mariners and Rangers, which produced a four-game winning streak last week. They’ve also dropped series to the Red Sox, Blue Jays and Devil Rays. The Yankees hope to complete the divisional sweep this week.

Tonight’s Oriole starter, Eric Bedard, has pitched reasonably well since being activated from the DL in late July, but has walked a lot of men and had trouble going deep into games. His opposite number, Chien-Ming Wang, has looked good in his two starts since being activated, though he has yet to really deliver on his pre-injury promise. Here’s hoping he has a breakthrough tonight after a pair of warm-up starts against those gall-darn Devil Rays.

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The last week, in which our heroes went 5-1 against the rival Red Sox and dastardly Devil Rays, has been a physically and emotionally draining one for both the Yankees and their fans. Fortunately, while there are no off-days left in the Yankees season, their schedule does get decidedly easier starting tonight when the Yanks begin a stretch of fourteen games against the Blue Jays and Orioles.

But it is exactly that that concerns me about these four series against the weaker sisters of the AL East. The Yankees avoided a let down after taking two of three from the Red Sox, and they avoided a let down after both unloading 17 runs on the Devil Rays in the first game of that series and pulling out a one-run victory in Game Two. But in both cases they were facing a team that had made them angry, the Red Sox by virtue of the natural rivalry, last year’s humiliating ALCS, the standings, and all of the accompanying baggage, and the Devil Rays by inexplicably pushing the Yankees around during the first five series between the two teams this year.

The Blue Jays and Orioles, on the other hand, have thus far minded their manners. After a hot start, the Orioles have tumbled to a .476 record, 14 games behind the still second place Yankees, and they haven’t been seen ’round these parts since just before the All-Star break when they dropped a pair to the Yanks in the Bronx. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, have gone a very accommodating 4-8 against the Yanks thus far this season, most recently dropping three of four to the Bombers at the Stadium in late August, the only Blue Jay win in that series coming on what remains Mike Mussina’s last game of the season, when the inflammation of his elbow became too severe for him to continue.

The fear, of course, is that after the fever pitch of their last six games, the Yankees will ease off against the Jays this weekend, forgetting that they’re markedly better than the Seattle team that split a four game set with the Yanks two and a half weeks ago, and perhaps completely unaware that Toronto has a .545 Pythagorean Winning Percentage, which, if substituted for the Blue Jays’ actual record, would rank them just two games behind the A’s and Angels in the overall American League standings.

Then again, looking back over the Yankees’ schedule, other than their struggles against the Devil Rays, the Yanks haven’t lost a series to a team not currently in a playoff slot since they dropped two of three to the Mets in late June, and other than that Mariners series the only other split they’ve suffered over that span was the rain-shortened two-game set against the Orioles that immediately followed that Mets series.

What that tells us is that, over the last two and a half months, the Yankees have done their job against the lesser teams in the league, but simply winning these four series may not be enough to get the Yankees in the playoffs. Let’s speculate, shall we?

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It won’t be a beauty contest tonight when Aaron Small and Seth McClung face off in the final game of the year between the Yankees and Devil Rays (and, yes, I just accidentally wrote “Red Sox”–sure feels like it), but McClung, who has made just one relief appearance and no starts against the Yankees this year, sure will be a welcome change from the endless parade of Hendricksons and Fossums the Bombers have seen in this match-up.

McClung, a burly 24-year-old in his first full season, is a hard cat to figure. His last four starts have alternated between quality wins (including an eight-inning gem in Toronto in his penultimate effort), and disaster loses (a total of three innings pitched in two starts, including just two in a rematch against the Blue Jays his last time out). The bad news is that means McClung is “due” for a quality win this time out. The good news is that he’s had difficulty harnessing his stuff and a patient Yankee offense (like the one that made Mark Hendrickson throw 113 pitches in five innings last night) could wear him out quickly.

Like McClung, Small will be making his first start against the Devil Rays this year after facing them once out of the bullpen. Unlike McClung, Small has been nothing if not reliable for the Yankees this year. The four runs he allowed against the Red Sox in 6 1/3 innings in his last start were the most he’s allowed in any outing this year, and one of those scored after Joe Torre had pulled him from the game. Prior to that he had thrown fourteen scorless innings.

Small’s success may be a fluke, but there’s no reason why that fluke has to come to an end prior to next season, as Tom Zachary’s 1929 campaign demonstrates (a point Steven Goldman likely didn’t realize he was making). The Yankees certainly hope Small’s coin stays balanced on its side, as any loss at this point in the season will feel like a catastrophic one, especially if it comes at the hands of these blasted Devil Rays in the final confrontation of the year.

Oh, and don’t look now, but the Yankees have the fifth-best record in baseball (behind the Cardinals, White and Red Sox, and Indians). It sure would be a shame to see the Yankees sit home this October with a better record than both western division winners. Unfortunately, there are a number of ways that could happen, but none of them can occur if the Yankees keep winning.

Aaron Small, I turn it over to you.

It didn’t come easy, but the Yankees finally took a series from the Devil Rays, by pulling out a 6-5 victory in Tampa last night.

Throughout the game, the Yankees seemed on the verge of yet another collapse against the Devil Rays. They left the bases loaded in the first inning after plating just one run, stranded runners at the corners in both the third and fourth (scoring another run in the latter inning thanks in large part to a Julio Lugo throwing error), then promptly surrendered their 2-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth on a two-out game-tying single by Toby Hall.

The first true sign of life came in the fifth when, with a man on first and two outs, Bernie Williams reached on an infield single to second and Ruben Sierra drew a five-pitch walk, just his fifth of the season, to load the bases and bring Robinson Cano to the plate. Cano, who was 1 for 15 on the season with the bases loaded coming into that at-bat, fell behind Tampa starter Mark Hendrickson 1-2, then lined a single into right that scored two runs, restoring the Yankees’ two-run lead.

That the second Yankee lead was in part the result of two things that never happen–a Ruben Sierra walk and a Robinson Cano hit with the bases loaded–was an indication that last night just might be the night the Yankees broke through against the Devil Rays, but things weren’t quite that simple.

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After being embarrassed by the Devil Rays all season, including losing two of three to them at home last week, the Yankees were clearly a team on a mission last night in Tampa, unloading on the D-Rays for five runs in the first inning, knocking starter Doug Waechter from the game before he had recorded a single out, and finishing the night with a whopping 17-3 victory.

From one point of view such an outburst was exactly what this team needed to do: send a message to Tampa Bay that clowntime is over and papa won’t take their mess no mo’. From another point of view, such an outburst is actually cause for concern. Could it be that the Yankees expelled all of their frustration over a season worth of series loses to the Devil Rays with one cathartic explosion of run scoring and will thus lack that fire in the remaining two games of the series, which are every bit as important to their playoff chances? After all, hasn’t it been true all season that the Yankee offense has followed such a outbursts by failing to score more than a run or two the next day?

Well, no, actually.

Prior to last night, the Yankees had run up a double-digit run total in thirteen games this season. In six of the games that followed such an outburst, the Yankees scored fewer than five runs, but in six others they scored more than five runs (in the one remaining game they scored exactly five), twice scoring in double-digits again the next day and once scoring nine runs and following that with a fifteen-spot the next day. While it may not look impressive compared to the nearly 14 runs the team scored on average in their thirteen highest-scoring games, the Yankees have scored an average of 5.62 runs in the games immediately following those outbursts, with a median total of five runs. That average is actually higher than their overall season average of 5.39 runs per game.

It’s much more informative to look at tonight’s starting pitchers for an indication of what tonight’s contest might bring. For the Devil Ray’s, that man is Mark Hendrickson, who has made four starts against the Yankees, all of which the Devil Rays have won, with Hendrickson himself picking up the win in three of them. In his last two starts against the Yankees, which includes his most recent start of the season, Hendrickson has posted this line:

14 1/3 IP, 12 H, 9 R (8 ER) 2 HR, 5 BB, 8 K

That translates to a 5.02 ERA, more than a run better than his season mark of 6.06. But then consider what Hendrickson did in his three starts in between those two games against the Yankees:

21 2/3 IP, 17 H, 5 R, 3 HR, 3 BB, 15 K, 2.08 ERA

And what weaker sisters of the league did he amass that line against you might ask? The Blue Jays (who are an even .500 after defeating the Red Sox last night), the AL West-leading Angels (against whom Hendrickson hurled 8 2/3 innings of one-run ball), and those red hot Cleveland Indians.

What all of this goes to show is that if the Yankees do struggle to score runs tonight it has nothing to do with the 17 runs they scored last night or Hendrickson “owning” them, as he’s actually pitched much better over the past month against the Yankees’ rivals than against the Yankees themselves.

The Yankees will send Chien-Ming Wang to the mound tonight for just his second start since returning from a minor league rehab assignment and what was once thought to be a season-ending rotator cuff injury. Wang’s last start also came against Hendrickson and the Devil Rays and saw the rookie groundball pitcher surrender three runs on eight hits and a pair of walks in five innings.

Curiously, that outing was Wang’s best result in three starts against the Devil Rays this year (he surrendered five earned runs in six innings in each of his other two and took the loss in all three). The loss in his last start could be considered hard-luck as the Yankees did score four runs, one more than Wang allowed, but their bullpen gave up four more after Wang departed to put the game out of reach before the Yankee bats finally got to Hendrickson in the eighth (it’s worth noting that Hendrickson needed just 85 pitches to get through 7 2/3 innings in that game, which means that the Yankee runs were not the result of Hendrickson tiring, but also means he was alarming efficient through the first seven innings).

Wang threw just 80 pitches in that game, likely due to concerns over the health of his shoulder. With the bullpen well rested following Monday’s off day and last night’s blow out, I would expect the Yankees to again be cautious with Wang’s pitch count, so the performance of the bullpen tonight could turn out to be every bit as important as Wang’s, though it would certainly do the Yankees well to see Chien-Ming continue to improve coming off his injury and, hopefully, heading toward the postseason. Of course the latter will be less of a concern should the Yankees fail to pull out another win (and their first series victory over the Rays this season) tonight.

There are twenty games remaining on the Yankees regular season schedule, one more than the Red Sox and two more than the Indians. The Red Sox added a half-game to their division lead yesterday by defeating the Blue Jays in eleven innings thanks to yet another game-winning home run by guess who while the Yankees enjoyed their final off-day of the season. The Yankees will make up that game next Thursday when the Red Sox are idle, thus that frightening extra half-game that will stick to the Red Sox AL East lead over the next week and a half is illusory. The opportunity still exists for the Yankees to match the Sox win-for-win to keep the Boston lead at three games entering the final three games of the season in Boston. Should the Yankees then sweep that series, a single-game playoff between the two teams would be played at Yankee Stadium to decide the division.

The Indians, meanwhile, were shut out by Dan Haren and a quartet of relievers last night, thus dropping their half-game advantage in the Wild Card race. You see, while the Indians still lead the Yankees by a full game, that game is the result of the Indians having won two more games than the Yankees. The two teams are even in the loss column, which, by a certain strain of logic, means they are actually tied. Thus the opportunity still exists for the Yankees to match the Indians win-for-win over the remainder of the season, win the two extra games in their schedule, and finish the season tied with Cleveland. If that happens, a single-game playoff between the two teams would be played at Jacob’s Field to decide the Wild Card.

So, technically, the Yankees are still in control of their own destiny, even if that destiny now includes a one-game playoff win. Merely forcing such a playoff game against either the Indians or Red Sox, however, will be a monumental task for the pinstripers. To begin with, needing to sweep the Red Sox at home over the final three days of the season is a frightening thought, even though the starters for that series currently project to be Aaron Small, Randy Johnson and Shawn Chacon (though Chacon’s start could go to Mike Mussina as I’ll explain in a moment).

What’s more, the Indians have been the hottest team in the American League over the past week. Last night’s loss broke a seven-game winning streak that saw them sweep the Tigers and Twins, including a 4-2 win over Johan Santana this past Friday.

Meanwhile, the Yankees find themselves in Tampa tonight to play their final three games of the season against the Devil Rays team that has, er, bedeviled them all season. At this point it should no longer be necessary for me to recap the Devil Rays’ success against the Yankees this season. And any analysis of the overall success of the Devil Rays’ pitchers against the Yankee hitters is statistically obscured by the two 13-run innings the Yankees have dropped on the D-Rays this season (yes those innings can be factored out, but I lack the time, the patience, and the stomach to do so right now). That said, it is informative to note that the Devil Rays have outscored and flat out-hit the Yankees head-to-head even with those 26 runs in two innings included on the Yankees’ side:

D-Rays: .293/.367/.451 (.278 GPA), 102 R
Yanks: .280/.343/.474 (.273 GPA), 98 R

In addition, consider the fact that the Yankee starter and the two Yankee hitters who have performed best against the Devil Rays this season, Mike Mussina, Tino Martinez and Gary Sheffield, have all been sidelined with injuries of late. The good news is that Sheffield (.322/.349/.678, 6 HR, 22 RBI vs. TB this year) will start tonight at DH. Sheffield missed the entire Boston series with a mysterious muscle pull in his upper leg (it’s been variously reported as a quad, a hamstring, and a groin). As Alex and I were discussing on the phone this afternoon, you know that had to eat Sheffield up inside. The guy played all of last year with a muscle separation in his shoulder and a torn ligament in his thumb and almost won the MVP award. Do you think he would have missed the entire Boston series if that leg injury wasn’t something we should be concerned about? Hells no! Do you think he wasn’t going absolutely crazy having to sit through those last two games in which the Yankee offense produced a total of three runs? You bet your sweet bippy he was!

Having Sheffield at DH could actually be a plus for the Yankees in this series as it opens up right field to the team’s best defensive outfielder, Bubba Crosby, who, to Joe Torre’s credit, will indeed start there tonight, his second consecutive start in right field. Playing on the slick Tropicana Dome turf over the next three games, the Yankees would be well advised to dispatch Bubba Crosby to the outfield in all three games, even against the left-handed Mark Hendrickson tomorrow. Now that we’ve all had a good look at Matt Lawton’s defensive shortcomings, I can’t imagine anyone would disagree that the Yankees cannot afford to run him and Bernie Williams out there on turf against this fast and aggressive Tampa Bay team, and Gary Sheffield, particularly Gary Sheffield with a bum leg, would only be a marginal improvement.

To that end, having Sheffield at DH also keeps Jason Giambi in the field, where his bat has heated back up, producing two of the three runs the Yankees scored in the final two games of their weekend series against the Red Sox. Giambi has spent all of September in the field thus far thanks to the rib cage injury which has kept Tino Martinez out of the line-up for the entire month. According to Torre’s pre-game press conference, Tino could return to game action this week, which is actually an item of some concern as anything that pushes Jason Giambi to DH is a blow to the Yankee offense. Thankfully Sheffield will block him for the time being. I for one could deal with seeing the likes of Bubba Crosby, Matt Lawton or Ruben Sierra in the line-up in place of Tino as long as it kept Giambi in the field.

As for Mussina, the last of the Yankees’ injury brigade, he threw 45 pitches in the bullpen today and, though he’s still not 100 percent, will take another bullpen turn later in the week, and could eventually slot into Chacon’s spot in the rotation if the latter continues to struggle. That would make Mussina, not Chacon, the starter for the final game of the season in Boston. Myself, I’m nervous about a potential Mussina return, as the Yankees can’t afford to sacrifice a single game to get the rust off of him, even if it would make their rotation stronger over whatever portion of the season remained.

As for the Devil Rays themselves, their roster is unchanged from last week and they’ll be sending Doug Waechter to the mound to face Jaret Wright tonight. Waechter has a 3.38 ERA in three starts against the Yankees (21 1/3 IP, 20 H, 3 HR, 3 BB, 11 K), while Wright, eliminating his April start against Tampa as I believe he was less than healthy during that part of the season, has posted the following line in two starts against the Rays since returning from the DL:

14 IP, 12 H, 6 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 4 K, 1.21 WHIP, 3.86 ERA

That’s good but not great. Still, it accounts for two of the Yankees five wins against the Rays this year.

Given some of their comments after Sunday’s remarkable 1-0 win over the Red Sox, it seems the Yankees are finally ready to not only take this Devil Rays team seriously, but approach this series as if it were against the Red Sox themselves. It’s about time, as there’s no margin for error and no room for a let down follwing the Boston series.

It was an absolutely beautiful day in the Bronx last night . . . for Red Sox fans, that is.

As Alex predicted, Curt Schilling turned in what was easily his best performance of the year, retiring the first eight Yankees in order and holding them hitless through 3 1/3 innings. A towering upper deck shot by Jason Giambi eliminated the no-hitter with one out in the fourth, but that would be the only hit the Yankees would get until a two-out Robinson Cano single in the seventh, and only run the Yankees would get until a lead-off Matt Lawton walk came around to score in the eighth.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, equalled the two runs the Yankees would score on the day before the Yanks even got a chance to hit. With two outs and an 0-2 count, David Ortiz battled Shawn Chacon for a ten-pitch walk. Chacon then got to 2-2 on Manny Ramirez before giving up an absolute bomb into Monument Park.

Chacon worked around a pair of baserunners in the second and another in the third, but couldn’t escape the fourth, which John Olerud led off with a solo homer into the upper deck in right. Buell Mueller and Gabe Kapler followed with singles and that was a wrap for Chacon, who needed 77 pitches (just 55 percent strikes) to get his nine outs. Felix Rodriguez came on in relief and surrendered a single to Tony Graffanino, batting lead off in place of the sore-shouldered Johnny Damon. With Dale Svuem playing it conservatively (!), that loaded the bases. Rodriguez then got Edgar Renteria to hit a chopper back to the mound, and fired home for a 1-2-3 double play, but his throw sailed low and away, where John Flaherty, starting for the sore-shouldered Jorge Posada, made a great play to simply get the one out at home.

With Ortiz due up, Joe Torre then went to Al Leiter, who got Ortiz to fly out to left, only to have Hideki Matsui lose the ball in the sun and drop it for an RBI single. Singles by Ramirez and Nixon followed to make it 7-0. Then Jason Varitek hit a double play ball to short, which Jeter flipped to Cano, who pivoted and launched a hail mary pass into the stands behind first to plate another run. Leiter then got the sixth out of the inning by getting Olerud to fly out to center.

To his credit, Leiter stayed in the game, pitching five more innings and allowing just one more run, thus saving the bullpen for today’s must win series finale.

With yesterday’s loss, the Yankees are four back in the east with just four games left against Boston. If they lose today, it’s over. To make matter’s worse, Cleveland, Oakland and the Angels all won yesterday, dropping the Yankees into a tie with the A’s, a game and a half behind Cleveland in the Wild Card chase.

At this point in the season, every game is a must win, every loss devastating, but today’s confrontation between Randy Johnson and Tim Wakefield just might be the most important of them all.

With Boston generating G.T.O.U.S.’s (Game Threads Of Unusual Size), here’s a a post for today’s game, along with some food for thought from previous posts by Alex and myself:

Cliff on Friday:

Here is Curt Schilling’s combined line in his three starts since returning to the Boston rotation:

17 1/3 IP, 27 H, 15 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 13 K, 7.79 ERA, 1.85 WHIP

And Shawn Chacon’s in his eight Yankee starts:

51 2/3 IP, 45 H, 18 ER, 4 HR, 22 BB, 34 K, 3.14 ERA, 1.30 WHIP

I refuse to even think about making any predictions here (though I expect the Red Sox to win at least one game by brutalizing the Yankee bullpen).

Alex on Saturday:

As for today’s game I think that Schilling will respond and pitch his best game of the season, putting the ball in RJ’s court to do the same tomorrow (though, to be fair, Johnson has pitched some excellent games this year) against the Yankee-killer Wakefield. This series is more important for the Yankees right now, but I think on a personal level, today’s game is equally important to Schilling. A win today gets him feeling good, and Sox fans feeling a bit more comfortable.

I sure do hope I’m wrong. And if Chacon can pitch into the seventh and keep the game close, the Yanks will have a shot. Hopefully, Posada, Giambi and Bernie pick up where they left off last night. Ditto for Rodriguez, who I think needs to play like he did last night in two of the remaining five games against Boston to cement to the writers his MVP worthiness.

C’mon, Yanks, flip that FOX jinx and prove us wrong!

Johnny Damon lifted the first pitch of last night’s game between the Yankees and Red Sox to right field for what appeared to be an easy fly out, but Matt Lawton, starting in place of the injured Gary Sheffield, perhaps unaware the game had begun, misplayed the ball so badly, staggering around right field like a man with an inner ear infection, that he didn’t even come close to catching it. The ball dropped in front of Lawton for what was inexplicably ruled a single (the old, “if he didn’t touch it, he couldn’t have made an error” ruling), setting the tone for an evening of sloppy, but enthralling baseball from which the Yankees ultimately emerged with an 8-4 victory.

With Damon on first, Renteria bunted Aaron Small’s second pitch foul, took his third for a strike and lost his bat swinging at Small’s fourth offering of the game to strike out on three pitches. That brought David Ortiz to the plate. After a first-pitch ball, Small blew a gut-high 90-mile-per-hour fastball past Big Papi, threw three pitches low and away–the first a ball, the second a perfectly placed strike, and the third fouled off by Ortiz–then came back to blow another gut-high 91-mile-per-hour fastball past Ortiz to pick up his second strike out of the night.

After striking out Renteria and Ortiz, Small got ahead of Manny Ramirez 0-1 and 1-2 before getting Manny to bounce a weak grounder to third base. Unfortunately the grounder was so weak that Ramirez was able to reach on an infield single, well ahead of the barehanded scoop and throw of Alex Rodriguez. Small then got ahead of Trot Nixon 1-2 before getting him to foul out to Derek Jeter charging the stands behind third in a faint echo of last year’s July 1st epic.

Small retiring Ortiz and Nixon would also be a sign of things to come, as the lefty-hitting, Yankee-killing duo would finish the night 0 for 9 with three strikeouts and six runners left on base, their only RBI coming when Robinson Cano booted a potential double play ball off Nixon’s bat with the bases loaded and one out in the seventh.

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Three weeks ago, the Yankees headed to Chicago to face the first-place White Sox coming off yet another dispiriting series loss to the Devil Rays. Having been spared their performance in that series in Tampa due a long weekend away from electronic media of all kinds, this is how I sized up the Yankees chances at that point in the season:

What I see when I look at the standings is that the Yankees are four games behind the Red Sox in the AL East with six games left to play against Boston and one and a half games behind the A’s in the Wild Card race with three games left to play against Oakland. That means the Yankees’ destiny is in their own hands. If they are able to match just one of these two clubs win-for-win over the remainder of the season and sweep their head-to-head confrontations, the Yankees will make the playoffs for the eleventh consecutive season.

Here’s how those three teams have faired since then:

Red Sox: 13-7
Yankees: 13-7
Athletics: 10-9

The Yankees didn’t sweep the A’s head-to-head, but they did take two out of three while otherwise outplaying the A’s by a game and a half (removing that head-to-head series, their records over that span are NYY: 11-6, Oak: 9-7). So, despite yet another just-completed dispiriting series loss to the Devil Rays, the Yankees have thus far accomplished what I said they would need to.

There are only two problems:

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“We have to be better,” said Rodriguez, who was 1 for 4 with an infield single. “We expect more out of ourselves. That is just not acceptable. We’re better, I’m better, the whole team is better.”

“It’s just one of those things I don’t think you can explain,” Derek Jeter said. “They’ve played better than us. I don’t know how many games they’ve beaten us, but they deserved to win all of them.”

…”We have to come out and play better,” Jeter said, “because we’re running out of games.”
(N.Y. Times)

A Bomber blowout? So what do I know? At least I was thinking positively. Instead, it was another pathetic outing against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, as the Yankees were trounced 7-4, and it wasn’t even as close as the final score suggests. New York was mastered by Mark Hendrickson–dig it–and their bullpen could not hold Tampa Bay down after Chien-Ming Wang’s decent return performance. The four runs they scored in the seventh inning proved to be an abberation as the offense was lousy all night–in four at-bats, Bernie Williams saw a total of five pitches. This is the Yankees?

Apparently so. The Red Sox are in town for three games starting tonight and their offense has been terrific of late–last night’s loss notwithstanding (David Ortiz, representing the go-ahead run, struck out with the bases loaded in the eighth inning–Great Googlie Mooglie, the man is human after all). I wish I had a good feeling about Aaron Small tonight but I fear that the Sox will crush him. Hopefully, the Bombers will take two of three, but these days, it’s tough to figure what you are doing to get from them on any given day. With just over twenty games remaining they are four behind Boston in the AL East and a half-a-game behind the Indians for the wildcard. They are still very much in it. As down as I feel now, I realize that can all change quickly. Or it could get worse. Ah, these are the pros and cons of hitchhiking, right?

Wang is back tonight for the Bombers. Don’t know how he’ll do, but yo, the boys are going to slap Hendrickson about the neck and face. I wanna see a blowout, dog.

As I was buying the papers this morning I saw a middle school kid waiting for the bus. He was wearing a Jason Giambi shirt and I instantly remembered being his age and how proud I’d be to wear my gear after a big win like last night’s 5-4 Yankee victory over the Devil Rays. (It was only the fifth time in fifteen games that New York has toppled Tampa Bay this year.) He was a small dude, and his napsack looked half as big as he did. Looking at the back cover of The Daily News I said to him, “You must be a happy man this morning.” He assured me that he was. I asked him if he thought the Yanks would make the playoffs and he said with the utmost confidence that he believes they will beat the Sox to win the AL East. Whatever scars he has from last year’s October meltdown were not discernable. “Damn, you are too young to remember the Yankees not being good aren’t you?” He smiled in the self-satisfied fashion that Yankee fans have for generations. Dag.

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Randy Johnson finally got his third-consecutive quality start last night, allowing three runs in 6 1/3 innings while throwing 73 percent of his pitches for strikes, but it wasn’t enough. Thanks in large part to a quartet of baserunning errors and one decisive fielding error, the Yankees once again came up short against the last-place Devil Rays. In turn, the Devil Rays clinched the season series, while the Yankees’ opportunity to reverse course against these pesky Rays slipped away, possibly along with their postseason hopes.

Everything started out well for the Yankees last night. While Randy Johnson started the night with two perfect innings, the Yanks put a two-spot on the board in the first via a quartet of singles (two of which never left the infield) and an error by Tampa second baseman Nick Green, then added another run in the second on a Robinson Cano double and Derek Jeter’s second single in as many innings.

Things started to turn in the third. Up 3-0, Johnson allowed his first baserunners when an overactive slider hit Green in the foot and Julio Lugo followed by drawing a six-pitch walk. In the fourth, Jonny Gomes picked up the first Devil Ray hit of the night with a one-out single and moved to second on a ground out for the second out. Alex Gonzalez then pulled a double down the left field line to plate Gomes and came around to score himself on a single by Toby Hall to bring the D-Rays within one. Meanwhile, Casey Fossum kept the Yankees off balance by changing speeds and hitting his spots, setting the side down in order in the third, fourth, and fifth innings.

Then came the sixth inning.

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