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Andy Pettitte clinched the AL East, the Division Series, and the ALCS for the Yankees this year, so it only makes sense that he’d be on the mound for the the last game of the 2009 World Series. He looked bone-tired tonight, more than 220 innings and seven months into his age-37 season, muttering darkly into his glove; but as you probably should have expected by now, he figured out a way to pitch just as well as he needed to. Hideki Matsui, your Series MVP, provided all the necessary offense, and the Yankees earned their 27th Championship with a 7-3 win over the Phillies.

Tonight, for a change, was not about Pedro Martinez – who, even more than Pettitte, seemed to be pitching on fumes and experience. He worked slowly and painstakingly, never hit his stride, and when he made mistakes he did not get away with them. It’s funny – I thought Matsui had hit Pedro well throughout his career, but that turns out not to be the case. It’s just that the hits he does have were big ones, from his part in the Yankees’ rally in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS through Game 2 of this World Series and tonight’s show of strength.

Matsui put the Yankees on the board in the second with a big two-run home run. The Phillies got one back right away on a triple and sac fly, but the Yankees padded their lead in the bottom of the third: Jeter singled, Damon walked, Teixeira was hit by a pitch (definitely an accident this time), and after A-Rod struck out, Matsui came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. He promptly unloaded them with a single to center, plating Jeter and Damon (who, unfortunately, injured his calf running home and had to be replaced by Jerry Hairston Jr; be thankful there was not a Game 7). Pedro got out of the inning, but that was the end of his night, and a patchwork of five Phillies relievers finished the game.

In the bottom of the fifth, after Jeter doubled and scored on Teixeira’s single, Matsui did it again, doubling in Teixeira and Rodriguez to make it 7-1 Yanks. He ended up with three hits and six RBIs, and one triple short of the cycle, though with the state of his knees, you’re more likely to see Alex Rodriguez actually turn into a centaur. He’s also the first DH ever to win the Series MVP.

Meanwhile, Pettitte was in full Battle Cat mode. After the top of the 4th, feeling (with some reason) that he was being squeezed, he started yelling at home plate ump Joe West and had to be pulled away by Joe Girardi. This is not a fight you want to pick in Game 6 of the World Series. But Pettitte persevered into the sixth inning, at which point he gave up a two-run homer to Ryan Howard – hi, Ryan! – but talked Girardi into letting him stay in. He got Jayson Werth out, gave up a double to Ibanez, and finally running out of what little gas he’d had to start the night, was removed to a long, loud ovation. Pettitte hasn’t said anything about retirement this year… and I don’t see why the Yankees wouldn’t want him back… but it is possible that this was his last start for New York. If so, he certainly went out on a high note.

Joba Chamberlain took over, and he looked pretty good, picking up where he left off a few games ago. He got three outs before running into a little trouble – and so with two out in the seventh and two on, the Yankees still up 7-3, Girardi brought in Damaso Marte to deal with Chase Utley, who could have pulled the Phillies to within one. It was probably the tensest moment of the game. I’ve groaned every time Marte came in this postseason, more out of habit than anything else, but he has been terrific, and he continued in that vein tonight, getting Utley to half-chase a slider for strike three.

Mariano Rivera took over with one out in the eighth – it was not a save situation, but no way Girardi was going to mess around here – and though it was not one of his seemingly effortless performances, he was never in real danger. When he completed the ninth he’d tossed 16 postseason innings while allowing one run, to the surprise of no one. Give Shane Victorino credit, though, he did not go gentle into that good night – his last at-bat, and the Phillies’, took took 10 pitches, but finally it ended the way most at-bats against Mariano do: a groundout.

And then there were a series of tableaux, some familiar – Jeter’s raised arms and yell, Rivera’s grin, Posada’s near-skip towards the mound – and some new: Mark Teixeira’s fiercely goofy expression as he jumped up and down, Nick Swisher tearing wide-eyed and open-mouthed towards the infield, Francisco Cervelli hopping around like a caffeinated bunny, Joe Girardi’s gaunt face an open book of anticipation and then, for just a moment, pure, unguarded happiness.

I think almost all of us realize that nine years, in the scheme of franchise championship droughts, is not a long time at all, sometimes just a drop in the bucket. But it’s still a significant chunk of life, and most of us have probably gone through considerable changes since the 2000 Fall Classic – gained and lost loved ones, maybe started a family, changed careers, changed cities, grown up. And who knows where we’ll be the next time the Yankees win? All of which is, I guess, a long-winded way of saying: enjoy the moment.

Other thoughts/notes:

-“Empire State of Mind,” as I said a few weeks ago, has a nice catchy hook but isn’t a great song, and far from Jay-Z’s best. Still, it’s neat that this postseason had such an obvious anthem – if only because now I’ll think of the 2009 Yankees every time I hear it, probably for the rest of my life. And I mean, say what you want about the tune, but the song that makes me think of the 2000 Yankees is “Who Let the Dogs Out,” so count your damn blessings.

-The Canyon of Heroes parade is set for Friday at 11 AM. I think I have to go.

-I hope George Steinbrenner is at least lucid enough to know what happened tonight. Of course we already knew he was unwell, but the fact that he wasn’t at tonight’s game at all is still a little startling.

-I’m a little sorry Mike Mussina couldn’t have been part of this one; he did right by the Yankees, and retired with flair at the top of his game – but he arrived the year after a World Series and left just before another, Mattingly-style.

-I’m much sorrier that Todd Drew couldn’t be here for this one. But, as Alex and many other people mentioned tonight, this one’s for him.

Whew.

After a tense, up-and-down (and-up-and-down-and-up) game, with some smart batting and quick thinking from Johnny Damon, and yet another monster (centaur-ish, even?) Alex Rodriguez hit, the Yankees beat the Phillies 7-4 and took a 3-1 lead in the Series. Now they’ve got three more chances to get that 11th postseason win… but for the sake of older Yankees fans and those with hypertension or weak hearts, let’s hope this thing doesn’t go to Game 7.

For one thing, while CC Sabathia came through and pitched a solid game tonight, he wasn’t quite the dominant force he was against the Angels; he’s now thrown 266 innings this year, so it would hardly be shocking if he was getting a little worn out. The Yankees staked him to a 2-run lead right away, on Jeter’s single, Damon’s double, Teixeira’s RBI groundout, A-Rod’s third HBP of the last two games, and Posada’s sac fly; for a little while, it looked like Blanton might implode. But either he got it together or the Yankees let him off the hook, depending on your point of view, and in the bottom of the first Sabathia gave back a run on two doubles – the second hit by Sabathia’s current arch-nemesis Chase Utley (who now, with that hair, looks like the sidekick to the snobby frat-guy villain of a Revenge of the Nerds sequel).

Both pitchers clamped down after that, until the bottom of the fourth, when Ryan Howard – you remember Ryan Howard – singled and scored on Pedro Feliz’s hit to left, tying the game. It didn’t last long: the Yankees rallied right back in the top of the fifth, with Jeter and Damon coming through again, knocking in Nick Swisher and Melky Cabrera respectively, and making it 4-2 Yankees.

Since it was That Kind of Game, that score didn’t last, either. In the seventh Utley destroyed yet another Sabathia slider,  pulling the Phillies to within a run, and ending Sabathia’s night at a workmanlike 6.2 innings with three earned runs, six strikeouts and three walks. The Phillies went on to tie it up the eighth, when Pedro Feliz of all people rudely interrupted an otherwise-excellent Joba Chamberlain inning with a big blast to left: 4-4.

Charlie Manuel brought in Brad Lidge for the ninth, and the Philly closer made pretty quick work of Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter. I admit that at this point, I was trying and failing to imagine the Yankees surviving an inning of Phil Coke. Johnny Damon’s two-out at-bat, though, turned everything around, not just for Lidge but very possible for the Phillies. It took nine tense pitches, as Damon fouled off several sliders and fastball after fastball, looking for something he could hit – and when he finally got it, he dumped it into left field.

With Mark Teixeira up, Damon immediately took off for second base, slid in with a little room to spare… then popped up, paused for just a fraction of a second, and took off for third. “I was like, ‘Where is he going?!'” said Jorge Posada after the game, and that makes two of us. Joba Chamberlain said he had “a mini heart attack” watching the play, while Brett Gardner’s initial reaction was “Uh oh.” I think most Yankee fans could probably relate to one if not all of those responses, but in fact, Damon simply realized that because on the shift on Teixeira, no one was covering third base – no one was even close to covering third base – and that given where Pedro Feliz had caught the ball, he wasn’t in any position to outrun Damon. Hence, two stolen bases on a single pitch.

Teixeira was hit by a pitch – I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but still, Phillies pitchers: if you can’t pitch inside without hitting people, maybe don’t throw inside so much – and that brought up Alex Rodriguez. Of course. Lidge seemed rattled by then, and his second pitch to Rodriguez was a fat fastball that was promptly redirected towards the left field wall. The Yankees went up 5-4, and then up 7-4 on Jorge Posada’s two-run single. That was all they’d get, but not once in Mariano Rivera’s postseason career has three runs not been enough, and tonight was no exception.

(Incidentally, I love how Yankee fans have embraced the whole centaur thing. Personally, I think it’s hilarious if true – and it’s almost too weird to be invented – but anyway, Rodriguez has hit so well for most of this postseason, it would take a pretty serious felony for anyone to be bothered at this point).

Needless to say, the Series ain’t over til it’s over, as someone who’d know once put it, and you don’t have to try too hard to imagine ways in which the momentum could shift – Cliff Lee tomorrow, just for instance. But the Yankees are awfully close now… so stock up on the self-medication of your choice and get ready for another wild night.

A.J. Burnett had a terrific start last night, as if unaware that millions of people were completely freaked out about his ability to do so, and a few of the Yankee hitters recovered from Wednesday’s Cliff Lee-induced  trauma, and so New York beat Philly 3-1 to even the series. And yet, naturally, the first thing I want to write about is Pedro.

“I know they really wanna root for me,” said Pedro of Yankees fans, smiling in what appeared to be a zoot suit stolen from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, shortly after (he claims) lecturing a man in the front row about using foul language in front of his daughter. “It’s just that I don’t play for the Yankees. That’s all. I’ve always been a good competitor, and they love that… You know, I’m a New Yorker as well, so – if I was on the Yankees, I’d be a king over here.”

He’s right, of course. Personally, I always appreciate athletes who understand that they’re also entertainers, and nobody gets that more than Pedro. He gets the fans, he gets the media, he plays his part with flair – he was a great villain; his ego is, to put it politely, healthy, but he’s backed it up often enough. By the end of 2003 I disliked him about as much as I’ve ever disliked a player (at least, a player who hadn’t committed some actual crime), but I’ve long since come around. It was seeing him on the Mets that mostly did it, watching him pitch smarter as he got slower, loved by the fans and his teammates no matter how often he was injured, and of course always good for a quote. And I suppose it was also realizing that he would be retiring soon, if not this year, and you won’t have Pedro to kick around anymore. I can’t wait for his Hall of Fame induction speech.

Pedro was going to be the story tonight no matter what he did, which is probably fine by him, and he pitched very well – but as far as the Yankees are concerned, the bigger news was A.J. Burnett’s excellent start. I think most fans knew he was capable of it, but didn’t dare to expect it. His curveball was a knockout punch, and he was refreshingly free of control issues: seven innings pitched, nine strikeouts, only two walks. There were moments in the game’s first half when he seemed like he might be teetering on the brink of chaos, but he never quite lost control: one second-inning run on a blooped ground-rule double and a single that probably should’ve been an E5 was all the Phillies got.

That was a good thing, too, since for the first chunk of the game, the Yankee bats were becalmed and the Stadium was way too quiet. Pedro and his sneaky stuff deserves the credit, but I wonder if he got any kind of assist from a Cliff Lee hangover. In the fourth inning, though, Mark Teixeira (it’s aliiiiiive!) whacked an 84 mph changeup over the right field fence to tie the game.

Hideki Matsui gave the Yankees the lead with another solo shot in the sixth, and I never call these things, but I have to say: I called that one. The Phillies got five-plus excellent innings and 90 pitches out of 2009 Pedro, against the Yankees no less, and I thought to ask for too much more than that was to push their luck.

Then in the seventh, a funny thing happened: Pedro Martinez stayed in the game. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Even six years ago, everyone watching the ALCS at home knew that after about 100 pitches, give or take, Pedro’s effectiveness took a nosedive – as great as he was then, he didn’t have a ton of stamina. Everyone knew it, and everyone was screaming it at Grady Little’s impassive face on their TV, yet here we are many years and multiple Martinez surgeries later… I don’t mean to make too much of it, probably the Yankees win this one anyway, with that Burnett start and Mariano Rivera. It’s just that if you pulled some random casual baseball fan off the couch and put him or her in a dugout, this is probably the one mistake they would absolutely know not to make.

Anyway, the much-maligned Jerry Hairston Jr. singled, and Brett Gardner ran for him, advancing to third on Melky Cabrera’s single. Jorge Posada came up to pinch-hit, but we were all denied the drama of that matchup when Manuel finally strolled to the mound and summoned Chan Ho Park. Posada singled anyway; 3-1 Yankees. Derek Jeter then struck out on a foul bunt. That’s right, he was bunting with two on and no outs, Yanks up by two in the seventh, and he kept bunting with two strikes, and then he struck out on a foul bunt, and I don’t want to talk about it.

In other Bad-For-Baseball news, the umpires then blew a call when Johnny Damon’s line drive was called an out in the air, though it looked like in fact it had hit the ground before Ryan Howard caught it, and so Posada was called out too, doubled off. I have run out of umpire jokes. The Phillies got screwed the very next inning, when Chase Utley and his hair were called out at first to complete a DP against Mariano Rivera; it looked on replays like he was most likely safe. Ragging on the umps is an ancient and respected part of baseball tradition, but things are getting out of hand.

Mariano Rivera had a choppy eighth inning, but persevered, and the ninth was more like it. The Yankees now head to Philly, and to paraphrase Ol’ Blue Eyes, if you can’t hit a ton of home runs there you can’t hit a ton of home runs anywhere.

Discussion question: if you were picking a baseball-related Halloween costume, what would you pick? And is there any way to go as an umpire without being insensitive to the visually impaired?

It was the best of games, it was the worst of games, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way…

Well, at least nobody got guillotined at the end of Game 5.

First it looked like the Yankees were going to go down quietly, after a first-inning blowup by AJ Burnett; then they made a dramatic late-inning rally and took the lead in the blink of Darren Oliver’s eye; then the bullpen faltered, and New York trailed again by just one; and then they loaded the bases in the 9th inning against skittish closer Brian Fuentes with two outs and a full count, and Nick Swisher popped up. The Angels won 7-6. Now that‘s the Angels-Yankees baseball we all know and love and discuss at length with our therapists.

A.J. Burnett looked just awful in the first, and the Angels took him apart: Figgins walked, Abreu doubled, Hunter singled,  Guerrero doubled, Morales singled, and when the smoke cleared, it was 4-0. The next few innings featured plenty of hard-hit balls, but Burnett – via a combination of unpredictable stuff and luck – got through them without allowing another run, and by the 4th or 5th he was in a groove and pitching well. Meanwhile, John Lackey turned in a impressive performance, and his breaking stuff was tying the Yankees in knots.

In the seventh inning, though, he finally faltered, and loaded the bases with two outs, at which point Mike Scioscia – in a move that would have been second-guessed endlessly had the Angels lost – yanked him for Darren Oliver. Lackey was furious – you could see him saying “This is mine! This is mine!’ when Scioscia came to the mound – and presumably got more so when Darren Oliver immediately gave up a three-run double to Mark Teixeira, who came out of his ALCS slump with a bang. The Angels, having seen enough of Alex Rodriguez, intentionally walked him; but Matsui singled, and then Robinson Cano whacked a triple that traveled so far, Matsui actually scored from first. The Yankees were up 6-4, and while it wasn’t the biggest comeback I’ve ever seen, it was probably one of the most sudden: boom, just like that.

But Burnett struggled when he came back out for the seventh, as Mathis singled and Aybar walked. Girardi then turned to Damaso “Gulp” Marte, who fielded a bunt and then got Abreu to ground out, but a run scored in the process. Next in was Phil Hughes, who walked Torii Hunter and then gave up singles to Guerrero and Morales. The Angels were back on top, 7-6. Mariano Rivera cleaned up Joba Chamberlain’s mess in the eighth, but although the Yankees came tantalizingly close to a two-out, ninth-inning rally (following a second intentional walk to A-Rod), they fell just short.

I’m sure people will spend much of the off-day arguing over who to blame, and that is the fan’s prerogative. But to me, while there were certainly plenty of managerial moves you could disagree with, the basic truth is that when AJ Burnett and Phil Hughes allow 7 runs to score on the road, that’s gonna be a tough game to win.

The Yankees are still up three games to two in the series, and they’re heading home to the Bronx – where, ridiculously priced half-empty oligarch seats aside, at least the fans don’t need any ThunderStix to make some noise – and so all is far from lost. With the NLCS already over, Game 6 has been moved from 4 PM Saturday afternoon to 8 at night. Andy Pettitte will be on the mound for the Yankees, and I will be at a dinner party, trying to decide exactly how rude I’m willing to be in order to check the score during the meal.

In some ways, and all the most important ones, this game went according to plan: C.C. Sabathia dominated, because he eats three-day rests for breakfast; A-Rod bashed the hell out of the ball again; and this time his teammates even decided to join him. The Yankees won emphatically, 10-1, and are now up three games to one in the ALCS.

In other ways, though, it was a bit of a mess; as I wrote earlier, if this game were an interwar German Expressionist film, it would be “The 1,000 Mental Errors of Dr. Mabuse”. Yankees and umpires alike made some baffling decisions this evening, though in the end the New York boomsticks made them pretty much irrelevant.

Sabathia started out strong, and got stronger. He went eight innings on only 101 pitches, allowed one run, struck out five and walked two. He was still touching 96 mph on FOX’s radar gun when Girardi pulled him and and, with a then-six-run lead, let Chad Gaudin (the bullpen’s Lonely Man) finish the game. It’s really impossible to overstate just how terrific Sabathia has been this October, and how valuable; the Yankees piled on the hits today, but even if their woes with runners in scoring position had continued, it might not have mattered.

Angels starter Scott Kazmir kept the Yankees off the board for three innings, but he looked plenty shaky in the process, with leadoff hits and walks and a metric ton of pitches thrown. (This might be some minor comfort to Mets fans after their painful season, if only it had been another team doing the damage). Finally, in the fourth, the rains came: A-Rod singled, moved to third on a Posada double, and scored with a close play at the plate on Cano’s fielder’s choice; then Nick Swisher walked to load the bases, and with the Yankees on an 0-for-26 skid with RISP, Melky Cabrera knocked a refreshing two-RBI single into left-field to put the Yanks up 3-zip.

The fourth inning also brought us the first of many blown calls, when Nick Swisher was caught too far off second base and tagged out by a foot, but was nonetheless called safe. Third base ump Tim McClelland then evened the blown-call score by calling Swisher out for supposedly tagging up from third too soon on Johnny Damon’s fly ball… even though replays showed he did not. (If a runner is wrongly called out when he should have been out on a previous play anyway, does it make a sound?) These shenanigans were only prelude to an incredibly odd series of events in the fifth, wherein both Robinson Cano and Jorge Posada were tagged out at third base during the same play, but only Posada was called out, and I’d like to explain it in more detail but frankly it still makes my head hurt, so just watch for yourself.

Anyway, before the ump oddness, the Yankees tacked on two more runs in the fifth with a Mark Teixeira single (nice, but his only hit of the night, so it’s too soon to say if he’s out of his slump) and then… you’ll never guess… yes, an Alex Rodriguez home run. Seriously. Another one. He is now slugging 1.000 in the ALCS, which is just stupid. In the bottom of that inning, Sabathia faced his only major threat of the night – a Kendry Morales solo shot and two singles – but he recovered and pretty much cruised from there on out. Three postseason starts, three earned runs.

The later innings were pretty low-stress for a change – and a good thing too, as Yankee fans have been, let’s just say, a mite on edge these last few days. Johnny Damon hit a two-run shot, Melky knocked in another couple of runs, and there were no terrifying extra-inning contortions to endure. This is the Angels we’re talking about, so I will not be lulled into a false sense of security, but I’m glad my stomach lining got a chance to recover before Thurday’s Game 5. Enjoy the off-day, Banterers.

I knew it. I knew Carl Pavano was going to pitch like that!

In the end it didn’t matter, though  – “it’s okay,” a friend told me afterwards, “that man can’t hurt you any more” – because although Pavano was great tonight, Andy Pettitte was just a bit better; and while the usually great Joe Nathan faltered, the Yankees’ bullpen held the line. So it was a 4-1 win for New York tonight, and the Yanks are headed to the ALCS for the first time since 2004. Of course that’s nothing in the scheme of things, not compared to how long other teams have been waiting, but I’m still thrilled to have really engaging baseball going for at least a little while longer, as it gets colder and darker outside.

Pavano had absolutely everything working tonight, throwing strikes with movement, and provoking some terrible-looking at-bats from the Yankees – there were awkward swings and misses left and right. In the third inning Melky Cabrera removed the specter of a no-hitter with a dinky little infield hit that, had they been playing on real grass, probably would’ve been an out; it was not deeply encouraging. Hideki Matsui’s fifth-inning single and Derek Jeter’s sixth-inning double were more like it, but went nowhere.

Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte was putting on a retro-chic performance. Pettitte has pitched the equivalent of a full healthy season in postseason games, a phantom 16th season; he’s had some bad starts along the way, mixed in with the good, but it’s still deeply reassuring to see him out there – brim pulled low, shadowed eyes staring in over the glove, almost indistinguishable in that pose from the 1996 version. He was perfect through four innings, and very good thereafter.

Still, the Twins scored first, as they did in the first two games of the series, and of course it was Joe Mauer who drove in their lone run, singling home Denard Span in the sixth inning with two outs. But Pettitte recovered to strike out Michael Cuddyer, and the Yankees wasted no time in getting him a lead.

I’m not sure whether Pavano started to tire in the seventh, or whether the Yankees just started seeing his pitches better the third time through the lineup. Either way, first Alex Rodriguez – by now the clear MVP of the series – hit a solid home run to right field to tie the score; one batter later, Jorge Posada added another solo shot. In the space of a couple minutes the Yankees had gone ahead by a run, and despite his excellent performance, that was enough stick Pavano with the L.

Joba Chamberlain took over for Pettitte with one out in the seventh, and got the job done. Phil Hughes then came on for the eighth and did the same, though he had a slightly stickier time. He was greeted by a Nick Punto double, and the Denard Span single that followed could have been the start of a bigger jam – but luckily for the Yankees Punto was not paying attention to his third base coach. He ran well past the bag thinking Span’s hit had reached the outfield, realized his mistake, screeched to a halt and lunged back towards the base; but by then Jeter had corralled the ball (a play I’m not sure he makes last year), spotted Punto, and thrown home to Jorge Posada, who threw to A-Rod, who tagged Punto out at third. An odd play, and a credit to the Yankee infielders, but one made possible by more sloppy baserunning from Minnesota.

I felt bad for Punto; he does hustle like crazy, every time I’ve seen him play, and it’s not his fault that people are always overpraising him as gritty and scrappy.  This was out of character, and he spent the rest of the game looking stricken. But so it goes. Hughes got Orlando Cabrera to fly out, but with Joe Mauer coming up as the go-ahead run, Joe Girardi did the only sane thing: went out to the mound and signaled for Mariano Rivera. (Had this same situation arisen in the seventh inning, I don’t like to think about what might have happened).

Mariano Rivera vs Joe Mauer: best hitter in the league against the best pitcher, and if you can’t get excited about that then I don’t know what to tell you. Mauer’s had an excellent Division Series, providing the lion’s share of the Twins’ offense, and when he wins his MVP it will be thoroughly well deserved. But the result of his last plate appearance tonight was almost anticlimactic, the quintessential Rivera outcome: Mauer’s bat snapped in half just above the handle, and he grounded out to first.

The Yankees tacked on a pair of runs in the top of the ninth, loading the bases as Twins pitchers walked Teixeira, A-Rod, and Matsui in succession, and Joe Nathan then allowed singles to Posada and Cano. Rivera took care of the bottom of the ninth with fairly minimal drama, because that’s what he does, and my god will New York fans miss him when he’s gone, but let’s not think about that right now.

I like the Twins – I like Bert Blyleven, Gardenhire, Mauer, Morneau, Span (natch), Carlos Gomez, Joe Nathan, Pat Neshek, even Little Nicky Punto as the great Batgirl used to call him. And I like their fans, who mostly seem to manage being passionate without being dicks. This series was closer than the 3-0 sweep would suggest, and had they beaten the Yankees I would’ve pulled for them the rest of the way.

I do not feel this way about the Yankees’ next opponent.

Commence worrying about the Angels in 5… 4… 3… 2…

I think you have to give Twins’ starter Brian Duensing some credit – he didn’t do too badly for a rookie tossed into the lion’s den. I mean, yes, he did get eaten by the lions, but he put up a respectable fight, as did the presumably exhausted Twins. The postseason, as we all know, doesn’t often go exactly according to plan, but events last night unfolded more or less the way the Yankees drew them up, and they eased into a 7-2 win.

Things started off a little disconcertingly, as Denard Span opened the first inning with a double off CC Sabathia (you can’t keep a good Span down). Sabathia got out of that inning, striking out Joe Mauer in the process – despite a passed ball – but couldn’t wiggle out of a jam in the third without some damage. There was a single, a double play, a single, a double, another single, and then another miscommunication with Jorge Posada, before Sabathia struck out Jason Kubel for the third out, leaving the Twins up 2-0. (After the game Posada said the first incident was his mistake, and the second was Sabathia’s, but that doesn’t explain Jorge’s rather casual approach to tracking down the second passed ball, which resulted in Joe Mauer scoring the Twins’ second run).

So things were a mite tense when, in the bottom of the third, Derek Jeter came to the plate, and dispersed the gathering unease with a two-run homer to tie the game. It was not a very Jeterish hit – how often does he blast one to left field? – but on the other hand, given the timing and circumstances, it was a very Jeterish hit. One inning later, Nick Swisher doubled in Robinson Cano, and the Yankees took the lead for good; they added to it in the fifth with Alex Rodriguez’s two-out RBI single (yep), followed by a big two-run Hideki Matsui blast. Just for good measure, A-Rod added a second two-out RBI single in the seventh, and let’s all hope this marks the beginning of the end of that particular subplot.

Sabathia left after six and two thirds innings with eight strikeouts and nary a walk, and though he did have two runners on base when he left, Phil Hughes took care of that by striking out our old pal Orlando Cabrera after a long, tough at-bat that somehow felt very personal. Funny how that happens once in a while, in a big spot in a big game, if an at-bat goes long enough. (Paul O’Neill used to be the master of that kind of plate appearance, but then, Paul O’Neill took everything personally).

Anyway, with the luxury of a five-run lead and an off-day tomorrow, Girardi rotated through he best relievers, getting everyone a little work. Hughes, Phil Coke, and prodigal reliever Joba Chamberlain each took care of one out in the eighth, and Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth. He allowed two baserunners, but the tension was out of the game by that point, and eventually nature took its course.

I imagine both teams will sleep very well tonight, though for different reasons.

Finally, Jay-Z was in the house tonight, sitting next to Kate Hudson. I thought it was fitting since, if the Yanks go anywhere this postseason, “Empire State of Mind” is already shaping up to be the anthem – it’s Jeter’s at-bat song, a current hit, and a popular pick for Yankee montages. It’s far from Jay-Z’s best, but I kinda like it despite myself.

I’m a sucker for songs about New York, always have been. If was picking one for this series, though, I’d probably go with this one.

Finally, I need your help with a very important issue: the Chip Caray/TBS Drinking Game. Thoughts, suggestions? Let get this thing hammered out by Friday.

With one 4-2 win this afternoon, the Yankees clinched their division, wrapped up home field advantage, swept the Red Sox at home, and did their part for the struggling champagne industry. Good thing it stopped raining.

Andy Pettitte was on on the mound today and had one of those now-familiar starts wherein he doesn’t seem to have particularly good stuff or control, but still pitches resourcefully enough to keep things in hand. With the Sox putting together a double, two walks and a single in the first (including a comebacker off Pettitte’s leg), and loading the bases with no one out in the third, it’s impressive that Boston only scored one run in each of those innings. Pettitte righted himself and bore down after that, throwing very well in his last few innings, and leaving after six innings with the Yankees trailing the Sox 2-1.

Meanwhile, I don’t know how Paul Byrd does it – repeatedly over the last few years he’s completely baffled the Yankees’ hitters, despite the undeniable fact that he’s Paul Byrd. On a typical day Paul Byrd couldn’t baffle my labrador retriever. But he did it again this afternoon, shutting out the Yanks for five and two thirds, except for one Melky Cabrera laser shot into the right field stands. But in the sixth, Teixeira and A-Rod managed two-out singles off him, and when Terry Francona brought in Takashi Saito, the Yankees broke through: Hideki Matsui knocked in both runners with a little dunker into right field to make it 3-2. Later in the game, Teixeira’s homer provided a little bit more insurance.

In other encouraging news, Brian Bruney looked great today, locking down five outs in the seventh and eighth. This really hasn’t been Bruney’s year, and I can’t say I have much confidence when he trots out to the mound, to put it diplomatically – but when he’s right, Bruney can be very very good, and if he somehow does get things figured out in time for the playoffs, well, that’d be a hell of a bullpen.

Mariano pitched the ninth, and things did not go entirely smoothly, but eventually he fielded a little grounder to the mound and threw to Teixeira for the much-anticipated last out. Everyone started high-fiving, and hugging — and I can report that in addition to his other good qualities Andy Pettitte seems to be a really excellent hugger, warm and confident and full-bodied, not one of those stiff back-patter types — and breaking out the Division Champion hats and shirts, and then spraying booze all over each other.

I’m always a sucker for a champagne celebration, and this one was fun to watch, but not quite all-out – because the Yankees want to keep the focus on their playoff goals, and maybe also because winning the division has been nearly a foregone conclusion for weeks now. I think every single player interviewed followed the script: this is great, BUT… we’ve got a great team, BUT… well, we’re really happy we met the first of our goals.

And that makes sense – for the Yankees, it’s not really an honor just to be nominated. Everyone expects more from them, so why go nuts? But personally, particularly after last year reminded me just how much it sucks when neither the Yankees or Mets get to the postseason, I’m happy just to have October baseball in New York – yes, even if that only means watching the Yankees get swept by the Tigers in the ALDS. I was entertained all the way through the season this year, and maybe that’s not all I ask, but it’s all I need.

So of course I knew things had been bad with the Angels, but I didn’t realize that the Yankees had not won a series in Anaheim since May of 2004. Judging from the hilarious “Yikes, really?” look on Joe Girardi’s face when Kim Jones asked him about this after the game, neither did he. But that streak ended today, and if the Yankees showed last night that they can win at Angel Stadium, today’s 3-2 squeaker showed that they can even do it with Damon, Swisher, A-Rod and Posada tied behind their backs. (Although I would prefer not to see them try it again, okay? Thanks!)

More important than the outcome of today’s game was A.J. Burnett’s solid start. True, he only went five and two thirds innings, but that was largely because it was 95 degrees today in Anaheim and Girardi, as he explained afterwards, wanted to err on the side of caution. Burnett allowed seven hits and three walks,  more than would be ideal, but he also had 11 strikeouts and just two earned runs. Not bad, and for my money far more impressive than his last start against Seattle, because the Angels are an excellent offensive team whereas most of the Mariners could not hit water if they fell out of a canoe.

Scott Kazmir started for the Angels, but since Al Leiter wasn’t in the booth today, Michael Kay was unable to ask him for the 73rd time about that rumor that the Mets traded Kazmir because he switched Leiter’s music in the gym one day without asking. With Swisher and Posada recovering from yesterday’s foul-ball bruises and Damon and A-Rod resting, the Yankees’ lineup was not exactly at its most ferocious; things got even rougher when Jerry Hairston Jr left the game with a wrist injury, resulting in a batting order that included Jose Molina, Shelley Duncan, and Ramiro Pena, along with both Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner. Nevertheless they scraped three runs together – two on Robinson Cano’s lovely single in the fourth, another when Cano scored on Cabrera’s  subsequent double – and then hung on for dear life.

After Marte, Albaladejo and Coke had all flirted with disaster, Ian Kennedy got the call in the eighth inning, which was a nice moment on a purely human level. Baseball-wise it was a little strange, but I suppose the team needs to find out soon if Kennedy can help them in tense postseason situations or not, and this was probably as good a time as any to find out. Although since Kennedy first hit a batter and walked the bases loaded, then worked his way out of trouble for a scoreless inning, I’m still not sure what the answer is. Nature took its course in the ninth  as Mariano Rivera came in and worked his 42nd (nice) save of the year.

The Yankees are off tomorrow and hopefully will get some rest before this weekend’s series, the season’s last against the Red Sox — or is it? Dun dun dun. Friday night Joba Chamberlain faces Jon Lester, and I’m sure that will go absolutely swimmingly… now please excuse me a moment while I wipe the dripping sarcasm off my keyboard.

Finally, for those of you who are into this sort of thing, I just joined Twitter. My “followers” so far include Cliff, Diane, and about 17 porn spambots, so feel free to join the party.

Sometimes you can tell right away that you’re going to like a movie. I had that experience Friday night when I saw Fat City at the Film Forum with Alex (who posted his thoughts here and a few more here). It starts with an atmospheric Kris Kristofferson song – “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” which I downloaded about 30 seconds after getting home – and on-location establishing shots of dingy Stockton, California, then finds its central figure, played by a rough around the edges Stacy Keach, waking up in a bare flophouse room in his underwear. There follows a long, entirely visual sequence in which he grabs a cigarette, checks for matches, searches for them in his pants pocket, coat pocket, and on the end table, gets dressed and goes outside, looks around blinking in the sunlight for a few seconds, throws his unsmoked cigarette down and goes back to his room. I’m not sure if that scene would play as funny on every viewing, but that night in that particular theater it did, and by the end of the sequence I was sold.

I went in with pretty high hopes, too, because the movie was directed by John Huston, but as it turns out a lot of the Huston movies I’d seen and loved don’t have much in common with Fat City – the stylized awesomeness of Maltese Falcon or the fun camp of Key Largo or even Treasure of the Sierra Madre, although the underlying worldview of that last one is probably not all that different. Fat City is in the gritty*, naturalistic vein of a lot of 70s cinema, with a loose plot but a very specific setting and characters. Stacy Keach plays Billy Tully, a 29-year-old itinerant semi-ex-boxer on his way from low to lower, and a ridiculously young Jeff Bridges is Ernie Munger, just starting out in the ring and headed nowhere that great.

While hardly a cheery flick, it was not so slit-your-wrists grim as I’d been expecting from a movie that’s usually summed up as “70s boxing flick about losers and drunks,” and lot of that is thanks to Nicholas Colasanto (aka Raging Bull’s Tommy “He ain’t pretty no more” Como) as the boxers’ small-time manager, and Art Aragon as his assistant and foil. It’s all in the delivery with those two, and they’re pitch-perfect, often very funny and 100% believable – Aragon was a professional boxer in the ’40s and ’50s, and I was actually surprised to learn that Colasanto never was.

Fat City is not a movie with a particularly high opinion of women, but then, as Alex pointed out afterwards, it’s not a movie with a particularly high opinion of anyone. Susan Tyrrell was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Tully’s dumb, shrill, alcoholic pseudo-love interest, and although she’s completely convincing in the role the character is so irritating as to be almost unwatchable. On the other hand it’s hard to argue that Tully, who finds a way to make bad luck worse four times out of five, really deserves much more.

What I liked most about Fat City was its subtlety – so few movies trust their audience to that extent. I kept waiting for something melodramatic to happen: Tully hits the woman, or her ex gets out of jail and tries to kill him, or a boxer is killed in the ring, or the characters scream at each other about their feelings… well, non-spoiler alert, nothing like that happens. There’s plenty going on in a given scene, but Huston never feels obligated to spell it out for anyone.

Finally, I realized in writing this that I actually have no idea why it’s called Fat City. But put in on your Netflix queue, and then when you watch it, lemme know what you think… or better yet see it at the Film Forum where it’s playing through October 1st. This is one of those movies that might get lost on TV and benefits from a big screen, dark room and into-it crowd.

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*Ugh, not only was that word already overused when talking about movies, but now I can’t hear it without thinking of David Eckstein. New Year’s resolution: I will stop using the word “gritty.” Right after this post.

It’s hard to write about Joba Chamberlain these days without sounding like a disappointed parent – “oh honey, you have so much potential, if you could just apply yourself…!” Today’s start was not pretty, not progress, and not encouraging – 3 innings, 6 hits, 7 earned runs, 3 walks, yipes –  and when the dust settled the Yankees lost 7-1. Chamberlain wasn’t really any better than that line would suggest, and yet, per Peter Abraham and his post-game audio, he remains remarkably tone-deaf when talking to the media. “My delivery was great,” he says. Oh was it now?

Sergio Mitre relieved Joba and threw five innings of scoreless one-hit ball, with five Ks and just one walk, so I guess his delivery must have been super-ultra-great. Meanwhile, the Yankee hitters couldn’t get anything going against an impressive Ian Snell or a potpourri of Seattle relievers, save for a brief flash of life in the sixth which was quickly snuffed out.

I was going to write something along the lines of, “I can’t believe the Yankees have a five-game division lead on September 20th, with a virtual lock on a playoff spot, and some fans are panicking!” But, come on – of course I can believe it. That said, for those of you so inclined, now would probably be a good time to start making voodoo sacrifices to ensure Andy Pettitte’s quick and full recovery.

Due to a relatively small number of tough big losses and the vagaries of human perception, the Angels have become a larger-than-life antagonist in my mind – I always expect the worst when they play the Yankees, and I have a fatalistic, forget-it-Jake-it’s-Anaheim view of facing them in the postseason, home field advantage or no. It’s not really justified, but when Howie freaking Kendrick is hitting .465 against New York you can hardly blame me.

Things didn’t go too badly for the Yankees tonight, though, and while it was touch and go at times they won 5-3. First of all, and most importantly, Joba Chamberlain was looking better tonight – not great, but much improved. He gave up one run on a solo shot by Vlad Guerrero, but that’s just going to happen sometimes; he left with four innings pitched, 67 pitches of which 41 were strikes, 2 Ks and mercifully no walks.

It was a nail-biter all the way through: the Yankees tied it at one in the third on Nick Swisher’s home run (looks like those lopsided home/away power splits are correcting themselves); the Angels regained a one-run lead with a double, bunt and ground out against Alfredo Aceves in the fifth; in the bottom of that inning, the Yankees went ahead 3-2 when Mark Teixeira tripled home Swisher and Johnny Damon. In the eighth, though, the Angels loaded the bases against Phil Hughes with nobody out, and while he wiggled out of it with only one run scoring, the game was tied at three. (Hughes later was awarded the win because, again, wins are stupid).

New York forced a little luck in the bottom of the eighth: Mark Teixeira doubled and Girardi put Brett Gardner in to pinch run for him, an unusually aggressive move for this year’s Yanks. I’m not really sure how I feel about this – I do not like watching Teixeira walk off the field early – but it paid off when Gardner stole third, and Angels catcher Mike Napoli’s throw got away from Chone Figgins, trickling into the outfield and giving the Yanks the go-ahead run. Then Alex Rodriguez, who had walked and stole third when Gardner came home, scored on Robinson Cano’s single – and for all the talk of Cano’s lousy numbers with runners in scoring position, he’s come through a number of times in the last few weeks. Anyway, after that Mariano Rivera came in and successfully navigated the ninth inning for his 40th save of the season. It was a heavily managed game on both sides, and therefore a little playoff-ish, although for my part if I never see the Angels in October again it will be too soon.

Finally, I was going to go into a whole rant about Derek Jeter’s bunting, in situations where he is much too good a hitter to be bunting – he’s been on a real tear recently and he did it again tonight. But I feel like on this blog, there’s really no need. I imagine most Banter readers have already expressed similar feelings directly to their televisions and with more pungent language than I like to use here.

Tomorrow: the Blue Jays come to town, and ace Roy Hallady takes on… ah yes… Sergio Mitre. I see.

I generally try not to make assumptions about a team’s mental state, because who knows what players are actually thinking during any given game? But I couldn’t help wondering this weekend, with a playoff spot all but sewn up and the Jeter hype finally over, if the Yankees hadn’t lost focus a bit. It would certainly be understandable.

The fourth inning of today’s game, when Johnny Damon forgot how many outs there were and nearly threw a live ball into the stands, allowing a run to score, did nothing to undermine this theory. But after that little wake-up call – and after Alex Rodriguez and Joe Girardi were both ejected for arguing balls and strikes – the Yankees got their act together, and they went on to win 13-3.  Correlation is not causation but hey, the human mind loves to impose a narrative.

CC Sabathia started off a little shaky this afternoon, and he couldn’t hold the 1-0 lead provided by Alex Rodriguez’s first inning double. But after allowing three runs in the first four innings, he settled in and kept the O’s off the board through seven. In the bottom of the fourth, Melky Cabrera’s two-run single (he whacked a slider into center with a neat little piece of 0-2 hitting) tied the game at three. The promising inning ended when Alex Rodriguez struck out looking on a pitch that, while close, was pretty clearly a bit outside on the replay. And once A-Rod got the chance to duck into the video room and confirm his suspicions, just before the bottom of the fifth, he started hectoring home plate ump Marty Foster about it from the dugout. So Foster tossed him. And then Joe Girardi hulked out.

At first I thought Girardi was just trying to get tossed to “fire up” the team, which we’ve seen him do before; sometimes it seems like he’s just going through the argumentative motions, waiting to get run. But today he looked genuinely furious – he was yelling just inches from Foster’s face, and I think it’s pretty hard to fake that scary bulging-vein thing. He was thrown out, of course, so Tony Pena and Eric Hinske took over in the dugout and at third, respectively.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, took the lead when Jeter and Damon scored on a Hideki Matsui single, and that was it for O’s starter Jeremy Guthrie. Ex-Yank Sean Henn – who per Tyler Kepner’s nice Bats post, has no idea how he even ended up on the Orioles – got Baltimore out of the inning, but subsequent relievers did not fare as well. After Phil Hughes did his thing in the eighth, the Yankee offense unloaded: Damon walked, Teixeira singled, Matsui homered – nice day for him – and things went on in that vein until New York led 13-3. This was not enough of a lead for Brian Bruney to refrain from walking two batters in the ninth, but it was enough for that not to matter.

After the game both Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez explained their outbursts by talking about how important this game was, which… it wasn’t, really. But there are still two weeks of baseball left to be played, and a 2007-Mets-style death spiral is not yet technically impossible, so I guess you would have to keep telling yourself that.

Robbie Cano drives me crazy sometimes – you guys know the deal: he rarely walks, sometimes he doesn’t exactly bust it down to first, and once in a while he falls so in love with one of his own home runs, Manny-style, that you can practically see steam coming out of the opposing pitcher’s ears. Today he didn’t cover second base for what should have been the last out of the fifth inning. But he also homered, and doubled, and singled and even walked, and then he’s got that smile. I think it’s bigger than Marco Scutaro’s entire body. How do you stay mad?

Anyway, Andy Pettitte came back to earth a bit this afternoon, and the Yankees didn’t exactly play their tightest game in the field, but it was good enough and they beat the Blue Jays 6-4. “I thought it was a real important game for us to win,” said Girardi after the game. Sure, Joe. It was a slow lazy afternoon game on the last real weekend of summer, and it didn’t really have any effect on anything except maybe Cito Gaston’s indigestion. But winning, as a wise man once said, it’s like, you know, better than losing.

The Yankees scored first, on Melky Cabrera’s RBI single in the second and then Robinson Cano’s fourth-inning homer, but the Jays promptly tied it up in the bottom of that inning. That lasted all of two pitches, as New York got out ahead again in the fifth thanks to Mark Teixeira’s solo shot,  tacked on two more in the sixth with RBI singles from A-Rod and Posada, and added one to grow on in the ninth as Melky plated Cano. Pettitte left after six, having allowed four earned-ish runs on four hits and an unfortunate five walks, but with a slim lead, and the bullpen made it hold up. Phil Hughes continues to be an aburdist work of art in relief and retired all four batters he faced with very little muss and zero fuss.

The Yankees’ division lead is now at eight and a half, and they haven’t lost three games in a row in almost two months (that was against the Angels, of course). Enjoy the long weekend, gang – and don’t forget, Monday night is Hand Sanitizer Keychain Giveaway Day at the Stadium for the first 18,000 fans 21 and older, so be sure to get to the game early! God.

I’m a bit out of the loop, since I just got back from a week in England – I apologize in advance. No cell phone or laptop, away from the internet, I completely missed all the baseball news… well, okay, I borrowed my friend’s computer a time or two during the Red Sox series, but just for a minute. So I’m still catching up on everything that happened while I was gone (did someone mention a timely bunt Tuesday night?). Ask me anything about England’s recent cricket victory over Australia, though!

The Yankees, as is their wont these days, bounced back from last night’s loss with a 9-2 win over the Texas Rangers. New York scored three in the second, then blew the game open with five more in the seventh, and every starter had at least one hit except Melky Cabrera (even he had a lovely bunt). The Yanks also got some reassuringly solid pitching after their recent rough-ish patch; Andy Pettitte went seven innings and allowed just two earned runs, with seven strikeouts and three walks.

Rangers starter Derek Holland actually pitched pretty well for someone who was charged with six earned runs, but he paid for just about all of his mistakes. The Yanks’ big blows were Jorge Posada’s three-run homer in the second, Jerry Hairston Jr.’s solo shot in the fourth, and the seventh-inning onslaught that began with a poor defensive play and a Robinson Cano double, and ended some time later with a Mark Teixeira single off of Jason Jennings. Brian Bruney’s eighth inning outing was good enough under the circumstances, and Phil Coke tied the bow around the night.

I found myself thinking today, reading about Oliver Perez’s season-ending trip to the DL, that I need to start writing more about the Mets, because their season has been so fascinating (in a horrific way, but still), while the Yankees right now are extremely pleasant to watch but just don’t give you a ton of juicy material. Don’t worry – as soon as the thought flickered across my brain I spat three times and knocked on all the wood in my apartment.

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Side Note: I had always previously assumed that cricket was at least somewhat related to baseball – since, after all, it involves a pitcher and a batter and fielders – and that I would therefore be able to follow it a little bit, even just vaguely. This turns out not to be the case at all. For example, this is what the scoreboard looked like at last Thursday’s club game at Lords:

The six in “308 for 6” refers to six wickets, in case you were wondering – I sure was. It took three or four different British friends and acquaintances explaining the rules to me before I began to get the idea, and I’m still fuzzy on a number of details. Also, the big England vs Australia game was a “test match”, which usually last five days, although this one only went four; can you imagine watching five straight days, nearly eight hours per day, of one Red Sox-Yankees game? Some of my favorite Banter commenters would have to be hospitalized.

For a while there tonight’s game had all the makings of another long extra-innings affair. But Mark Teixeira’s no-doubt homer broke a 2-2 tie in the ninth inning, Mariano Rivera laughed in the face of shoulder soreness, and the Yankees beat Seattle 4-2.

I was thinking tonight about how much I’m going to miss Andy Pettitte, whenever he decides to retire. He’s rarely been the best pitcher on staff at any given time, good rather than great most years, but he’s blissfully no-nonsense – and at this point in his career, he’s one of the best at fighting through on nights when he “doesn’t have his good stuff”. With Pettitte you always know that if he’s going down, he’s going down swinging (so to speak… not in the literal Robinson Cano sense).

Pettitte gave up two runs in the first inning, two singles and a double and an RBI ground out in quick succession. But he pushed through, adjusted just enough, and clawed his way through six innings without any more damage – in fact he struck out 10, a season high, though that’s probably more a reflection on Seattle’s hitters. After Pettitte left the game Brian Bruney, Phil Hughes and  a seemingly just fine Rivera pitched a scoreless inning each.

The Mariners’ Ryan Rowland-Smith, whose name evokes a discreet John Le Carré character more than a pitcher, matched Pettitte all the way. The Yankees could only eke out two runs against him, in the second inning when Jorge Posada doubled and scored on a Jerry Hairston Jr. grounder, and in the fifth when Derek Jeter singled in Melky Cabrera (a hit that appeared to be not so much seeing-eye as sonar-equipped). After that things stayed even until Teixeira connected in the ninth, and Nick Swisher knocked in Cano for a nice fluffy insurance run.

The Yanks are 30 games over .500 now and on one of those lovely little rolls where nearly everything goes right. It won’t last forever, but maybe through tomorrow? Mitre! French! Saturday at 10:10 PM Bronx time.

Things are looking up. Like A.J. Burnett last night, C.C. Sabathia could hardly have been better this evening – good thing too after what the bullpen just went through – and the Yankees beat the Red Sox 5-0, though most of the game was much closer. New York has taken the first three games of the series, and now have a 5.5-game lead in the AL East. Feels like old times.

Sabathia pitched 7.2 shutout innings, allowed just two walks and two hits, and struck out nine. In fact he took a perfect game into the fifth inning, and a no-hitter into the sixth, and the way he was throwing I wouldn’t have been stunned to see him pull it off. Sox starter Clay Buchholz was pretty good himself, giving up two runs in six innings, but with Sabathia rolling and the Red Sox hitters collectively slumping, that was two runs too much.

New York scored their first run in the third, when Mark Teixeira singled home Melky Cabrera. They scored one more in the sixth, when Robinson Cano scored on a Jose Molina sac fly, and another in the seventh when Nick Swisher walked with the bases loaded, though they then left the bases loaded. Finally, in the eighth, Derek Jeter hit a real New Stadium Special about 314.5 feet to right field for a two-run homer, which meant Dave Robertson could close out the game instead of Rivera (though not without enough drama to get Mo warming up). According to Joe Buck during today’s game, the Yankees are 45-1 when leading after six innings – more impressive than I would have guessed.

There was a little drama in the seventh inning when Ramon Ramirez threw one uncomfortably up and in to Mark Teixeira, then hit A-Rod in the elbow. He was immediately ejected and that was the end of it, at least for today; afterwards Joe Girardi, while careful with his words, seemed to think it was payback for Pedroia getting hit the other night. I’m sure some fans will be ticked off because the Yankees didn’t retaliate, but that seems like the right move to me – they’re cruising now, so why risk firing up the Red Sox and getting someone on either team hurt? I say a 6.5-game division lead would be the best revenge.

Tim McCarver WTF? Quote of the Game: “There’s a difference between playing with fire, and playing with fire in your eyes.”

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Side note: I was at the Stadium for last night’s ridiculous 15-inning epic. I’ve never seen such a wrung-out crowd; by the thirteenth or so everyone was punch drunk and could barely muster the energy to boo Kevin Youkilis. It was both awesome and agonizing since, for a number of reasons, I really needed to get home on the early side last night. The best laid plans.

I kept saying: Okay, if they don’t score this inning I’m leaving. Hmmm. Okay, if they don’t score this inning… but of course I couldn’t do it. How would I ever have lived with myself? I think I got A-Rod’s homer out of the park by sheer force of will, and by the time I staggered off the subway in Brooklyn it was almost 2:30 in the morning, but I have no regrets. That was my first real classic at the new Stadium (though the Yankees are now 3-0 when I’m there) and since we’re all stuck with the place, I’m glad I’m starting to build up some good memories there – because that’s what will eventually, years from now, make it feel like home.

Aside from the obvious reasons, long rain delays bug me because they put too much pressure on the game when it finally comes. If it’s an ugly one it’s hard to not think, “I waited around that whole time for this?” For a few innings it looked like tonight was going to be One of Those Games, but instead it turned into a more or less textbook win: seven innings from CC Sabathia, a few big hits from Mark Teixeira and Jorge Posada, and a save(!) from Phil Hughes led to a 6-3 Yankees win.

Sabathia wasn’t looking sharp in the first few innings — after hours of Nintendo during the rain delay — and Oakland A’s starter Vin Mazzaro was, leading to a 3-zip Oakland lead. But Sabathia recovered after relatively little carnage, and once the Yankee hitters had gotten a decent look at Mazzaro, they started to do some damage.

In the fourth, Mark Teixeira took a rare swing on a 3-0 count and hit a no-nonsense home run into the second deck. A few batters later Posada doubled home Alex Rodriguez, who’s looking downright spry on the basepaths these days, and then scored himself on an Eric Hinske single. The next inning was a variation on the theme, as Teixeira got himself a double and another RBI, and Johnny Damon scored on a Posada single to make it 6-3.

Craig Breslow relieved Mazzaro and, with apologies to my fellow Yankee fans, I was very psyched to see him pitch 1.2 scoreless innings (he was a year ahead of me at college). I didn’t have to feel conflicted about rooting for him, either, as the Yankees already had all the runs they’d need: Sabathia had found his rhythm by then, and he turned the lead straight over to Phil Hughes, who continues to pitch first and ask questions later.

A couple of stray thoughts:

-Could Mark Teixeira’s transition to New York have gone any smoother? He did have an awful first month, but he got going before people really lost patience; even in New York there’s a bit of a grace period. Ever since then he’s been somewhere between solid and excellent, and wowed the Giambi-battered crowd with his defense. And there hasn’t been so much as a whiff of a mini-controversy, not even something small and silly that, taken out of context, makes for a good misleading headline. I complain about the guy being a dull interview, and he usually is – by design, I’m sure, like Jeter – but he’s really handled everything remarkably well. It already feels like he’s been here forever.

-Finally, I kind of love that Nomar Garciaparra got booed. Sure, it’s silly – he hasn’t played for the Sox in five years, and has been too injury-riddled for most of that time to make a big impact anyway. But this wasn’t vicious, angry booing, it was more ritualistic. Of course you boo Nomar Garciaparra. It’s tradition! Heck, his feelings would probably be hurt if no one bothered.

Maybe I should be wondering where the usually stellar Yankee offense has been the last few days, but I think instead I’ll just enjoy the relief that comes whenever the new Stadium hosts tight, low-scoring games. The Yankees beat the Orioles 2-1 tonight, thanks to an old-school performance from Andy Pettitte and some pretty defense and, okay, yes, two home runs to right.

It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write that Andy Pettitte pitched really well – not “didn’t have his best stuff but kept them in the game” or “made a few big mistakes but was able to limit the damage,” but was just plain good. He was tonight, though, pitching into the eighth inning with six strikeouts and two walks; he allowed six hits but also induced two double plays. Run-wise he allowed a first-inning home run to Nick Markakis and that was all.

Meanwhile Orioles rookie David Hernandez, after a tiring and rocky beginning, soon got into a groove of his own. The Yankees scored in the second on an Eric “All or Nothing” Hinske solo shot that tied the game (Hinske’s fourth of the season for New York, out of five total hits), but he was the last Yank to cross home plate for quite a while.

So it was a good thing that the Yankees helped themselves on defense tonight, making a few really excellent/lucky plays. Robinson Cano apparently deked out poor Cesar Izturis not once but twice, and also saved the day when a grounder bounced off the heel of Mark Teixeira’s glove, snatching it out of midair and tossing to Pettitte just ahead of the runner (“the old 3-4-1…”).

The most impressive fielding came in the eighth, though, after Pettitte left the game in Phil Coke’s hands with two runners on and one out. First Nick Markakis hit a shrill liner to Teixeira, who fired it back to Molina, who managed to tag out the runner at the plate – a lightning-fast play all around. I wasn’t expecting it and I doubt the runner, poor Cesar Izturis, was either (it was just not his game). Then Brian Roberts tried to score on a wild pitch, but Molina, moving faster than a Molina is built to move, got the ball back to Phil Coke in time for him to awkwardly lunge and tag out Brian Roberts, who missed the plate – saving the run and ending the inning.

With one out in the bottom of the ninth, Hideki Matsui, who has been largely overshadowed this season, apparently decided he wanted a little more attention and whacked a 2-2 Jim Johnson fastball into the right field bleachers. This was no New Stadium cheapie either, but a big no-doubt blast. Cue the helmet-tossing and the jumping around and the grinning and the whipped-cream pie.

The Red Sox lost tonight, and so the Yankees are now clutching their very own piece of first place. Tomorrow Sergio Mitre will try to defend it… and I was going to make a couple cracks about that because, well, you know. But Cliff seems to think that he might not actually be so bad, and Cliff is usually right, so I’ll hold off on the Mitre-mocking.

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When Worlds Collide: the most recent headline on my FiveThirtyEight.com RSS feed reads: “Teixeira Says Culture Wars Ending, GOP Needs New Playbook.” I don’t know what initially confused me more, the idea that Mark Teixeiria of all people would suddenly start talking political strategy, or that FiveThirtyEight would quote him as an authority. Of course it turns out the post is actually referring to a demographics expert named Ruy Teixeira, but that was sure a baffling ten seconds.

The Yankees have been off since Sunday, and tonight was A.J. Burnett’s first start since July 8th. Perhaps as a result it was a little reminiscent of the Tin Man’s first scene in The Wizard of Oz (“He said ‘oil can’!”)*. Given that his stuff was a bit on the fuzzy side, and that he allowed six hits and five walks while striking out just one batter, it’s some combination of impressive and lucky that he got through six innings and kept the Yankees right in the game. New York started off the second half of the season with another comeback win and beat the Tigers 5-3.

Lucas French tossed a nice five innings for Detroit and held the Yankees to just one earned run – Hideki Matsui’s RBI single in the first, which tied the game at 1-1. But the Tigers kept chipping away at Burnett. New York added another run in the fifth, when Johnny Damon scored after a Mark Teixeira single and an error by left fielder Josh Anderson, but they still trailed 3-2.

It wasn’t until the seventh inning that the Bombers broke through, off of Joel Zumaya (a player whose career I’ve followed with interest, not only because he’s fun to watch but because he suffered one of the oddest injuries in baseball history… I mean, injuries are not generally funny, of course, but come on). As rain started to come down hard, Jeter singled with one of those classic inside-out swings of his, and Damon doubled. Then Teixeira, with his third big hit of the night, took a remarkably graceful swing at a 99 mph 3-1 fastball and knocked it into the second deck in right field.

That gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead, and that’s how things would stay, as Phil Hughes was decidedly un–rusty. He pitched two full innings, and though he allowed three hits he also struck out six Tigers – and reached 97 mph (on the YES radar gun, anyway) for the first time anyone can remember.

Mariano Rivera came in to pitch the ninth and it went pretty much like you’d expect.

Boston won, too, so the Yankees remain three games out of first, but they’ve also got a 3.5-game lead over Texas and Tampa Bay for the Wild Card. More importantly, regular baseball is back. Whose idea was it to schedule an off-day right after the All-Star break, anyway? The person or persons responsible should be led to a basement room and forced to listen to a loop of Chris Berman’s Home Run Derby calls until they’re prepared to offer a heartfelt apology.

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*Please note that I am in no way trying to imply that the tinsmith forgot to give Burnett a heart.