Yanks host the Mets against tonight in the Bronx.

Never mind the preamble:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Image from We Love Typeography]

Well, not entirely clear blue skies but the sun is out and what a sight for sore eyes.

I’m taking the wife for a picnic.

Back for more angst tonight.

[Photo Credit Lariverola by four.one.five]

Kick the Bobo:

D-Day…

The Mets hospital ward team came into Yankee Stadium Friday night missing starting third baseman David Wright, center fielder Angel Pagan, first baseman Ike Davis and staff ace Johan Santana. Since the beginning of the 2010 season, the anticipated heart of the lineup (Beltran, Wright and Jason Bay) have been active at the same time for a total of 27 games. Their starting infield tonight: Daniel Murphy (1B), Ruben Tejada (2B), Jose Reyes (SS) and Justin Turner (3B). Not quite the ’77 Dodgers. Despite this, and a 5-13 start to the season, new manager Terry Collins had them at 21-22, five games behind the first place Phillies.

R.A. Dickey, the Mets knuckleballing starter, had been cuffed around for most of the early season (1-5, 5.08 ERA).  The Yanks countered with Freddy Garcia, who was probably salivating over the depleted opposition, given the way the Red Sox treated him in his last start (5 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, 2 HR, 5 ER).

Unfortunately for Garcia, Dickey had an ally on this night, namely the Yankees continued inability to get a clutch hit.  Going into the evening, the Bombers were 9th in the AL in batting average with 2 out and runners in scoring position (.219).  The worst offender, Nick Swisher, finally got his first hit in 20 tries Thursday night in Baltimore.  He couldn’t offer a repeat performance.

Alex Rodriguez doubled to right-center to start the bottom of the 2nd.  Robbie Cano struck out and Russell Martin grounded out.  Jorge Posada worked a walk and Swisher was plunked on the knee by a 68-mph flutterball to load the bases.  Alas, Brett Gardner hit a two hopper to Turner for a force at third to end the threat.

Mark Teixeira cracked his 11th homer of 2011 with two out in the third for the game’s first run . . . a wall-scraper that landed in the first row of the right field seats just over Beltran’s outstretched glove.  The Mets got the run back in the fourth on a two-out double by DH Fernando Martinez and a double down the right field line by Turner (one of his three hits on the night).

The Yanks had chances to retake the lead over the next two innings.  Swisher came up with two outs and Martin on second in the fourth and struck out.   Gardner and Derek Jeter reached safely to start the fifth, but Curtis Granderson flew to right, Teixeira was caught looking and Rodriguez grounded to short.

The Mets reclaimed the lead in their half of the sixth on a leadoff homer by Daniel Murphy inside the right field foul pole.  Garcia subsequently walked Beltran and two outs later Turner dunked a ground rule double in front of a diving Swisher (fortunate for the Yanks as Beltran would have scored had the ball stayed in play).  Garcia wiggled out of trouble by getting Josh Thole to bounce out to Teixeira.   Dickey survived another runner in scoring position jam in the bottom of the inning, as Russell Martin’s one-out double went for naught with strikeouts of Posada and Swisher.  And that was the last threat (and baserunner) the Yanks would muster, as three Met relievers combined to strike out five of the last nine Yankee batters.

In all, the Yanks went 1-10 with runners in scoring position, and wasted a good bounceback effort by Garcia (with solid relief from David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain, each of whom allowed one single and struck out two in their respective inning of work).

Final: Mets 2, Yanks 1.

Another year, another Subway Serious.

Yawn.

That said, here’s hoping the Yanks win the series.

Cliff has the preview, and we’ll be rootin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Keep Cool but Care]

Ted and I tackle the subway serious:

[Photo Credit: Washington Post]

Perry Barber is just the coolest.  Click here to find out for yourself. Then click here for more.

And check out her lasting Yankee Stadium Memory while you are at it.

Then dig her back when:

Last weekend during the Mets-Astros broadcast, Keith Hernandez talked about breaking in a baseball glove. He used two mitts per season in his playing days which came as a surprise to me. I thought a player would hang onto a favorite glove for longer than that, but Mex talked about liking his glove to remain stiff, and I suppose that makes sense for a first baseman.

As a kid I loved the ritual of buying a new glove and breaking it in.

On that note, check out this cool article on craft of glove repair over at A Continuous Lean.

Our pal Larry Roibal’s complete Yankee drawings…

Fifty years ago, Roger Maris chased Babe Ruth’s home run record. Of course, he eventually broke it. When he did, this is what the great Leonard Shecter wrote in the New York Post:

Great events of history are over swiftly. A ball, even if it’s the first in the long and noble history of baseball to be hit for a 61st home run, takes only a few heartbeats of time to be propelled from home plate to the outfield seats.

For those who were at Yankee Stadium yestrday, some 24,000 people, it was over all too quickly. It would have been better if the ball leaped in exaltation, turned int he air and wrote a saucy message (like WHEEE!) against the blue sky, dipped nobly and shed a tear over the monument to Babe Ruth in center field.

…Maris swung his most vicious swing and the ball rose in a great arc toward right center field. In years to come millions will swear they were at the Stadium the day Maris hit the home run heard round the world but none among them will be able to say it was less than a perfect home run.

The ball was outlined sharply, whitely, against the sky as it came to the outfield. There were puffs of white clouds in the sky but it was as though they parted to let the ball fly by. It landed perhaps six rows back, about seven seats and a narrow aisle to the right of the bullpen, well to the left of the 344 foot marker. A home run in Babe Ruth’s day, too.

“I was up there wheeling,” Maris said after he had paid his homage to the commercial gods of television. He was calm, in control, the way the President is probably, when he strides into a huge room to face 800 reporters.

This wasn’t the same Maris who jiggled nervously for weeks waiting for the ax to fall on the 154th game. It wasn’t the same Maris who lost sleep, even tufts of his hair in the unbearable pressure cooker of the publicity as he made the run at the 154th game home run record.

It was a Maris who seemed a foot taller now that a terrible load had been taken off him, now that he had the 61 home runs, now that the season was over.

…The people got to their feet and clapped their hands as Maris ran. It wasn’t so much a cheer as it was applause, the kind you get from an audience which has been moved by a great performance.

…The applause and his teammates brought him back out of the dugout, cap off, his hair looking, in the bright day, blonder than it is. He waved his cap once, twice, tried to retreat, was pushed back by the players.

“I thought they wanted me to stay out there all day,” Maris said.

Perhaps they, who have had to get the base hits, understand best the magnitude of Maris’ accomplishment. Put it this way. It’s difficult to hit 61 home run the way it was difficult to run the four minute mile before anybody else had done. Others may now hit 61 but you have to put Roger Maris up there with Roger Bannister. It’s been a great century for Roger.

Miles and Trane.

The Yankees lineup slumps as a team and hits as a team. The slump: Wednesday night. Fourteen innings, fourteen singles, and a 1-for-14 effort with runners in scoring position was the epitome of the Yankees’ recent bout of anemia. The hits: Robinson Canó’s 2-RBI double in the 15th inning not only broke the singles brigade and the RISP issues, it was the beginning of an avalanche of offense.

Derek Jeter led off the game with a double, and Curtis Granderson followed with an RBI triple off the top of the right field wall. A productive out by Mark Teixeira had the game at 2-0 before some people realized the game had even started. Later in the inning, Brad Bergesen drilled Cano, walked Russell Martin on four pitches, threw a wild pitch and was forced to walk Jorge Posada to load the bases. Nick Swisher unloaded the bases with a double. 5-0 after a half inning. Score truck idling on Eutaw Street.

Ahead to the fourth inning, where Brett Gardner and Jeter hit back-to-back triples, and then Big Teix went yard. 9-0 and pray the rain held out. It did. The game was official. Tack-on runs in the fifth and sixth. Even Eduardo Nuñez belted a home run to cap the scoring.

The early barrage was more than enough for CC Sabathia, who was on auto-pilot from the get-go. About as economical as he gets: average of 14 pitches per inning through his 8 IP, and struck out nine. No walks. Seventy-seven percent of his pitches went for strikes.

As good as CC was, make no mistake, this game was about the offense. Up and down the lineup, it was like a huge exhalation. A channeling of several days of frustration. The Yankees did what they’re supposed to do: destroy bad pitching. And the timely hitting was there. Eight of 13 runs were scored with two outs. They went 6-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

This was the type of victory the Yankees needed. Now if they could only have this kind of effort against teams other than the Orioles…Wait, how about the Mets?

NOTES:
* Jorge Posada was in the field, at first base, and went 1-for-3 with an RBI, a run scored, and two walks. His long flyball out to center field in the eighth inning has him 0-for-25 vs. LHP this season. A great note on Posada, though, from YES Network’s Jack Curry, via Twitter: Since he asked out of the lineup Saturday, Posada has reached base in 7 of 9 plate appearances.

* Another beauty from Mr. Curry: Swisher had 4 RBI tonight. He had just 3 in his previous 17 games.

* When Sabathia was removed in favor of Amauri Sanit for the ninth inning, the Yankees extended their MLB record streak of consecutive games without a complete game to 337.

* Courtesy of Larry Koestler at YankeeAnalysts, the Yankees have never had their starting pitchers go 8 innings on consecutive nights. Sabathia and Bartolo Colon just did it.

How about some runs for C.C. tonight?

Yo Mighty Score Truck (seen here on 30th street off 6th Ave two days ago)–bring it on home.

Jorgie gets the start at first…

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira DH
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Russell Martin C
Jorge Posada 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Brett Gardner LF

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Over at SI.com, our man Cliff takes a look at the Yankees’ aging roster:

The Yankees’ success over the last two decades was largely built around a core of home grown stars in Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada, but it’s clear that the end is nigh for each of them. Williams and Pettitte are retired, Posada is 39 and batting just .179 in the last year of his contract, Jeter is hitting a career-worst .255 as he approaches his 37th birthday and Rivera, though still pitching brilliantly, is 41 years old.

The decline of those players has brought attention to the advancing age and cost of the Yankees roster, which currently boasts five players who are at least 34 and earning eight-digit salaries and two other players earning annual salaries north of $20 million signed through or beyond their 34th birthdays. Setting aside Posada, who will turn 40 in August and is in the final year of his four-year, $52.4 million deal, here is a look at the six players the Yankees have signed through their age-34 season or beyond.

[Photo Credit: Ralph Gibson via This Isn’t Happiness]

I just started a Tumblr site for the Banter. Is 50 posts in 24 hours excessive? Dudes, I’m hooked.

Bookmark the bitch and check it out on the reg for artwork and cool stuff to look at.

[Painting by me, gouache on paper, 1997]

Reggie Jackson turned 65 yesterday. He was my baseball hero as a kid. He was also Jon DeRosa’s idol. To mark the occasion of Reggie becoming a senior citizen,  figured this is as  good a time as any to share Jon’s Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory (which appeared in the book but not on-line until now).

Dig…

“The Return”

By Jon DeRosa

On January 22, 1982 Reggie Jackson signed with the California Angels. It was the latest in a series of difficult lessons for me—a six-year-old who otherwise had it pretty good. In rapid succession, Darth Vader revealed he was Luke Skywalker’s father, the Yankees crashed out of the only two baseball seasons I had ever followed, and my Grandmother passed days after my little brother was born on my 6th birthday. I was looking for a fight and George Steinbrenner and his Yankees were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I assigned Steinbrenner and Vader to the same category of evil: each had reached into my life and changed things forever. I actively rooted for the Yankees’ decline the way I rooted for the fall of the Empire. I removed my Yankee baseball cards from the binder, secured them with merciless rubber bands and tossed them in with obscure Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians and other total strangers. From that point on, I rooted for the Angels.

In 1982, for a kid in New York, that was difficult. You had to write a letter to the team, addressed to the stadium itself, requesting them to mail you an order form so that you might have the opportunity to buy something with a halo on it. My mother wrote such a letter and, by the grace of Gene Autry, was allowed to purchase a cap, a helmet, a jersey, and for some reason, Angels wristbands. I wore the whole ensemble to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday April 27th, 1982 for Reggie’s first game back in New York. My father and older brother were with me but I was scared stiff. What if he struck out? What if they booed? What if the Yankees were right?

We watched batting practice from right field in a light rain as a buzzing crowd filed in around us. Our seats were in the upper deck between first base and right field, where we munched on hot dogs. I felt grown-up whenever I was allowed to get two, but that night, my nervous stomach wasn’t accommodating. The rain made the bun on the second hot dog a little soggy.

When Reggie came to bat in the second inning, Bob Sheppard announced his name with such elegance that I imagined it was a personal statement, “I should be announcing this name every night.” This was the moment I dreaded. Would they boo? The crowd stood and chanted: REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE. Buoyed by the warmth of the welcome, I got to my feet, but my jaw was frozen shut and I couldn’t move my lips. My dad put his arm around me as Ron Guidry poured in a heater. Reggie took his massive cut, but he got jammed and popped out. I was back in my seat the instant I saw Reggie’s reaction.

The game rolled along at a pace more akin to a 100-meter dash than a modern American League baseball game—they got through seven innings in 1 hour and 51 minutes before the game was called due to rain. When Reggie batted in the fifth, the crowd rose for him again. REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE. He yanked a single to right field and was rewarded with brief applause. I was silent throughout this at bat, too, but the base hit calmed my nerves temporarily. The crowd asked; Reggie delivered. Contract complete, customers satisfied, right? Even a child should have known better. Yankee fans didn’t ask—they demanded. And they didn’t want a single; they wanted a home run.

When they greeted Reggie with his chant for the third time in the seventh, my stomach knotted, and I wished they would stop chanting. It wasn’t fanatical devotion; it was the begging of spoiled children. REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE might as well be MORE, MORE, MORE. I knew it was not fair to ask for so much. In this world I was learning about, teams lose, people die; things just don’t usually work out…

I saw Reggie’s black bat whip through the hitting zone; the ball accelerated at an improbable speed and angle at impact and assumed a trajectory that could have sent it across the street if not for the upper deck façade. As the ball sped past my face it erased all my doubts and fears and I felt a lightness rise from my gut to my head. Pure relief. I couldn’t hear anything because my mind had not yet validated this moment as reality. Then the noise just materialized in my ears: REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE, louder than the other three times combined. My brother and father jostled me from side to side as they chanted along.

I stayed quiet. How did this happen? Did I use the Force to will that ball out of the park? I couldn’t even comprehend that I just got exactly what I wanted. What were the ramifications of getting what you pray for? I should have been screaming my head off, but I just stared out at Reggie rounding the bases, making sure he touched every one and hoping he was as happy as I was.

The chanting didn’t end when Reggie reached the dugout. When he came out for his curtain call, as if they had rehearsed it prior to the game, the crowd turned toward Steinbrenner’s box and let him have it. Steinbrenner SUCKS, Steinbrenner SUCKS, Steinbrenner SUCKS! All of the emotion that had built up in my little body flowed through the crowd into the damp Stadium air. My brother and father were gleefully singing the song, rousing me to participate. But I felt bad for George and I kept silent.

Over the last few weeks, a spate of losing has sent the Yankee Universe spiraling into a state of depression. So, what better time to take a look at a statistic called WPA?

Although many new sabermetric tools can be intimidating, Win Probability Added, or WPA, is a fun stat. Basically, it tries to determine the impact of every play on the outcome of an individual game. Instead of getting too caught up in the derivation, it’s better to simply think of WPA as a metric that identifies the pivotal points that often go unnoticed in a regular box score. In a sense, it is the mathematical equivalent of the late Bill Gallo’s classic “Hero and Goat” cartoons that appeared in the New York Daily News for over 50 World Series.

Unlike most context neutral statistics, which are generally favored in the sabermetric world, WPA rewards (or punishes) a player as much for the contributions of his teammates as his own performance. It also shifts the focus from what a player does to when he does it. As a result, it’s most useful for measuring the impact of a particular play, not the value of an individual player. At the risk of opening a whole new can of worms, WPA can also be considered a measurement of clutch, provided you define the concept in terms of the event that transpired and not the person who performed it (i.e., a clutch hit doesn’t necessarily imply a clutch hitter).

Last night’s 15th inning tug-of-war between the Yankees and Orioles is the perfect game to illustrate the usefulness of WPA. As evident in the win expectancy chart below, just about every play in a close game can have a significant impact on a team’s chances of winning. However, certain moments always emerge as turning points, and that’s what WPA helps to identify.

Yankees vs. Orioles, May 18: Win Expectancy Chart (click to enlarge)

Note: Probability is for winning team (Yankees).
Source: Baseball-reference.com

By taking these game-by-game snapshots and compiling them into a cumulative total, WPA highlights the players who have most often come through in the clutch. To no surprise, Curtis Granderson has boosted the Yankees fortunes more than any other batter*. His 1.4 WPA is not only almost three times the next closest contributor, but the total is good for sixth best among all American League hitters (although less than half of Jose Bautista’s league-leading 3.0). On the other end of the spectrum, several key Yankees have underwhelmed in terms of WPA. In particular, Brett Gardner, Nick Swisher and Derek Jeter have all posted a significantly negative contribution to win probability, which helps explain why the Yankees’ offense has been sputtering for so long.

*WPA is also calculated for pitchers, but we’ll save them for another post.

Yankees WPA Scores (Offense): Cumulative and by Outcome

Note: As of May 18, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

Looking at cumulative WPA can sometimes be misleading because several smaller contributions can be overshadowed by one epic result. In order to get a better idea of who has been “coming through” on a more consistent basis, it’s often better to look at WPA scores for individual games instead of one combined total.

Brett Gardner’s and Curtis Granderson’s Daily WPA

Note: As of May 18, 2011
Source: Baseball-reference.com

As evident from the graph above, the Yankees’ leader and laggard in terms of WPA have both earned their status over the course of the entire season. Granderson’s consistent contributions to winning are noted by the dominant splashes of blue above the x-axis, while Gardner’s frequent failures at key moments are outlined in red.

Finally, returning to concept of goats and heroes, the table below lists the number of times each player has had either the highest WPA in a win or the lowest WPA in a loss. Although rudimentary in terms of analysis, these classifications usually match closely with observation and sometimes help explain why a particular player has earned a positive or negative reputation when it comes to pressure situations.

Heroes and Goats: Players with the Highest/Lowest WPA in Wins/Losses

Source: Baseball-reference.com

So, how does WPA jive with your observations?

In November 2008, not long after Mike Mussina announced his retirement, I wrote a column about the concept of “dying at the right time.” In short, dying at the right time involves deciding to leave the game, or, “die” on your own terms. I commended Mussina for having the courage and self-awareness to know that after a 20-win season, ending his career was a better option than returning for another shot at a title, at age 40, with diminished stuff.

That column was written in the context of a well-thought, fully formulated decision that likely took weeks, maybe even months, to plan. Andy Pettitte weighed it several times and took a similar path after last season.

Longtime Banterer The Hawk had some great comments on the Mussina piece, including this one:

I appreciate tenacity, competitiveness and a never-say-die spirit in athletes far more than a sense of decorum or the good taste to retire without “embarrassing” themselves. I can’t say I believe this across the board but in general I love the guys who can’t let go, who’s desire to compete wins out over pride or legacy-building.

Do you love Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada now? Sure, their desire to compete — save for Saturday’s Posada drama — is unwavering, but do you want to continue watching them turn into Benjamin Button? We want to see the youthfulness and greatness demonstrated in the first 10-12 years of their careers, but the reality is that this season they are aging rapidly. We know it. They know it. They’re holding on. Barely.

Jeter gave us a glimmer of hope with his two-home-run effort in Texas. But watching him since then, even though he’s gotten hits and his march to 3,000 is going strong, he’s still hitting less than .260. His at-bats used to be filled with expectations of line drives to right field. Now the expectations are anemic groundballs to second base. Every out he makes is riddled with Tweets and jeers of “THREE MORE YEARS OF THIS!” We know. But who’s a better option? Eduardo Nuñez? We won’t touch the defensive range issue with Jeter.

Posada should have had the easiest route. He moved away from being the everyday catcher to designated hitter, but his pride, hubris, whatever, is preventing him from accepting the current role and producing. It’s not like Posada has forgotten how to hit; he still has a good eye and can draw a walk. He isn’t adjusting to seeing more sliders, and isn’t adjusting to channeling his entire focus into four or five individual at-bats.

Sometimes, the game lets you know when it’s your time. It did for Ken Griffey, Jr., last year. Jeter and Posada are on the brink.

Would you rather see them continue to try to recapture the magic of 3 or 5 years ago, at the risk of their efforts being a detriment to the team and their own legacies? Or would you rather see them accept their fates, recognize the end of their respective careers and act accordingly?

Nothing tests a team like a one run game. The slim lead is in danger on every pitch. The fielders have to be primed on every play and there’s no tolerance for error. I happen to think that even that heightened intensity is kicked up a notch when it’s a 1-0 game. There’s just something so fine about that score. Blink and it’s gone.

Last night, Bartolo Colon authored such a game for eight innings. But even though Colon was throwing gas in the eighth and had only 87 pitches under his belt, Girardi called on Mariano Rivera to close it out and he failed. Two hard-hit, one-out singles in the ninth set up Vlad Guererro to tie the game with a fly ball.

Should Colon have gone out for the ninth? No. The pitcher who was out of baseball last year should not have been chosen to throw his ninth inning and 90th pitch in favor of the greatest relief pitcher in history. Girardi made the right decision and it blew up on him. Reminds me of 2008.

What I remember about 2008 was bad starting pitching, an offense not living up to expectations, and Rivera having great stats but really lousy timing. He only blew one save that year, but he had his worst outings in tie games and lost five of them. It seemed like whenever the team was about to start something, he’d lose one and they couldn’t gain any traction to climb out of the hole they had dug. Not that he should have been perfect, just that in 2008, they needed him to be perfect.

After Colon struck out Weiters on three pitches to start the eighth, Ken Singleton said, “He couldn’t have walked it up there any better and dropped it right into Cervelli’s glove.” His pitches were as precise as you’ll see from a starting pitcher. He threw 61 of his 87 pitches for strikes. And the 16 that missed didn’t miss by much.

For eight innings Colon mixed two types of fastballs on the edges of the zone. The four-seamer was hard and dead straight, reaching 97 mph in his last inning. He also lowered his arm angle and added side-spin to a version of the fastball which dragged it back over the outside corner to righties. They gave up on it early, and then watched helplessly as it drifted back to the black. Cervelli was at his devious best framing pitches and Colon’s absurd accuracy earned him the close calls late in the game.

The Yankee offense didn’t show and the same lame relief pitchers who gave it up to Boston a few nights ago mowed down the Yankees like grass. It would be nice if they picked up Rivera and saved the game for him like has so many times for them. But as soon as the run scored off Rivera, I felt the game would end whenever Baltimore scored next. It could go on another ten innings, the Yanks looked broken. They’re not in a place right now where they pick each other up, I thought, They’re too focused on figuring it out individually to play like a team.

Just look at the top of the thirteenth. With first and third and nobody out, Alex Rodriguez could have given the Yankees the lead back with almost any kind of contact. Instead, he’s too concerned with whatever mechanical bullshit he thinks is screwing up his swing. His lower half or whatever. Hit the ball, win the game. He overswung at a hittable pitch to start the at bat, fouling back the potential game winner, and let another hittable pitch sail past for strike three. Was it low? Maybe, but it was certainly close and I’d seen other pitches like that called all night strikes all night long. He wasn’t beat on the pitch; he just thought it was a little low, so he didn’t swing. The point is that if he dropped the bat on it, the Yankees probably would have won it right there.

They didn’t. Then again, the O’s didn’t score against Hector Noesi (making his major league debut) either. Felix Pie sent one to the wall in the bottom of the fourteenth, a scare, but it was not to be.

And so…

Cut to the fifteenth inning when the Yanks proved me wrong. Mark Teixeira led off with a single and Rodriguez fell behind 0-2 but was quick enough to turn an inside fastball into a base hit up the middle. Mike Gonzalez, the last remaining pitcher in the O’s pen, came in to face Robinson Cano and served up a fastball–straight as a string–right down the middle. Cano lined it into the right center field gap, good for a two-run triple. Gonzalez then plunked Chris Dickerson–who replaced Nick Swisher earlier–in the bill of the helmet and was immediately thrown out of the game. It didn’t seem like Gonzalez was trying to hit him, why would he? Still, it was a scary moment.

So Gonzalez was finished and Girardi lifted Dickerson, replacing him with a pinch-runner–A.J. Burnett. Jeremy Guthrie, a starter, came in for the O’s and got Brett Gardner on a line drive to right, but it was deep enough to score Cano. He retired the next two hitters but the Yanks had a three-run lead.

Jeter, the DH, came in to play short and Eduardo Nunez moved to right. Just as Michael Kay was set to wrap a bow on a Yankee victory, Nick Markakis singled, Brandon Snyder walked and Noesi looked gassed. Larry Rothschild came out to talk to the rookie while David Robertson got ready in a hurry out in the Yankee bullpen. Luke Scott slashed a line drive to left but it was right at Brett Gardner. One out. Then, a little bit of luck, as Matt Wieters hit a ground ball between first and second. It seemed destined for the outfield but took a funny hop and hit Snyder in the ankle. Two out. J.J. Hardy, the tying run, popped out to Nunez in right and the Yanks had the unlikely win.

Noesi was the hero, coming up with four big innings in relief, especially when he worked out of a bases loaded jam in the 12th.

What looked like a sour defeat turned into a sweet win.

Final Score: Yanks 4, Orioles 1.