It dawned on me last night that Gary Sheffield may never play another game for the Yankees. Now, I hope this isn’t the case, I hope he can come back by the end of the season, but who knows? Will the Yanks try and sign him again this fall? It’s certainly not a lock. Man, it would be a shame if this is how Sheffield’s Yankee career ends. He’s had two memorable seasons in the Bronx, adding to his Hall of Fame resume. I’m not ready to see Sheff and his inimitable bat wiggle go just yet, are you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In his column “OBP is Life,” which appeared over at BP yesterday, Joe Sheehan points out just how well the Yankees have been getting on base this season:

The Yankees have achieved their success by leading the majors in runs scored with 344, and they’ve done that by leading the planet in OBP with a whopping .375 mark. You can’t understate how impressive that figure is. The post-1900 record for OBP is .385, set by the 1950 Red Sox. (Six teams, including three John McGraw/Hughie Jennings Orioles squads, topped that figure between 1894 and 1897.) Just 19 teams have ever had a .375 OBP, and none have done so since those ’50 Sox. Since then, a mere two teams have cracked .370: the 1994 Yankees and the 1999 Indians. The latter is the only team in the last 56 years to score 1000 runs, while the former went into the season-ending strike second in the AL in runs scored.

…In the divisional era, having a .360 team OBP gives you a better than 70% chance of being a playoff team. The Yankees have more going for them than just a high OBP, but it’s that high OBP–in fact, a historic one–that drives their offense and their chance of winning a ninth consecutive AL East crown.

The Bombers can thank Jason Giambi for boosting their team OBP. Giambi is the subject of my lastest column for SI.com. Check, check it out.

In his latest mailbag column, SI’s Tom Verducci writes:

The injuries will catch up to the Yankees. Teams often get a short-term boost from these situations because everyone senses a feeling of urgency. But losing front-line players eventually catches up to you. The Cubs and Derrek Lee come to mind. But I will say that the Yankees needed an infusion of youth on their roster. Look at the past four or five teams to win the World Series: They were not loaded with players in their mid-30s and older. Teams like the Yankees and the Giants were breakdowns waiting to happen. Don’t forget, the Yankees’ money also gives them an edge in the international market, where they have signed such “homegrown” players as Orlando Hernandez, Alfonso Soriano, Chien-Ming Wang, Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera, etc. Their draft picks have not worked out nearly as well.

I keep thinking that Soriano will wind up back in the Bronx before the summer is over.

It is gray and rainy again this morning in New York, but it’s not nearly as wet as it was yesterday. The sun was actually peeking through the clouds when I left my apartment in the Bronx this morning. Curt Schilling and Jaret Wright will give it another try tonight, weather permitting. I believe they’ll get this one in. A day of rest isn’t the worst thing in the world right now, for either team.

Ben Kabak has an interview with Yankee beat writer Peter Abraham over at Off the Facade. Check it out.

Melky Cabrera has done a nice job of late, but if the Yankees are going to be without Gary Sheffield for a long period of time, I have little doubt that they’ll be in the market for another outfielder before the trading deadline. Several days ago, Will Carroll had the following to say about Sheff over at Baseball Prospectus:

The injury to Gary Sheffield is devastating. I dug and dug to get the information on what was actually going on with Sheffield, knowing that while the Yankees were not lying about the injury, they weren’t giving anyone the whole story. Just as I was putting the pieces together, having two of my best advisors pointing me in what was the correct direction, Sheffield’s wrist made my work moot. Sheffield’s injury was not a bruise or a fracture, but a soft tissue injury. The torn ligament and translocated tendon have only an outside chance of repairing themselves without surgical intervention, but the chance that they could–along with the timetable of surgery–means it makes sense to wait. If Sheffield had surgery now, he wouldn’t be back in time for the playoffs and waiting a month just pushes it a bit further into the off-season. Yes, you’ll note that if he waits that will possibly affect him next season, but that’s not really the Yankees’ concern given his contract situation–or is there some handshake agreement that helped Sheffield stay patient on the chance he gets better? We don’t know. Sheffield has a small chance of avoiding surgery, so adjust your expectations accordingly.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Yankees do, huh?

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

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

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

Rich Lederer watched Ian Kennedy, the Yankees’ top pick in the 2006 draft, pitch in a college game earlier this season (check out Rich’s pitch-by-pitch post of the game). Lederer’s scouting report on Kennedy goes something like this:

Following in the footsteps of fellow Trojans Tom Seaver, Randy Johnson, Barry Zito, and Mark Prior…Consensus All-American…Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year…Two-time pitcher for Team USA…Although stuff is no better than average for a major league hurler, the right-hander exhibits outstanding command of four pitches…Fastball ranged from 89-91 all night…Throws strikes and changes speed…His stretch position is similar to Mike Mussina…Top ten draft pick unless his advisor and soon-to-be agent Scott Boras scares off potential suitors.

No, I’m not talking about George Gervin or even Lee Marvin. I mean the Yankee captain, Derek Jeter. Dig this from Mike Lupica’s column today:

“Listen,” Jeter says, “I’m not just saying this to say this. But if you don’t win it’s a waste. It’s not enough to win your division, it’s not enough to say you made it to the League Championship Series and you battled. Or that you lost the World Series, but boy, did you battle. That’s not why I play. It shouldn’t be why anybody plays. Here’s the deal: You start working out in November, and you keep working, through spring training and into the season, and the whole time, there’s only one goal, and that’s to win the World Series. Not win the division. Win the Series. And if that’s not the way you look at things, then you shouldn’t even be here.”

Watching Jeter on the bench two nights ago, I was struck with just how blue the guy looked. I know I have a hard time taking good care of myself when I’m sick, but looking at Jeter I thought, “Man, dude looks so bummed. Just what is he going to do with himself when he can’t play ball anymore?” Jeter’s got the Michael Jordan red ass. You know, the whole Pat Riley thing–you either win it all or you are miserable. It may not make for great mental health on his part, but as a Yankee fan it’s comforting to know that the captain of the team has that kind of competitive attitude.

I’ve never felt as good about a big Yankee loss as I did back Cleveland, 1997. When they lost that series, I remember several members of the team stading around, red-faced in the dugout as the Indians celebrated. David Cone stands out. I recall thinking, “Wow, these guys are as upset than I am, maybe even more so…cool.” Jeter is still one of those guys.

R.I.P. Billy Preston.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will Weiss wrote a nice piece on Melky Cabrera last week over at YESNetwork.com. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to put up a link to it, but in light of last night’s Bad News Bears play, there’s no better time than the present, right?

A few weeks ago Alex Rodriguez was taking a beating for his slow start. Dag, I guess even when he “sucks” he’s pretty good. Rodriguez won the AL Player of the Month award for May. [Insert Dave Winfield joke here.]

Mike Mussina had his worst outing of the year on Monday night and yet he still came away with a “w.” A nice turn of fortune for “the unlucky one,” as Mussina improves to 8-1. Josh Beckett, however, didn’t make it out of the second inning. The Yankees collected at least 10 hits for the 12th straight game, a team record. The Baby Bombers pulled a Gashouse Gorillas Conga-Line on Beckett, capped by two three-run home runs–one by Andy Phillips, the other by Jason Giambi.

But the most exciting play for the Yankees occured in the first inning. With one out, Melky Cabrera was on first and Giambi was at the plate. Beckett, who could not locate his curve ball, threw a breaking pitch in the dirt. It skipped away from Jason Varitek and Cabrera took off for second. Varitek’s throw was wild and went into the outfield. Melky ducked as he reached second and then took off for third. But since Boston had the shift on for Giambi, there was nobody covering third. Instead, Varitek had travelled half-way up the third base line. At Larry Bowa’s prompting, and without skipping a beat, Melky suddenly broke for home. So did Varitek. Cabrera won the race, beating the catcher and the throw to the plate for the Yankees’ first run. Boston’s sloppy fielding and Cabrera’s alert base-running made for perhaps the most joyous Yankee run of the season:

“The way we got that first run today, that may never happen again,” Mussina said. “That was just pure youth and speed and recklessness. That’s why we play these games: to see something new every day.”
(Kepner, N.Y. Times)

It is the kind of play that Jose Reyes has been making across town for a couple of seasons now, but one we haven’t seen from a Yankee player in some time. The game was a laugher through and through for the Yanks last night and a snoozer for Sox fans. Boston throws a rookie tonight against Chien-Ming Wang, who was far from stellar last week in Detroit. There is a long way to go in this series but the Bombers sure managed to get off on the good foot.

Pair of aces on the menu tonight as the Yankees and the Red Sox sqaure off in the Bronx. If the glass is half-empty for you Yankee fans, you are probably convinced that Mussina will suffer his first bad outing of the year tonight. If you are a Sox fan, you can only hope that Beckett feeds off of his first performance against the Yanks, and not how he pitched against Toronto recently. Course the Sox also hope that Mussina finally slips. Mikey Moose has been brilliant so far, every bit the ace of the staff. With the Yankees at less than full snuff he’s more important that ever. It’s a cool spring evening in New York. It should be a fun one.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

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Aaron Small didn’t have much on Sunday afternoon and was thoroughly beat-up by the Orioles who sailed to a tension-free 11-4 against the Yankees. David Ortiz, move over–Miguel Tejada has simply murdered the Yanks this year (16-26 this year).

Jason Giambi sat for a second straight game with a stomach virus. Alex Rodriguez returned from his bout with the bug and looked far from crisp. Worse still, Derek Jeter had to leave the game after being hit by a pitch in the right thumb. The initial x-rays were negative and Jeter is listed as day-to-day. With a whopping four-game series with the Red Sox kicking off tomorrow, the Replacement Level Yankees can ill-afford to lose their captain.

With the meat of the Lumber Company–Matsui, Sheffield, Rodriguez and Giambi—unavailable yesterday, it looked like it’d be an uphill battle all afternoon for the Bronx Bombers. When Randy Johnson allowed three runs in the first I wondered if Miguel Cairo might get some mound time before the game was through. But Johnson settled down nicely and pitched into the eighth inning. Scott Proctor blew a two-run lead but Johnny Damon hit a line drive, solo home run against Chris Ray in the top of the 10th, and Chien-Ming Wang survived some tension in the bottom of the frame as the Yankees beat the Orioles, 6-5.

Damon had three hits, Jeter had two, while Bernie drove in three and Andy Phillips popped another dinger. But the big story was that Johnson gave his team the length they were looking for. Though he did not figure in the decision, it was an encouraging performance. And another “W” for the Relacement Level Yankees? Yo Snoops, we’ll take it.