After a shaky outing and a thoroughly poor one, Shawn Chacon looks to get back on the good foot tonight for the Yanks. He’ll face Barry Zito in Oakland on the ESPN Sunday Night Game of the Week. The Red Sox won this afternoon, and the Angels are well on their way to a win, but the Indians fell to the Twins.

The Yanks didn’t score on Friday, and the A’s didn’t score yesterday. Wish I could say I had a hunch about what’s going to happen, but I don’t. Hopefully, the Yanks pull out a win and come back home feeling okay about things.

Enjoy. I hope everyone is having a beautiful holiday weekend. Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

Aaron Small out-dueled Kirk Saarloos yesterday afternoon in Oakland as the Bombers rebounded from Friday night’s beating. As our colleague Ken Arnson noted, the final score of 7-0 is misleading as this was a tense game until the Yankees broke it open in the seventh (Ken was at the game and took a series of nice photographs). And even then, the A’s were close to getting out of the inning without the damage being too costly.

With the score 1-0, Hideki Matsui came to the plate with the bases loaded and just one out (Posada had singled, Cano dribbled a single that barely found a hole through the left side of the infield, then Bubba Crosby sacrificed the runners to second and third before Jeter was walked intentionally). The A’s brought in the left-hander Ricardo Rincon. Though Matsui has been slumping, I had a good feeling about his at bat as I’m sure many Yankee fans did. Sure enough he smashed a line drive up the middle. But it was speared by Oakland’s second baseman Mark Ellis and it appeared as if the A’s were going to be able to turn the double play and get out of the inning. But Matsui beat the relay throw, a run scored, and the inning was alive. It was a heck of a way for Matsui to drive in his 100th run of the year.

The young right-hander, Justin Duchscherer replaced Rincon, got ahead of Gary Sheffield but then lost him. Sheffield walked and the bases were juiced again for Alex Rodriguez who had two ground ball singles and had been hit by a pitch on the afternoon. Rodriguez took a strike and then fouled off a fastball that was over the plate. The second pitch was his pitch to hit and he missed it. But Rodriguez did not give up. Duchscherer then just missed striking Rodriguez out with a curve ball. The pitch was low but Rodriguez’s knees buckled all the same. Two more balls and the count was full before Rodriguez poked an outside pitch into right field for a single, scoring two runs. Rodriguez said something aloud half-way to first, and he clapped his hands once he reached the bag, looking directly into the Yankee dugout (the visitor’s dugout in Oakland is along the first base line). At that moment Joe Torre, who held the eighth team meeting of the season prior to the game, pointed directly at Rodriguez as if to say, “Right on!” That is about as animated as Torre gets, but it was an important at bat. Rodriguez did not try to do too much, he went with the pitch and came through once again. Jason Giambi followed, and he muscled a three-run dinger into the right field seats and that, as they say, was that.

After getting blown-out on Friday night, Aaron Small pitched a shut out. Hard to believe what a ride this guy has had since joining the team this summer. I’m sure it has been the time of his life. One thing is for sure, he has been a savior for the Yankees. I shutter to think where they’d be without him.

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Kicking off the biggest series of the year thus far for the Yankees, Al Leiter faced ten batters and retired just two of them before being removed from last night’s game down 6-0 with runners on second and third. Never mind that lead-off hitter Jason Kendell, who was hit with a 2-2 pitch to start the game, appeared to be thrown out stealing second but was called safe. Or that when Mark Ellis followed Kendell’s stolen steal by hitting a payoff pitch over Hideki Matsui’s head in left that Matsui misplayed badly, Hideki recovered to throw out Ellis trying to stretch it into a triple only to have Ellis called safe as well. Such quibles are minor in the face of the 12-0 thrashing the Yankees took at the hands of the A’s last night.

Leiter had nothing, resulting in the shortest non-injury start of his career. According to Joe Torre after the game, Leiter, notorious for his refusal to throw strikes, was simply catching too much of the plate. Though Leiter’s 50/50 ball to strike split would suggest otherwise, Leiter did say that, as a result of watching video on the A’s, he expected the Oakland to take more pitches and thus tried to get away with a few gimme strikes. What he failed to realize was that the A’s take balls and swing at strikes, particullarly big juicy ones over the heart of the plate.

With Mike Mussina out indefinitely and Aaron Small insterted in his place in the rotation, Joe Torre called on Jorge DePaula to stop the bleeding and soak up inings. Armed with an 86-mile-per-hour fastball, the 26-year-old DePaula, who has spent the season in Columbus working his way back from Tommy John surgery, was only up to half the task. DePaula got the final out of the first on three pitches, but then gave up four more runs in the second and single runs in the third and sixth. Still, credit Brian Cashman (as Torre did after the game) with realizing that the Yankees might need an innings sponge such as DePaula with Leiter and Small starting on consecutive days. DePaula and Wayne Franklin, who pitched two perfect frames against Oakland’s subs to finish the job, prevented Torre from having to use any of his more valuable relievers.

On the other side of the ball, the Yankees stranded runners in scoring position with less than two outs in the second, third and fourth innings against Danny Haren, also stranding a lead-off walk by Jeter in the first. After it took Haren just 18 pitches to get through the the Yankee’s three through eight hitters in the fifth and sixth, Joe Torre put in his B-squad:

1B – John Flaherty
SS – Mark Bellhorn (now with high sox and double-flap helmet)
3B – Andy Phillips (who hit the only pitch he saw to the warning track in left in the eighth, causing my heart to skip a beat)
C – Wil Nieves
LF – Matt Lawton (2 for 2, the only Yankee with a multi-hit night)
CF – Tony Womack
RF – Bubba Crosby

Shockingly, Womack and Flaherty got themselves on first and third in the eigth only to be stranded by Nieves, otherwise Lawton’s two hits were all the subs had to offer.

Elsewhere, the Red Sox lost, thus failing to increase their 3.5 game lead in the East, but the Angels and Indians won. As a result, the Yankees have fallen into a second place tie with the Indians in the Wild Card race, a game behind the A’s and Angels, who remain tied for first.

Today’s game starts at 4:05 and it couldn’t come soon enough. Last night’s game was far too reminiscent of Game Seven of last year’s ALCS and I’m desperate for a brand new ballgame to erase those awful memories (not to mention put the Yankees back in a tie for the Wild Card). Aaron Small, show your old team what you can do.

The A’s and Yankees enter this weekend’s series with identical 75-58 records, tied for third best in the American League, the lead in the Wild Card race, and in the case of the A’s, with the Angels for lead in the AL West. It’s a rather stunning accomplishment considering how badly both teams stumbled out of the gate.

For the A’s, their lowest point came after an eight-game losing streak in late May. After losing to the Indians on May 29, the A’s were 17-32 (.347). Since then they are 58-26 (.690).* I’m not entirely sure that it’s a coincidence that May 30 was the day that the A’s activated their 25-year-old shortstop and number-three hitter, Bobby Crosby, from the disabled list.

Crosby started the A’s opening day loss to the Orioles in Baltimore, but was removed mid-game and placed on the DL due to a stress fracture of his ribs that had resulted from being hit by a pitch in spring training. The A’s had lost their last eight games prior to Crosby being activated at the end of may, but with him in the line-up, Oakland ran off four straight wins, with Crosby getting a hit in each. Crosby proceeded to hit .337/.394/.568 (.319 GPA) through the end of June as the A’s finished the month with an eight-game wining streak, the last seven games of which also saw Crosby hit safely.

Bobby fell off some from that point hitting (.260/.333/.431 – .258) in July and August, but his presence in the line-up and Gold Glove-worthy defense at shortstop (112 Rate) remained a key part of the A’s success, as they started the second half with seven straight series wins (20-4, .833). Well, last Saturday, Baltimore struck again as Crosby suffered a non-displaced fracture in his left ankle when he slid into Sal Fasano at home plate. Crosby is now back on the disabled list and the A’s are unsure if he will return before the end of the regular season.

Thus far the A’s have done well in his absence. With Crosby still at short, the A’s followed their remarkable start to the second half of the season by dropping series to the Twins, Orioles and Royals and losing the opening game of a series in Detroit, a 2-8 stretch, only to recover and with their next four games, the last of which was the game in which Crosby broke his ankle.

With Crosby on the shelf, the A’s completed a four-game sweep of the O’s and then dropped a hard-fought and well-pitched three-game set to the rival Angels, in which aggregate score of the entire series was 6-3 Angels, with A’s winning the first game in eleven innings and the Angels taking the last two. Thus it’s difficult to say whether or not the Yankees, who are 5-1 against the A’s this season having played all six games against them during Crosby’s absence in May, are returning to Oakland at an advantageous time or not. In a sense, this series will be a greater test for Oakland than it will be for the Yankees. In addition to Crosby, the A’s are likely to be without center fielder and number-two hitter Mark Kotsay for at least the first two games due to back spasms. Kotsay last played on Sunday in Baltimore and received an epidural injection on Wednesday. The A’s are also playing without their young ace Rich Harden, who has missed his last two starts due to a strained right lat and is likely to miss at least one more. With harden out a month due to a strained left oblique suffered in a start against the Yankees in Oakland on May 14, the A’s went 17-19 (including losing that game against the Yankees). They later won Harden’s first three starts (and seven of his first eight) after being activated.

These injuries to Crosby, Kotsay and Harden, along with the just completed series loss to the Angels which erased the A’s lead in the West, could put the young A’s into a psychological funk. As Barry Zito told MLB.com, “Potentially it could bring us down, but we’ve faced adversity before and come through it. Granted we sucked the last time we had a bunch of guys on the DL, but now we have some momentum. We’ve been picking each other up for the past two months.”

As it turns out, Marco Scutaro has been almost as solid as Crosby in the field (108 Rate at shortstop), and the Yankees would have missed Harden’s turn in the rotation this weekend even if he had been healthy. The Yankees will also miss Joe Blanton, who along with Harden has formed a new trio of aces with Sunday’s starter, Barry Zito.

Hot on the heels of those three aces, however, is tonight’s starter, Dan Haren. Haren will oppose Al Leiter, who is coming off six ugly two-hit innings against the Royals, proceeded by a relatively efficient seven innings against the Blue Jays. The way the pitching rotations fell this weekend may not be ideal for either team, but no matter what happens this weekend there should be a playoff atmosphere in Oakland as the odds are the team that wins the series will emerge with the lead in the Wild Card race (though a poor performance by the Angels against the Mariners this weekend could put the A’s in the AL West lead and thus Yankees in the Wild Card lead regardless of the series outcome, but we’ll ignore that for now).

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Bob Klapisch has covered baseball in New York since the heyday of the Mets in the 1980s. He is a columnist for The Bergan Record and a contributor to ESPN. Now in his forties, he continues to play semi-pro baseball. Yesterday, he contributed a terrific post about playing ball to The Baseball Analysts. Klapisch’s article has some keen insights into the pysche of ballplayers, and it is nice to see him write something longer, and more personal. But Klap isn’t just a guy who loves to play the game, at heart he’s a pitcher, and they are a breed apart:

From Little League all the way to Cooperstown, there’s a fraternity convened by the adrenaline rush of throwing a baseball. Bret Saberhagen once told me, “Nothing matches making a hitter swing and miss. It’s the greatest feeling in the world. Guys who retire, they spend the rest of their lives looking for it, but once you stop pitching you never get it back.”

…So why do I keep pitching? Probably for the purest reason of all – it’s what I do, at least when I’m not writing or helping feed the kids. To stop now would mean tearing away layers of psychological flesh. I guess I’m afraid of what’s underneath. Middle age, maybe.

I sent the article to Pat Jordan, the veteran journalist and former pitching prospect for the Braves. He replied:

The allure of pitching is about being in control and playing God. Nothing happens without you. You control the game, good or bad. also the feeling of ball off fingertips and your ability to make it spin and do things is exhilarating. I love to throw a baseball. The feeling of artistry and power in making a ball approach the plate with the speed or curve that I dictate is unrivaled in anything else I’ve ever done, including writing. I was born to be a pitcher, but taught myself to be a writer. I was an artist on the mound, but, alas, am merely a craftsman, like a brick layer, in front of a typewriter.

Which brings me to another thought. Why do the best jock-turned-writers all seem to be pitchers? Jordan, Jim Brosnan, Jim Bouton. Glenn Stout pitched in an over-30 league for years. What gives? Michael Lewis was a pitcher when he was in high school, Rich Lederer was a pitcher back in his playing days, and Will Carroll was too. Bouton thinks that it “may be that pitchers spend a lot of time sitting around.” What do you think?

“I still like how we feel right now,” Manager Joe Torre said. “We have a great deal of confidence right now. A game like today is not going to shake that.”

I’m glad that Torre feels that way. I felt far more discouraged yesterday after the Yankees dropped the final game of a four-game set in Seattle yesterday afternoon, 5-1. But I should keep things in perspective, especially considering what is happening in New Orleans right now. I know the two don’t have anything to do with each other, I simply mean that in light of the distressing situation down there it is inappropriate for me to feel too grave about how our team is playing. Jaret Wright was beaned by a line drive in the collarbone in the sixth inning. It was a scary moment, fortunately, x-rays were negative. However, Taynon Sturtze, Alan Embree, and Ramiro Mendoza did not pitch well in relief, while Joel Pineiro had a fine game for the M’s. It was an unfortunate loss. The Bombers fell another game behind Boston who beat up Tampa Bay again (Ah, so that’s what good teams do–beat the bad ones). The Red Sox offense has carried a mediocre pitching staff. Meanwhile, the Yankees have scored six runs in the last three games combined. The Angels beat Oakland last night, and the two teams are tied for first in the AL West, and tied for the wildcard lead with the Yankees.

As I made my way out of my apartment building this morning I saw several brown leaves on the ground. The weather, which has been hot and muggy for the past few days, was clear and lovely and for the first time this year I thought, fall is near. For a decade that’s meant one thing for Yankee fans: the playoffs. Yet with 29 games left in the regular season, the Bombers are no lock to play October baseball. Funny, but I feel more confident in their chances should they reach the playoffs than in their ability to actually make it in the first place (damn those Devil Rays). From here on out, the wins will be that much sweeter and the losses more painful. Joel Pineiro is starting for the Mariners this afternoon and he’s not a bad pitcher, but the Yankees have to win this game and that is all there is to it. I feel if they can take two-of-three from the A’s, Rays, Sox and Rays again, they should be in good shape.

Time to step up, fellas.

It was billed as “The Battle in Seattle,” there were even fans at Safeco last night wearing t-shirts featuring the mug shots of the game’s starting pitchers. It was the 19-year-old phenom, “King” Felix Hernandez, against the 41-year-old former Mariners’ ace and sure-thing Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, and it lived up to the hype.

The rookie and the veteran exchanged hitless frames through two, with Hernandez throwing 97 mile per hour fastballs and sharp curves and Johnson locating both his slider and 95 heaters.

Hernandez began the third by striking out his opponent’s personal catcher, John Flaherty, on a wicked curve that came in just below the waste on the outside corner and dropped into the dirt. King Felix then threw a fastball away to Robinson Cano and came back with a change-up over the plate. Hernandez is as good as advertised, but his change-up is the weakest of his three pitches. This one hung up in the zone and Cano deposited it in the right field seats, just beyond the reach of Ichiro Suzuki to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead (note the white t-shirt in the latter photo).

After Johnson pitched another hitless frame (aided by a fantastic play at third base by Alex Rodriguez in which he made a backhanded stab of a sharp bouncer up the line by Suzuki and pivoted on the foul line to make a Jeter-like jump throw to nail the speedy Ichiro by a half step), Gary Sheffield, back from his one-day suspension, led off the fourth by blasting a Hernandez heater over the wall in left to make it 2-0 Yanks.

As it turned out, that would be the end of the scoring in this game, but Johnson and Hernandez continued to deal, blowing away hitters with heat and confounding them with breaking pitches, pitching quickly, all the while backed up by some terrific defense (the Mariners turned three double plays and Alex Rodriguez literally filled an entire highlight reel with his play at third base).

Likely invigorated by being back in Seattle and overshadowed by a young punk less than half his age, Randy Johnson didn’t allow a hit through five innings. Given the electricity of the game and the sharpness of his defense, it seemed Johnson had a very real chance of completing his third career no-hitter, but Yuniesky Betancourt lead off the sixth with a double over Matt Lawton’s head in left. Betancourt then moved to third on a grounder to shortstop by Suzuki, but Johnson recovered to strikeout Jamal Strong (starting in center for the left-handed Jeremy Reed) and, after Tino Martinez dropped a foul pop up by Raul Ibanez, Alex Rodriguez turned in yet another fine play to strand Betancourt at third.

The Mariners got a man to third again in the seventh. After Johnson struckout Sexson to start the inning, Rodriguez made a wicked backhanded stab of a hot shot by Adrian Beltre, but despite having plenty of time to make his throw, drew Tino Martinez off the bag for what was generously ruled the second Mariner hit of the game. Beltre then moved to second on a Jose Lopez single and to third on a Mike Morse fly to center. Now at 111 pitches and still nursing a 2-0 lead, Johnson reared back and fired a series of mid-90s fastballs to Yorvit Torrealba: 94 high, 94 a tad lower called strike, 95 barely inside, 95 same spot for a called strike. After the second called strike, Torrealba and home plate ump Ron Kulpa took a moment to jaw at each other. Johnson then fired his 116th pitch of the game. Torreabla grounded it to Derek Jeter, who flipped to Robinson Cano at second, just barely forcing out Lopez to end the inning and Johnson’s night.

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“I don’t think we’re talking about poise here…I think we’re talking about a 97-miles-per-hour fastball and a curveball from hell.” Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire

Tonight gives an extremely compelling pitching match-up in Seattle. If you root for the M’s I’m sure that there are precious few games you’d like to see your team win more than this one. Seattle’s teenage dynamo “King” Felix Hernandez squares off against one of the league’s best offenses, while thier erswhile ace Randy Johnson pitches for New York. I do not get the MLB TV package or Direct TV so I have not seen Hernandez pitch yet. Better still, I haven’t even seen highlights of him, just still photographs. Hernandez has a round, open face, and apparently poise to spare along with incredible stuff. He’s what they’d call “the Emmis” back in the old country.* All I know is what I’ve read, and that’s plenty to keep me up to see what the fuss is about. Pitching against the Yankees is sure to bring ’em out to Safeco and have the boys at Baseball Tonight salivating.

For obvious reasons, nobody has followed Hernandez’s rookie campaign as closely or as passionately as the good folks over at the U.S.S. Mariner (here is a selection of posts for you to peruse: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). There have also been King Felix pieces by Bill Simmons, David Schoenfield, and commentary from Bert Blyleven.

I expect this to be a close game and figure that Johnson will be sharp. Perhaps it will be a crisp pitcher’s duel like the one Johnson had against Roy Halladay earlier this season. It is an exciting game for the M’s but an even more important one for the Yankees.

All aboard.

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Shawn Chacon pulled a Mussina last night, giving up eight runs combined in the second and third innings due to an alarming lack of control (three walks, a wild pitch, and twice hitting Seattle left fielder Mike Morse with a pitch in those two innings alone). Those eight runs would be all the Mariners would score, and all they would need, as 31-year-old rookie starter Jeff Harris, who entered the game with a 1.69 ERA, escaped a one-out bases loaded jam in the first and eventually settled down to hold the Yankees to three runs over 6 1/3 innings.

With Joe Torre having cashed in Aaron Small last night, the Yankee skipper was forced to stick with Chacon as he started the second by allowing a pair of singles, hitting a batter to load the bases, uncorking a run-scoring wild pitch, and walking a man to reload the bases, all before recording an out. The Mariners then scored another run on an RBI groundout by Yorvit Torrealba, and cashed in the rest on a three-run homer by Ichiro Suzuki to go up 5-0.

Suzuki’s homer was his second in the first two games of the current series, marking just the second time in his major league career that he has gone deep in consecutive games, the first such occasion since last August, and the first time he has homered on consecutive days as a Mariner (though he did hit two jacks in a single game against Cleveland on July 30 as well as on two other occasions earlier in his Mariner career).

As the folks over at U.S.S. Mariner have noted, Suzuki has been hitting for more power this year, but sacrificing his average as a result. Ichiro!’s two homers against the Yankees over the past two nights have been his 14th and 15th of the season, breaking his major league career best of 13 set in 2003, which, not coincidentally, was also the year that he posted his lowest major league batting average (.312). Suzuki hit exactly eight home runs in his other three seasons with the Mariners, a number he’s almost doubled in 2005. This year, Suzuki is also exceeding his typical and major league high isolated power numbers–.104 and .124 respectively, the latter also in 2003–with a .146 ISO (slugging minus average). Meanwhile, in the three at-bats in which he did not homer last night, Ichiro, whose game has always revolved hitting the ball on the ground and speeding to first, flied out and twice struck out, dropping his average to .299, which has in turn suppressed his slugging percentage to his typical .445 despite his increased isolated power.

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Shawn Chacon goes for the Yanks tonight at beautiful Safeco Field in Seattle. He was effective if not especially sharp in his last outing. Should be interesting to see what kind of performance he has in store for the M’s.

Go Yanks!

Last night Seattle reliever Matt Thorton came in the game, threw sliders instead of fastballs, gave up the lead and then heard it from manager Mike Hargrove. There is a special baseball word for his performance and it’s likely Hargrove mentioned it in their little chat. According to Bob Finnigan in The Seattle Times:

In a rare display of anger, Mike Hargrove stomped to the mound in the sixth inning and apparently gave reliever Matt Thornton a hard lesson in what he expected to see from a pitcher, with much vehemence and finger-jabbing.

…Thornton, who walked Bernie Williams after Giambi’s game-turning strike, was frank in revealing what the skipper would not. “He wanted to make sure he knew I can compete, for me to pitch like he knows I can, like I know I can,” said Thornton, who had given up crushing homers earlier in the year, but not lately.

Be sure and peep the U.S.S. Mariner, especially tomorrow night with Felix Hernandez on the mound, to see how the other half lives.

Discussing the relative merits of Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre has been a juicy topic for several years now. Tyler Kepner has a piece on Mel Stott in today’s Times. Worth taking a look at.

Mike Mussina avoided his fifth inning struggles last night by getting himself pulled from the game in the fourth, but Aaron Small pitched four innings of one-hit ball in relief and Jason Giambi hit another pair of homers to give the Yankees a lead and, eventually, a win to open their series against the Mariners.

After the game, Mussina said that in the fifth inning of his last start and throughout this game he was having trouble throwing strikes and hinted that he’s going through a dead-arm period. Indeed, Mussina had nothing last night, as was clear from his first two pitches to Ichiro Suzuki. The first was a ball. The second landed in the right-field seats for a lead-off home run. Moose then went full on Willie Bloomquist before getting him to ground out. Raul Ibanez followed by creaming a pitch to deep right center, but got himself thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple (Bernie to Cano to Rodriguez). Richie Sexson followed by scorching a ball into Cano’s glove for the third out.

All Moose yielded in the second was a one-out Greg Dobbs double, making it his best inning of the night. In the third, a pair of singles by Miguel Ojeda and Ichiro! were followed by a Bloomquist sac bunt and four-pitch walks to Ibanez and Sexson, the latter forcing in the Mariners’ second run. Moose then threw ball one to both of the next two batters but got Adrian Beltre to pop out on a fastball down the middle and Dobbs to fly out to deep left.

Then came the fourth, which Moose started with a five-pitch walk to Yuniesky Betancourt. Mussina then fell behind 3-0 on Jeremy Reed, who, after a called strike, caught Alex Rodriguez off guard with a bunt to third that Rodriguez was unable to pick out of the grass. Moose then walked Ojeda after getting ahead of him 1-2, the final pitch being a breaking ball that was nowhere near the strike zone. That was all Joe Torre had to see, as he wisely pulled Mussina before he could do any further damage.

Brought into an ugly bases-loaded, no-outs situation, Aaron Small induced a pair of double play balls to second from Suzuki and Bloomquist, but Ichiro was able to beat out the first and first base ump Tim Tschida blew the call on Bloomquist, so Small only got two outs to show for it as the Mariners increased their lead to 4-0. Small then walked Ibanez, but got Sexson to fly out for the final out of the inning.

As all of this was going on, the Yankees were scuffling against Ryan Franklin. The second was the only inning among the first four in which the Yankees got a runner on base, as Alex Rodriguez lead off with an infield single and was followed by a Giambi walk. They then promptly ran themselves into a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play with Bernie Williams swinging through a pitch and Alex Rodriguez getting thrown out by several feet at third on a failed hit and run.

After Small came in to clean-up Mussina’s mess, however, things turned around. Jason Giambi led off the fifth with a mammoth homer off the restaurant in right field (just below the neon “Hit It Here” target). Then, after the Yankees ran into another double play via the hit and run (this time with Bernie on the bases and Lawton at the plate), Posada doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch, and was singled home by Cano to cut the Mariner lead in half.

In the sixth, after a first-pitch Matsui groundout, Sheffield and Rodriguez walked (the former on four pitches), driving Franklin from the game at 93 pitches. Mike Hargrove then called on lefty Matt Thornton, who went to 1-1 on Giambi before Jason crushed yet another home run, his fourth in the last two games, this one a three-run job that gave the Yankees a lead they would not relinquish.

Small cruised through the fifth, sixth and seventh, scattering a Greg Dobbs double and two more walks, and in the top of the eighth Alex Rodriguez and Matt Lawton added solo homers to cushion the Yankee lead. Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera finished it off with perfect eighth and ninth innings.

In my opinion, the story of the game was Aaron Small, who picked up the win and is now 5-0 with a 3.03 ERA as a Yankee, but the story of the past two games has clearly been Jason Giambi. Giambi now has four homers and eleven RBIs over his last two games after hitting just two taters and driving in just seven runs in the previous twenty-five games in August.

According to Giambi, the difference in the past two games has been a cortisone injection he got last week to relieve the pain from tendonitis in his left elbow, which makes more sense than pointing to the fact that the acquisition of Matt Lawton has pushed him back into the field (though I suspect the latter hasn’t hurt his focus at the plate as the association between Giambi’s success at the plate and playing time at first base is downright eerie).

Giambi’s comeback this season continues to astound as he has set personal bests for homers in a single month (14 in July) and multi-homer games (now seven). The latter total accounts for more than 23 percent of his career multi-homer games (now 30), which is stunning considering the fact that Giambi had 281 career homers entering this season and was the best hitter in the American League, if not the majors, for several seasons around the turn of the millennium.

Ten days ago, I wrote that the Yankees were in good shape because they had more games left to play against the teams leading them in the AL East and Wild Card races than they were games behind those teams. At that time the Yanks were four games behind the Red Sox with six left to play against them and a game and a half behind the A’s for the Wild Card with three left to play against them.

Since then the Yankees have gone 8-2 while the Red Sox have gone 5-4 and the A’s 6-3. As a result, the Yankees have eliminated their Wild Card deficit and carved 2.5 games out of their AL East deficit and still have all nine games left to play against these two rivals.

Meanwhile, two other contenders have entered the Wild Card picture from different directions. Thanks in part to a weekend sweep at the hands of the Devil Rays, the Angels have gone 3-6 over this stretch, yielding the AL West lead to the A’s and, in turn, the Wild Card lead to the Yankees, who lead the now second-place Angels by a half game. Meanwhile, the Cleveland Indians have been bouncing in and out of a Wild Card tie with the Yankees, matching them at 8-2 over the past ten days, and currently standing one game behind them, as they were on August 19.

For their part, the Yankees have been doing exactly what they’ve needed to, taking two of three from the slumping White Sox to finish the punishingly difficult portion of their schedule with a 24-16 (.600) record, then going 6-1 against the Blue Jays and Royals at home.

Tonight the Yankees start a four game series against the Mariners in Seattle, and it would behoove them to win at least three of these games as well, as things will be far more difficult over the twelve games that follow.

After the Yankees leave Seattle, they play those three games against the A’s in Oakland. The following weekend they will play three games at home against the Red Sox. And on either side of that Red Sox series they will play a pair of three-game series against the Devil Rays. Remember, the Devil Rays just swept the Angels and are 9-4 against the Yankees this season. The D-Rays are also 27-15 since the All-Star break, a record a half-game better than the Yankees’ 27-16 and a game and a half better than the Red Sox’s 25-16 over the same period (the A’s are 29-13 since the break).

All the more reason to take advantage of the Mariners (who, for comparison’s sake, are 16-26 since the All-Star break, 9-15 in August and 3-7 over their last three series). Tonight, Mike Mussina looks to conquer his fifth-inning struggles against Ryan Franklin, who pitched somewhere between very well (quality start) and excellent (shutout) in four of his five July starts, but has given up 19 runs in 15 1/3 innings across three poor starts this month.

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Derek Jeter’s fielding improved last year, so much so that he was awarded the Gold Glove for American League shortstops. Now, he may not have been the best defensive shortstop in the league, but he had one of his best seasons with the leather. According to Steve Lombardi, Jeter’s fielding has remained at the top of the league again this year:

Is he a terrible SS? No. A terrible SS would have been moved off SS by now. Tony Batista was moved. Chipper Jones was moved. Mike Lansing was moved. Mark Lewis was moved. Jose Offerman was moved. Wil Cordero was moved. Julio Franco was moved. In the big leagues, if you truly are a terrible SS, you will eventually be moved. Even a stupid team figures it out after a while. Jeter has not been moved, because he is not terrible with the glove at SS.

While Jeter’s power numbers have dipped (he hit 23 homers and 44 doubles in 2004, and he has 14,and 21 respectively so far this year), Jeter has walked 60 times so far in 2005, up from 46 all of last year. He has six sacrifices this year, down from a ridiculously high 16 in 2004 (that spike was a direct result of Jeter’s early season slump, and it was a habit he did not break out of all year, even after he starting hitting). Jeter scored his 100th run of the season yesterday and his line of .315/.393/.456 makes for another impressive year, don’t you think?

Jason Giambi led the Yankees to a 10-3 thrasing over the Royals on a muggy summer day in the Bronx. Giambi went 3-3 with a walk, hit two home runs and collected seven RBI. Al Leiter was, well, Al Lieter, and he pitched well enough to earn the win.

In all, it was a good home stand for the Bombers. The Red Sox and the Devil Rays (Cantu, Gomes and company) completed a three-game sweep of the Angels. The A’s are now in first place in the AL West. The Yanks lead the wildcard by a half-a-game over the Angels and a complete game over the Indians. They trail Boston by a game-and-a-half. The Red Sox now have to deal with the streaking Devil Rays while the Yanks are off to the west coast this week. They’ve got four in Seattle, including a scintillating Wednesday night match-up featuring Randy Johnson and the young Felix Hernandez, which could be dubbed “The Once and Future King.” Then on Friday, they are off to Oakland for three against the A’s. Looks like Leiter, Mussina and Chacon will pitch in Oakland. It’s another important week for the Bombers as we move to September. The Yanks then return to face Tampa Bay and then Boston. Crunch time.

Jaret Wright did not have great command on Saturday afternoon yet the majority of the hits that he allowed were dinkers and dunkers. While the Yanks manufactored three runs early on, they were shut-down by Kansas City pitching for most of the afternoon. Down 7-3 with one out and Jason Giambi on first in the ninth, Jorge Posada tapped an easy grounder to the mound. But the pitcher Jeremy Affeldt botched what would have been a game-ending double play and then the Yankees countered with a string of seeing-eye hits of their own. Matt Lawton, pinch-hitter Tino Martinez, Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield and finally Alex Rodriguez all slapped hits just beyond Kansas City gloves as the Yankees scored five runs in the ninth for a thrilling 8-7 win. There was a lot of hugging and smiling in the Bronx on a late August afternoon as the Yankees pulled off one of the most memorable victories of their season. Combined with a Red Sox loss (the Tigers rallied after being down 6-0), the Yanks are now just a game-and-a-half behind Boston in the AL East.

It is far less beautiful in New York today. The sun is gone and it is overcast and humid. Al Leiter is on the hill as the Bombers go for the sweep.

If these are indeed the final days of Bernie Williams’ career in New York at least he’s got some games like last night’s left in him. Williams, who has traditionally hit well in August, cranked a pair of two-run home runs to help lift the Bombers past Kansas City 5-1. He received two curtain calls and it was warming to see him being appreciated by the home town fans. Bernie is a favorite of ours here at Bronx Banter and I know that I am trying to savor every at-bat he has–good, bad or indifferent–because this may be it. Of course, it is especially sweet when he does something productive.

Alex Rodriguez added a solo blast into the black seats–his league-leading 38th on the season–and Randy Johnson pitched eight strong innings. It was a good win for the Yanks who kept pace with Indians and A’s who won–as did the Sox.

Meanwhile, according to Bill Madden in The Daily News, the Yankees acquired outfielder Matt Lawton last night fromt the Cubs for a minor league pitcher:

Lawton, who hit .268 with 11 homers and 49 RBI in 120 games with Chicago and Pittsburgh this season, likely will be plugged into left field with Hideki Matsui moving to center on regular occasions as the Yankees address what has been a problem for them all season long. According to sources, the deal came down in the middle of last night’s 5-1 Yankee win over the Royals, after it had been learned earlier in the day that Lawton had cleared waivers.

This sounds like a nice, modest pick-up. I’ve always liked Lawton personally, and he’s an upgrade over Bubba Crosby and Tony Womack in the outfield. Welcome aboard, bro.

Entering this weekend’s series against the Kansas City Royals, the Yankees remain in a three-way tie with the A’s and Indians for the Wild Card lead. They are also three games behind the Boston Red Sox in the AL East. Those three games are a haunting number as the last time the Yankees met Kansas City, the Royals swept the invading Yanks. That’s the Royals, the team that currently owns the major leagues’ worst record (their .331 winning percentage is fifty points worse than that of the second-worst Rockies) and, entering that series at the very end of May, sported an even worse .260 winning percentage.

In retrospect, that series came at exactly the right time for the Royals. Kansas City had just hired Buddy Bell as their manager and proceeded to win their first four games under their new skipper on their way to a 10-4 run. Meanwhile, the series came at exactly the wrong time for the Yankees. Their season-saving May had just been rudely interrupted by a pair of brutal home loses to the Red Sox (total score 24-3). The Kansas City sweep came in the middle of a six-game losing streak for the Yankees, five straight series loses, and a 1-9 team slump in which the Yankee offense scored 23 runs in 10 games (easy math: 2.3 runs per game). In that series in Kansas City, the Bombers were held to six runs by the Royals staff.

Things are a bit different now. The Yankees scored six runs in yesterday’s game alone and 23 in the just-completed four-game series against the Blue Jays (more difficult math: a representative 5.75 runs per game against a season average of 5.40). They’re also on a 10-4 streak of their own. Meanwhile, the Royals are just five games removed from a 19-game losing streak.

Ah, but what a five games they’ve been: 4-1 against two of the Yankees’ primary postseason rivals the A’s and Red Sox. As was the case in the initial meeting between these two teams, when the Royals win its usually in a low-scoring game. They broke their losing streak when tonight’s starter, Mike Wood–then making just his third start of the year after a respectable stay in the bullpen–and the top four men in the Royal pen (Andy Sisco, Ambiorix Burgos, Jeremy Affeldt and “Mac the Ninth” MacDougal) out-dueled Barry Zito and Justin Duschsherer to deliver a 2-1 win. Last night’s 7-4 victory in Curt Schilling’s first start since April was the first time the Royals had scored more than five runs in their last ten games.

Opposing Wood tonight is the Big Enigma, Randy Johnson, who has just one quality start in his last four attempts, that coming in a game the Yankees lost anyway (4-3 to the Devil Rays last Tuesday). Randy Johnson’s last start, in which he gave up six runs on four home runs in the third inning against the White Sox, spawned more speculation, aggravation, and rumination than I care to get into right now, but I did find a pair of articles particularly informative. The first is actually more than a month old: Jonah Keri’s Baseball Prospectus Game of the Week column on a game Johnson pitched against the Indians the day after Old-Timer’s Day. Keri’s article is particularly enlightening regarding Johnson’s pitch selection and approach to getting men out this year.

The other is from SG at the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog, who wrote about something I had noticed but forgotten about regarding the similarity between Randy Johnson’s performances this season and in 2003, when he had mid-season knee surgery. Personally, I’ve been convinced for some time that Johnson’s back has been the source of his trouble, robbing him of the velocity on his fastball and the break on his slider that he’s needed to be his dominating self. To my mind, that this season so neatly matches 2003, when he also struggled with injury, lends some credence to that belief.

Here’s hoping the Yanks can put enough good wood on Mike’s pitches tonight to compensate, as they can ill-afford another loss to the Kansas City Royals.

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