I’ve been fairly convinced that the Yankees are and will remain a .500 team this year ever since they were swept by the then AL-worst Royals four weeks ago. Still, streaks such as their 6-0 opening to the just-completed home stand and apparent breakthroughs by men such as Randy Johnson, Jason Giambi, and especially Hideki Matsui combined with the continued impressive performances of Robinson Cano and Chien-Ming Wang have kept me from saying so at print. But after the Yanks dropped 3 of 4 to the Devil Rays for the second time this year (falling to 3-7 against them on the season) and needed a last-gasp ninth-inning rally to avoid a sweep at the hands of the scuffling Mets, I’m finally ready to put it in black and white. That said, I’m optimistic about the team’s prospects heading in the three-game series with the Orioles that will kick off in Baltimore tonight.

After the Yanks took those first six home games from the Pirates and Cubs, the hope was that they could keep their momentum through the inferior D-Rays and Mets and get within three games of the division leading O’s in time to have a chance to take the division lead with a sweep of this series. Oh how things have changed. Not only did the Yanks finish their home stand with a 2-5 record against the Rays and Mets, but the Orioles have also fallen on hard times, droping six of their last seven to the Blue Jays and Braves (admittedly stronger competition), and relinquishing their division lead to the surging Red Sox (who, having won 12 of their last 13, appear to be on their way to running away with the east).

So not only did the Yankees fail to get within three games of the O’s (they’re four games behind them going into tonight), the Orioles are no longer the team to beat in the east as they trail the Sox by 2.5 and enter this series on a five-game losing streak. With that in mind, the Yankees are still in a position to tighten things between themselves and the second-place O’s, who also happen to be the Wild Card leaders of the moment, with the Twins also having hit hard times (5-11 in their last 16 games–in fact, the O’s, Twins and Yankees have nearly identical records in June: 11-13 for the O’s and Yanks, 11-12 for the Twins).

Taking a quick look at the pitching match-ups, the Yankees are in good shape: Pavano pitching on the road (2.49 ERA) against the volatile Daniel Cabrera (5.54 ERA, 5.91 in June), The Anchor Chien-Ming Wang taking on that giant ball of suck Sir Sidney Ponson (5.42 ERA), and Mike Mussina, a near-Hall of Fame veteran who has pitched several hundred games in Camden Yards, facing reeling rookie Hayden Penn (6.07 ERA, one quality start in six tries). I’m not making any predictions, but I have a good feeling about this.

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I believe that George Steinbrenner is not the same man he was back in the seventies and eighties, but at some point you figure he’s going to do something. Someone has to get canned, right? So long as the Yanks continue to play as poorly as they have, it just seems inevitable. So who will be the first one to get it? Brian Cashman or Mel Stottlemyre? My guess is that it will be Mel.

You are supposed to feel good when your team wins, right? Well, after the display of terrible fielding the Yanks put on during the seventh inning last night, I felt more relieved than anything else when they finally pulled it out in the ninth. I also felt a lot of other things, and none of them were too kind or uplifting. But hey, a win is a win, no matter how ugly. Jason Giambi’s bases loaded single in the bottom of the ninth gave the Bombers a 5-4 victory, as they avoided being swept at home by the Mets. Randy Johnson pitched a good game, Alex Rodriguez had four hits (two in “the clutch” for those who care to notice these things), and Mariano Rivera pitched a one-two-three ninth to earn the win. Rivera is now 4-2 on the season, with sixteen saves, and two blown saves. His earned run average is down to 0.94.

The Yanks head down to Baltimore today for a three game series against the slumping Orioles. It will be interesting to see which team continues to slide here. Carl Pavano is in a big spot for New York once again. Let’s see how he responds…

It’s probably a good thing that I missed yesterday’s game, another in a series of flat performances by the Yanks. I did catch the last couple of innings on the radio, and man, it wasn’t even close, as the Mets cruised 10-3. Later, I saw the highlights, which featured Cliff Floyd’s two monstrous dingers, and a montage of unfortunate fielding plays by Bernie Williams (who made an awful error on Friday night as well).

The clip that was most arresting showed Williams knocking over the water cooler in the dugout, as if the ghost of Paul O’Neill had gotten a hold of him. I don’t ever recall Bernie lashing on in anger like that, do you? According to the New York Times:

“I think we’re asking him to do more than we expected from him all year,” [manager Joe] Torre said…”In spring training, I thought about having Bernie out there and giving him a couple of days off. We just haven’t been able to do that. We don’t have the depth in center field to do that. We’re going to look and see how we can get him a day off.”

…Torre said: “It’s hard, because I know how proud he is and how badly he wants to be there for everybody. He came here long before I was here. The one thing about Bernie, numbers never change your opinion of him, because you start with the man.”

Steve Lombardi has an interesting post on Williams that hints that Bernie isn’t so well-loved by one of his longtime teammates (my guess is that person is Derek Jeter).

Both teams are now 37-37. I don’t think the Yanks will lose tonight, not with Johnson on the mound, but hey, I wouldn’t exactly be shocked if they did either.

I went out and saw the new Batman movie last night. I thought it was well worth ten bucks and easily the most impressive Batman movie to date. Meanwhile, Pedro and the Mets beat the Yanks 6-4 on a steamy night in the Bronx.

I’m gunna miss today’s game as well. Instead, I’m heading down to Philly with some Red Sox friends of mine to see Boston play the Phils. I’ve never been to the new stadium down there–heck, I never went to the old one either–so it should be a good time.

Go Yanks.

Yo, there aren’t many good things to say about last night’s 9-4 Yankee loss to the Devil Rays, so I’m a keep this brief. At some point, resignation just has to set in for Yankee fans. What else can you do? Hang on to 1978 forever. Sure, they are still only five games out, but losing three of four to the D Rays twice? C’maaaan, man, ya killin me.

Bernie had a good night with the stick (though he fell asleep and let Julio Lugo turn a single into a double for no good reason too), with a homer, a double, and a hard, line drive out to short. Um, Jason Giambi hit the ball well too. He singled to left, and later bunted for a base hit in the ninth (he also lined out hard to left, and Carl Crawford did his best Sandy Amoros impression to rob the big man of a double). Yup, just what everyone has been begging for: Giambi bunted for a hit. Didn’t do the team much good in the long run, but at least he had his head in the right place.

The Mets visit the Bronx this weekend in a battle of which local team is more mediocre. Any thoughts about that one? Come on, inspire me with some conversation will ya, because I’m fresh out of ideas.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are fifth in the American League (ninth in the majors) in runs scored. They’re also fifth in the majors in EQA. Thus far this season they are 6-3 against the Yankees, who are second in the majors in both categories. The Devil Rays have now won seven games on the road this year, three of them in the Bronx. Tampa has scored 7.2 runs per game against the Yankees, scoring five or more in eight of their nine meetings. The Yankees have scored 7.4 runs against Tampa, scoring four or fewer runs in five of their nine meetings, but scoring a total of 39 runs in just two games.

Those are a lot of ugly numbers. Chien-Ming Wang, whom I’m officially dubbing the anchor of this Yankee rotation (Moose and Unit are the aces, Meat and Mr. Nasty are the question marks, Tiger is the anchor), looks to keep the top half of the scoreboard neat and tidy tonight as the Yanks try to save some face by salvaging a split of this four game series with the worst team in their league.

Wang’s mound opponent is 6’9″ lefty Mark Hendrickson (whose official name, by the way, is “6’9″ Lefty Mark Hendrickson”). Hendrickson has some ugly numbers of his own (5.83 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, 4.18 K/9, 1.50 K/BB, 1.27 HR/9, opponents hitting .322/.371/.516, 7.55 road ERA, 9.43 June ERA). The only thing Hendrickson does well is stifle lefties (.219/.269/.329). That should mean more bench time for Tony Mowack. Whether or not we’ll see Russ Johnson (2 for 9 vs. lefties this year after an 0 for 2 against Scott Kazmir yesterday) get his second consecutive start at first, well, I doubt it, but we’ll find out soon enough.

[note: I started to write the below in the comments to Alex’s last post, responding to Simone’s inquiries about Carl Pavano’s ground-ball ratios and home run rates, but after I finished, I thought it deserved it’s own post]

Shall we try the old blind taste test gimmick?

Pitcher A: 6.89 ERA, 1.91 HR/9, 6.32 K/9, 2.11 BB/9, 3.00 K/BB
Opposition vs. Pitcher A: .360/.404/.567 (.324 GPA)

Pitcher B: 2.49 ERA, 1.15 HR/9, 4.40 K/9, 1.15 BB/9, 3.83 K/BB
Opposition vs. Pitcher B: .260/.293/.443 (.243 GPA)

These pitchers are currently sharing a spot in the Yankee rotation. It sure would be nice if the team would let Pitcher B take over Pitcher A’s starts? The problem is that they can’t. You see, both of these pitchers are Carl Pavano. Pitcher B is Carl Pavano on the road. Pitcher A is Carl Pavano at home.

This is why Meat has been rotten. It’s not his ground ball rates (Pavano has a career ground ball-to-fly ball ratio of 1.42, this year he’s inducing 1.58 grounders for every fly). It’s not even his home run rates. Observe:

Playing his home games in le Stad Olympique as an Expo from 1998 to 2002, Pavano gave up 1.09 HR/9, while his home park had an average park factor of 101.4. Playing his home games at Pro Player Stadium as a Marlin from 2002 to 2004, Pavano gave up 0.74 HR/9, while his home part had an average park factor of 95.3. Taking into account that Pavano spent his natural peak in a Florida uniform (ages 26-28) and that it was as a Marlin that he finally beat the injury bug and came into his own as a pitcher, those numbers make perfect sense. Pavano’s 1.15 HR/9 on the road as a Yankee also fits logically with Meat’s move from the National to American League and the 1.09 HR/9 he posted in the only slightly hitter-friendly Montreal as a National Leaguer.

What doesn’t fit is that insane 1.91 HR/9 in Yankee Stadium, a park that has had a factor of 97 in each of the last two seasons (and a 98 in 2002). Which brings us right back to where we started.

Pavano’s struggles in the Bronx are hard to explain in baseball terms, but the fact that he’s a Connecticut kid who grew up in Yankee country could have something to do with it. If Pavano is simply dealing with some psychological issues (nerves, pressing, anxiety, what ever you want to call it) when it comes to pitching in Yankee Stadium (and, most likely, in front of more friends and family than he was accustomed to in Montreal and Miami), then one could hope that, as the initial excitement wears off and these starts become more routine, his home performance will fall closer in line with his road performance. If so, that would be a huge boost for the Yankees.

The question is, how long will that take. Pavano’s first three Yankee Stadium starts this year (not counting the start against the Orioles in which he was beaned by a Melvin Mora comebacker) were his only quality starts at home on the season, the last of those coming against the A’s on May 6. Things took a turn for the worse in that May 11 home game against the Mariners and Jamie Moyer in which Pavano was victimized by Alex Rodriguez’s dreadful play at third base and a quartet of Seattle homers. So things would actually seem to be heading in the wrong direction were it not for his encouraging non-homer peripherals from yesterday’s two-homer loss to the Devil Rays: 6 2/3 IP, 4 1B, 0 2B, 0 3B, 1 BB, 7 K.

Incidentally, if you take that one start against Seattle away, Pavano’s home HR/9 drops to 1.26. Another crack in the wall between Pavano’s home and road starts is that, despite that ridiculous home road split for HR/9, Pavano has allowed 20 extra base hits in 203 opposition at-bats at home and 18 extra base hits in 181 opposition at-bats on the road for an isolated power of .207 at home and .182 on the road, which, though continuing to demonstrate his inferior performance at home, isn’t as extreme a split as his other numbers would suggest. Could it be that an effective pinstriped Carl Pavano is indeed on the horizon? If so, the Yankees may have more fight in ’em than we think. If not, well, you can probably write them off now.

John Harper thinks that yesterday’s 5-3 loss to the Devil Rays is one of the Yankees’ worst of the season:

In a season of stunning losses, you can make a case that this was the most alarming one of all. In the manager’s office afterward, you could see it in Joe Torre’s face. You could hear it in his tone of voice more than his words.

…”This was a tough loss,” Torre said afterward in a rather grave tone. “After what we did (Tuesday) night…and today we had a couple of leads, and we couldn’t hold onto it. It’s a setback, no question.”

From what he’s seen of the Yankees in the past week, Harper opines:

It’s more of a sign than ever that they’re destined to be an inconsistent club all season, talented enough to put together occasional hot streaks, but not complete enough to sustain the type of high-level performance that has marked the Torre era.

Kazmir v. Pavano this afternoon at the stadium. Watch both teams combine for five runs.

It all started innocently enough. Randy Johnson struck out Carl Crawford on three pitches, the first two looking, the third swinging. He then sat Julio Lugo down on five more and stranded Jorge Cantu at first base by getting Aubrey Huff to ground out to second. Clean, simple, and an apparent indication that Johnson was picking up where he left off last Thursday with his complete game against the Pirates.

Then Johnson started the second inning with a ball to Eduardo Perez. His next two pitches were sliders that Perez offered, but, at least according to home plate umpire Eric Cooper and first base ump Fieldin Culbreth, did not actually swing at. Down 3-0 in the count when he just as easily could have been up 1-2, Johnson wound up walking Perez on four pitches. Johnson then got Jonny Gomes to pop out to short on an 0-2 count and got called strike one on Damon Hollins and all appeared to be well.

Then Hollins and back-up catcher Kevin Cash homered on Johnson’s next two pitches to put the Devil Rays up 3-0. Alex Gonzalez then singled on an 2-0 pitch and stole second on a first-pitch ball to Carl Crawford. Crawford then missed two pitches before yanking a third to deep right for an RBI triple. Johnson then got ahead of Julio Lugo 0-2 only to have Lugo single home Crawford. Just like that, the Devil Rays had scored five runs on Randy Johnson in the second inning.

The Yankees got one back in the bottom of the second on a Matsui walk, a Giambi ground rule double, and a Bernie Williams sac fly, but the D-Rays doubled that in the top of the third. Before Johnson could get the first out, Eduardo Perez doubled and Jonny Gomes homered to make it 7-1 Devil Rays.

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The Yankees’ Tag-Team Champions, Randy “Big Unit” Johnson and John “Flash” Flaherty, look to go 3-0 tonight against Hideo “The Tornado” Nomo and Toby “Or Not Toby” Hall. With Hall and Casey “Playing” Fossum having won the night before only because the umpires failed to disqualify Fossum for hitting Kevin “Mr. Nasty” Brown in the back with a folding chair, forcing the Yankees to replace him with Sean “Just Say” Henn, this is sure to be a grudge match on par with the British Bulldogs taking their revenge on the Dream Team after Greg “The Hammer” Valentine stole their mascot Mathilda.

Rookie Sean Henn walked seven batters in less than five innings of work last night. By the time he was relieved by Paul Quantrill, the Devil Rays had a 3-0 lead. A bloop single made it 4-0, and Tampa Bay added another run in the following inning. All of which seemed more than enough for Casey Fossum who cruised through the Yankee lineup for the first six innings (the first hit for the Bombers–a double by Hideki Matsui–didn’t come until the fifth). Alex Rodriguez doubled to lead off the seventh, narrowly missing a home run (run dummy!), then Matsui walked. But the Yanks couldn’t do anything else as Posada flew out to left, Giambi whiffed, and Williams grounded out to third.

In the eighth, however, Cano singled, chasing Fossum from the game. Lance Carter replaced him and promptly allowed a single to Jeter. After retiring Womack–who got an earful from the boo birds–Sheffield chopped a base hit to left scoring Cano. Rodriguez went fishing after a breaking ball and popped out to second, but then Matsui hooked a change up over the right field fence and the Yankees were suddenly down by just one run.

That was as close as they would get. Posada walked and Giambi whiffed again (he still can’t catch up with those good heaters). Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless ninth, uncharacteristically walking two men. But the Bombers went down in order against Danys Baez in the bottom of the ninth, as the Devil Rays pulled out a 5-4 win.

“We’ve got to come out and play with our hair on fire, and I don’t think we did that today,” said Alex Rodriguez…”Today we were a little lazy.”

…”Just a disappointing performance by us tonight. We have to do better than that.”
(N.Y.Times)

Tonight gives Johnson vs. Nomo. Bank on the Yankees doing better.

Going into last week’s series against Pittsburgh, the Yankees’ record was 1/2 game worse than the Pirates’. Now, three days after sweeping the Pirates’, the Yankees are 4 1/2 games ahead of Pittsburgh.

Going into this weekend’s series against the Cubs, the Yankees record was 1 1/2 games worse than the Chicago’s. Now, after sweeping them in three games, the Yankees are 1 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs.

Tonight, going into a four game series against Tampa Bay, the Yankees have won six in a row, are 8-2 in their last ten games, are just five games out of first place and a whopping 13 1/2 games ahead of the Devil Rays, with whom they were once tied for last in the AL East. But that’s nothing compared to the discrepancy between the Yankees’ home record and the Devil Rays’ road record:

Yanks Home: 22-13 (.629)
Rays Road: 5-28 (.152)

Wow! That’s a 16-game difference over a sample of 35 games (33 for the Rays). One has to assume the Rays will find a way to win one of the next four games, but given those home and away records, it would be a major upset for them to do any better than that. Of course, that’s how we all felt when the Yankees headed to Kansas City three weeks ago. Let’s not forget that the Devil Rays have a 4-2 record against the Yankees on the season. This is how that happened:

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For great baseball gossip, there are no two guys better than Peter Gammons and Ken Rosenthal. Today, Rosenthal writes that the Mets might not move centerfielder Mike Cameron after all, while Gammons checks in on the Yanks:

The Yankees are trying to get Oakland’s Mark Kotsay, who can be a free agent at the end of the year. But whether or not Brian Cashman will give up the prospects needed to get one of the game’s premier center fielders, like right-hander Philip Hughes and perhaps third baseman Eric Duncan, remains to be seen. Cashman has talked to a number of general managers, but isn’t offering to break up the team as some have suggested. Getting Kotsay would completely change their outfield defense and give them a solid leadoff hitter as they try to move Tony Womack.

Hmmm.

“The Yankees are the best team we’ve seen all season…I don’t know why they’re a couple games over .500.” Dusty Baker
(N.Y.Times)

Well, we’ve got ourselves an answer, Mr. Ciepley. The Cubs suck more…for now, at least. The Yanks beat Chicago 6-3 yesterday, sweeping the weekend series. It was New York’s sixth consecutive win. (In a losing cause, Derek Lee went 6-12 in the three games.) Tyler Kepner has a good write up of the game in the New York Times this morning. The Devil Rays are in town for a four-game set starting tonight and then the Mets come in over the weekend, after which, we can finally put inter-league play to rest for the season.

I’ve written on numerous occasions over the past few seasons about what will happen to the Yanks After George. The $64,000 question is not “What will happen to the Bronx Bombers when Torre is gone?” but “What will happen when George is gone?” For anyone under 35 (I just turned 34), we simply don’t know what a Yankee Universe is like without George. We’re accustomed to his ways, for better or for worse. And though we’ve heard in the media that behind closed doors Steinbrenner is still as incorrigible as ever, publicly, he’s a far cry from the Bronx Zoo Boss of the 1970s and ’80s.

What? He called Hideki Irabu a slob in 1999, he traded for Mondesi a few years later, busted Don Zimmer’s chops to no end, and took turns giving Derek Jeter and Joe Torre some grief too. This is all mild stuff coming out of Steinbrenner.

Yet when the Yanks struggle, there is great anticipation about “What George will do next?” I think the guy is a far cry from what he once was, and I’m guilty of expecting an explosion every now and again. You’d think this would be the year he’d let loose. Fire the pitching coach or the general manager: something, already.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that there will be no fireworks. Not in the same way we used to see. I was thinking about this last week, when I noticed that Tom Verducci hit on how George has changed in his recent mailbag column. In talking about Brian Cashman, Verducci wrote:

He works for a very different Steinbrenner than the stereotype people keep writing about (he’s extremely sensitive now and hasn’t fired anybody in years).

Picking up on this theme, Mike Lupica has an outstanding piece on Steinbrenner today in the Daily News. I grew up reading Lupica, and though I’ve never admired him as a stylist, I respect the fact that he’s been covered Steinbrenner and the Yankees for close to thirty years. When he’s good, Lupica still can hit the nail right on the head. He doesn’t often write long articles anymore, but this one is choice:

Anybody who watched his recent interview on YES with Michael Kay or watched this staged media event the other day, has to know that the Boss Steinbrenner that is still written about and discussed on television and the radio does not exist. He can still blow his top. He can still make a headline. But he is as real now as the young Mike Tyson is real.

…The truth is, Steinbrenner says hardly anything of interest anymore.

The Boss that the media and the Yankees still want, the Reggie-Billy-Bronx Zoo boss, no longer exists.

Lupica speculates who might take control once George steps down, and how it will impact the organization. He doesn’t think it looks promising, and I have to agree. There has been a lot to dislike about Steinbrenner over the years, but he also has tried to put a winning team on the field, no matter the cost. Some Yankee fans might grow to really miss him once he’s gone. (Last year, Allen Barra wrote an appreciation of Steinbrenner for the Village Voice, and suggested that we should be thankful for what Boss George has given us now…six world championships and ten World Series appearances in just over thirty years.) Lupica believes that those days are close to being over. Then, in his own, inimitable way, he calls it like it is:

It is obvious by now that love Steinbrenner or hate him, there will never be another owner, in any city in any sport, like him.

That’s the fact, Jack.

Well, it finally happened. After 155 career plate appearances with the bases loaded, Derek Jeter hit his first Major League grand slam this afternoon as the Yanks bombed Chicago, 8-1 at the stadium. Emily and I were listening to the game in the car and I called the homer. It’s not like this is the first time I–or any number of Yankee fans, for that matter–have called Jeter’s first grand slam, but it was the first time I was right. The way I figured it, Alex Ciepley was still at the game. I know he was going to leave early so that he could get home in time to get ready for his party tonight, but it was the bottom of the sixth and the game was still close (Yanks 3, Cubs 1). Alex can’t sand Jeter, so I figured it would make perfect sense that Jeter would do something memorable. (For good measure, Jeter added a solo shot in the eighth.)

The crowd went wild and I’m sure the entire scene drove Ciepley out of the Bronx with the quickness. Chien-Ming Wang pitched a beautifully efficient game and the Yanks won their fifth straight.

Well, so far, the Yankees suck less. Or the Cubs suck more. However you want to put it. I was at the game last night with Alex Ciepley and my brother Ben. We sat in the front row of the upper deck, about twenty seats to the right of the right field foul pole. I had never been anywhere near that spot before so it the view was interesting. The sun was in our face for the first couple of innings, and after that, we saw some striking cloud formations in the distance. It was supposed to rain, but it never did. It was cool and breezy, really a perfect spring night at the ballpark.

There were lots of Cub fans at the Stadium and they made lots of noise during the middle innings. They didn’t antagonize the home crowd, they were just happy to cheer and get loud for their guys. We saw only a few fights, including what looked like something nasty about ten rows behind home plate in the seventh inning, but otherwise, everyone seemed to be on their best behavior. There was a couple sitting behind us who came all the way from Illinois. The woman went to high school with Joe Girardi, even typed his senior thesis. Girardi’s parents actually introduced the couple, who left, without saying goodbye in the eighth inning.

That’s when Ciepley told me that it’s a myth that folks from the midwest are friendly. He said mostly they are anti-social and weird.

There was a pretty funny heckler sitting to our left. The kind of guy who shouted random insults at the Yankees at random times. He loved giving Sheffield the business for no apparent reason. He told us, with great delight, about how when he sat downstairs, they used to give Mondesi all sorts of abuse. (Speaking of Sheff, my brother noted that he looks like he’s dogging it some lately. His name is popping up in phatom rumors. What gives? Anyone noticed anything off about him? And why would the Yanks want to trade him of all people?)

Carlos Zambrano wasn’t on his A-game, though Carl Pavano did everything he could to let him off the hook. (Zambrano is a gorilla. He reminds me of a combination of Rich Garces and Juaquin Andujar. You can see he’s often dominant.) Eventually, Hideki Matsui came through with two huge hits off of Chicago’s bullpen, as the Yankees came-from-behind to take the first game of the series, 9-6. Derek Lee had his usual two hits. Bernie Williams added two of his own, and Alex Rodriguez had three.

Ciepley will be at the game again the afternoon (then he’s got a birthday bash tonight downtown with some of his pals). As for me, Emily and I are headed up to the country to do some strawberry pickin. Who knows, maybe we’ll–I’ll–get ambitious and make some jaw when it is all said and done. Anyhow, should prove to be a fruity day, no matter how you slice it.

Go Yanks!

Things are really looking up in Yankee land. The team is back over .500 for the first time in almost two weeks. They now have third place in the AL East to themselves, having picked up a half-game on the Blue Jays who were idle last night. They’re 5-2 in their last seven games. And, most importantly, this latest winning streak can be directly tied to the improvements made by several of the team’s key players.

In the rotation, Randy Johnson has been downright nasty in his last two starts (18 IP, 9 H, 1 R, 1 HR, 0 BB, 18 K), Mike Mussina’s last outing was his second shutout of the year, even tonight’s starter, Carl “Meat” Pavano, has been solid in his last two outings (12 IP, 11 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 5 K). And, while Tanyon Sturtze has suddenly given up homers in each of the last three innings he’s pitched, adding almost a run and a half to his season ERA (though those are the only three homers he’s allowed all year), Mariano Rivera is as lights out as he’s ever been. Don’t look now, but Mo’s rate stats look like this: 1.09 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 10.58 K/9. The K-rate is Mo’s highest since 1996, while the ERA is more than a half run better than his career high.

On offense, the big news is that Jason Giambi is starting to catch up with those 90-plus mile per hour fastballs. As a result, a full thirty percent of his extra base hits on the year have come in the last three games. Similarly, Hideki Matsui, who has a hit in all but three games this month, has hit a full third of his homers in the last three games. Matsui’s sudden power stroke is a direct result of the mild ankle sprain he suffered while playing right field in St. Louis. Unable to put too much weight on his right (front) ankle, Matsui is keeping his weight back and driving the ball. As a result, half of his extra base hits in June have come while DHing due to the sprain. (Hitting Coach Don Mattingly has reportedly threatened to whack Matsui in the ankle with a bat if he reverts to lunging at the ball once his ankle heals).

With everything going their way, the Yankees now get their biggest challenge since the Red Sox sent them packing on the Road Trip From Hell (no disrespect to the Twins there, but the Yankees weren’t in challenge-facing mood when they hit Minnesota–by the way speaking of that road trip, the Kansas City Royals are now 11-4 under new manager Buddy Bell and just completed a three-game sweep of the Dodgers last night).

Where was I? Oh yes:

Chicago Cubs

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