Can you imagine the venom that must flow in the streets of Boston at mere mention of the name Francisco Cervelli? He is the player on the opposite team that you hate without reservation. It isn’t the type of dislike for a great player that comes with a sprinkle of respect, it’s one hundred percent hatred. He’s a bench player, after all, but he celebrates his small achievements as if he’s just driven in the game-winning run in game seven. His favorite bit comes after a big strikeout to silence a scoring threat at the end of an inning. He pops out of his crouch, hops towards the dugout, and begins pumping his fist as if shaking salt into his opponent’s open wound.

But he’s our Frankie Brains, and we love him. (Sure, his bat is anemic, but that doesn’t fit with this narrative so we’ll ignore that part.) We love that he’s a grinder. We love that he seems to know that he’s living a major league dream and won’t blink for fear of missing something. Frankie Brains.

Tonight in Boston, Frankie took things to another level, but we’ll get to that. When he stepped in against Ugly John Lackey to lead off the top of the fifth, things were already going well for the Yanks. Everyone knew this was big game, not just for the Yankees as they were chasing the Red Sox in the standings, but also for Tuesday night’s starter, CC Sabathia, who had been repeatedly chased by the Red Sox, giving up six, six, and then seven runs in his last three starts against them.

Early on it looked like Boston might have more of the same planned for CC. The Yankees had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the second when Eric Chavez had squeaked a soft line drive through the infield, but Boston seemed poised to erase that early lead. Even Sabathia’s outs were difficult, and when the Sox loaded the bases in the second inning, there was a very real sense that the game might have been hanging in the balance. (Less optimistic fans can be forgiven for thinking the entire season was riding on each pitch.) When Jacoby Ellsbury finally grounded out to end the inning, the Red Sox still hadn’t scored, but Sabathia had already spent 51 pitches to record just six outs. The outlook wasn’t brilliant.

Curtis Granderson drew a walk to open the fourth inning, then Robinson Canó stepped up and reminded any skeptics that he’s the best hitting second baseman in baseball. (But Boston fans probably know this. Canó entered the game with the highest career batting average of any Yankee at Fenway Park with a minimum of 200 ABs. His .352 put him two points up on a guy named Lou; his 2 for 3 night on Tuesday would widen that gap.) After fouling off a pitch from Lackey, Canó smoothly stroked a long fly that bounced high off the wall in the left center before nearly bounding over Ellsbury’s head. Granderson scored easily, and the score was 3-0.

Things got sticky for CC in the the bottom half. After retiring Jed Lowrie for the first out, Sabathia gave up a no doubt home run to Carl Crawford. Pitchers make mistakes, and good hitters hit mistakes, so maybe that’s all this was. But then Jarrod Saltalamacchia singled firmly to center, Darnell McDonald singled to right, and suddenly Boston was rallying. Sabathia buckled down and struck out Ellsbury, but Marco Scutaro — of course — rifled a double down the third base line to score Saltalamacchia and the Sox only trailed by a single run. Sabathia rebounded to strike out Adrian González, but at that point this game had all the markings of a classic Yankee-Red Sox tilt that wouldn’t be decided until the final pitch was thrown.

All of which brings us to Cervelli’s at bat in the top of the fifth. Frankie worked the count to 3-1 against Lackey, then launched an absolute bomb over the wall in left. For just a minute now, put yourself in Frankie’s shoes. Before Tuesday night you’ve had a total of 176 at bats and hit only two home runs. Here you are in what some people might say is the biggest series of your team’s season, and you’ve just hit a home run over the Green Monster to double your team’s lead. Might you be a little fired up?

Frankie was fired up. He clapped his hands a single time as he planted his foot on home plate and turned back towards the third base dugout. I understand that there are hundreds of unwritten baseball rules out there, and for the most part I accept them, but I’m not sure why you can’t clap your hands when you hit a home run. When you’re Derek Jeter and you do it after every single base hit, it’s okay. But when you’re Francisco Cervelli and you do it after hitting a big home run, apparently it isn’t.

The next time Cervelli came up he was leading off the seventh inning and the Yankees still led, 4-2. Lackey’s first pitch was a straight fast ball aimed directly at Cervelli’s shoulder, and the benches cleared. Viewers at home were immediately treated to a replay of the fifth inning home run, but this time we also saw a clip that showed Lackey staring down Cervelli as he touched home, clapped, and headed to the dugout. The smoke signals bellowing from his ears sent a clear message: “The next time you come up I’m going to drill you.” And drill him he did.

Once order was restored, Cervelli advanced to second on a past ball, then went to third when Brett Gardner earned a single by beating out a sacrifice bunt. Derek Jeter grounded into a double play, but Cervelli scored (without clapping), exacting a measure of revenge. Nobody messes with Frankie Brains.

Sabathia had made it through six gutty innings, throwing 128 pitches along the way and striking out ten, and Cory Wade had taken care of business in the seventh, bringing us to Rafael Soriano and the eighth. When he walked Ellsbury to open the frame, the Fenway faithful began to smell blood in the water. Marco Scutaro came to the plate and a strange thing happened — I was worried. Now, I ask you, what has the world come to when the thought of Marco Scutaro walking to the plate strikes fear in the heart of anyone except the fans of his own team?

Scutaro worked the count to 2-1, then showed me exactly why I was worried. He roped a line drive that was plainly ticketed for the gap in left center field. Ellsbury would score standing up, Scutaro would coast into second, and suddenly the Red Sox would be in serious business, down only two with a man on second, nobody out, and González, Dustin Pedroia, and David Ortíz due up.

But the ball didn’t fall in. Last week our man Jon DeRosa wrote a great piece on the analysis of defensive statistics, and one thing those numbers will tell you is that Brett Gardner is the best left fielder in baseball. I don’t need statistics to tell me that because I watch him do amazing things game after game. The ball that Scutaro hit was an absolute rope, and Gardner had no business getting to it. Gardner always plays shallow, but Fenway’s Monster lets him play even closer to the infield. To get to Scutaro’s ball he had to get a perfect jump, take the exact right line, and be fast enough to beat the ball to the spot. He did all that, but just barely. He had to leap a bit at the last second to snare the drive, and Ellsbury, who had already gone just beyond second, had to race back to first. The Great One would come on to get the final three outs in relatively uneventful fashion (unless you consider Girardi’s ejection eventful), but the save should probably have gone to Gardner.

So the Yankees now sit tied with the Red Sox in the loss column, but with twenty-nine games left on the schedule, it’s tempting to discount the importance of this game. I can’t do that. Since they managed a win (and since it was credited to Sabathia, his eighteenth) it’s a good win. If they had lost, however, cementing the idea in some minds that neither they nor their ace could beat the Red Sox, this game could’ve been hugely important. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that right now.

[Photo Credit: Winslow Townson/AP Photo]

It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. With five games scheduled against the Orioles in Baltimore over the weekend, it seemed like a golden opportunity to get fat at the expense of the worst team in the league. But after dropping the opener on Friday night, having Saturday washed out by Hurricane Irene, and splitting a doubleheader on Sunday, Monday evening’s game became a must-win affair. Losing three of four in a series that a week ago looked like at least four wins would have been unacceptable.

Thinks looked a bit bleak at the outset, with both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodríguez out with nagging injuries, and something of an unknown quantity on the mound, as Freddy García was making his first start since coming back from the disabled list.

Hometown boy Mark Teixeira started things going in the right direction early on with a double to right to score Curtis Granderson for a 1-0 lead, but that would be all anyone would get for quite a while. García was in full Junkball Magician mode. After giving up a harmless two-out double to Adam Jones in the first, García cooly set down the next eleven Baltimore hitters before Mark Reynolds snapped the string with a solo homer in the fifth.

The Yankee hitters weren’t faring much better against the Baltimore starter, someone named Alfredo Simón. After Teixeira’s first-inning double, Simón took care of the next nine Yankees to come to the plate before running into a bit of trouble in the fourth. Robinson Canó flared a single out to left, and then Mr. Happy (you may know him as Nick Swisher) followed with a home run to right for a 3-0 Yankee lead.

It wasn’t a lot of support, but on this night it would be enough. García left after six successful innings with a terribly efficient line: 6.0 IP/2 H/1 ER/1 BB/4 K. (If you’ll excuse my editorializing, that line makes me think that a rotation of Sabathia, Hughes, Nova, Colón, and García might work from now through the end of September. But what do I know?)

The bullpen took over for the final three frames, and they were lights out as usual, save for one shocking exception. Rafael Soriano yielded a walk but struck out two in a scoreless seventh, and The Great One was flawless in the ninth, but David Robertson made things a bit sticky in between. After overpowering Nolan Reimold for the first out and popping up Robert Andino for the second, Robertson gave up a home run to J.J. Hardy. The two-run lead was cut in half, so there was some immediate importance to this, and when Nick Markakis then walked and stole second to put the tying run in scoring position it loomed even larger. But Houdini wriggled free yet again as Robertson was able to strike out Adam Jones to end the threat.

How good has Robertson been this year? This good. It was the first home run he’d allowed all season, and the first run he had given up on the road.

With a 3-2 victory and the split salvaged, they head to Boston. I don’t need to tell you what the standings say, I don’t need to tell you how the Yankees have done against the Red Sox this year, and I certainly don’t need to remind you about how Sabathia has fared against them. I won’t tell you that Tuesday night’s series opener is a must win game for either the team or the man, but a win would certainly be nice.

[Photo Credit: Nick Wass/AP]

Imagine you’re sitting at home watching the game as you put your feet up on the couch to get ready for a relaxing, if stormy, weekend. You have high hopes because you don’t think things could go worse for A.J. Burnett than his last outing, and you know this is an important game — no one wants to lose even a single game to the lowly Orioles. But things go bad quickly. You smirk at the screen as Burnett muddles through the first inning, then implodes in the second. He pitches the entire inning, but it’s a disaster: groundout, homer, double, double, double, double, homer, E-1, 6-4-3 DP. When the inning finally ends the Yankees are down 6-0, and a loss seems inevitable.

You pick up the remote in disgust and are just about to call your wife to watch Project Runway, when you remember something. Doesn’t this seem an awful lot like yesterday? Didn’t you feel disloyal when you gave up on the Yankees when they were down 7-1? Didn’t you miss 21 runs and the beauty of Jorge Posada playing second base all because you lost faith?

You can’t let that happen again. So you put the remote down and get ready to watch the rest of the game. Seven innings later, you realize you made the wrong decision two days in a row. You remember yesterday’s bile as tasting good compared to what you’re feeling now.

After falling into that 6-0 hole on Friday night in Baltimore, the Yankees didn’t show quite the fight that they had on Thursday afternoon against the A’s. There was a home run from Posada in the fifth, cutting the lead to 7-1 (sound familiar?), but Burnett coughed up two more runs in the bottom half, then a two-out error by Robinson Canó in the sixth led to a three-run home run by Matt Wieters, and the Yanks were down by eleven.

Alex Rodríguez snapped the second-longest home run drought of his career when he went deep in the seventh, Swisher continued his hot hitting with a two-run homer later in the inning, and they tacked on another run in the seventh, but that did nothing more than change the final score. Orioles 12, Yankees 5.

It’s never fun when the Yankees lose, but there is obviously a much bigger concern here. Here’s a hint: it starts with A.J. and it ends with Burnett. His overall record right now sits at 9-11 with a 5.31 ERA, but if you want to know how bad he’s really been, read on. But be warned — what follows is not for the faint of heart.

We know what quality starts are, but Burnett’s season thus far has been measured by blow-up starts. Friday was his fifth outing where he allowed more runs than innings pitched. His last quality start was on June 29th against Milwaukee. Here’s his line since then:

56.1 IP/47 ER/70 H/27 BB/52 K/7.51 ERA/1.72 WHIP

On the surface, those are some pretty bad numbers, but they look even worse when you realize that they came against mediocre competition at best. Over those ten starts Burnett has faced Cleveland, Tampa Bay (twice), Oakland, Baltimore (twice), Chicago, Anaheim, Kansas City, and Minnesota. Those eight teams have a combined record of 491-550.

So we can agree that Burnett’s been bad for the past two months, but when we narrow our focus to August, it gets worse still. In his last five starts he looks like this:

22.2 IP/30 ER/44 H/9 BB/17 K/11.91 ERA/2.34 WHIP

Believe it or not, it gets comically worse. His last three starts have come against the three worst teams in the league. Many pitchers would be padding their stats against competition like this, but Burnett has actually gone in the opposite direction:

12.1 IP/19 ER/24 H/6 BB/8 K/13.87 ERA/2.43 WHIP

After Burnett’s last start, I used this space to defend him — or, more accurately, I attacked those in the media who attacked him. Now I’m here to tell you that the time has come for the Yankees to do something. Scranton is calling.

[Photo Credit: Patrick Smith/AP]

Imagine you’re sitting at work tracking the game on your computer as you file this report or the other. You have high hopes because Phil Hughes looked so good during his last outing, and you know this is an important game — no one wants to be swept by the Oakland A’s. But things go bad quickly. You smirk at the screen as Hughes gives up a run in the first and another in the second, then implodes in the third. He only manages two outs in that frame before giving way to Cory Wade. When the inning finally ends the Yankees are down 7-1, and a sweep seems inevitable. You close your browser in disgust and snarl at your co-workers for the rest of the afternoon.

You’re still burning inside, choking on your own bile and grinding your teeth into dust as you leave work. You’re so distracted that you run smack into me as I’m tumbling out of a nearby sports bar, happy as a clam. You curse my ignorance under your breath, but then you stop dead in your tracks, doubting what you think you just heard me say: “I can’t believe they won that game!” You shout after me, begging for an explanation, and this is what I tell you…

Rich Harden was pretty much in control for the first few innings, but then things started to get away from him in the fourth. Russell Martin launched a home run to right, and even though the Yankees were still down by five runs, there was a sense that seven runs wouldn’t be enough for Oakland on this afternoon.

Derek Jeter (whose average would climb to .300 for a minute towards the end of the game) opened the fifth inning with a hard single to center, then Curtis Granderson followed with a walk. After Mark Teixeira struck out, Alex Rodríguez singled to load the bases for Robinson Canó. Was there any one of us who wasn’t thinking about a grand slam? When you’re wondering if your team can back into a game, there’s a tendency to slice large leads by imaginary grand slams, but it doesn’t usually happen that way. I don’t know whether or not that was in Canó’s mind, but he turned on an inside pitch from Harden and popped it into the right field stands. Suddenly it was 7-6 A’s, but it felt more like the Yankees were ahead than behind. A few minutes later Harden was lifted in favor of Craig Breslow, and the Yankees would load the bases again — this would be a recurring theme — but they wouldn’t score again that inning.

In the sixth inning, they left the A’s behind. Curtis Granderson was hit by a pitch, Alex Rodríguez drew a walk, and after those two advanced on a wild pitch, Nick Swisher was walked intentionally to load the bases for Martin — who hit a grand slam.

Things looked comfortable at 10-7, but it would get more comfortable in the seventh, which looked like this: walk, walk, walk, sac fly, walk (pitching change), single, ground out, walk, walk, single, walk, line out. It was just your standard six-run, two-hit inning, and the game was out of reach. Yankees 16, A’s 7.

But wait, there’s more. In the eighth the Yankees would bat around for the fourth inning in a row. By the time Granderson came up with two outs in the inning and the bases loaded — again — I started to feel sorry for the A’s, and certainly for pitcher Bruce Billings. I wasn’t wondering if Granderson would hit another grand slam, I was actually kind of expecting it. Afterall, how could the Grandy Man not hit a grand slam on Grand Slam Day?

So when he launched a fly ball high and deep to right center field, I wasn’t surprised. It was the team’s third grand slam of the day, something that had never been done before, and the Yankees were up 21-7. The A’s would actually bring in their closer, Brian Fuentes, to face Andruw Jones. Jones christened him by blasting his own homer to deep left.

And just in case things weren’t crazy enough, Jorge Posada was inserted to play second base in the top of the ninth. He even fielded a grounder, looked the runner back to third even though there were two outs, and took a professional crow hop before firing a throw to first baseman… Nick Swisher. Swisher somehow corralled the throw as he tumbled to the ground, and the game was over. Crazy enough for you?

So in case you missed it, in case you gave up early and your day was ruined, I’m here to tell you that everything is okay. Yankees 22, A’s 9.

A quick look at some of the damage:

• Jeter: 3 for 6, 3B, .299
• Granderson: 2 for 4, 4 runs, grand slam, 5 RBIs
• Canó: 2 for 4, grand slam, 5 RBIs
• Martin: 5 for 5, 2B, solo HR, grand slam, 6 RBIs
• Nuñez: 3 for 5
• Team: 21 hits, 13 walks, 2 doubles, 1 triple, 5 HRs

Here’s the recap: The Twins beat the Yankees on Saturday night, blitzing through A.J. Burnett and cruising to a comfortable 9-4 win.

Now here’s the interesting part. Burnett was bad. Unspeakably bad. He couldn’t locate either his fastball or his curveball all night long — and by “all night long” I mean an inning and two thirds. Over the course of those five outs he gave up five hits, walked three, and was tagged for seven runs. He had his usual wild pitch to allow the game’s first run in the first, then yielded a sacrifice fly for another run before finally escaping.

He gave up a home run to Danny Valencia to open the second inning, then found more trouble when Luke Hughes doubled with one out, and Ben Revere singled him in an out later. It was 4-0, but it could’ve stopped there were it not for some bad luck. Revere took off for second and Russell Martin threw a dart across the diamond to nail him — except the umpire incorrectly called him safe. After a walk and another wild pitch, Burnett found himself at a crossroads. There were men on first and third and he had worked himself into a full count against one of the three recognizable names in the Minnestoa lineup, Joe Mauer. Burnett’s pitch came in at the knees and started off the plate before darting back towards the corner. It could’ve been called a strike, but it wasn’t. (To Burnett’s credit, he acknowledged afterwards that you shouldn’t expect to get a call on a pitch like that when you’ve had no command of the strike zone all night.)

With the bases now loaded, Joe Girardi made the decision to lift Burnett, and this is where things got interesting. The YES cameras zoomed in on Burnett as he stared hard at something. He could’ve been staring in disbelief at Girardi, or he could’ve been staring at a popcorn vendor in the stands. It was impossible to tell without a wider perspective, but Michael Kay and John Flaherty in the booth told us that he was staring down Girardi, and Kay jumped on the moment, calling all his fellow villagers to light their torches and storm the castle.

“What does Burnett want?” he asked incredulously. I’m just guessing here, but maybe he wanted to pitch better. Maybe he was upset that he had just faced a marginal AAA team and only managed to get five outs.

After he handed the ball to Girardi, Burnett walked towards the dugout but then turned back to the mound and clearly said, “That’s fuckin’ horseshit!” Flaherty then took the kerosene from Kay and said, “Looks like he had some words right there for Joe Girardi.” To which Kay responded, “I don’t know what those words could be that would be legitimate.” (As an English teacher, I cringe at the construction of that sentence, but that’s really what he said.)

Even as I watched it the first time through, I saw the whole exchange in a different light. Girardi looked like he responded to Burnett, but whatever he said was directed towards home plate and seemed to be peppered with the word “pitch,” as if we were telling home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn “That was a good pitch, that was a good pitch” in reference to the 3-2 pitch to Mauer that could’ve ended the inning. More on all this later.

So Burnett walked off the field, into the dugout — and straight into the clubhouse. The YES cameras later caught Girardi hopping off the bench, heading down the tunnel into the clubhouse before returning with Burnett, who dutifully sat on the bench and watched as Ayala allowed all three of his base runners to score.

Michael Kay, John Flaherty, Ken Singleton, and Jack Curry would all interpret these events the same way. Burnett was upset with Girardi and cursed him as he left the mound. He was so angry that he violated baseball protocol and went straight to the clubhouse, hoping never to return. Girardi would have none of this, so he chased him down, scolded him, and dragged him by his ear back into the dugout. Presumably, there would be no dessert for him either.

I don’t think any of this happened. When Jack Curry asked Girardi about what had happened between Burnett and him, Girardi looked legitimately stunned, then became as angry as I’ve seen him in his tenure as manager. “You can write what you want, and you can say what you want. He was pissed because he thought he struck out Joe Mauer.” When asked about the dugout situation, Girardi only got angrier. He explained that he had gone down into the clubhouse to look at the replay of the pitch. Curry kept pressing him, but Girardi finally shut him down.

As for Burnett, he looked just as surprised when asked about the “confrontation,” and his explanation made even more sense. He explained that Martin had said to him that 3-2 pitch had been a strike (Girardi also mentioned this), and that his horseshit statement was simply expressing his agreement with Martin’s assessment of the call. When asked about whether or not those comments might actually have been directed at his manager, “I was not talking to Joe, absolutely not. No matter how mad I get. That guy’s taken my back, every day I’ve been here. No matter how boiling I’m gonna be, I’m not gonna say that towards a manager, not him, not a chance.”

The only two voices that mattered were the only two voices that made any sense.

What doesn’t change, though, is that Burnett isn’t getting people out. There’s been a lot of talk recently about how Burnett’s contract should be separated from any discussion about his effectiveness, but the pressure will only continue to build the closer we get to October. Regardless of how large his paychecks are, can Burnett be trusted to take the ball in Game 2? Only time will tell.

[Photo Credit: Hannah Foslien/Getty Images]

One of my favorite aspects of this year’s edition of the New York Yankees has been the consistent presence of speed throughout the lineup. Sure, there are lots of old knees around, but with players like Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner, along with Eduardo Nuñez out there recently, the team sure is fun to watch. On Sunday afternoon we saw this when Gardner roped a three-run triple into the right field corner against the Orioles. Nuñez scored easily from first, and Gardner arrived at third standing up, and the Yankees had a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

On Monday night in Chicago, Gardner picked up right where he had left off. He led off the game by pounding a ball into the dirt and beating everyone to first base for an infield single. A few pitches later Gardner took off on a 2-1 count as Granderson shot a line drive down the right field line. It never occurred to me that Gardner would be able to score on the play, but not only did he score, he scored easily. He slowed up at second to make sure the ball had gotten through the infield, then shifted into high gear. He hit the bag at third at top speed, then glanced out towards the outfield and broke it down. He coasted the last forty-five feet. Two batters later Robinson Canó stroked a single to right and Granderson scored to make it 2-0.

Have you heard of CC Sabathia? He attacked the White Sox with cold-hearted efficiency, dispatching them on eight pitches in the first, six in the second, and eleven in the third. There was a blip in the fourth — a Juan Pierre single followed by an Alexei Ramírez home run — but not much else.

The Yankee hitters weren’t doing much against Jay Peavy — after those two runs in the first they were able to scrape out only one more run on a Robby Canó double play — but Sabathia made it stand up. He finished up in style, striking out two in the eighth, including poor Adam Dunn for the final out.

Keeping with the efficiency theme, the Great One came on for an uneventful ninth, throwing nine pitches for nine strikes. Yankees 3, White Sox 2.

So here’s my question. What if CC just keeps on winning? Taking a look at the calendar, he’s got five more starts in August and another five in September. Based on how he’s been going this year, it probably isn’t a stretch to imagine eight wins for him over the final two months. So what if he finishes the season with something like this: 24-6, 250 Ks, 2.70 ERA, 1.15 WHIP. You don’t think they could give the Cy Young to anyone else? Could they?

[Photo Credit: Charles Cherney/AP]

When I write a recap for this site, I always try to remember that I’m writing for two distinct audiences, those who watched every pitch, and those who did not watch at all. With that in mind, I have to give something of interest to those readers who already know everything I know about the game, but I also know that those who didn’t watch are looking for something more than they’d get in a generic recap over at the World Leader. They want to get a sense of the feel of the game, they want little details that would only be important to someone who lives and dies with the team. They want these one thousand words to make up for the three hours they weren’t able to spend in front of the television.

So how exactly do you do that for a game like this? Lemme give it a shot.

After registering a fairly convincing win over the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of Saturday’s split double header, the Yankees took no prisoners in the night cap as they scoretrucked the O’s, 17-3.

The home half of the first started out innocently enough, as Baltimore’s Zach Britton struck out Derek Jeter for the first out of the game. But here’s how the rest of the inning went: single, walk, single, error, double, single, single, single, single, pitching change, strikeout!, double, single, home run, walk, ground out.

It was 12-0, and the game was over — except that there were still eight innings left to play.

Ivan Nova was the beneficiary of all these runs, and unlike Phil Hughes a few days ago, he didn’t spit the bit. He made it through seven innings, allowing just two runs on six hits and a walk while striking out six. I listened to the radio feed for the first few innings, and John Sterling kept reminding us that you can’t really evaluate a pitcher when he has a fifteen-run lead, but if I were Phil Hughes, I’d be a little nervous.

Here are a few interesting notes from the game:

• Robinson Canó finished 5 for 5 with two doubles and 5 RBIs.
• Yes, I said RBIs and not RBI. Let’s all get over it.
• Zach Britton is one of the top prospects in the Baltimore system, but here’s the combined stat line from his last two starts, Saturday and July 8th against the Red Sox: 1.0 IP, 13 ER, 13 H. That’s an ERA of 117.00.
• Not surprisingly, Britton is the first player in major league history with back-to-back starts in which he allowed eight or more runs without completing the first inning in either start.
• All nine Yankee starters had a hit in the first inning (Canó had two).
• This was the first time the Yankees had ever scored twelve runs in the first inning.
• Rafael Soriano made his first appearance since May, striking out two to close out the game in the 9th.
• Contrary to several reports, this game will only count as one win.

Some games bother me more than others. This one bothered me a lot. It all started well, with Bartolo Colón dispelling fears of his demise with the type of outing we had become accustomed to during the first few months of the season. Once again featuring fastballs, fastballs, and more fastballs, Colón demonstrated how a 92-MPH pitch on the corner can be much more effective than a 96-MPH heater down the middle. He struck out at least one batter in each frame and pitched into the seventh inning with his only trouble coming in the fifth when he yielded a booming triple to Sam Fuld (from… Stanford University!) and an RBI single to Reid Brignac. He would finish with an impressive line: 6.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 K.

Colón’s opponent on this day was young Jeremy Hellickson. According to everything I’ve heard about Hellickson, he’s one of the best young pitchers in baseball, and he did nothing on Tuesday to make me think otherwise. Like Colón, Hellickson was dominant all night long, and like Colón, he had only one troublesome inning. His was the third, when Mark Teixeira laced a two-out double down the line in right, and Robinson Canó followed with an extra large home run just to the left of center field.

Through the middle innings, as Colón was rocking back and firing darts to one corner of the plate or the other, the game seemed to be unfolding perfectly. In the sixth my youngest daughter looked up from her Polly Pockets, noticed the score (“We’re winning, Daddy!”) and innocently asked me which team I thought would win. Was there any doubt? Colón would finish the seventh, David Robertson would take the eighth, and He Who Need Not Be Named would close the windows and lock the doors in the ninth.

But then things got crazy. If you didn’t watch the game, you might have scanned the play-by-play and figured that Joe Girardi waited too long to pull the trigger and pull Colón, and then foolishly chose Boone Logan to replace him. That’s not the way it happened.

Let me tell you the story of the most ridiculous inning of baseball I’ve ever seen. First, B.J. Upton struck out. That’s not ridiculous, that’s just what B.J. Upton does. Next Robinson Chirinos pulled a grounder deep into the hole at short and beat Derek Jeter’s jump throw by an eyelash. When Sean Rodríguez rifled a single to right, Girardi went to Logan.

The next line on the play-by-play says “J Ruggiano singled to center, R Chirinos to third, S Rodríguez to second.” In your head that probably paints an image of a line drive hit directly to Curtis Granderson with such pace that Chirinos had no choice but to stay at third. Not so. Justin Ruggiano (pinch hitting for Fuld) lofted a lazy fly to straightaway center field, and as Granderson moved a few steps towards the ball it looked like Logan was an out away from squelching the rally. But then Granderson’s arms suddenly flew out from his sides in the universal gesture for “I can’t believe we’re playing baseball in this ridiculous stadium.” A second later the ball fell at his feet and the bases were loaded.

Rays skipper Joe Maddon smelled blood in the water, so he immediately played his ace in the hole, the fearsome Elliot Johnson. Johnson pounded a simple one-hopper back to Logan, a picture-perfect double play ball that would end the inning, preserve the lead, and usher in Robertson and the Great One. But the ball skipped off the top of Logan’s glove for an error, Chirinos scored, and the game was tied at two.

According to the play-by-play, Johnny Damon came up next and hit a sacrifice fly to center. You might picture a blast to the warning track, but that’s not quite what happened. Logan jammed Damon on an 0-1 pitch, breaking his bat. The ball floated out towards no-man’s land behind second base, but Granderson was able to race in to make a sliding catch not more than ten or twenty yards behind the bag. Since he had to leave his feet, though, Rodríguez was able to tag up and score from third and the Rays were up to stay. Final score: Rays 3, Yankees 2.

Oh, one other note for those clamoring for the return of Ivan Nova: we probably won’t see him for a while. He left his start in Scranton on Tuesday night with an ankle issue.

But don’t worry. Everything will be okay. I promise.

[Photo Credit: Mike Carlson/Associated Press]

The Yankees had won their first game coming out of the All-Star break nine years in a row, but that major-league-record streak came to an end in a stunningly bad loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday night. Both manager and players looked more rusted than rested after the three-day hiatus as Joe Girardi seemed to be employing his bullpen as if he were pulling names out of Billy Martin’s hat, and his players were equally guilty as they committed three errors and a balk, all of which led to a total of SEVEN unearned runs. How did I hate this game? Let me count the ways.

1. The game was essentially over after the first inning, but that inning could have been dramatically different. With one out, Eric Thames hit a diving line drive to left field. Brett Gardner took a run at it, but clearly couldn’t decide whether to go for the catch or back off and play it for a single. His hesitation cost him dearly, as the ball skipped past him and Thames ended up on second base with a double. (Quick aside: isn’t it time for Gardner to get a Gold Glove? I’m just sayin’.) Bartolo Colón was on the mound, and he struggled. He walked José Bautista, but then followed that up with an Adam Lind groundout, and two were out with two on. Aaron Hill then rapped a solid single to center and it was 2-0 Jays, and Travis Snider followed with a ground ball single two batters later for a 3-0 lead, but those were really the only runs that should’ve scored in the inning. (Again, if Gardner had played Thames’s drive correctly, the game would’ve been scoreless.) But the inning continued. J.P. Arencibia hit pounded a grounder to Eduardo Núñez at third, but Núñez let it bounce off his thigh for an error, and the bases were loaded. Next Rajai Davis dribbled a meek little ground ball just to the left of the mound, but Colón had no play and a run scored. In case you missed that, Yunel Escobar came up next and dribbled a meek little ground ball just to the left of the  mound, but Colón had no play and another run scored. That Escobar ball was so eerily similar to the Davis ball that both Colón and Girardi were caught with wry smiles of disbelief. There were no smiles, however, after Thames came up with his second double of the inning, a ringing ground-rule version hit directly over Curtis Granderson’s head in center field. It was 7-0. The game certainly appeared over, and Colón’s night was definitely over.
2. But why did Girardi pull Colón? The only hope for the Yankees was that a long-man might come in and hold the Jays down for the rest of the game so that the Score Truck could chip away at the lead over the next eight innings. That long-man would be Hector Noesi, but since he certainly wasn’t ready yet, Girardi chose Luís Ayala, even though Ayala has typically been used in higher leverage situations much later in the game. (Ayala, of course, added to the mockery of the opening inning by allowing the eighth run to score on a balk.) Unless there were injury concerns (Colón had had to race to first for a putout in addition to fielding those two dribblers), Colón should’ve finished the inning, and Noesi should’ve started the second.
3. It really bothers me when the Yankees tease me into thinking that they’re going to make a comeback. This one started with an Andruw Jones solo home run in the third. 9-1. A few batters later Curtis Granderson rifled a backhand to the baseline that had so much top spin that it actually bounded over the head of Thames in right field for a triple that scored two. 9-3. Granderson would score almost immediately on a routine ground out from Mark Teixeira. 9-4.
4. Meanwhile, young Noesi was cruising along, keeping the Jays complacent. In the top of the sixth, things got interesting. With two runners on, Jones launched his second home run of the game, and suddenly it was 9-7. Now, of course, two things became clear. One, if the first inning hadn’t been so atrocious, the Yankees would have been in the lead; and two, if Girardi hadn’t burned up Ayala, he could have come in for the sixth, Boone Logan the seventh, All-Star David Robertson the eighth, and Mariano Rivera in the ninth. The Yankees would score a few runs, and we’d all have been happy.
5. But none of that happened. Girardi brought Logan in with one out and two on in the sixth. Logan would get one out, but then he’d yield a single which scored two, taking all the wind out of the sails. 11-7.
6. This is when I lifted my flat screen above my head and fired it through the sliding glass door, so I’m not entirely sure that all this actually happened. Remember when Darko Milicic was known as the Human Victory Cigar? Well, Girardi has found his Human White Flag, and his name is Sergio Mitre. HWF would allow two runs in the seventh (one charged to Logan) and then cough up three more in the eighth (one courtesy of a Jeter error partially caused by Girardi’s shrewd decision to pull the infield in down by seven runs because an eight run deficit in the ninth would’ve seemed insurmountable.) Final score: Blue Jays 16, Yankees 7.

So how exactly do you put a bow on a game like this? By now you know that Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit on Saturday afternoon, and you probably also know that he did it in ridiculously dramatic fashion. My first inclination was to give a short summary, the kind you used to see in the papers in the out-of-town scores column, but as Dr. Jeter reminded us, “We need a victory,” which makes this game important. So…

For the last few weeks A.J. Burnett has been the team’s second-most consistent starting pitcher, and early on he looked fairly dominant with two strikeouts in the top of the first. With David Price on the mound for the Rays, it certainly seemed like hits would be at a premium throughout the afternoon. Jeter, of course, led off the bottom of the inning, and the crowd was amped, but not overly so. He worked the count full, fouled off a couple pitches, and then finally pounded a ground ball through the hole at short for his 2,999th hit. The Stadium exploded, but it was kind of a selfish cheer; they were only partially cheering for Jeter, mainly they were cheering for themselves — “He’s gonna get it today! We’re gonna see it!”

In the bottom of the second the Rays reminded us that there was actually a game going on. Burnett set down the first two batters of the frame, but then Matt Joyce launched a long home run into right, giving the Rays the first run of the game. Partially lost in the Captain’s Quest has been the resurgence of the Red Sox and the perseverance of the Rays. A loss here would put the Yankees as close to third place as first.

But Burnett got back on the beam in the third, striking out two more (he would total nine strikeouts in 5.2 innings). It certainly didn’t look like Rays would get much more off of him.

Brett Gardner grounded out to open the third, and then Jeter came up for the at bat that everyone was waiting for. The Stadium noise completely drowned out Bob Sheppard’s recorded announcement, and everyone in the house was standing, living and dying on each pitch. I spoke with a friend who was at the game and he described it as a tennis match atmosphere, with the crowd buzzing after each pitch, then quickly silencing in tense anticipation of the next. It came across on television as well, especially when Jeter swung and fouled off pitches deep into a 3-2 count. As each foul flared off into the seats above the Yankee dugout, the crowd exhaled as one, groaning with disappointment.

Price delivered the eighth pitch of the at bat, a slightly flat curve ball that arced directly into Jeter’s wheelhouse. You’ve seen this swing a thousand times. He pulled his hands in just a bit, turned his hips to meet the pitch, made pure contact on the sweet part of the bat, then sprinted out of the box and fired his bat back towards the on-deck circle.

Meanwhile the ball was soaring towards the gap in left center field, an obvious hit at the very least. As the crowd noise escalated, Michael Kay’s voice rose to a fever pitch, and outfielders Joyce and B.J. Upton slowed their pursuit, everyone realized at the same time that Jeter had done the impossible, the same as he always has. It has been almost thirteen months since he had hit a ball over the fence at Yankee Stadium, and this one actually carried beyond the lower bleachers in left, settling into the meaty mitts of a kid named Christian López who was seated next to his father in the first row of the second tier of bleachers.

As Jeter slowed from his sprint and into a trot as he rounded first base, he allowed a quick smile, perhaps as he noticed Tampa Bay first baseman tipping his cap. By the time he was approaching the plate, his team stood waiting, with old friend Jorge Posada fittingly offering the first congratulations with a bear hug that was probably more about Jeter’s first 2,999 hits than this one. Rivera was next in line, and then the entire team joined in, hugging, high-fiving, helmet-banging. DH Johnny Damon and the Rays had been watching from the top deck of the visitors’ dugout, and now they hopped the railing to join the rest of the 48,103 in a prolonged standing ovation.

It’s hard to explain what this moment meant. I stood in front of my television, clapping and cheering as Jeter rounded the bases, brushing tears from eyes as I watched him embracing his teammates, and my voice was shaky as I explained the significance of the hit to my children. Through all five boroughs of New York City, through Connecticut and New Jersey, and all across the country, hundreds of thousands of fans were certainly having the same conversation and feeling the same emotions. In that moment, we were one.

David Price returned to the mound after the celebration waned, and again we were reminded that there was a game going on. Curtis Granderson drew a walk, and Mark Teixeira followed with a single to push him to second. After Robinson Canó struck out, Russell Martin guided a ground ball through the hole between short and third, scoring Granderson to give the Yankees their first lead of the game at 2-1.

But the lead was short-lived. Perhaps suffering from the long home half of the third (33 pitches plus the Jeter delay), Burnett struggled a bit in the top of the fourth, walking Ben Zobrist on four pitches to lead off the inning and then serving up a home run to Upton to give the lead back to Tampa Bay at 3-2.

This was Jeter’s day, though, so it was no surprise when he led off the fifth inning with his third hit of the day, a ringing double to the wall in left field. Granderson singled him home to tie the game, then advanced to third on a Teixeira single and scored from there on a short sacrifice fly by Robinson Canó to make it 4-3 Yanks.

The game finally settled into a groove for a while, or at least until Mr. Jeter came up again with two outs and Gardner on first in the sixth and, naturally, lined a hard single to right field, his fourth hit of the game. Whether it’s because of renewed energy from his twenty-day stint on the disabled list or the adrenaline from the chase to three thousand, Jeter’s looked different lately, as evidenced by these three consecutive rockets, the home run, the double, and this single. And for any who were still a bit skeptical, Jeter added a stolen base to his stat line as he and Gardner executed a double steal before being stranded at second and third.

If it had all ended there, if the bullpen had smoothly gathered the last nine outs of the game, people still would’ve walked out of the Stadium shaking their heads, wondering how Jeter could’ve fashioned such a fairy tale ending to his quest. But it didn’t end there. The normally lock-down David Robertson entered the game in the eighth and immediately gave up a booming triple to Damon. Just a few pitches later a Zobrist single would bring Damon home with the first run Robertson had allowed in a month, and the game was tied again. But Jeter was due up third in the bottom of the eighth. He couldn’t… could he?

Turns out he could. Eduardo Nuñez (spelling Alex Rodríguez, who may or may not be missing for the next month) led off the eighth with a double, moved to third on a Gardner sacrifice, and stood waiting like Rapunzel in the castle as Jeter came to the plate and the Rays’ infield pulled in tight to cut off the run. Joel Peralta was pitching by now for Tampa Bay, and he looked ready to bury Jeter as he worked towards a 1-2 count. Afterwards, such luminaries as John Flaherty, Randy Levine, Mariano Rivera, Jay-Z, and Alex Belth would all report that they were expecting a triple to complete the cycle, but perhaps that would’ve been too much to ask for. Instead, it was a simple ground ball up the middle, easily out of reach of the drawn-in infielders, and Nuñez walked in with the go-ahead run. Jeter ran to first just like he had done 3,002 times before, rounded the bag, then turned back to the base as his arms spread wide and came together with a single clap. Have you seen that before?

He was five for five, and the crowd was in ecstasy. (By the way, the last time Jeter went 5 for 5? It was five years ago; I wrote about it the other day.) They had come hoping for history and had stumbled into a script that made A Field of Dreams look like a documentary. This, of course, was the way the game would have to end. Rivera came in to pitch the ninth, and save for a Kelly Shoppach drive to the warning track in center, it was as uneventful as ever, and the game was done. Yankees 5, Rays 4, Jeter 3003.

After the game, everyone who stepped in front of a microphone seemed to be reading from the same teleprompter. It was a Hollywood ending that would’ve been rejected by any Hollywood executive with any sense. The aging captain of the New York Yankees, battling injury and deflecting a steady barrage of questions about his decline as analysts and fans alike are wondering in print and conversation about when the team will drop him in the lineup or find a better short stop, rises to the occasion and does what no one thought possible. He hits a home run for his 3,000th hit and ends up driving in the game-winning run with his fifth hit of the day.

It was all completely unbelievable, and yet it still made perfect sense. Such is the life of Derek Sanderson Jeter.

[Photo Credit: Michael Heiman/Getty Images]

The full recap will be up in a bit, but in case you don’t know, Mr. Jeter notched his 3,000th hit today. Spread the word.

I remember the day that Derek Jeter was drafted in June of 1992. Those were dark days for the Yankees, and the shortstop position was a revolving door of mediocrity. Andy Stankiewicz played 116 games at short in 1992, and before that we endured three years of Alvaro Espinoza, and two seasons each from Rafael Santana, Wayne Tolleson, Bobby Meacham, and Roy Smalley. When Jeter was drafted, all I hoped for was a serviceable player who might last a while. A Hall of Famer? I didn’t know what that looked like.

What I don’t remember is when he became my favorite player. There was no moment. I was twenty-six years old when the twenty-one year Jeter assumed the starting job at shortstop, but when I looked at him, I saw myself. Just like Jeter, I had been born of a black father and a white mother, I had grown up a Yankee fan in Michigan, and my childhood ambition had been to play shortstop for the New York Yankees. He was I, if my dreams had come true.

You know how it is with your favorite player. His name is the first you find in the morning box score, you feel a strange type of pride when he’s elected to start an All-Star game, and his at bats serve as mileposts during the course of a three-hour ballgame. And so it was for me with Jeter. Even in seasons when the Yankees clinched a playoff position in early September, I still tracked Jeter’s hits as he pushed towards 200, and I probably started thinking about the possibility of 3,000 hits as long as ten years ago.

And with Jeter, I think I’ve finally figured out why it is that old fans always have old players as their favorites. I’m old enough now to realize that I probably will never have another favorite player. There will be guys that I’ll like more than others on the roster — Robinson Canó, for example, or maybe even Jesús Montero if he develops — but that’s all they’ll ever be.

Thirty years from now my granddaughter will be telling about the most recent exploits of her favorite player, and I’ll listen intently before giving my variation of what we’ve all heard before: “You should’ve seen Derek Jeter play; he was something to see.” I’ll probably start with the jump pass from deep in the hole, pantomime the inside-out swing, and explain how he was better with his back to the plate than any shortstop I’d ever seen. I’ll recount the dive into the stands against Boston, the flip to get Giambi in the playoffs, and the World Series home run that earned the Mr. November nickname.

But the memory that I’ll do my best to give her comes from Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series on October 3, 2006. Jeter had singled in the first, doubled in the third, singled in the fourth, and doubled again in the sixth as the Yankees opened a comfortable lead and seemed poised to cruise through the series against the overmatched Detroit Tigers. When Jeter came up in the eighth with the game already in hand, it was a love fest. With fans standing and MVP chants raining down from the upper deck, Jeter took a 1-1 pitch from Jamie Walker and crushed it to center field for a home run, the perfect cap to a perfect five-for-five night. The M-V-P chants quickly gave way to the ubiquitous “De-rek-Jee-ter!” sing-song, which rolled around the Stadium until Jeter came out for a curtain call, then continued through Bobby Abreu’s at bat.

In the clubhouse that night back-up catcher Sal Fasano explained it in words that have stayed with me ever since: “It gives you goose bumps. It’s amazing to see the love the New York fans have for Jeter. It’s like when you were a kid when your favorite player hit a home run and you jumped up and down. Well, here there are 50,000 people, and to all of them Jeter is their favorite player.”

That’s who he’ll always be to me. I’ll do my best to help my granddaughter understand.

[Photo Credit: Tim Farrell/The Star-Ledger]

Let me apologize right up front, because I know this recap is going to irritate some people. On the sixth of July, still four games shy of the All-Star break, I believe that two things happened during Wednesday night’s game that were more important than the final result.

First, there was Phil Hughes. I’m not sure how it happened, but I completely lost sight of how long it had been since we’ve seen Hughes on a mound. I had a vague feeling that he had been awful, so maybe that’s why I had completely washed most of the details from my mind. His best outing was his last, a 4.1 inning performance on April 14th during which he gave up seven hits and five runs and saw his ERA climb to a sparkling 13.94. Soon after he was jettisoned to the 60-day disabled list, mainly because no one seemed to know what the hell was wrong with him.

His return on Wednesday night wasn’t triumphant, but it was significant. As I watched the first inning, though, I wondered if maybe there was something unfixable going on with Hughes. His velocity seemed alright, as his fastball was consistently around 93, occasionally 94, and he appeared to have gotten over his reluctance to go to his other pitches. (He’d mix in curves, sliders, and change-ups throughout the night.) The problem was he wasn’t fooling anyone.

He walked the first batter, but that could’ve been nerves. Asdrubal Cabrera and Travis Hafner followed with singles (both firmly struck) to produce the first run, and Cabrera scored a bit later after a wild pitch and a throwing error by Russell Martin. Even the outs Hughes earned felt like rockets, and it took him thirty-two pitches to escape the inning. Another short outing seemed likely.

But he recovered. Even though he gave up singles in each of the second, third, and fourth innings, he looked much better. Far from dominant, but far from how he looked in April. The fifth inning might’ve been his most important. His control completely deserted him, as he hit A. Cabrera to open things, walked Carlos Santana on four pitches with one out, and hit Orlando Cabrera to load the bases with two outs. Facing what would be his final batter of the night one way or the other, Hughes managed to get Lonnie Chisenhall to fly out to left.

If we chalk up the shaky first inning to nerves, this was definitely a positive outing for Hughes. I’m not sure what we’ll see his next time out or what we might expect to see from him down the stretch, but I think he’s definitely headed in the right direction.

Also headed in the right direction is Derek Jeter. He pounded a double off the wall in right-center field in the eighth inning for his 2,997th career hit, meaning he only needs to come up with three hits during the next four games to get to the milestone at home. Here’s hoping.

The true star of the game, though, was Justin Masterson. He had come into the game with a pedestrian 6-6 record, but he’s secretly been one of the better pitches in the league this season, and he showed it on Wednesday night, as he was almost unhittable all evening. Joe Girardi and a few of the hitters talked after the game about how devastating his stuff had been, and his line bears this out: 8.0/3/0/0/2/6.

The Yankees finally strung together a few hits in the ninth after Masterson had left the game, but because Girardi had foolishly allowed Sergio Mitre to enter a close name and increase the deficit to five runs, that last ditch rally didn’t really matter. Brett Gardner worked a long at bat with two outs and #2998 on deck, but he ended up watching strike three, and the game was over. Indians 5, Yankees 3.

Not to worry. History and the Tampa Bay Rays await this weekend, and the Stadium will surely be as loud as it’s ever been.

Let’s Go Yankees! Let’s Go Jeter!

[Photo Credit: Tony Dejak/AP]

It’s been bothering me since April. Every single time Russell Martin comes to the plate or pulls off his mask, all I can see is Ray Liotta. It didn’t take me long before I had myself convinced that Martin actually looked more like Ray Liotta than Ray Liotta does, if that’s possible. And then the Brewers came to town this week and I got my first real close-up look at the wunderkind Ryan Braun, and — it’s Encino Man! Braun is a dead ringer for one of the greatest actors of our time, Brendan Fraser. (As it turns out, a quick Google search reveals that I’m not the first person to make either of these connections.)

As if they were playing from a script, both characters had leading roles on Wednesday night in the middle game of this three-game interleague series. Braun struck first, driving in Nyjer Morgan with the first run of the game in the first inning with a single to right. Braun would finish the night three for four with a stolen base, extending his hitting streak to 19 games.

Milwaukee pitcher Shawn Marcum was in control throughout the early innings, setting down the Yankee hitters without much drama or difficulty. In the fourth, though, the Score Truck finally pulled out of the garage. Robinson Canó led off with a triple over Morgan’s head in straightaway center field, and Nick Swisher, who is rapidly putting April and May behind him, laced a clean single to right to score the first Yankee run. Jorge Posada followed with a long single off the wall in right, putting runners on first and third as Ray Liotta strode to the plate. With Michael Kay and John Flaherty talking about how long it had been since his last extra base hit (sixty-nine at bats), Martin caught hold of one and drove it into the left field seats for a three-run homer and a 4-1 lead. As he crossed home plate, the field mics clearly picked up his narration: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a home run hitter.”

Speaking of home run hitters, there was an interesting moment in the bottom of the sixth. After having the lead had been cut to 4-2 in the previous inning, Posada came to the plate at launched a laser shot towards the short porch in right. The ball seemed to bounce off the top of the fence and return to the field of play, allowing Corey Hart to field the ball and fire it into Rickie Weeks who applied the tag to a bewildered Posada who stood halfway between first and second, confused as to why he wasn’t being given a home run. Girardi jumped out of the dugout immediately, asking for an official review. The umpires disappeared down the rabbit hole and saw what the instant replays were already showing the television audience: it was indeed a home run, as the ball had bounced off the top of wall, struck a fan’s outstretched hands, and bounded back onto the field of play.

A.J. Burnett was basically in control all night long, and even came out to start the eighth before an Eduardo Nuñez forced Girardi to bring in the increasingly dominant David Robertson. Robertson made things a bit interesting, as usual, but came up with two big strikeouts to end the threat, as usual. How good has Robertson been this year? After the game Girardi was openly campaigning for him to receive an All-Star nod. (Oh, and in case the usual drama surrounding the Subway Series isn’t enough, Francisco Rodríguez seems to want Robertson’s job.)

I don’t think I need to mention what Mr. Rivera did in the ninth inning. You’ve seen it before. Yankees 5, Brewers 2.

When I was a boy the Milwaukee Brewers were Gorman Thomas and Ben Oglivie, Robin Yount and Jim Ganter, Sixto Lezcano and Paul Molitor. It still seems odd to me that they’re a National League team, but I suppose there are fans a generation older than I am for whom it seems odd that Milwaukee ever had an American League franchise.

On Tuesday night they looked like a minor league franchise. Zack Greinke was on the mound for the Brewers, and I was looking forward to watching him pitch. I know what you know about Mr. Greinke — he’s apparently one of the best pitchers in the game — but all day I kept wondering how it was that I had never really seen him pitch. Apparently the schedule usually worked out for the Yankees when Greinke was in Kansas City, and they missed him more often than not. Right about now, I’m guessing Greinke wishes they had missed him again.

The first sign that the night might not go Greinke’s way came with the first batter he faced, as his normally pinpoint control deserted him and he hit leadoff man Brett Gardner. (Greinke would walk a season-high three batters on the night; he had only walked nine batters in his previous 60.1 innings.) Curtis Granderson then hit a sky-high fly ball to straightaway center field. It should’ve been the first out of the game, but instead center fielder Nyjer Morgan inexplicably fell over while attempting to field the ball, which skipped away untouched and allowed Gardner to scamper home on Granderson’s standup triple. (Later in the game Rickie Weeks would inexplicably fall over in the middle of what should’ve been an inning-ending double play.) Mark Teixeira then grounded out to second, scoring Granderson and opening a 2-0 Yankee lead.

Two more Yankees reached base that inning, forcing Greinke to expend 27 pitches to get three outs, and after Yankee starter Freddy García needed just nine pitches to retire the Brewers in the top of the second, Greinke was back on the mound again after only a few minutes rest. The Yankees took advantage. After Eduardo Nuñez and Gardner opened the inning with a single and a walk, then eventually advanced to second and third on a double steal, Teixeira picked up another ground out RBI for the Yankees’ third run. There were two outs, and it looked like Greinke might be able to get out of the inning with minimal damage, but he walked Alex Rodríguez, allowed a run-scoring single to Robinson Canó, and then served up fairly large (left-handed) home run to Nick Swisher. Suddenly it was 7-0. Greinke would finish the inning, but the Yanks had finished him. The second inning was his last.

From there, García put it on cruise control as he pitched to the scoreboard. He allowed base runners in each inning and two runs in the fourth, but he never let the Brewers get a look at the game. After his six effective innings, the Yankees piled on a few more runs to make things more comfortable for the bullpen. Teixeira hit his major-league-leading 24th home run in the bottom of the sixth, scoring two; Jorge Posada singled in a run; and Russell Martin plated another with a ground out, and the score was 11-2 when Hector Noesi took over in the seventh.

Noesi made it through the seventh and eighth, and Cory Wade handled the ninth, and the game was over. Yankees 12, Brewers 2.

If I had told you back in March that Rafael Soriano and Joba Chamberlain would be lost for the season, Phil Hughes would miss almost the entire first half, Bartolo Colón would emerge as the #2 starter before following Hughes onto the DL, they would insert a former minor league outfielder into the starting rotation, Jorge Posada’s batting average wouldn’t climb above the Mendoza line until June 9, Derek Jeter would spend almost three weeks on the disabled list, and the team would go 1-8 against the Red Sox, you surely wouldn’t have believed me. And if you did believe me, you’d expect that the team would be teetering on the brink of implosion.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. These Yankees sit a game and a half in front of those pesky BoSox, they’ve scored more runs than any team in baseball, they have the largest run differential by a wide margin, and they’re sporting the best record in the American League. What might this team do when all the missing pieces return in the second half?

[Photo Credit: Nick Laham/Getty Images]

“What I don’t understand, is how it gets into your shoes…” And to illustrate his confusion, Yankee ace Ivan Nova gently pulled his left cleat off his foot and poured from it half a glass of champagne before offering it to an amused reporter.

Only an hour earlier the Yankees had put the finishing touches on their 29th world championship, sweeping the defending champion Chicago Cubs, but it was already tempting to install them as favorites in 2016, 2017, and years to come. A quick survey of the locker room revealed one of the most balanced teams ever assembled.

In one corner of the room sat third baseman Alex Rodríguez and his 761 career home runs. For much of September they had hung around his neck like the links in Marley’s chain, weighing him down and making him look old and slow as he suffered through the first homerless month of his career, but he had hit two home runs in this fall classic and was talking openly now about playing “at least two or three more years.”

Next to A-Rod stood the game’s most feared batsman, designated hitter Jesus Montero. Just entering his prime, Montero had hit .327/.411/.601 with 41 home runs in a season expected to earn him his first league MVP award.

But unlike Yankee teams in the past, this group won — and will continue to win — because of its absolutely dominant starting pitching. “We’ve got a guy in CC Sabathia who has upwards of 230 career wins, and he’s basically our fifth starter,” explained manager Jorge Posada. (Sabathia didn’t pitch in this series, but did deliver a key pinch hit to extend an eleventh-inning rally in Game 2.) “We’ve got Nova at the top, followed by Phil Hughes, Manuel Bañuelos, and Dellin Betances. It’s no wonder we won 109 games this season.”

“It’s funny when you look back at it now,” said a typically quiet Brian Cashman. “All you read about four or five years ago was that the Yankees couldn’t develop young arms, but take a look at our rotation. Take a look at the bullpen. Sure, Mo’s still there on the back end, but what about Joba? His ERA was under one for the second year in a row, and we think this might be the year that Rivera actually retires, so Joba will be closing next year.”

Nova, though, was the biggest story. He had been named the Series MVP after shutout wins in Game 1 and Game 4, and it was hard to remember that he had once been a rather lightly-regarded prospect. “It all changed for me that night in Cincinnati…” His eyes seemed to focus somewhere in the distance, and he told the story of his formative game with such vivid detail it was as if it had happened just yesterday.

As the game started out it looked as if it would be another Yankee rout, as Cincinnati starter Travis Wood kept floating pitches into the middle of the strike zone and Yankee hitters kept roping them into the outfield. Nick Swisher led off with a single, and after Curtis Granderson struck out swinging, Mark Teixeira singled, A-Rod followed with a single to score Swisher, Robinson Canó doubled to score Teixeira, Russell Martin drove in A-Rod with a ground out, and Andruw Jones singled in Canó. And just like that, the Yankees had a 4-0 lead.

Nova squeezed a bit of bubbly out of his sock and said, “That first inning, it just might’ve been the most important inning I’ve ever pitched. I only threw ten pitches, but I’ll never forget them.”

“Stubbs was the leadoff hitter, and I started him with an easy fastball for strike one. After he took a curve for a ball, I went back to the fastball and he hit a line drive into center field for a base hit. Brandon Phillips was next, and I went all fastballs with him, but he was able to fight one off and line it to right, pushing Stubbs around to third. This was a moment when things would’ve exploded on me in the past. I’d have overthrown a curve ball or opened up on a fastball looking for the strikeout, and suddenly they’d put four or five runs on the board, but suddenly there was a voice in my head — it sounded an awful lot like David Cone — telling me to ignore the runner on third. So instead of muscling up, I took something off of a fastball to Joey Votto and got him to ground into a double play. The run scored, but I had avoided the big inning. Jay Bruce came up next, and I fooled him with a changeup. He bounced the ball back to me, and the inning was over. To be honest, the game was over.”

Over the next seven innings Nova only allowed two singles. His line on the night was dominant: 8 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K. Of his 24 recorded outs, all but three came via strikeout or ground out. “Sure, the manager kind of bungled things in the end, pulling me after eight innings even though I had only thrown 105 pitches, but Mariano finally came in and did what he always does, and we won, 5-3.”

Nova paused, then quickly shook his head as one does when waking from a dream. “Was that really four years ago?” He smiled. “Impossible.”

With that he jumped up and chased after bench coach Paul O’Neill, triggering a second wave of celebration throughout the room. But just as suddenly, everything went quiet. At the far end of the clubhouse, having walked in unannounced, stood Derek Jeter, dressed impeccably in a grey suit and looking for all the world as if he were about to announce a comeback. But he wouldn’t. He shook a few hands and nodded across the room at old friends Posada and Rivera as he walked straight to Nova.

“You looked good out there tonight, kid. But remember, you’ve still got a ways to go before you catch me.” He held up six fingers and smiled, then turned and left.

[Photo Credit: Joe Robbins/Getty Images]

Whenever the Yankees and Cubs hook up, which is every three years, I suppose, it’s hard for me not to think about how difficult it is to suffer through long championship droughts. The Yankees haven’t won the World Series since 2009, and I can’t help but feel for all the babies who have been born since then, all of them crying helplessly into the cold night, yearning for a mother’s love, a warm bottle of milk, and a World Series ring.

Will 2011 finally be the year to silence those cries? If Sunday night’s game in Chicago’s Wrigley Field was any indication, it just might be. CC Sabathia was on the mound for the Yanks, and although that’s usually a good sign, the Big Man didn’t have his usual easy outing. Brett Gardner had given him an early cushion with his leadoff home run, but Sabathia gave up a ringing double to Chicago’s Reed Johnson to lead off the bottom half of the first, and the game was tied after a sacrifice fly and a ground ball chased Johnson home.

CC slipped again in the third inning. Young phenom Starlin Castro singled to right, Aramis Ramírez singled to center, and our old friend Alfonso Soriano came up to the plate with two outs. Every time I look at Soriano I think of two things: first, I remember that home run he hit off Curt Schilling in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, the one that should’ve won that Series and etched Soriano’s name into Yankee history; second, I think of the player I hoped Soriano would have become with the Yankees, a perennial all-star at second base on his way to the Hall of Fame. Thankfully, though, the Yankees didn’t waste too much time replacing Soriano with another perennial all-star at second base on his way to the Hall of Fame, so I’m only bitter about the first memory.

But back to our game. Just seconds after the good folks at ESPN flashed some stats about Soriano’s success against Sabathia, Sorry unleashed that beautiful swing — too long for consistent success, but beautiful when it connects — and ripped a long blast into the left field bleachers to open a 4-1 Chicago lead. Bitter.

In the top of the fourth, however, the Cub defenders faltered a bit and let the Yanks creep back into the game. (The defensive problems in this inning were just the tip of the iceberg, but more on that later.) With Alex Rodríguez on first base after having drawn a walk, Robinson Canó tapped a dribbler out in front of the plate. Catcher Geovany Soto pounced out of his crouch, plucked the ball from the grass, and split the diamond with a strike to second where Castro waited at the bag for what looked to be the first out of an inning-ending double play. But Castro didn’t wait long enough. He skipped off the base just before the throw arrived, losing that out, then threw late to first, losing that one as well. Nick Swisher accepted Castro’s charity, grounding a ball through the right side of the infield to score A-Rod and cut the Cub lead to two. Russell Martin kept the train moving by drawing a walk to load the bases, and then the Cub defense gave the Yanks another run. Eduardo Nuñez hit a grounder to third. The ball was softly hit, certainly not hard enough to turn a double play on the speedy Nuñez, but not so softly to prevent Ramírez from coming home to cut off the run. As it turned out, Ramírez chose poorly. He went to second for the out, Canó came in to score, and the Yanks were only down by a run.

Two innings later the game was tied. A-Rod led off with a single and got to second on a Canó groundout. With A-Rod on second base, ESPN analyst Bobby Valentine spent about five minutes explaining what anyone who’s ever played the game (except A-Rod, apparently) already knew — A-Rod’s lead off second base put him directly in the baseline rather than a few feet towards left field to give him a better route around third base on his way to the plate. When Swisher singled to right, Valentine’s words seemed prophetic; Rodríguez had to stop at third. No matter, though. Russell Martin lofted a sacrifice fly to right to score him and tie the game at four.

Two innings after that, the game was essentially over, and again it was the middle of the lineup doing the damage. A-Rod singled again to start the inning (he’s got the average up to .289, by the way), Canó pushed him to third with another single, and Swisher stepped on a 2-o fastball from reliever Sean Marshall, dropping it into the stands in right for a 7-4 Yankee lead.

The Cubs had given us a taste of poor defense in earlier innings, but the main course was served in the ninth. Gardner led off by flipping a ball down the line in left, and as soon as the ball hit the grass I expected the speedy Gardner to have a shot at a double. Soriano, who’s never been confused with Tris Speaker as a defensive outfielder, obviously wasn’t thinking the same thing. He jogged after the ball and seemed legitimately surprised to see Gardner rounding first. He realized his error, but it was too late, and Gardner slid in safely with a double. This, however, wouldn’t be Soriano’s worst play of the inning.

Curtis Granderson ripped a line drive down the line in right, good for a standup triple and another Yankee run, then Mark Teixeira drove Granderson in with a booming double — or at least that’s what the box score would have you believe. In reality, Teixeira hit a soaring pop fly to right field. Jeff Baker, just switched out to right field from first base in the ninth inning, tracked the ball deep into the corner but somehow allowed it to drop at his feet. By the time Baker corralled the ball and fired it back into the infield, a confused Teixeira was standing on second base and the Yankees were up 9-4. A couple pitches later A-Rod rocketed a double off the wall in left — or at least that’s what the box score would have you believe. In reality, Rodríguez hit a towering fly ball to the gap in left center. Soriano and center fielder Johnson converged on the ball, with Soriano appearing to have the ball measured. And then the ball fell between them, bounced in and out of the ivy as the two fielders watched, and A-Rod’s “double” scored Teixeira with the game’s final run. Yankees 10, Cubs 4.

Those three ninth-inning runs were important, as they gave Mariano Rivera the night off, and Brett Gardner was the key. Gardner had three hits on the night, and is hitting .404/.481/.553 in the month of June, leading to all sorts of speculation about where Derek Jeter might fit in the lineup upon his return from the disabled list. I’m not overly concerned  about lineup positions, but if Gardner keeps hitting and Jeter keeps struggling, Girardi’s handling of the situation will go a long way towards determining whether or not this Yankee team will be the one to end the championship drought. Something to watch for this summer.

[Photo Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images]

If there’s one thing that’s bothered me about the Yankees this year it’s that they don’t seem to play well in series openers. After tonight’s loss to the Red Sox, they’re only 9-12 in the first game of a series. (For the record, their record in those first 11 series that they started with a loss is 5-3-3.) I think the emphasis on winning three-game series during the regular season, a relatively recent idea, is a bit overblown, but I still find myself falling in to the trap and thinking, “Alright, now they have to win the last two” when they really don’t. Well, they have to win these next two against the Sox.

This game turned sour in the first inning and didn’t get much better later on. The Red Sox bats made it clear from the jump that Yankee starter Freddy García didn’t have anything. Jacoby Ellsbury opened with a long home run to right, Dustin Pedroia drew a walk, Adrian González rocketed a triple over Curtis Granderson’s head, and Kevin Youkilis his a sacrifice fly to the track in right, giving Boston a 3-0 lead. García’s troubles would continue in the second as he gave up a walk and a single before serving up some batting practice slop to Pedroia who thanked him for the charity by hitting a laser down the line in right to score both base runners. Joe Girardi smartly pulled García, but the damage was done.

The Yankees had a chance to answer Boston’s early outburst in their bottom half of the first against a less-than-sharp Jon Lester, but they squandered the opportunity. With Granderson already on first, Lester let a fastball run in to Mark Teixeira. As Teixeira began to stride into the pitch, putting all of his wait on his back right leg, the ball continued to dart inward and struck him on the right knee. By the time I watched the replay I already knew that the x-rays had come back negative, so I wasn’t nearly as worried as everyone who was watching live. Teixeira immediately crumpled into a heap at the plate, rolling around in obvious agony and cursing loud enough to be heard on the NESN field mike. I’m guessing that everyone — Teixeira included — thought he had shattered his knee cap. Thankfully it was only a bruise, but I wouldn’t expect to see him for at least a few days.

Anyway, that put runners on first and second for Alex Rodríguez, who beat a potential double-play grounder to create a first and third situation for Robinson Canó. Canó drove in the run with a single to center, and when Lester hit another batter (Russell Martin) with another fastball that ran in, Nick Swisher came up with a chance to tie the game. Swisher made Lester work, but eventually grounded out to third to end the threat.

The game settled down a bit after this, thanks partially to more strong work from the Yankee bullpen. Luís Ayala got four outs in relief of García, and then Girardi turned to the intriguing young Hector Noesi, who, for the most part, had another successful outing. He pitched the final six innings of the game, giving up just two runs on three hits and a walk while striking out one. The two runs he yielded were important at the time (stretching the Sox lead to 6-1) and could resonate through the final two games of the series. With González on first, David Ortíz came up and hit a no-doubter into the seats in right, then took a moment to soak it all in. He looked immediately across home plate into the Boston dugout on the third base side of the field, flipped the bat with disdain, and then executed a perfect pirouette as he finally left the batter’s box and began his circuit of the bases. I was surprised, because I don’t really remember Big Papi rubbing the salt like that, and Girardi didn’t like it either. “Yeah, I didn’t really care for it. I’ve never had a problem with David Ortíz… My reaction’s probably more protecting our young kid. And that’s what I’m going to do.” Papi’s response? “That’s Papi style.” I wouldn’t be surprised — or disappointed — to see Big Papi get a little A.J. Burnett style in the ribs tomorrow, maybe in the first inning.

One last note on Noesi. After the Ortíz homer Noesi retired the next thirteen batters before giving up a double to Ellsbury who was thrown at third trying to stretch. I think he’s done enough in the pen (15.1 IP, 1.76 ERA, 1.04 WHIP) to earn a start some time soon.

The rest of the game was rather uneventful. Swisher knocked in a couple runs in the fifth with a double, and, as he usually does in New York, Jonathan Papelbon made things interesting in the ninth, giving up a walk and a single to cut the lead to 6-4, and A-Rod even came to the plate with a chance to tie the game. But when he waved half-heartedly at a 97-MPH fastball that was riding up and away out of the strike zone, the game was over. Red Sox 6, Yankees 4.

A couple more things. Derek Jeter had two hits on the night, meaning he’s twelve hits away with nine games left in the home stand. Fingers crossed.

And if you think you’ve seen Alex Rodríguez strike out before to end a game, it’s because you have. The folks at ESPN, always happy to bring us good news, report that A-Rod has done that thirteen times as a Yankee, tied with Posada for most on the team during that time.

Tomorrow, though, is another day.

[Photo Credit: Al Bello/Getty Images]

The original plan was for me to go to this game. Friday night was too busy, Sunday is the wife’s birthday, so Saturday’s game — conveniently scheduled for an early evening start — was the one. But it didn’t work. I ended up watching on TV with the rest of you, and here’s what happened.

In a game that clocked in at a brisk 2:35, both pitchers looked good. Even though the numbers don’t bare this out, it always seems like the Angels’ Ervin Santana pitches well against the Yanks, and Saturday night was no different. He cruised through the first three innings and gave up a run in the fourth only because Torii Hunter’s leap into the stands over the short fence in the right field corner wasn’t enough to snare Robinson Canó’s 12th homer of the season.

That 1-0 lead looked like it might be all that Yankee starter CC Sabathia would need. But the scrappy Angels bounced right back in the bottom of inning as Alberto Callaspo doubled deep to center field, then advanced to third on a grounder (which Derek Jeter booted for an error). An out later Callaspo came home on a Jeff Mathis sacrifice fly. The run was unearned, but the game was tied.

The game stayed tied until the sixth when Curtis Granderson led off and worked a walk. Two batters later Alex Rodríguez put a crush on a ball and sent it towards the rocks in left center field and the Yankees were up, 3-1. There was never a doubt that those extra two runs would be enough for Sabathia.

As predicted yesterday, Sabathia was ready, and he took no prisoners, dominating the Angels all night. It wasn’t too long ago that conversations about Sabathia were lined with at least a hint of disappointment, but when you look at his season now, it’s hard to remember why. He has been the very definition of an ace. Saturday’s victory was his seventh of the year (tied with five others for tops in the league), and he’s won his past four starts, pitching at least eight innings in each of them. In a rotation where each of the other four pitchers takes the mound with some type of looming question (Will Burnett finally self-destruct? Will Nova make it through five innings? Will Colón’s deal with the devil run out? Will García turn back into a pumpkin?), the certainty of Sabathia has been a gift.

In recent years eight innings had become the equivalent of a complete game for the Yankee staff, but Sabathia came out for the ninth in an attempt to finish what he started. After he got two ground outs to third and stood waiting for someone named Peter Bourjos to walk to the plate, it looked like the bullpen would have the night off. But after Gorgeous Bourjos singled, was allowed to take second, and came home on a Macier Izturis single, manager Joe Girardi hopped out of the dugout and called on Mariano Rivera. As it turned out, it took Rivera longer to get to the mound than get off it; he needed only one pitch to retire Erick Aybar for the final out. Yankees 3, Angels 2.

[Photo Credit: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images]

It’s no secret that I hate the Angels. Hate ’em like the chicken pox, and it’s not just because they’ve had so much success against the Yankees over the past fifteen years. I hate everything about them — the halo, the stadium, the rally monkey, the waterfall in centerfield, even the name. Any team named the Angels should be playing Bobby Sox softball in a league with the Ponies, the Unicorns, and the Magic Rainbows.

So after all that ranting, this next part will seem kind of snarky, but I don’t mean it to be. I kind of feel sorry for the Angels. They already have to wear those ridiculous uniforms, and then when they go with the throwbacks, they just look even more ridiculous, no matter which uni they choose. Poor Angels.

The team is celebrating its 50th anniversary, so on Friday night they trotted out the 1960s uniforms, complete with the cute little hats with the with the cute little halos on top. Lucky for them they had Jered Weaver on the mound, who could probably pitch with a flower pot on his head, but the kid who looked a look for the Cy Young on April 30 (6-0, 0.99 ERA in his first six starts) came down from the clouds in May (0-4, 5.25 in his next four).

The Yankees appeared intent on making him work, and Derek Jeter started off with a fifteen-pitch at bat to lead off the game. He ended up popping out to center, and even though Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira also went down, the three had made Weaver work as he expended 27 pitches to get through a 1-2-3 inning.

After the long top half, the Angels came up in the bottom half and notched a couple runs off Ivan Nova. Erick Aybar singled, moved to second on a wild pitch, and was quickly cashed in on a double from our old friend Bobby Abreu. Abreu would take third minutes later on a passed ball, and then score from there on a ground out to open a 2-0 lead.

The Yanks would split that margin in half in the second with an Alex Rodríguez double and a Russell Martin single, then tie the score at two in the fourth when Jorge Posada followed a couple of walks with a ground rule double.

The Angels, of course, would answer right back in their half of the fourth to reclaim the lead at 3-2, and after that, a strange thing happened. In an unorthodox move, the Yankee equipment manager ordered that all the bats be put away. Every once in a while someone managed to sneak a stick up to the plate, but they were obviously under strict orders not to swing. The Yankees didn’t manage a single hit after the fourth inning (they only had three total on the night), and struck out eleven times, with four of those Ks being backwards. A pathetic performance. Angels 3, Yankees 2.

Ivan Nova, though, wasn’t bad. He worked himself into a few jams, but I think we’d all be happy with six innings and three runs every time out from him. But don’t worry, everybody. CC’s driving the Score Truck tomorrow night. Expect the Yanks to win big. Big, I said. And I heard a rumor the Yanks will be wearing their throwback jerseys, the ones the team wore from 1936 to 2010. You won’t want to miss that.

[Photo Credit: Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo]