For a month and a half the Yankees sat atop the American League East, and even though their lead never looked insurmountable, I admit that I’m a bit surprised that they suddenly find themselves in second place after Tuesday night’s loss to the free-swinging Toronto Blue Jays.

It all started well enough.  Dustin Moseley (much more on him later) set down the Jays in the top of the first on six pitches, bringing the home side to bat.  Derek Jeter led off with a walk, Nick Swisher was retired on a blistering line drive to short, and Mark “How Ya Like Me Now” Teixeira launched a large home run into the back bleacher section in left field.  Sure, Agent 599 struck out and Robinson Canó grounded out to end the inning, but it really felt like a good night.  Really.

What happened next was that Toronto starter Ricky Romero turned out the lights.  He set down the side in order in the second, third, and fourth innings, then had his string snapped by a Marcus Thames infield single to lead off the fifth.  Hope!  But Romero responded to this blip by blitzing through the next fifteen Yankee batters to wrap up a dominant complete game victory.  To sum up, here’s how the Yankee hitters did against Romero:

Jeter walk.  Out.  Teixeira home run.  Eleven outs.  Thames single.  Fifteen outs.  Drive home safely.

So Ricky Romero was clearly the story of the game, but I’ll leave that for someone else to write.  What you won’t find in the box score is that Dustin Moseley pitched a great game.  Seriously.  The Blue Jay hitters were aggressive all evening, swinging early and often at Moseley’s assortment of fastballs, cutters, and curves, and if a few things had gone differently, well, Moseley still would’ve lost, but it might’ve been closer.

The Jays scored two runs in the second inning on a double and a single, but Moseley still seemed to be in control as he cruised through the third, using just thirty pitches to record nine outs.  The game turned in the top of the fourth.  A lead-off single by Vernon Wells was almost immediately erased by a 5-4-3 double play, complete with an unconventional underhanded flip from third to second as Agent 599 relived his days as a shortstop.  But before he could relax (or perhaps because he relaxed), Moseley plunked Aaron Hill and gave up a double to John Buck — and then an interesting thing happened.  Newcomer Austin Kearns did a decent job of tracking down Buck’s double in the left field corner and got the ball in to Jeter quickly enough that Hill should’ve been out easily at the plate.  I’ve never seen another shortstop better at handling relay throws, and two plays are etched in my memory as evidence: Jeter jumping towards the third base line to snag an errant throw from David Justice, then somehow contorting his body into position to throw out Timo Pérez at the plate to end the sixth inning in Game 1 of the 2000 World Series; leaping high to grab a sailing throw from Bernie Williams, then beginning his throwing motion before hitting the ground and firing a strike to third base to nail Danny Bautista trying to stretch a double into a triple in the sixth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

This play on Tuesday night was a walk in the park compared to those two plays, and Jeter almost seemed surprised that Hill was trying to score.  He double pumped, then pulled his throw about six feet wide of the plate.  What should’ve been the third out of the inning turned into the second Toronto run, and the game was tied at two — but not for long.  Travis Snider reached across the plate to lunge at the first pitch he saw and still managed to pull a lazy fly ball towards right center.  It drifted lazily into the visitors’ bullpen as Moseley stood on the mound with arms outstretched and palms turned upwards in the universal symbol of disbelief.

To his credit, Moseley recovered nicely over the next few innings and became the first Yankee starter to record an out in the eighth inning of a game since July 8th.  His team was down 5-2 as he walked off the mound, but neither that fact nor Moseley’s stat line in the morning paper tell the true story.  He deserved better.  After Moseley left the scene the Jays tacked on three more runs courtesy of one home run each off of Kerry Wood and Sergio Mitre.  Final score: Blue Jays 8, Yankees 2.  (And by the way, what if I had told you back in April that José Bautista would have more than twice as many home runs as our Agent 599 on August 4th?)

So if the Yankees are to avoid a sweep, Phil Hughes will have to find a way to keep the ball in the park on Wednesday afternoon. Sweet Baby Jesus.

I’m fairly certain that it’s been twenty years or more since the last time I scored a baseball game, so on Thursday night I printed out a couple blank score sheets, grabbed a clipboard and a pencil, put on the game, and sat on the couch next to my daughter to teach her how to score a game.  Now, I don’t mean to sound like a cranky old man, but you lose something when you follow a game on your cell phone or “watch” via ESPN’s Gamecast.  Sure, it’s convenient and easy, and any statistic you could ever want is only a mouse-click away, but you can never really get a feel for the game.  It turns out there’s no app for that.

So as Alison and I watched the Yankees and Mariners trade zeros through the first few innings, we noticed several things we otherwise wouldn’t have.  First of all, even though Andy Pettitte and Jason Vargas seemed to be matching each other pitch for pitch through the early going, they were actually pitching very different games.  Pettitte was cruising, facing just two over the minimum over five innings, but Vargas was walking a tightrope.

The Yanks put runners on in every inning, but Vargas was able to wiggle out of trouble each time, thanks mainly to a ground-ball-inducing changeup that bothered the right-handed hitters all night long.  (Jeter, Teixeira, and Posada totalled seven ground balls to the left side of the infield.)

Pettitte’s relatively easy first five innings paid dividends in the sixth, when he had to dig deep to avoid disaster.  The frame opened with consecutive singles by the eight and nine hitters, bringing Ichiro to the plate.  Just as I was explaining to my daughter how dangerous the situation was, Ichiro dropped a bunt in front of the mound.  Pettitte scrambled down the hill towards the third base line to field the ball and promptly fired it down the first base line, allowing the first run of the game to score as Josh Wilson scampered home from second base.  (By the way, I’d love it if someone could explain why this run was earned.)  It was Pettitte’s third throwing error in the past month, and he was visibly disgusted.  After the game, he explained: “I just panicked.  It’s terrible.  I just grabbed it and turned and looked over there, and I’m not even focusing on where I need to throw.  I just kinda threw it over there to a group of people… I gotta stop doing that.”  I’d agree.

Down a run with men on second and third and nobody out, Pettitte somehow managed to limit the damage right there.  He convinced Chone Figgins to ground out to third, freezing the runners, then followed an intentional walk by striking out Russell Branyan and José Lopez.  He scolded himself as he walked off the mound, but the reality is that he had just saved the game when he could’ve lost it.

Vargas finally ran out of gas in the eighth, as he walked A-Rod on four pitches and followed that by allowing a single to Robinson Canó.  Brian Sweeney relieved, then promptly uncorked a wild pitch that moved A-Rod to third, from where he’d score as Jorge Posada grounded into a double play, and finally the game was tied at one.

Managing by the book, Don Wakamatsu brought in his closer, Dan Aardsma, to pitch the top of the ninth, but it didn’t turn out the way he hoped.  After fanning Kevin Russo for the first out, Aardsma walked Jeter on four pitches and then gave up a double to All-Star Nick Swisher, who suddenly can’t do anything wrong.  Swashbuckling Swish was four for four on the night with two doubles and a walk, plus a nifty sliding catch in the field.  With the go-ahead run waiting patiently on third and only one out, Teixeira fouled out to the catcher, bringing the game to Alex Rodríguez.

I dwelled on Teixeira’s failure to get that run in as I explained to Alison that it would be much more difficult to get the run in with two outs.  With the optimism of a ten-year-old, she looked down at her scorecard and told me that Alex Rodríguez was up next.  “He hits a lot of home runs, Daddy.”  He didn’t hit a home run this time, just a base hit to right field, but it was good enough to score two runs and pass the game on to Mariano Rivera.  Alison was right; I needn’t have worried.  Oh, and here’s an interesting stat that I don’t believe but can’t possibly verify.  After the game Ken Singleton told us that of the last 18 times the Yankees have scored a tying or go-ahead run in the ninth inning, Alex Rodríguez has been responsible all 18 times.  Believe it or not.

Rivera, of course, worked a hitless ninth inning, saving an Andy Pettitte victory for the 68th time, possibly my favorite statistic ever.  Yankees 3, Mariners 1.

There’s been lots of talk here and elsewhere about Mark Teixeira’s painfully slow start this season, but I always felt like the most interesting angle had nothing to do with his hitting.  The only question worth asking, I think, was why didn’t anyone care that he wasn’t hitting?  Every Yankee has heard the boos cascading down at one point or another, even the legends.  Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly, Paul O’Neil, Alex Rodríguez — and even Derek Jeter — were all booed during slumps.  But why not Teixeira?

Even as his average hovered in the low .200s, Tex could pop up with a runner on third, strike out with the bases loaded, or ground into a rally-killing double play, all with relative impunity, as evidenced by his jog back to the dugout beneath a cloud of indifferent silence.  Analysts would say it was because the true fans understood that he was still helping the team with his on base percentage and stellar defense, but that’s not it at all.  Mark Teixeira is vanilla.  He hits for a decent average, slugs thirty to forty homers a year, drives in a boatload of runs, plays Gold Glove defense, and helps the team win — but no one cares.  We have no expectations for him, so we can’t be disappointed when he fails, even when it’s happening for weeks and months at a time.

Alex Rodríguez, of course, is different.  His at bats stop conversations and delay trips to the concession stand because we expect greatness each time he steps to the plate.  He could be mired in a slump and facing, say, Roy Halladay, but we don’t wonder if he’ll succeed, we wonder how far the ball will go.  Sure, there are a lot of other variables here — the steroid issue, the enormous contract, the opting out of the enormous contract, the social awkwardness, the shadow of Jeter — but the main thing is the great expectations.

All of which brings us to Tuesday night’s game in Oakland.  The Yankees had just tied the score at one in the top of the third when Teixeira came to the plate with runners on first and third, and that’s when the idea of an A-Rod grand slam first popped into my head.  Three pitches later Teixeira was writhing in pain after being plunked in the back by an errant fastball from Trevor Cahill, and the bases were loaded for Mr. Rodríguez.

Any base hit would’ve been fine, but I expected more.  After getting the benefit of the doubt on a check swing call that pushed the count to 3-1 instead of 2-2, A-Rod jumped on a flat sinker and banged it off the bleachers in left center field, 423 feet away.  A-Rod’s response to these no-doubt home runs has always been interesting to me.  Reggie would pause for a second or two, and then take a few deliberate steps towards first before breaking into a Cadillac trot around the bases, all designed to give everyone — Reggie included — ample opportunity to admire what he had just done.  A-Rod instead bolts from the box and immediately turns his head towards his teammates, none of whom are looking at him.  They’re celebrating and following the flight of the ball, and when A-Rod looks into the dugout he seems to be channeling Sally Field: “You like me!  You really like me!” He needs their approval and can’t wait to get around the bases and into the dugout so he can accept their congratulations.  You could psychoanalyze this all you want — or maybe I just did — but all it really means is that he wants to be loved, and I love him for it.

A-Rod’s slam gave the Yankees a 5-1 lead, and that was more than enough for CC Sabathia, who has been pitching like CC Sabathia for the past six weeks.  Following his start in that disaster game in Cleveland on May 29, CC’s record stood at 4-3 with a 4.16 ERA.  Since then he’s rattled off seven straight wins and lowered his ERA with each outing, dropping it to where it now stands at 3.19.  He was dominant again on Tuesday night, striking out ten in seven and two-thirds innings and never really allowing the A’s a look at the game.  He gave up a couple of singles and a walk to the load the bases with two outs in the fifth, but recovered to strike out Daric Barton, who slammed his bat down in disgust at the call and was instantly tossed by home plate umpire Mike Winters.  (And is it just me, or are a lot of opposing hitters getting run lately?)

If all that wasn’t enough to crush the Athletics’ spirit, A-Rod added a second home run (and an second glance into the dugout) with the next half inning, and that was pretty much it.  Yankees 6, A’s 1.

[Photo courtesy of US Presswire.]

Photo by Associated Press

Believe it or not, I was in Oakland on Monday morning. A family road trip for the Fourth of July weekend had us driving back and forth across the San Mateo and Bay Bridges all weekend long, and Monday found us on the east side of the bay as we started our trip home. Much has been made recently about rule changes that have made it more difficult for teams travelling across the country, and the Yankees certainly faced an uphill battle after playing in the Bronx on Sunday afternoon, flying to Oakland on Sunday night, and squaring off against the A’s on Monday night, but I’ll ask that you not feel sorry for them.

I’m guessing that during their seven-hour trek from Yankee Stadium to their hotel in Oakland, their journey was a bit softer than mine. While they were lounging in luxury, watching DVDs and flagging down cocktail waitresses on a chartered flight, I was battling holiday traffic, oppressive heat, outrageously filthy gas station restrooms, and three fussy children. At the end of my journey I knew I’d have to watch the game and file a game report, all without the help of greenies or amphetamines.

But I digress. The Yankee hitters, perhaps suffering from jet lag, weren’t overly impressive. They got on the board in the second inning when Nick Swisher doubled, Curtis Granderson tripled, and Francisco Cervelli singled — all with two outs — to jump out to an early 2-0 lead, and Mark Teixeira added an insurance run with his 14th home run in the sixth. That was pretty much it, but it was enough.

Javier Vazquez was on the mound on Monday night and continued his resurgence, throwing 110 pitches over seven strong innings while allowing only only three hits, two walks, and a single run. His only struggle came in the third inning, as Chad Pennington tripled with one out and then scored on a Coco Crisp sacrifice fly. He worked around a walk and a single in the fourth, allowed a walk to start the fifth, but then retired the next nine batters in a row to finish his night. Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera took care of the final six hitters, and the deed was done. Yankees 3, A’s 1.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Do you remember what it was like to be ten years old, to grip a bat in your hand and mimic your favorite player’s batting stance as you stared out at the pitcher?  Everything stopped for that moment as you used the bat to gently stir the air behind your head and the pitcher stared in at the target, contemplating his next pitch.  The beautiful thing about baseball is that most of us can relate to that moment.

More importantly, you can relate to the dream.  You can imagine how it would feel to pull on a major league jersey for the first time, to step up to the plate against a major league pitcher and simply do what you’ve done hundreds of thousands of times — put the bat on the ball and run to first base.  When the ball finds the grass you take a professional turn around first and then do your best to look calm and nonchalant as you head back to the bag and casually bump fists with the first base coach, all the while watching out of the corner of your eye to be sure that the ball finds its way into your dugout.  And then if you’re lucky, you look up into the stands and you see your mother and father in the crowd.  They’re easy to spot, because they’re the ones who are jumping and cheering with tears in their eyes, no doubt thinking of all the skinned knees, all the games of catch, all the Little League games, and all the trips to the batting cages that led to this one base hit.  In that moment, it doesn’t matter if any of it happens again, only that it happened once.

There are a lot of reasons why I love baseball, but moments like these are high on the list.  Basketball players don’t care much about their first basket, and I’m guessing that even quarterbacks forget their first touchdowns, but there seems to be something magical about a player’s first hit.  Every once in a while, like Tuesday night in Arizona, we get to share in that moment.

(more…)

Nathan Denette/Associated Press

So if you’re just waking up and wondering how things went with the Yankees while you were sleeping, I don’t have a lot of good news to report.  It all started out okay, as A.J. Burnett retired the first two Arizona hitters relatively quickly, prompting Michael Kay to wonder aloud if Burnett would be able to have a 1-2-3 first inning, which would be his first in nine starts.  Justin Upton ended the suspense almost immediately by rocketing a 430-foot home run to straight-away center field.  But that was only the beginning.  Following Upton’s blast, five more hitters paraded to the plate with these results: single, single, home run, home run, double.  Thankfully the game was being played under National League rules, so Burnett was able to stop the damage by striking out pitcher Rodrigo López, but it was already 5-0.

Burnett started the second inning the same as he had the first, by retiring Kelly Johnson and Stephen Drew, but with two outs and the bases empty, the Diamondbacks had him right where they wanted him.  Upton singled and promptly came home on a long double by Miguel Montero, bumping the lead to six.

The third inning was uneventful, but Burnett returned to his pattern in the fourth, retiring Johnson and Drew just as he had in the first and second innings.  Upton drew a walk, stole second, then came home on a Montero single to put Arizona up by a touchdown.  Burnett would retire the next hitter to escape without further damage, but it would still be the end of his night.  Four innings pitched, nine hits, seven runs, three home runs — and all of that came after two were out in the inning.

Rodrígo López, meanwhile, was making like Greg Maddux.  He kept the Yankee hitters off balance all night long by changing speeds (sound familiar?) and throwing strikes.  He was so efficient, in fact, that 12 of the first 15 Yankee hitters started out with strike one, and ten of those twelve were called strikes.  Brett Gardner managed four base hits (a slap to left, a drag bunt, and two other infield singles), but everyone else seemed to be just missing all night long.  Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, and Alex Rodríguez seemed to end each at bat by tossing their bats away in frustration.

Even so, they were able to scratch out three runs to cut the lead to 7-3 while Chad Gaudin held down the fort with two scoreless innings of relief.  Chan Ho Park follwed up with a scoreless seventh, and there were two moments when a big hit could’ve cut the lead down to something more manageable, but it never quite happened.  CHP ran into some trouble in the eighth, putting two men on with two outs.  (Stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before.)  Facing Upton, Park jumped out to an 0-2 advantage, but then quickly worked himself into a full count.  Apparently worried about walking Upton, Park instead called timeout and ran into the dugout.  He returned with a batter’s tee, set it down on home plate, placed the ball on the tee, and got out of the way.  Upton deposited the ball 408 feet away in the left field stands, and the game was over.  Diamondbacks 10, Yankees 4.

In other news, the Yankees decided that Phil Hughes will be skipped when his turn comes up this Friday. It’s probably a good thing, since the off-days allow them to move everyone else up without having to pitch on short rest, and it will help keep Hughes’s innings down.  But coming when it did, while the team’s worst starter continued to spiral downward, it was troubling to learn that its best starter wouldn’t be back on the mound for more than a week.

Mike Stobe/Getty Images

Let’s do this backwards.  The Yankees beat the Astros 9-3 on Saturday afternoon.  Saturday was a busy day, what with my daughter’s volleyball game in the morning and a museum trip in the afternoon, so I had to TiVo the game for later, as I often do.  I always try to avoid the score, which isn’t usually difficult considering that I’m in California, not New York City, but it didn’t work today.

Someone put the TV on when we got back from volleyball, and even though I was in the kitchen, I still heard Michael Kay talking about a 6-2 Yankee lead.  And when we stopped for lunch after the museum, our table was facing a giant television tuned to ESPNews, which cycled through the highlights of the win twice during our meal.  No biggie.

As it turns out, it’s incredibly relaxing to sit down and watch a game when you know good things are going to happen.  So while you were all worrying about Javier Vazquez, I sat down at about 10:oo PM California time with supreme confidence in him, and he didn’t disappoint.  Sure, he gave up 852 feet of home runs (to Hunter Pence in the 2nd and Carlos Lee in the 6th), but aside from that Vazquez was good enough — and has been good enough — that A.J. Burnett is starting to look an awful lot like a long reliever come October.

Let’s look at some numbers.  Since being skipped in the rotation back in early May, Vazquez has started six times and produced this stat line: 39.2 IP, 25 H, 13 R, 37 K, 12 BB, 2.95 ERA, 0.93 WHIP.  (This doesn’t include his relief appearance against Boston.)  I know what you’re thinking — he’s been doing this against patsies, and his one bad outing came against the best team he faced last month, the Minnesota Twins.  You’re free to think that.  All I know is that I trust him an awful lot more than Burnett at this point.

But back to the game.  Derek Jeter led off the game with a big home run to left (his 24th lead-off home run, tying Rickey Henderson atop the Yankee list), and after the Astros took the lead back with single runs in the second and third, the Bombers answered back with five runs in the third, highlighted by Jorge Posada’s opposite field grand slam into the bleachers in right.  Much has been made of Posada’s dislike of his current DH role, and some have cited it as a possible reason for his recent struggles, but he looked comfortable enough on Saturday.

Posada’s home run was a milestone of sorts, the 250th of his career, which prompted the obligatory graphic listing the top totals in Yankee history.  Posada sits tied with Graig Nettles at #7, soon to be passed by Alex Rodríguez, who’s four behind in the ninth spot.  What’s surprizing about the list, though, is that Jeter is in tenth place.  He hit his second home run of the game in the sixth, a three-run shot to right, bringing his career total to a respectable 232.  Also of note, Jeter now has 3,001 career base hits — but only if you count the 175 he’s gotten in the postseason.  With 2,826 hits, the Captain is bearing down on hallowed ground.

Finally, a quick look at the team in general.  When I wrote my recap of the pork chop game back in late May, I pointed out that the Yankees were about to start a sixteen-game stretch against a group of mediocre teams.  In my head (but not in print), I was hoping for twelve wins out of those sixteen.  As it stands now, with only Sunday’s game remaining from those sixteen, the Yanks have won eleven of fifteen and sliced their deficit in the East from 4.5 games to only one.  Wouldn’t it be cool if they got that extra win on Sunday and pulled into a tie for the lead?  We can only hope…

Alright, enough is enough. Three runs in twenty-three innings? Roll, Score Truck, roll!

Let’s go, Yan-Kees!

Photo by Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated

When I started coaching middle school basketball nineteen years ago, my knowledge for the game didn’t extend much beyond what I had learned from playing pick-up ball in college — which means that I knew almost nothing.  I haunted the practices of the best local coaches, spent most Friday nights in sweaty high school gyms, and attended coaching clinics whenever and wherever I could find them.  One of the best was at UCLA during the Steve Lavin era.  Lavin spoke for a while, as did Pete Newell and Purdue’s Gene Keady.  The biggest draw, though, was John Wooden.

Keady and Lavin worked from prepared speeches as they paced back in forth in front of elaborate diagrams to illustrate their points, but in a concession to their advanced ages — both men were in their eighties at the time — Wooden and Newell took their turns seated side-by-side in folding chairs, prepared to take questions from the audience.  What’s the best simple drill to help post players?  Which fast break strategy works best for a small team? The two coaches took turns answering the questions that appealed to one’s strength or the other’s, Newell speaking into a microphone clipped neatly to his lapel, but Wooden holding his stubbornly in his hand after a UCLA staffer had twice failed to attach it properly.

Finally, someone asked a question that truly sparked the Wizard of Westwood’s interest.  How do you teach your players to defend the pick and roll properly? Wooden hopped out of his chair and the cadence of his voice quickened as he begin to explain.  Realizing that  his words weren’t enough, he stepped out onto the court and began pantomiming the defensive steps.  The problem, of course, was the microphone.  He still held it in his hand, so when he thought about it and held it close enough to his mouth, we could hear his lecture.  But when he extended his arms and dropped into a stance, suddenly losing at least three decades from his true age as he slid around or dropped below an imaginary screen, he became almost impossible to hear.

There were several hundred coaches sitting in the stands, but we were absolutely silent.  We heard only half of what he was saying, but those words were still golden.  This wasn’t just a coach.  Somehow, it was more than just a coach who had won ten national championships.  This was Moses coming down from the mountain.  Every coach in that arena, ranging from me to Gene Keady, had quoted John Wooden to young players who couldn’t possibly know who he was.  We had all studied his Pyramid of Success.  I even admonish my own children, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”  And so when Coach Wooden finished answering the pick and roll question, he sat down to an appreciative round of applause.  We had heard only about half of what he had said, but it didn’t really matter.  We had been in the presence of greatness, and that was enough.

John Wooden passed away on Friday evening, leaving behind hundreds of loyal former players, thousands of devoted coaching protégés, and millions of adoring fans.  This is a national story, certainly, as Wooden’s death will likely dominate the headlines of every sports page outside of Chicago and Philadelphia on Saturday morning, but nowhere has the news hit harder than here in Southern California.  Baseball announcers will likely discuss Wooden throughout their Saturday telecasts, and you can bet that every coach and manager will be asked about John Wooden’s influence.  You’ll hear about how he taught his players the right way to roll their socks and tie their shoes, how he wouldn’t allow Bill Walton to grow a beard, and, inevitably, how he strung together 88 consecutive wins.

I hope they also tell the most important stories, about how he came to UCLA instead of the University of Minnesota because he had made a promise — not signed a contract.  About how he never complained while earning only $32,000 a year while many of his peers were paid six-figure salaries.  Or, most importantly, about how for the past twenty-five years he marked the passing of his wife Nellie by sitting down each month to write her a love letter.

We’ll miss you, Coach, but Nellie is waiting.  Be quick, but don’t hurry.

Our man Hank Waddles has a good interview with Norman Ollestad. Nice job, once again, Hendree.

Dig.

[Photo Credit: Quicksilver]

Okay, let’s start with the good news.  At 28-19, the Yankees have the second-best record in all of baseball, tied with the San Diego Padres, if you can believe it.

Now for the bad news, which will take a bit more than one sentence to describe.  On Wednesday the Yankees made like bullies, calmly taking the Twins’ lunch money yet again as they swept a makeshift double header.  Just a day later, though, things don’t look quite as good.

Problem number one is that this team suddenly can’t score any runs.  Derek Jeter led off the game with a single, then dashed to third on Mark Teixeira’s single two batters later.  You could make the argument that even though we were only ten minutes into the action, this was the biggest moment of the game.  With Javier Vazquez on the mound, a pitcher who has been, shall we say, less than dominant this year, it was probably important to get off to a quick start.  It didn’t even need to be a big inning; just a 1-0 lead would have done wonders.  And with Alex Rodríguez coming up with runners at first and third and only one out, even a lazy sac fly would do.  Instead, A-Rod tapped weakly to short and produced a 6-3 double play to end the inning.

When presented with the exact same scenario in the bottom half of the inning — first and third and one out — Justin Morneau did his job and lofted a fly ball to centerfield, easily scoring Orlando Hudson to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.

The game was essentially over right then and there, but since they played eight more innings, I’ll give you the highlights — or lowlights, as the case may be.  The first thing you need to know is that Javy Vazquez was awful, as you might guess from this line: 5.2 IP, 8H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2K.  The second thing you need to know is that he was actually worse than that.  Included in those eight hits were four doubles, a triple, and a home run, and there wasn’t a cheapie in the bunch.  It seemed like every ball the Twins hit off Vazquez was a rocket, even the outs.  As shaky as his confidence already seemed to be, it will be interesting to see how he bounces back from this.

Jason Kubel, who had already driven in a run with a second-inning double, led off the sixth inning with a monstrous home run to right, stretching the Minnesota lead to 5-2.  Vazquez lasted another two batters, but he was a dead man walking at that point.  Joe Girardi brought in Chan Ho Park with two outs, and was just as effective as you might think, giving up a harmless single before closing out the sixth but then starting the seventh by walking Joe Mauer and giving up a single to Morneau before Girardi lifted him for Damaso Marte.  Marte got his man (Jim Thome), and Girardi brought in our old friend Chad Gaudin with two on and one out, hoping to keep the game close.

It didn’t work.  After Michael Cuddyer struck out, That Man Kubel came up and rocked a home run into the Land of Pork Chops on Sticks.  8-2, Twins.

So now that it’s all said and done, I’m left with three burning questions, and I’d appreciate some answers.

1. Why is that when I watch televised games from Target Field, it still looks like the games are being played indoors?

2. When will the Yankees start scoring runs again?

3. Exactly how many beers does it take to convince someone that it would be a good idea to sneak up and take a bite out of a pork chop in Kim Jones’s hand while she is using it as a prop during a live shot?

As we wrap this up, let’s end with something positive.  Take a look at the next sixteen games:

4 games vs. Cleveland (17-28)
3 games vs. Baltimore (15-33)
3 games @ Toronto (27-22)
3 games @ Baltimore (15-33)
3 games vs. Houston (16-31)

I see you out there on the ledge.  You watched Thursday night’s game with the Rays right up to the bitter end, then unfolded your life insurance policy, placed it neatly on the kitchen table, and calmly opened the window and took a seat next to the pigeons.  Or maybe I’m wrong; maybe I’m the only one on that ledge.

I put the TV on about five minutes after Andy Pettitte’s first pitch, and the screen came to life just in time to show me Carl Crawford and Ben Zobrist returning to the Tampa dugout, celebrating Zobrist’s home run and the Rays’ early 3-0 lead.  Pettitte followed that with a walk to Evan Longoria, but bounced back by getting a double-play ball and a strikeout to end the frame.  He made it through the second and third without event, but then gave up another home run to B.J. Upton in the fourth.  He clearly wasn’t sharp.

The Yankee hitters did their best to keep up through the early innings, but even when the score was close it was only a mirage.  Juan Miranda cut the lead to 3-2 with a second-deck two-run blast in the second inning, but the next couple runs were gift-wrapped, one unearned and the other undeserved.  In the third, Derek Jeter followed a Randy Winn single by dropping a sacrifice bunt that rolled untouched between the mound and third base.  Brett Gardner followed that with another bunt (natch), but this one produced a run when James Shields fired it over Peña’s head and down the right field line.  With none out, runners on second and third, and Teixeira, A-Rod, and Canó on the way, it really did look like the game was about to change.  As it turned out, Shields could’ve pulled a Satchel Paige and called his fielders in.  He snagged a tapper back to the mound from Teixeira, struck out A-Rod on a change-up that bounced in front of the plate, and fanned Canó on three pitches.  Move along.

If you were following the game on-line, you probably raised your eyebrows in the fourth inning when you read something like, “J Miranda tripled to deep center.”  The truth of the matter was that Miranda lifted a gentle fly ball that center fielder Upton never saw.  Upton immediately stood with both arms outstretched, asking for help that could never get there in time, as Miranda sprinted around second and slid into third.  Two batters later Randy Winn cashed in Upton’s gift with a sacrifice fly, tying the game at four apiece.

The tie score didn’t last long as a couple Tampa hits and a walk led to two more runs in the fifth, and Carlos Peña finally sent Pettitte to the showers when he led off the sixth with a home run.  If you’re looking for a silver lining in all this, it comes to you in the person of David Robertson, who relieved Pettitte and retired all six batters he faced in the sixth and seventh, striking out four of them.  The bad news, though, is that Chan Ho Park followed Robertson and allowed an eighth Tampa run, making the Yankees’ nightly ninth inning comeback attempt just a bit more difficult.  They could only manage two runs, settling for an 8-6 loss.

So the Rays leave town, surely pleased with themselves, and the Yanks are left with questions.  But it’s not as bad as it looks.  The Mets are up next, and they could be just what the doctor ordered.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that I cannot simply brush off Yankee losses, even in April or May. I am invested, so each defeat carries a sting. The good news, though, is that there’s always another game waiting around the corner and the team is usually at or near the top of the standings. I mourn, I recover, I move on.

But every once in a while a game comes along that cuts a bit deeper; Sunday was one of those games. It started out fine, of course, as the Yankees led 3-1 after six. Worked well for me, since my parents were in town and the kids were eagerly showing off their bike-riding skills outside. I could join the fun in the front yard, comfortable knowing that the bullpen would somehow stumble through the seventh before handing off to Joba in the eighth and Mo in the ninth.

But of course, it didn’t work that way. I managed to sneak in just in time to catch Joba walking off the mound after loading the bases, but I was only mildly concerned. Rivera was on the way, and everything would be fine. Soon enough, it wasn’t.

The thing about baseball, is that we get used to failure. Derek Jeter is my favorite player, a player who has come through in big situations an awful lot in his career, but when he came up as the tying run in the ninth inning, I can’t honestly say that I expected victory. I hoped, but I did not assume.

It’s different with Mariano. He might not be favorite player, but he is the one I expect to succeed every single time. Game 4 in Cleveland, Game 7 in Arizona, and Games 4 and 5 in Boston are all burned into my psyche, but even when taken together, those four games can never outweigh all of the other evidence telling me that Rivera is invincible.

So when Rivera is touched for a loss the way he was on Sunday, it amounts to much more than just a loss in the standings. It shakes me to my core, calling into question all that I believe in. The game itself becomes secondary as I struggle to make sense of what I’ve just seen: Mariano has failed.

Greater writers than I have tried to explain the wonders of Mariano Rivera; rather than attempting to improve upon them, I’ll use the words of the greatest writer of all time. Mariano “is an ever-fixed mark that looks upon tempests and is never shaken; [he] is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” Sure, Shakespeare was talking about true love, but when it comes right down to it, is there any greater love than Mo?

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

If you’ve been married for any length of time, you know you have to choose your battles.  You rent the romantic comedy instead of the Tarantino flick, you hang the picture in the hallway during halftime of the football game, and you smile when she asks to share your dessert.  You have to draw the line somewhere, though, and it seems like most of us take our stand with the comfort items.  It could be a beat up chair, a worn pair of jeans, or an old pair of shoes.

Andy Pettitte is an old pair of shoes.  He’s been doing this so long that it’s expected and surprising all at the same time.  Sure, the stubble on the jaw is a gun-metal grey now, and his three-year business trip to Houston kind of puts an asterisk on Michael Kay’s constant references to the Core Four, but this is still Andy Pettitte.  So when he rattled off eight effective innings on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, Pettitte looked just like the guy we saw back in 2009 or 2003 or 1996.

He allowed two runs in the third inning on a single, a sacrifice, a double, and another single, but he was coldly effective the rest of the way.  He walked Ryan Garko with one out in the fourth, then settled in to retire the next twelve Texas hitters, highlighted by the sixth and seventh innings when he needed only fifteen pitches total to record the six outs.

On the other side of the efficiency coin was Texas starter Rich Harden.  Harden’s been on my fantasy team for the past couple seasons, so I’ve seen this game about a thousand times.  His stuff is great, far better than Pettitte’s, so he was able to strike out five hitters in only three and two-thirds innings, but the the problem was that he also gave up six walks and five base hits.  The strikeouts and walks would naturally lead to a high pitch count, but here’s a hidden stat that doomed Harden: Yankee hitters fouled off 22 of his pitches; Ranger batters managed only three foul balls during Pettitte’s eight innings.

Meanwhile, the Yankees cobbled together five runs with a sacrifice fly here, a bloop single there, and a couple of home runs, only one of which is interesting enough to talk about here.  The struggling Mark Teixeira hit his first home run of the season, and as he rounded the bases in his usual high-stepping trot, looking like a man running through three feet of snow, I wondered if he might finally be coming around.  I know we all know that Teixeira starts slowly, but just as a reminder, I looked it up.  Take a look at where he was on the morning of April 19th in each the past several years.  (And to make you feel better, I’ve included his finishing slash stats as well.)

2003: .149/.216/.298 — .259/.331/.480
2004: Injured in April — .281/.370/.560
2005: .224/.308/.397 — .301/.379/.575
2006: .321/.410/.528 — .282/.371/.514
2007: .204/.339/.224 — .306/.400/.563
2008: .203/.282/.375 — .308/.410/.552
2009: .194/.333/.548 — .292/.383/.565
2010: .114/.291/.205 — ????/????/????

The numbers don’t lie.  Sooner or later, he’ll be fine.  The hitters say that sometimes one swing is all it takes to find what’s been missing; here’s hoping that Big Tex has found it.  But back to our game…

Everything ended when another pair of comfortable shoes, Mariano Rivera, trotted in from the dugout and closed things out with a spotless ninth inning. Yankees 5, Rangers 2.  As noted everywhere, the Yanks have won their first four series, the first time that’s happened since 1926, and all is happy in the Bronx.

AP Photo/Mike Carlson

You know how they always tell us that cycles are just as rare as no-hitters and should be appreciated as such?  Nonsense.  Cycles are nice, but they’re really just gimmicks.  A no-hitter, though, is history, and CC Sabathia was chasing history on Saturday afternoon against the Tampa Bay Rays.

I’m an optimist in all things, especially when it comes to no-hitters, so after CC set down his twelfth straight batter, striking out Ben Zobrist to close out the fourth inning, I started thinking seriously about it and ignoring everything else in my life in favor of the outs piling up in Tampa.  One of those things was my wife, who made the mistake of asking me a question in the bottom of the sixth inning just as Jason Bartlett smoked a line drive that looked ticketed for right field.  Our conversation went like this:

Wife: Do you think we have time to stop at the camera store?

Me: Look at Big Tex!!!

What I probably should’ve said was, “Sure, we can definitely swing by the camera shop, but did you happen to notice the play that Mark Teixeira just made there?  That ball surely looked to be a base hit, but he really showed his Gold Glove form as he laid out to snare that liner.  Jason Giambi, by the way, wouldn’t even have been able to turn his head fast enough to follow the flight of the ball.”  But that’s not what I said.

Only an inning later, we had a similar conversation:

Wife: I’m worried about Alison’s fever.  Do you think we should take her to urgent care?

Me (standing and pumping fist): A-Rod!!!!

The smarter thing would’ve been for me to take my daughter’s temperature, discuss possible treatment options, and then explain that A-Rod’s play was the type of play that every no-hitter seems to have.  B.J. Upton had smashed a one-hop liner that looked to be headed to the left field corner, but A-Rod had dived to his right, hopped nimbly to his feet, and fired across the diamond to nab the speedy Upton by a step and a half.  With only six outs to go and Sabathia looking as strong as the defense behind him, the no-hitter looked extremely possible.

The best part of all this was that the game wasn’t really in doubt, because the Yankee hitters had arrived at the park with the urgency of an innocent man accused.  Robinson Canó can’t hit with runners on base?  He came up with two outs and Teixeira on first and answered that question by launching a home run to deep right, putting the Bombers up 2-0.  Teixeira can’t hit in April?  Tex rapped out his first three hits of the season, including an RBI double in the fourth that stretched the lead to 4-0.  Brett Gardner is an offensive liability?  He faced a team-high 27 pitches, reached base all five times, drove in two, scored twice, and stole a base.  (Some might disagree, but I’d love it if Girardi would send him out there every day for a few weeks, just to see what happens.)

So by the time the Rays came up in the 8th they were already down 8-0, and the only drama revolved around Sabathia and the final six outs.  Willy Aybar led off with a grounder that ricocheted off CC’s pitching hand (gasp!) to Canó who fired to Teixeira for the first out.  Pat Burrell then lofted a fly ball to Curtis Granderson in center, and Sabathia was four outs away; alas, that was as close as he’d get.

His former Cleveland teammate Kelly Shoppach roped a clean single to left, and that was that.  Joe Girardi sprinted out of the dugout immediately, and I imagined that he must’ve spent the entire half-inning crouched in starting blocks, poised to pull Sabathia as soon as possible.  (More on that later.)  The Yankees tacked on a couple more runs in the top of the ninth and David Robertson struck out two while nailing down the final four outs to close out what was almost an historic afternoon.  Yankees 10, Rays 0.

That Shoppach single was about as disappointing as a meaningless April base hit can be.  Even before the ball had been returned to the infield, I found myself wondering about what might’ve been.  I imagined Sabathia setting down Carl Crawford with a letter-high fastball and the celebration that would ensue.  Francisco Cervelli would leap Yogi-style into Sabathia’s arms, the rest of the team would mob them, and A-Rod and Teixeira would struggle to hoist CC’s 290 pounds onto their shoulders.

Post-game interviews, however, would reveal that if Shoppach hadn’t spoiled the no-no, Girardi would have.  As dominant as the big horse had been, umpire Wally Bell’s postage stamp strike zone had helped drive Sabathia’s pitch count up to 109 heading into the Shoppach at bat.  “Watching that pitch count go up and up and up, that was what was on my mind the most.  Shoppach was his last hitter no matter what.”

Sabathia jokingly responded that Girardi would’ve had a fight on his hands had he tried to prevent him from going back out to work the ninth, and if I had been in Tampa, I would have been fighting right alongside him.

Bronx Banter Interview

By Hank Waddles

For Yankee fans, Roger Clemens is a difficult case — even before all his recent steroid trouble. If you’re of my generation, you grew up despising him. Even though he pitched for Boston during an era when we all knew the Red Sox would never win anything, he was still a fearsome enemy. He was the gunslinger who stole your girlfriend before shooting the sheriff right between the eyes on his way out of town. There was some pleasure to be had when his skills began to decline during his twilight years in Boston, but it wasn’t too much of a surprise when he became great again — if irrelevant — during his time in Toronto. And when he came to New York in 1999, if all wasn’t forgotten, at least it was put aside. First of all, the Yanks were adding the best pitcher in the game; second, they were twisting the knife in the heart of Red Sox Nation. It was a win-win.

Roger helped the Yankees to a couple more championships, won his 300th game, endeared himself to the Boss and legions of fans, and said all the right things about wearing a Yankee cap into the Hall of Fame. But then came the defection to Houston, the self-serving Stadium announcement of his return to New York, and, finally, the steroid allegations. There was an embarrassment that we had once embraced him, and the ashes in our mouths were there to remind us that we had gotten exactly what we deserved.

But there is more to Roger Clemens. Sure, he cut corners, but he also worked harder than any of his teammates. Yes, he is hopelessly selfish and egotistical, but he’d be the first player to volunteer for visits to children’s hospitals. Whether you loved him once or never at all, whether you think he deserves a plaque in Cooperstown or a spot in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell, you have to admit that Roger Clemens matters. In Jeff Pearlman’s latest book, The Rocket That Fell to Earth: Roger Clemens and the Rage for Baseball Immortality, he does his typically thorough job of cutting through the Roger Clemens mythology and getting to the heart of the man who was once considered one of the five greatest pitchers of all time. A few weeks ago Jeff was generous enough to spend part of his morning talking with me about the book, the steroid era, and a few other topics. Enjoy…

BronxBanter:  You’ve said that you love writing books, but when I spoke to you a while back while you were deep in this one, you described it as hell. How do those two things go together?

Pearlman:  The only thing I can really compare it to is running marathons. I run a lot of marathons. When I first start running a marathon, I’m really excited, and I love the first thirteen miles, and then the next four miles I sort of start feeling it, and then once you hit the twenties you start thinking, “I’m never gonna do this again. I’m neeeever doing this again.” And when you cross the finish line your first thought is, “Thank god this is over so I never have to do it again.” And then ten minutes later you’re thinking about the next marathon. And that’s how I feel about writing books. It’s nightmarish. It’s hellish. You’re solely focused — usually for a year and a half or two years — on one person, one subject, for all that time. You’re looking for these little details that seem insignificant to someone who doesn’t do it for a living, I would guess, but they become these gold nuggets for you. Finding out what someone used to drink for breakfast in the morning, silly little things like that that you think mean nothing, but they mean everything when you’re working on a book. Detail is what counts. When I was a kid I read every book imaginable, every sports book I could find, and I didn’t really differentiate between the good ones and the bad ones and the mediocre ones because I didn’t know any better. But now, when I’m reading someone else’s book, I really am looking for the details. If you’re writing a book about Reggie Jackson, everybody knows all there is to know about his three home run game in the World Series, but when you learn what sort of glasses he was wearing or where he got his hair cut or what he was saying to Mickey Rivers right before the game, that’s interesting.

BB:  How does that compare to writing feature articles? You used the marathon analogy; are these just sprints if you’re writing a piece for SI or some other magazine?

JP:  One of the best pieces of advice I got for writing a book was when I was doing my first book, which was about the Mets. Jon Wertheim, who is a friend of mine and writes for SI, said to me, the best thing you can do is think of each chapter as an article, as a lengthy article. So I would compare an article, if it’s long, to writing a chapter. And a book is just like a big monsoon.

BB:  I heard David Maraniss say once that it was much easier to write about dead people. If he was writing a biography about a living subject – and I think he was referring to his Clinton book – he would just pretend that the person was dead. Did you seek out Clemens at all, or did you pretend he was dead?

JP:  Well, I did reach out, and it was made clear he wouldn’t talk. Hence, it really was as if he was dead to me. I didn’t think of it in Maraniss’s terms, but he’s 100% right. And it’s definitely easier to write about a deceased person, because:
A. He won’t come back and say, “That’s not right.”
B. You don’t waste all that time trying to get him to talk.
C. People are more open when they know the person won’t get mad.
D. He can’t sue you for anything.

(more…)

By Hank Waddles

Imagine that it’s the spring of, say 1931, and you’re starting to think that Babe Ruth just might end up being one of the best players ever to grip a bat. The recent downturn in the economy has left you without a job, so you figure, hey, why not spend the year following the Babe – every game, every at bat, every swing. You drive to places like Boston and Philadelphia, take the train to Washington, and ride busses to Detroit and Chicago. Along the way, you make friends in the bleachers in Cleveland, catch a series with a cousin in St. Louis, and sleep on couches in all corners of the American League. Your bank account feels the bite of your mission, your wife and children become strangers, and close friends question your sanity, but somehow it’s still worth it. I mean, this is Babe Ruth we’re talking about, right? If you could, you’d go back in time and do it in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?

Now flash forward to 2008 and the Babe Ruth of this generation, Tiger Woods. Writer Bob Smiley shadowed Tiger for every swing of every hole of every tournament in places like San Diego, Augusta, and Dubai, and the result is an extremely engaging book, Follow the Roar: Tailing Tiger for All 604 Holes of His Most Spectacular Season. Last week Bob was kind enough to spend some time talking about his journey. Check it out…

BronxBanter: One of my favorite aspects of the book was that it wasn’t just about Tiger Woods, it was secretly about you, so I thought we might start with Bob Smiley. How important was golf to you when you were growing up?

Bob Smiley: It was really important. It was the first and really only sport I could every really play with my dad. I mean, I played little league and basketball, but golf was something that he taught me how to do when I was eight years old. We would go out and he would try to teach me the point of the game, but I would purposely hit it in the sand trap so I could play in the sand. He really wanted me to embrace the fact that golf is fun and when you get older you’ll appreciate the challenge of it. So for me it was always just a great place, and I had so many memories with my father as I was growing up. When my parents split up when I was a teenager that sort of remained the one spot, even to this day, where he and I still see each other is on the golf course.

(more…)