Phil Hughes was not great Sunday. There were liners that found gaps, but more that found gloves. He did not dominate. But he was good. And we haven’t seen good since last October in the first round clincher versus Minnesota. So welcome back, Phil, please stick around for the rest of the season.

Brett Gardner led off the game with a hit while Derek Jeter got the day off. I think Jeter has looked fine since he came off the DL, but watching Gardner perform so well up there sure was easy on the eyes. I have friends who are offended that Jeter is still leading off. I’m not at that point, but the Yankee machine might run a little better by flipping the two. At least against righties. Gardner was on base four times and even his out was ripped to short.

Behind Gardner and his three hits, the Yankees rapped out eight more and built four rallies. Each time they rallied, they scored. Whether it was Russell Martin, Robbie Cano, Curtis Granderson or Nick Swisher, there was a key hit or sacrifice fly at the right time to keep the scoreboard flashing. They never broke the game open, but they kept pushing the lead until it was safe.

And with Phil Hughes on the mound, there was really no way to be sure exactly how big the lead needed to be. But Hughes was right and seven runs were more than enough as the Yanks won 7-2. He looked like a big leaguer again. The pitches weren’t blowing people away, but they didn’t look like they were on a tee either. And I was especially encouraged by the break on his curve ball. A baby-step, sure, but aren’t a baby’s steps the hardest to come by?

Two games ago I wrote about the gloomy dome. But when the roof is open on a sunny day after an easy Yankee win, it’s not so bad.

Now head over to the women’s World Cup final. The USA squandered several first half chances and Japan will punish them on the counter attack eventually. The US deserves a goal, and if they score first, they should win.

The best argument for me against an unbalanced schedule is 19 games versus the Blue Jays. I find the dome gloomy and ugly. The team bores the heck out of me, and they beat the Yankees too often for my tastes. At least they have Jose Bautista and his improbable career arc is fun to watch and to try to make sense of. Except he’s injured. So when the Yanks lost to the Jays tonight 7-1, there were no redeeming features whatsoever.

The really bad news is that to start the second half, the Blue Jays have roughed up two of the bright spots of the first half. And since we have had our doubts about both of those guys, let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of a turbulent course correction.

Freddy Garcia appeared to have good stuff. The fork ball was tumbling out of his hand and his off-speed stuff looked to have good downward action. Lots of swings and misses. Watching the Jays break the tie in the fourth on two beautiful doubles by Snider and Encarnacion, it would be hard to pin the runs on the pitcher. He made his pitch, got the location, speed and break he wanted, but both hitters managed to sweep the barrels of the bats down and out of the zone and right into the pitches’ paths.

Crack, crack. That was all the Jays needed, though Garcia surrendered four more runs. The Jays plated three in the fifth on one hit as Garcia backed up a lead-off double with three walks. If the Yankees had not emptied the bullpen in the previous game, would Girardi have made a move there? I think he would have. The Yankees weren’t hitting thanks to a good outing from flame thrower Brandon Morrow, but at 3-1 or 4-1, they had the puncher’s chance. Whatever – the punch never came.

Thursday’s loss wasn’t hard to take because those freakish early runs were so strange. It was clearly an “inning from Hell” and the bats showed up and scored seven runs, and even made it interesting for half an inning. Tonight was just a drubbing in every aspect. The Blue Jays were chewing sweeter gum and sucking on saltier sunflower seeds. Their water was wetter.

In the bottom of the seventh Russell Martin took a foul ball off the face mask really hard. Yankee fans tuning in for these last two games thought, “Right there with you Russell.”

CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes for a series spilt? Stranger things have happened, but I won’t be able to visualize Hughes having a good game until he has one.

Photo by John Frisch

The first half of the Yankee season has been overshadowed by Derek Jeter and his boatload of hits. Rightly so. As much fun as it is to watch the Yanks play well and win 60% of their games, that happens almost every year. Celebrating 3000 is not only appropriate, it’s necessary. For me, anyway. It helps realign my fandom to the primal things that sustain the relationship.

However, apart from Jeter’s heroic game on Saturday, he’s had little to do with the wins and losses thus far. For that, we have to thank a host of usual contributors including CC Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira. But their production was banked on from the day Texas ended their 2010 season. The door to such lofty success hinged on Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon and Ivan Nova.

And therefore, the first half hinged on Brian Cashman. The moment the Cliff Lee trade  fell through last July, I openly fretted about the 2011 starting rotation. But the rotation did not implode; it thrived. I don’t think Cashman expected anywhere near this level of performance, but he was smart enough to know that there was little difference between what these guys could do and what was available for big money after Cliff Lee chose Philadelphia. I’d still love to have Dan Haren in the rotation, but he now represents a pleasant upgrade rather than a savior.

And though he gets little attention in the press and is often the first to go when things turn sour, I think the pitching coach must have something to do with a success on this scale. Whether it’s creating a comfortable environment where pitchers can harness confidence and learn from mistakes or isolating successful pitches and honing them into weapons, I bet Larry Rothschild has been an asset.

But since their work is mostly behind the scenes, let’s focus on the guys holding the the ball.

Colon’s restructured arm and waves of flesh propel a lively fastball with impeccable accuracy. He’s got the best strikeout-to-walk ratio on the team outside of Mariano Rivera. And when he’s on, he can churn through innings like platters of ribs. Just give him a bib and don’t put your hands near his mouth.

It defies all expectations considering where he was before this season. And looking at him just makes it harder to believe. But watching him throw, all doubt is squashed by the harsh reality of the four-seamer and the horizontal shenanigans of the two-seamer.

Freddy Garcia has a different story. Cashman also found him on the scrap heap, but he doesn’t have the new arm, the big belly, nor the gaudy stats. He’s just kept the ball in the park and the runs off the board. His fastball might make him a number two starter on a high-school team with aspirations, but his change-up and breaking stuff float in at those tricky hitting speeds. Like Mike Mussina in his final year.

While Colon throws his heaters over 80% of the time, Garcia only shows his every fourth pitch or so. The other three are dipping, darting and diving as they inch towards the plate. Perhaps Rothschild deserves credit for refining their pitch selection, but these guys are veterans and I’m sure they can feel what’s working for them.

There are serious doubts about both of these guys as we look ahead. Colon has already had a trip to the DL and doesn’t look like he’s skipping any second breakfasts. Despite Garcia’s trickery, he’s not striking out enough guys to keep that ERA looking so spiffy. But they’ve earned a very long leash in the second half. And should either of them falter badly, well there’s a good young arm in AAA named Ivan Nova.

Ivan Nova looked excellent almost every time he pitched in 2010. But he also looked awful almost every time he pitched in 2010. The second time through the order, he could no longer get anybody out. The first few games of 2011 held the same pattern. But Cashman, Girardi and Rothschild were very patient. Where a pessimist would see disaster waiting to happen, they believed in his stuff and start by start, the results improved.

He resembles Chien-Ming Wang to me, and they have their sinkers and their ERAs in common. There are differences between the two, but like Van Gogh and Gauguin, their work shares the same foundation. They paint with hard sinkers, sometimes touching the mid-90s, grazing bat-barrel-bottoms and inducing grounders. Nova throws a curve often enough to be the stand out difference between the two. He strikes out and walks one more hitter per nine than Wang did, and considering the amount of balls in play, that extra base-runner is probably not a tradeoff that benefits Nova.

Chien-Ming Wang was the Yankee ace for two playoff years. I’m comparing him to the sixth starter on the current squad.

The Yankees are 27-16 in the 43 games started by these three pitchers. That edge has them neck and neck with an excellent Boston squad and securely ahead of the game Rays. And if you tried to tell me this might happen in the winter on an adjacent barstool, I would have laughed in your face or cried in my beer.

Pitch FX data from FanGraphs

Living at the end of the line alters your relationship with the subway. You rely on it’s presence and emptiness in ways that would not be appropriate in the middle of the city. There is also a level of accumulated filth at the end of the line that probably does not apply there either.

On weekday mornings, after the train empties out, somebody takes to the train with a mop and bucket and slathers chlorine on the floors. The odor is stiff and intense and often, but not always, worse than the filth. At rush hour, the trains are moving in and out too quickly for all of the cars to receive this treatment. So you can weave through the waiting train searching for a car that doesn’t overwhelm you one way or the other.

Here are two excellent reasons not to arrive late to the ballpark when a beloved player is chasing a milestone. First, you may miss his only hit of the game. Second, you may miss the announcement of the defensive alignments and spend the entire game yelling at the opposing thirdbaseman by the wrong name.

But my companion to last night’s game got snarled on the 6:15 NJ Transit train and delayed our departure from Penn Station by 45 minutes. We arrived as Derek Jeter advanced to third on Curtis Granderson’s ground out. The buzz over hit 2998, a deep liner to left-center which Jeter hustled into a double, was still ringing as we watched the Yankees squander a run-scoring, game-tying opportunity .

We were bummed, but saw the replay a dozen times. So we were more grateful that the remainder of the game would be drenched in possibility than bummed we missed the hit. The Yankees threatened to tie the game again in the second with one-out hits by Posada and Martin, but whereas Alex struck out in the first, Gardner fouled out in the second to miss the chance.

Jeter got his second at bat in the second and topped it weakly to the thridbaseman. This is the defining contact of Jeter’s last season and a half. The barely grazed topper to third. And then I am always surprised how not-close the play is at firstbase. Still two at bats in two innings was exactly what the doctor ordered. I said, “As long as the Yankees don’t collapse offensively, Jeter is going to get six at bats and they’re score enough to win.”

Then they collapsed offensively. Jeff Niemann was masterful. The only Yankee looking comfortable at the plate was Robinson Cano. He looked like a varsity player suiting up with the freshman. His swing was sweet and pure last night, lacing the ball four times and accounting for the Yankees only run with a long homer to right.

The Rays were all over Bartolo Colon from the start. In the games I’ve seen Colon pitch, he had very good control. Tonight, his strike to ball ratio was terrible, only 59 of 92 pitches were strikes, and he struggled through almost every inning. Ben Zobrist would have gone 20-20 if they just kept sending him up there – he was locked in on Colon like Luke locked on the exhaust port. His quest for the cycle was disturbed only by two walks. It made for a nice duel of rival secondbasemen.

By the time Jeter batted for the third time in the fifth, the Yankees were down 5-0 and the road back seemed difficult to fathom. But the crowd was clearly more concerned with Jeter than with the game itself, and though their recent skid has cost them first place to the Red Sox again, maybe that’s appropriate. It was the only game I’ve ever attended where there was something else besides the outcome on everybody’s agenda. I’ve been to plenty of games where nobody cares about anything including the outcome, but this something else was an interesting vibe.

Jeter rolled one down the line and right off the bat, it looked like a hit just past the thirdbase bag. But the thridbaseman was well positioned and made a nifty stop and a strong throw and it wasn’t close. It was nice hitting by Jeter, who made something useful out of a jam-shot, pulling his hands in quickly. But when a righty gets jammed, it costs him a step or two coming out of the box and hence Jeter was nowhere near the bag when throw nailed him.

I was impressed by the play and began from that point on, extolling the defensive prowess of Evan Longoria for pretty much the rest of the game. The thirdbaseman made eight plays in total, so I had plenty of chances to talk about him, to debate the selection of the all-star thirdbaseman this season, and to predict the course of his career. Unfortunately, Sean Rodriguez was playing thirdbase last night and the upper deck in Yankee Stadium is far enough away, and my glasses could stand an updated prescription. It could have been Ken Keltner out there for all I know.

I was very embarrassed.

Nobody in the stands corrected me, though surely they heard my mistake as I made it repeatedly. I think I would have preferred to be corrected rather than to discover it on my own. So if you’re in the stands and you here some blathering idiot saying something like that and you’re wondering whether or not to correct them, here is my suggestion. Look at his hands and feet. If you do not see beer in hand, and you do not see empty beer cups at feet, go ahead and point him in the right direction. I still would have blushed, but not as deeply.

Jeter came to bat twice more and tried his best. But he grounded out routinely to shortstop in the seventh and the crowd let out a huge sigh of disappointment. Barring something crazy, there would be no 3000 this night. Kyle Farnsworth pitched the ninth, and the Yankees brought Derek Jeter to the on-deck circle. Farnsworth looked very hard to hit, and he struck out Gardner to seemingly end the game, but the slider got loose and Jeter got to bat.

The remaining fans came to attention. If Jeter got 2999, it would bring Granderson to the plate as the tying run. And for some reason, a game-tying homerun just seemed like a sure thing. And then extra innings! And just like that, 3000 was alive again. Jeter battled Farnsworth and fouled off several tough pitches. He expanded the strike zone as well, for which I guess I can’t blame him. Jeter lost and hit one of those weak-ass toppers to third. At this point thirdbasemen from Rodriguez to Longoria to Keltner have to be salivating over this play.

The crowd jumped up, imagining younger legs on a younger player. In 1999, this was a hit. In 2006, this was a hit. In 2011, it wasn’t that close.

The Rays won 5-1. The Yanks are looking up at the Red Sox and the winning streak which they blew versus the Mets seems like a distant memory.

I am a New Yorker and as such I prefer to walk wherever I’m going. You know, if it’s possible. I had a dinner last night on 48th St and 2nd Ave. I had to run an errand at Columbus Circle first. I hoofed it. No other method of transportation occurred to me, though I’m sure there were smart ways to use crosstown buses to make it a little easier and a little cooler. I enjoy walking.

I understand that Los Angeles and the surrounding beaches and sprawl is not built for walking. Still, when I went to the Dodger game on June 26th, my older brother Chris and I figured we’d put that notion to the test. We drove to the game very early, parked the car and walked out of the stadium towards Phillippe the Original.

It seemed very straightforward, the only tricky part was crossing the 110. The walking map / GPS on my phone had it pegged as a 25 minute walk. The phone is lucky it was not smashed on the sidewalk.

Maybe if you were one of the Elves from Lord of The Rings, it would have been a 25 minute walk. But my family moves at Dwarf or Hobbit-speed, especially in the heat.

Did I forget to mention my wife was pushing a double stroller? Disaster. You can imagine that an area not expecting pedestrians would skimp on sidewalks. There’s maybe 50 feet of sidewalk around Dodger Stadium that can accomodate the girth of the doublewide stroller. The road ahead was so treacherous that we had to send a scout 100 yards in advance in order to map where we could walk.

The sandwich at Phillippes is good, and probably deserves a Tasters Cherce, but the lines go on and on and noboby eles has planned to walk back – ever. So as we ate, the spectre of the return journey hung  above us.

But as with any disaster, it’s all about the people you’re with and how they react. We couldn’t stop laughing at ourselves, for thinking like New Yorkers and getting ourselves in this mess. My wife put a gob of their mustard on her sandwich before realizing how hot it was. We cracked up again. We missed the first pitch, and the first inning, but we caught the other eight and didn’t leave early.

Good thing, because the Dodgers won in a walkoff. We even hung around so the kids could run the bases. As we were leaving, my older son said, “When I grow up, I’m going to play baseball like those guys.” I think we were the last non-employees to leave Dodger Stadium. Great day and a walk I’ll probably never forget.

Map Courtesy of Bob Timmermann @ The Baseball Toaster

There are several obstacles cluttering unfettered enjoyment of Derek Jeter’s quest for his 3000th hit. The only legitimate one is Derek’s poor statistical season thus far. But that’s easily cancelled out by the Yankees’ overall excellence. The rest are manufactured by either a burgeoning wave of critics feeling the need to diminish the player, question his contract and place in the batting order, or by a thundering chorus of fanboys and girls drooling over every dribbler. Count me with the latter I suppose, if I have to choose sides.

But screw all of that. Just because there is a lot of noise and nonsense surrounding the hit doesn’t mean we can’t find a way to relish the moment on our own terms. For me that means several hours on baseball-reference.com sifting through the leader boards. One of the things you hear about Jeter’s milestone is that it’s surprising that no other Yankee has ever accomplished the feat. And the first few times I heard that, I mindlessly agreed, “Yeah, where’s the Yanks’ 3000 hit guy?”

But upon further review, it’s not that common, or easy, for a franchise to be able to “claim” a 3000th hit. There are 27 players with 3000 hits. Only 14 of them have acquired hits one through 3000 for their original team. And if you want to ease the requirements on the claim to getting your 3000th hit on the same team for which you accumulated the most hits, we can add another five. In all, only 15 franchises can claim a 300oth hit for their ledgers in this way. And that includes franchises like the Giants and the Braves that moved around during their players’ quests (Mays and Aaron).

Four franchises are lucky enough to have two. The Cards (Musial and Brock), the Tigers (Kaline and Cobb), the Pirates (Wagner and Clemente) and Cleveland (Speaker and Lajoie). Only Detroit has two pure claims as both Cobb and Kaline went wire to wire in the Motor City. The Yankees of course did have three players eventually get 3000 hits, but none of Winfield, Henderson nor Boggs achieved the milestone while Yankees. At least Winfield got more hits in a New York uniform than in any others, but that’s not enough to stake any kind of claim.

And obviously, it’s not just that Yankee fans are whining about not getting a fair distribution of the 3000 club. We’re surprised they’ve had such great players, among the best ever, and even still don’t have a clear 3000th hit. But among those titans of the game, they’ve never had the right mixture of health, peace, and free-swinging needed to amass such a huge total.

When Jeter gets number 3000, he’ll be only the 15th player to get his first 3000 hits with the same club. The Yankees are used to draping themselves in banners and tripping over trophies, and yes this has eluded their clutches thus far, but it’s not as surprising as it might seem. It’s really special, and I didn’t appreciate it fully until now.

We can’t ignore the fact Jeter is in the middle of a down year, but does anybody else remember so much scrutiny over other recent fading stars and their victory laps? Craig Biggio hung around until he was 40 and had the worst year of his career. But he came up short, so he returned at 41, had an even more dreadful year before ringing the bell. Winfield was crumbling in the worst season of his career (up to that point) at 41 when he got the big hit. Cal Ripken enjoyed an outlier renaissance the year before his 3000th, but he was crap during and all around the milestone.

All I remember from any of these marches towards history was celebration and adulation. Jeter deserves the same – especially playing for a first place team.

So in that spirit, I tried to come up with a memory of one specific hit. With the help of baseball-reference, this could have been a week-long tumble into the inter-hole. But he’s at 2996 now, so time’s a-wasting.

I was away at college when Jeter became a Yankee. I had come back to the team in earnest in 1993 when they retired Reggie’s number. But I had left New York the following year, so when the Yankees approached the 1996 division crown, I was watching from afar. I knew Derek Jeter was a promising rookie and had hopes, like everybody else, that he’d stick around for a long time and prove to be a good player. But I had no sense of him yet.

College was down in Baltimore’s television market, and I tuned in when the Yanks squared off against the second-place Orioles on September 18th. The Orioles were three games back and this was the last chance they had to catch the Yankees for the division crown. The Orioles led 2-1 in the late innings. Derek Jeter led off the bottom of the eighth and I thought, I really want him to get a hit here, and he lined one to right. The Yanks did not score though.

Bernie tied it in the ninth. Mariano held the O’s scoreless and Derek Jeter led off again in the tenth. I thought, I really want him to get a hit here, but that’s not fair to this rookie. He already came through in the eighth and this is a lot of pressure and all. But Jeter got the hit and scored the run. The Yanks won the game, the division and the series. As the ball squirted between short and third and into left field, I remember it occurring to me, “Maybe the Yanks have found something special here. Maybe this is a guy who is going to come up big when they need it most.”

He didn’t always come through, of course, but he did often enough to make it feel safe to hope for it. Derek Jeter has never been my favorite player. But between Jeter and Mariano, they make the Yankees seem like one epic roster that has stretched from 1995 to today. They are the Yankees of my young adulthood. They bridged the end of my schoolboy playing career to start of my family.

Three thousand is a lot of hits. I am glad I saw so many of them.

[Photo Credit: USA Today]

I was in Los Angeles last week. Stayed in Hermosa Beach near the PCH. Driving everywhere was hard to get used to, but satisfying in a way. On one of those drives past a strip of indistinguishable donut and taco jernts, I spied CC Donuts. The kids were asleep in the back and otherwise unable to operate cameras, the wife was busy with something or another and I had a choice: whip out the phone and snap a pic while doing 45 in slightly dense traffic or let it go and deprive the Banter readers of the perfect picture for a CC shutdown start. I got that phone in my hands and started to look down away from the road, but then I thought better of it. I put the phone back down and watched the sign trickle past my peripheral vision. Meant to go back but never did.

So of course CC would be balls-out awesome in Cleveland tonight as he blitzed the Indians for seven shutout innings. His fastball was hard and always found uncomfortable locations. And his breaking stuff was filthy. David Cone mentioned in the booth that his sliders that were strikes started out looking like balls and the balls started out looking like strikes. It was a great observation, and it was all set up by the fear of the fastball. It made the hitters twitch early to protect against the heat and left them vulnerable for the slop. How vulnerable? Eleven whiffs, ten swinging. The Indians managed to get two runners on base three times, so CC responded by striking out the side in all three of those innings. That’s not shutting the door; that’s slamming it and breaking all their fingers.

The lineup went nuts tonight, making up for a two-game brown-out. Derek Jeter got two hits in his first two times at bat – a dribbler and a booming double. I became very excited because I am going to the game on Thursday and a big night tonight would make that game very interesting. Jeter got four more shots at making Thursday THE day, but came up empty. I figure he needs at least two more hits tomorrow to give me a chance in Hell.

Curtis Granderson continues his assault on my senses as he lined one homer and launched another and was pretty much running around the bases every time I looked up. He scored three times, the other Yankees scored six other times and strolled into the bottom of the ninth up 9-0. The Indians got a pair of garbage-time goals to make the final score 9-2.

CC Sabathia isn’t on the All Star team, and I guess I don’t really care and I know he wouldn’t pitch anyway. But if he’s not an All Star, what’s the point of the thing? Sure, maybe six other pitchers might have had slightly better starts to 2011, but ask the NL hitters if they’re happy or sad they don’t have to face him. I’d take Verlander, Beckett, Weaver, and CC and be pretty sure I got the best pitchers in the league. Oh well, maybe the Yankees can use his absence from the 2011 All Star team in their negotiations with him when he opts out of his contract. Maybe they can knock five bucks off the billions they’re going to pay him.

It’s Your Density

I was born in New York. I grew up outside the city. Since I moved back over a decade ago, I’ve lived in four different neighborhoods around Manhattan. So naturally when I think of great bagels, I think of … New Jersey.

This is an opinion I usually keep to myself. But I think most bagels in New York aren’t anything special. Going on reputation alone, you’d think you could get a good bagel, like a good slice, just about anywhere in New York. Ever since the puff-pastry style bagel overwhelmed the marketplace, it’s been difficult to enjoy a dense, crunchy, chewy bagel in the city.

If I had to sacrifce either the thin, crunchy exterior or the dense, chewy center, I’d lose the crunch. Where I grew un in Bergen County New Jersey, you can still get both.

Maybe that’s part of the problem. In New York, the bagel is such a menu-icon, every place has got to offer you a bagel. From diners to delis. So that eats away business from the bagel-specific shops. There’s not one within walking distance of my current apartment.

I thought Tal Bagels on 86th street did an OK job of keeping their bagels de-flated, and I liked that they answered “no” if you asked them to toast it. At least eight years ago they answered that way. Now they probably serve you a bagel that looks like a beach ball and will gladly slide it on a belt toaster for you.

The Yankees lost 1-0 to the Indians, and I’m blaming Derek Jeter.

After loading the bases in the first inning with nobody out, the Yankees failed to score. Cashing in those runs would have really put the reeling Indians on the ropes and likely led to victory. Why didn’t they score? Alex Rodriguez hit a medium length fly ball, but Derek Jeter hesitated and did not run. I can’t figure out why he didn’t score, and I’m kind of obsessed to find out why. And since they lost 1-0, and this was their best chance to score, what the hell, let’s figure it out.

Alex skied the ball to center, so Derek had plenty of time to find the ball, find Brantley, the center fielder, and get back to the bag to tag up. Replays show his foot on the bag in plenty of time to run. He broke hard for a few steps and pulled up, so his intention was to bluff and draw a throw. A terrible play for sure, but why? Brantley never had any intention of throwing home; he was going to let Jeter score and throw to third base. He was as surprised as I was when Derek pulled up short. Derek would have scored standing up.

Did he think Brantley had an amazing arm? Brantley certainly didn’t think Brantley had an amazing arm, since he wasn’t even going to throw the ball. Perhaps a bad scouting report? Probably not, since this is the fourth game of this series and they’ve seen the guy throw. Did he think the ball wasn’t deep enough? The ball was in the air forever. Its path was clear, and it was obviously deep enough. This wasn’t a tough read. Was he injured? He did leave later in the game with a calf injury, but if he was injured, I doubt he would have bluffed as he did. Was he being uber-conservative because there were no outs and Cano was on deck? That sounds a little more likely, but stupid nonetheless. You take the sure run every time.

Or maybe he’s an old player, easing his way into the early part of the game, not yet fully engaged and not ready to wrap his arms around the play as used to be his custom? Maybe he wasn’t ready to sprint. Maybe he hadn’t checked the outfielder’s depth. Maybe he wasn’t mentally prepared to make all the quick calculations that he needs to make to execute the seemingly simple play.

I still don’t know why he didn’t run. But I do know this: if winning is all you give a shit about, and scoring a run is on your mind the moment you get on base, there’s no way you don’t score there. There’s no way rookie Derek Jeter doesn’t score there. There’s no way 2009 Derek Jeter doesn’t score there. In 2011 though, he didn’t score and they didn’t win. He did share a laugh with the third base coach after he failed to score. I’d rip Cano for the same thing, so I formally announce a ripping here for Jeter. The baseball gods agree; they struck him down with that calf injury later.

Ah hell, OK, I made too much of that one stupid play, but it’s another agonizing game and this ended up being the deciding inning. I’m at a loss with this team and their inability to take what’s given to them. And to see it from Jeter is just so surprising. I thought his skills were gone, but that his mind was still there, still attacking the game the same way, but it’s probably not.

Losing like this just sucks the air out of the room.

If you want, we can do a similar breakdown of Brett Gardner’s bunt-out in the seventh. … On second thought, let’s just forget about that one.

A.J. Burnett was great in the loss. I’ve had AJ in two 1-0 losses and a 2-0 loss, and in a whole bunch of other losses too. I wouldn’t mind a Nova game. Or even an A.J. win. Teixeira hit it to the warning track in the eighth, but it never looked like a homer to me. It was a long out all the way. And then I think Bob Feller crawled out of his grave and struck out the side in the ninth.

***

Derek Jeter might miss some time. He already had no chance to get his 3000th hit on this homestand. If he sits out at least six of the next nine games, he will get it on the next homestand. So those of you who are trying to see it live in Yankee Stadium, there is some hope. I think if he plays straight through, he’ll get it next Monday in Cincinnati. And if he takes a week off, he’ll get it Wednesday June 29th at home versus Milwaukee.

Picture By The Daily News

The Yankees today announced that they will shut down Phil Hughes for the rest of his career rather than risk any further injuries.

General Manager Brian Cashman told reporters, “You can’t be too careful with young pitchers. And our franchise has so much invested in Hughes that we think the prudent course to ensure his long-term health is to never allow him to throw a baseball again.”

Phil Hughes had hoped to return to the Yankees earlier than never, but is facing his life-long rehabilitation with a brave face. “Your first instinct as a pitcher is, ‘hey I want to pitch.’ But after listening to the doctors and the coaches, it’s pretty clear that this is safest path for me. It stinks I won’t be able to go out there and help the team this year, or any year, but you have to look at the big picture.”

Drs Frank Jobe & James Andrews have submitted applications to dental schools across the country. “It took a smart team like the Yankees to finally figure out the scam. It was a good 30 years,” Dr. Andrews said from the throne room of his palace in the country of Sports-Hernia.

After season ending surgery to Joba Chamberlain shortened the bullpen, the Yankee organization declared they would make sweeping revisions in their pitcher development. Minor League pitch counts would be reduced from 90 to zero for all promising prospects. And Major League pitching coach Larry Rothschild will screen a few episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man in order to figure out to transition from human arms to robotic replacements.

Larry Rothschild said he would make some popcorn in preparation.

On Tuesday night David Ortiz hit a massive home run and honored it with a party at home plate. He had so much fun, he did it again in his first at bat on Wednesday night, smashing a two-run, two-out drive deep into right field. This time he held the dinger a private affair in the dugout, but nevertheless set the tone for a route for the Red Sox. There was some pre-game blather about beaning Ortiz, but I guess Burnett didn’t read the back pages this morning. And anyway, I doubt he could have hit him even if he wanted to.

The Red Sox stomped on the Yankees, Burnett and Francisco Cervelli’s private parts until the score was 7-0. Then the Yankees finally solved the knuckle ball and began chipping away in the fourth. They knocked out Tim Wakefield and the score was 8-5 when they loaded the bases in the sixth for Derek Jeter. But he couldn’t keep the heat on former Yankee Alfredo Aceves and tapped into a rally-killing double play.

The double play was still in order because Brett Gardner couldn’t find the errant ball on a wild pitch and none of the runners advanced. For shame. In past years, Gardner scored over 45 per cent of the time he reached base. This year, he’s down to 39 per cent, and I have to think he’s spooked on the bases.

In a year where rousing, come-from-behind victories are the rarest breed, the Yanks’ fate was likely sealed with the double play. But Red Sox added three more with two outs in the ninth to put it beyond reach. The final, embarrassing scoreline was 11-6. Hello second place.

Even after getting rocked tonight, the Yankees have the best run differential in baseball by a hefty margin. They have had several heartbreaking blown leads and only a few miracle comebacks, so their actual record is less impressive than their statistics would suggest. The Red Sox have a more ordinary track record, but without the bad luck, they’ve got an actual record that matches their output. The result is a virtual tie atop the American League East, and one would think, two fairly even teams.

The results on the field have been anything but even. The Red Sox have dominated the Yankees this year with seven wins and only one loss. It’s annoying, disgusting and depressing but it’s not definitive. We know it’s not definitive because in 2009, the Yankees lost the first eight games against the Red Sox yet clawed back and ended the season with nine wins apiece. And then won the World Series.

Whether the 2011 Yankees may be able to pull off a similar turnaround remains to be seen, but either way, the season doesn’t end tonight. They send out their best pitcher tomorrow night against one of their biggest villains. I’d like to see them pull themselves off the mat and hand CC an early lead. Then I’d like to see CC hand Mariano a late lead. And then I’d like Mariano wrap up a win and reclaim a share of first place. It won’t seem so impossible once they do it.

Reggie Jackson turned 65 yesterday. He was my baseball hero as a kid. He was also Jon DeRosa’s idol. To mark the occasion of Reggie becoming a senior citizen,  figured this is as  good a time as any to share Jon’s Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory (which appeared in the book but not on-line until now).

Dig…

“The Return”

By Jon DeRosa

On January 22, 1982 Reggie Jackson signed with the California Angels. It was the latest in a series of difficult lessons for me—a six-year-old who otherwise had it pretty good. In rapid succession, Darth Vader revealed he was Luke Skywalker’s father, the Yankees crashed out of the only two baseball seasons I had ever followed, and my Grandmother passed days after my little brother was born on my 6th birthday. I was looking for a fight and George Steinbrenner and his Yankees were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I assigned Steinbrenner and Vader to the same category of evil: each had reached into my life and changed things forever. I actively rooted for the Yankees’ decline the way I rooted for the fall of the Empire. I removed my Yankee baseball cards from the binder, secured them with merciless rubber bands and tossed them in with obscure Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians and other total strangers. From that point on, I rooted for the Angels.

In 1982, for a kid in New York, that was difficult. You had to write a letter to the team, addressed to the stadium itself, requesting them to mail you an order form so that you might have the opportunity to buy something with a halo on it. My mother wrote such a letter and, by the grace of Gene Autry, was allowed to purchase a cap, a helmet, a jersey, and for some reason, Angels wristbands. I wore the whole ensemble to Yankee Stadium on Tuesday April 27th, 1982 for Reggie’s first game back in New York. My father and older brother were with me but I was scared stiff. What if he struck out? What if they booed? What if the Yankees were right?

We watched batting practice from right field in a light rain as a buzzing crowd filed in around us. Our seats were in the upper deck between first base and right field, where we munched on hot dogs. I felt grown-up whenever I was allowed to get two, but that night, my nervous stomach wasn’t accommodating. The rain made the bun on the second hot dog a little soggy.

When Reggie came to bat in the second inning, Bob Sheppard announced his name with such elegance that I imagined it was a personal statement, “I should be announcing this name every night.” This was the moment I dreaded. Would they boo? The crowd stood and chanted: REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE. Buoyed by the warmth of the welcome, I got to my feet, but my jaw was frozen shut and I couldn’t move my lips. My dad put his arm around me as Ron Guidry poured in a heater. Reggie took his massive cut, but he got jammed and popped out. I was back in my seat the instant I saw Reggie’s reaction.

The game rolled along at a pace more akin to a 100-meter dash than a modern American League baseball game—they got through seven innings in 1 hour and 51 minutes before the game was called due to rain. When Reggie batted in the fifth, the crowd rose for him again. REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE. He yanked a single to right field and was rewarded with brief applause. I was silent throughout this at bat, too, but the base hit calmed my nerves temporarily. The crowd asked; Reggie delivered. Contract complete, customers satisfied, right? Even a child should have known better. Yankee fans didn’t ask—they demanded. And they didn’t want a single; they wanted a home run.

When they greeted Reggie with his chant for the third time in the seventh, my stomach knotted, and I wished they would stop chanting. It wasn’t fanatical devotion; it was the begging of spoiled children. REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE might as well be MORE, MORE, MORE. I knew it was not fair to ask for so much. In this world I was learning about, teams lose, people die; things just don’t usually work out…

I saw Reggie’s black bat whip through the hitting zone; the ball accelerated at an improbable speed and angle at impact and assumed a trajectory that could have sent it across the street if not for the upper deck façade. As the ball sped past my face it erased all my doubts and fears and I felt a lightness rise from my gut to my head. Pure relief. I couldn’t hear anything because my mind had not yet validated this moment as reality. Then the noise just materialized in my ears: REG-GIE, REG-GIE, REG-GIE, louder than the other three times combined. My brother and father jostled me from side to side as they chanted along.

I stayed quiet. How did this happen? Did I use the Force to will that ball out of the park? I couldn’t even comprehend that I just got exactly what I wanted. What were the ramifications of getting what you pray for? I should have been screaming my head off, but I just stared out at Reggie rounding the bases, making sure he touched every one and hoping he was as happy as I was.

The chanting didn’t end when Reggie reached the dugout. When he came out for his curtain call, as if they had rehearsed it prior to the game, the crowd turned toward Steinbrenner’s box and let him have it. Steinbrenner SUCKS, Steinbrenner SUCKS, Steinbrenner SUCKS! All of the emotion that had built up in my little body flowed through the crowd into the damp Stadium air. My brother and father were gleefully singing the song, rousing me to participate. But I felt bad for George and I kept silent.

Nothing tests a team like a one run game. The slim lead is in danger on every pitch. The fielders have to be primed on every play and there’s no tolerance for error. I happen to think that even that heightened intensity is kicked up a notch when it’s a 1-0 game. There’s just something so fine about that score. Blink and it’s gone.

Last night, Bartolo Colon authored such a game for eight innings. But even though Colon was throwing gas in the eighth and had only 87 pitches under his belt, Girardi called on Mariano Rivera to close it out and he failed. Two hard-hit, one-out singles in the ninth set up Vlad Guererro to tie the game with a fly ball.

Should Colon have gone out for the ninth? No. The pitcher who was out of baseball last year should not have been chosen to throw his ninth inning and 90th pitch in favor of the greatest relief pitcher in history. Girardi made the right decision and it blew up on him. Reminds me of 2008.

What I remember about 2008 was bad starting pitching, an offense not living up to expectations, and Rivera having great stats but really lousy timing. He only blew one save that year, but he had his worst outings in tie games and lost five of them. It seemed like whenever the team was about to start something, he’d lose one and they couldn’t gain any traction to climb out of the hole they had dug. Not that he should have been perfect, just that in 2008, they needed him to be perfect.

After Colon struck out Weiters on three pitches to start the eighth, Ken Singleton said, “He couldn’t have walked it up there any better and dropped it right into Cervelli’s glove.” His pitches were as precise as you’ll see from a starting pitcher. He threw 61 of his 87 pitches for strikes. And the 16 that missed didn’t miss by much.

For eight innings Colon mixed two types of fastballs on the edges of the zone. The four-seamer was hard and dead straight, reaching 97 mph in his last inning. He also lowered his arm angle and added side-spin to a version of the fastball which dragged it back over the outside corner to righties. They gave up on it early, and then watched helplessly as it drifted back to the black. Cervelli was at his devious best framing pitches and Colon’s absurd accuracy earned him the close calls late in the game.

The Yankee offense didn’t show and the same lame relief pitchers who gave it up to Boston a few nights ago mowed down the Yankees like grass. It would be nice if they picked up Rivera and saved the game for him like has so many times for them. But as soon as the run scored off Rivera, I felt the game would end whenever Baltimore scored next. It could go on another ten innings, the Yanks looked broken. They’re not in a place right now where they pick each other up, I thought, They’re too focused on figuring it out individually to play like a team.

Just look at the top of the thirteenth. With first and third and nobody out, Alex Rodriguez could have given the Yankees the lead back with almost any kind of contact. Instead, he’s too concerned with whatever mechanical bullshit he thinks is screwing up his swing. His lower half or whatever. Hit the ball, win the game. He overswung at a hittable pitch to start the at bat, fouling back the potential game winner, and let another hittable pitch sail past for strike three. Was it low? Maybe, but it was certainly close and I’d seen other pitches like that called all night strikes all night long. He wasn’t beat on the pitch; he just thought it was a little low, so he didn’t swing. The point is that if he dropped the bat on it, the Yankees probably would have won it right there.

They didn’t. Then again, the O’s didn’t score against Hector Noesi (making his major league debut) either. Felix Pie sent one to the wall in the bottom of the fourteenth, a scare, but it was not to be.

And so…

Cut to the fifteenth inning when the Yanks proved me wrong. Mark Teixeira led off with a single and Rodriguez fell behind 0-2 but was quick enough to turn an inside fastball into a base hit up the middle. Mike Gonzalez, the last remaining pitcher in the O’s pen, came in to face Robinson Cano and served up a fastball–straight as a string–right down the middle. Cano lined it into the right center field gap, good for a two-run triple. Gonzalez then plunked Chris Dickerson–who replaced Nick Swisher earlier–in the bill of the helmet and was immediately thrown out of the game. It didn’t seem like Gonzalez was trying to hit him, why would he? Still, it was a scary moment.

So Gonzalez was finished and Girardi lifted Dickerson, replacing him with a pinch-runner–A.J. Burnett. Jeremy Guthrie, a starter, came in for the O’s and got Brett Gardner on a line drive to right, but it was deep enough to score Cano. He retired the next two hitters but the Yanks had a three-run lead.

Jeter, the DH, came in to play short and Eduardo Nunez moved to right. Just as Michael Kay was set to wrap a bow on a Yankee victory, Nick Markakis singled, Brandon Snyder walked and Noesi looked gassed. Larry Rothschild came out to talk to the rookie while David Robertson got ready in a hurry out in the Yankee bullpen. Luke Scott slashed a line drive to left but it was right at Brett Gardner. One out. Then, a little bit of luck, as Matt Wieters hit a ground ball between first and second. It seemed destined for the outfield but took a funny hop and hit Snyder in the ankle. Two out. J.J. Hardy, the tying run, popped out to Nunez in right and the Yanks had the unlikely win.

Noesi was the hero, coming up with four big innings in relief, especially when he worked out of a bases loaded jam in the 12th.

What looked like a sour defeat turned into a sweet win.

Final Score: Yanks 4, Orioles 1.

Heading into the bottom of the sixth, the Yankees looked to be in firm control of tonight’s game with the division-leading Tampa Rays. Curtis Granderson had drilled a deep three-run home run off ace David Price and increased the Yankee lead to four runs, 5-1. A.J. Burnett had allowed only three hits and walk and, while not dominating, was in fine form.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Rays struck quickly like a sunburst. A double and home run by slim Sam Fuld tightened the score. Burnett has been pitching to terrible support this year, with the bullpen, defense and offense all taking turns abandoning him. Sometimes all in the same game. When Derek Jeter couldn’t circle a soft grounder to end the sixth, Burnett must have thought, “Screw it, I’ll do it myself.”

After a series of bad pitches and solid contact, the Rays were within one with B.J. Upton at the plate. Burnett’s mechanics were shot and his head was who-knows-where. He whipped a perfectly normal looking fastball three feet into the opposite batter’s box. Uh-oh. Instead of calling for a conference on the mound or a relief pitcher, the Yankees let A.J. straighten himself out. He did just that, straightening out a curve ball on the next pitch. Upton scrabbled it. B trumped A as the J’s cancelled each other out.

What’s so striking about the wild pitch in replay is that Burnett doesn’t stumble, or jerk his arm or even appear to have a major problem with his slot or release point. He just lined up his body to throw it that far outside. Like a “hit-the-bull” moment, without the purpose. At that point in the game, with a parade of red flags trotting around the bases already that inning, I don’t know how you let him throw the next pitch without someone going out there to help him clear his head.

So Burnett had a stinker of an inning; he was entitled given how badly his team has played for him lately. The Yankees trailed by one run and had three big innings left. They went down nine in a row and saw a total of 31 pitches. Even that paltry number is deceiving because rookie Eduardo Nunez worked a ten-pitch at bat to start the seventh. The next eight batters saw 21 pitches. Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher saw five pitches combined and not one of them even had the courtesy to take a good hack. The game effectively ended on Upton’s home run, 6-5 Rays.

A long losing streak is always a combination of deficiencies and bad timing. Viewed in a close up, it seems the bats quit on the pitcher once he blew their lead. But in the wide angle, I doubt this is the case. They all wanted to hit the home run that tied the game, hence the first pitch swinging and over-aggressiveness when the opposite was needed. The result is the same – inept offense, but at least their hearts were in the right place.

I will stop short of saying they just need a big hit or a strong pitching performance and everything will be OK. That might end the losing streak, but one-night heroics won’t turn a decent team into a great team. Right now they’re looking up at decent.

The Rivalry lurched into Yankee Stadium for the first time this year. As you know, for the last ten years she has menaced Yankee fans everywhere, turning every single game versus the Red Sox into an unwatchable slog. Even when a game is tight and fast-paced, the Rivalry will turn it into a grueling 15 inning death march.

Skulking in the shadows behind the backstop, the beast blasted corrosive steam from its nostrils. She stayed out of sight until the fourth, content to let the pitchers dominate the first third of the game. Just when the action seemed to be settling into a liberating, breakneck pace, the Rivalry pounced. Adrian Gonzalez led off the second with an upper deck homer. A powerful display, but too quick for the beast. She sank her teeth into the inning’s nape and shook. Two walks, two strikeouts, two groundouts and a passed ball plated an excruciating run.

The beast stalked the foul line until the bottom of the fifth, when Posada lined a single and Russell Martin lobbed a homer to deep center that arced just past Ellsbury’s leap. It was a lightning quick attack and it came out of nowhere as Buchholz had hickory-smoked the Yanks through the first four innings. The Rivalry has been even handed in her cruelty lately. From then on, the game had that heavy, deliberate, pressure-packed rhythm she preferred.

In the seventh, Joba Chamberlain entered the game for Bartolo Colon, whose biggest sin outside the fourth was allowing a bevy of grounders in Robinson Cano’s general direction. All of them were really tough plays; he made none of them. And when Joba came in, he coaxed two routine grounders. Cano declined to chance a double play on the first for some reason and vacated his position to cover on a steal on the second. Then came a sac fly by Gonzalez and two run bomb by Youkilis.

It’s easy to focus on the crushing homer. But Pedroia’s hit-n-run dribbler is what riled the Rivalry. Why was the second baseman running to cover second base when a 95 MPH fast ball was called for the outside corner?  Boston called for the hit-n-run on the 1-0 pitch, the Yanks had to be ready for it on the 1-1 pitch. If the catcher calls a fastball, a Joba Chamberlain fastball mind you, on the outside corner to a righty, the shortstop should cover second base and the second baseman should stay home expecting late contact. Six people made contact in that inning off Joba’s fastballs, five went to the opposite field, one up the middle.

As you know, Chamberlain hit the outside corner with 95 MPH heat as requested. Pedroia tapped it to where the second baseman usually stands, and the inning was set up for Boston’s big bats. They didn’t disappoint.

The Yankees seemed helpless as Buchholz returned to bar-be-queing them after the fifth. Would the Rivalry allow the game to be decided so early? The beast detests tight games, but she also can’t abide stupid baseball. The Yankees played stupid baseball in the seventh, that much was clear. But with Buchholz dealing, the game was in danger of ending in less than four hours.

The Red Sox fed the beast by removing Buchholz and replacing him with Daniel Bard. He let up a lead off triple and wild pitched him home when the Yankees refused to do it themselves. He walked Arod and hit Cano (with a pitch that Robbie came within millimeters of swinging at) to put the tying run on base. The Yankees brought the go ahead run to the plate and the Rivalry was up on its haunches behind the mound, breathing that steam on Bard’s neck.

Then a daring double steal put the tying run in scoring position! The beast likes moxie. Would she reward them with the dam-breaking hit? With two outs, Bard went 3-0 to Posada. He silver-plated two fastballs for Posada to slam, but Posada was afraid to swing. For the Rivalry, that’s unforgivable. Ask Manny Ramirez. I’m surprised Posada managed to ground out. I was sure she would bite him off at the hips.

The beast, swollen now to her full size, pranced around the infield as the Yankees made pitching changes and loaded the bases in an endless top of the ninth. All that was left was for the Rivalry to declare a victor and eat the loser. Papelbon came in to pour the gravy on the Yankees.

The beast must have got distracted for a moment, because the Yankees were about to go down quickly without even bringing the tying run to the plate. With two outs and two strikes, Derek Jeter singled. One more slow churn of the guts. He took second and then scored on Granderson’s single. The winning run was at the plate. The clock ticked towards eleven. And that was enough for tonight. Teixeira chased a high heater and got beat badly. All he could do was pop it straight up and the Red Sox beat the Yankees 5-4.

The Rivalry curled up in the winner’s dugout and went quickly to sleep. She has to work again tomorrow night. Hopefully, she gets bored of this kind of game and migrates to California. Or just dies altogether. In the meantime, it’s a slog.

In the top of the seventh inning, David Robertson walked Matt Treanor to load the bases with only one out. The score was 3-1 Yanks, but Robertson did not seem to have good command of his fastball and the game was on the line. That’s when Larry Rothschild sprint-trotted to the mound (check the grass for scorch marks) and saved the game. With the aid of slow-motion replay and the lip-reading techniques listed on Wikipedia, I captured his motivational speech verbatim.

“Young Robertson,” he began “what afflicts thee?”

Roberston could be seen lowering his head. He didn’t have a ready answer.

“Ho, man, return my gaze and steel thyself,” he continued. “From yonder perch I observed this right arm lagging through the delivery and sailing offerings high into the ether, but now that I have ventured forth I see it is not an arm at all, but a thunderbolt! Who among these hapless mortals with their paltry wooden clubs can meet a thunderbolt and send it back with equal force? None, I vouch, except maybe Butler, but he’s not due up until the eighth.”

Robertson lifted his chin at this point and you can see Martin give him a “WTF is he talking about” kind of look if you pause it just at the right moment. But Robertson didn’t notice.

“That is not all,” Rothschild confided as he glanced sideways at the upcoming batter. “Once you have established the thunderbolt and you feel the fear in their hearts, rotate your hand thusly, cock thy wrist and turn this crude ball into a twisting mirage. It will appear to him at first in the middle, but when he strikes, it will disappear completely from his sight. I entrust you with the magics of my people, young Robertson. Now go forth and conquer.”

Then he spit on the ground to consecrate the pitching area. To complete the ritual, we’ll assume Francisco Cervelli sacrificed his kitten in the clubhouse. The YES cameras really dropped the ball on that one.

Sufficiently roused by the visit, Robertson proceeded to strike out Escobar on one of the most beautiful curve balls you’ll ever see. And then for good measure, he struck out the next guy too on another wicked deuce. I didn’t think Getz went around, but he certainly deserved to be out by that point. He was just taking emergency hacks trying to stay alive. But between the thunderbolt and the mirage, he didn’t have a chance.

That was basically that, as Rivera and Chamberlain faced only six more batters and the Royals never threatened again. Yankees 3 – Royals 1. Mariano allowed a hit and went to three balls on the two other hitters he faced. But he whiffed Hosmer and then started a spectacular game-ending double play.

Jeter continues to get some non-infield hits. Alex Rodriguez emerged briefly from his funk to guide the game-winning hit up the middle in the fifth. Swisher made a run-saving catch in the top of that inning and Freddy Garcia continues to get the job done. I’m glad they won this one because every time they lose a good game from Garcia or Colon, I feel like they’re burning found money. And hey, Melky hit a home run. Got that out of the way, now he can go 0 for the rest of the series.

Easy April ends today. The Yanks wrapped up a very good month by beating the Blue Jays 5-4 for their fifteenth win against only nine losses – good for first place in the American League East.

The Yankees scored all five runs in the second and third innings, and then threw up donuts for the rest of the game. Apart from the explosion on Thursday, the offense has been silent in the late innings on this homestand with only one run after the fifth in all the rest of the games combined.

Burnett bent but never broke in six innings and enabled Plan A out of the bullpen – Joba to Soriano to Mo. Plan A calls for three scoreless innings, and for the first time since April 4th, they obliged. We debate the wisdom of having three strict roles in the bullpen, but this shows how rarely those roles are executed as envisioned.

The Yankees won this one with singles and walks. Their only extra base hit, a double by Teixeira, didn’t factor in the scoring. Don’t be fooled though, they ended this month averaging just under two taters in each contest and I think they’ll rely on the long ball for a long time.

Burentt was in trouble almost every inning but survived. If the rest of the season evolves such that we can re-define this as “bad AJ,” we’re going to be thrilled. Mariano threw 18 pitches and 14 strikes in a one-hit ninth. It looked to be short work, until Jose Molina refused to take a hint and dumped a double into the “gap” in centerfield. I say “gap” because Granderson was shaded so far to right, the ball went almost up the middle. No matter, the game ended a few pitches later and the tension didn’t last long enough for me to find a knife in the silverware drawer.

The team is in first place without being dominant. The Rays have fully righted themselves, and that’s without Longoria. By the end of May, I bet the Red Sox are back at or near the top as well. The good news is that the Yankees look to have another gear in them as well. Hopefully they will find it in May and keep their lead, but with easy April in the rearview mirror, the hard road’s ahead.

Philip Humber mastered the Yankees tonight for seven superb innings and the White Sox won a brisk game 2-0. Humber huddled a no-hitter into the seventh before Alex Rodriguez bounced one through the box. AJ Burnett was almost as good, but on a night when each base was precious, the Yankees coughed up two bases too many and the White Sox turned those gifts into their margin of victory.

In the top of the fourth, when the game still shone with the promise of youth, Carlos Quentin led off with a hit. Curtis Granderson got a bad jump on the ball and misplayed a single into a double. Two groundouts plated the run, but the Yankees figured they had made the smart trade. In the top of the ninth, Alexei Ramirez led off by grazing a pop fly behind the mound. Rafael Soriano, in relief of the brilliant Burnett, assumed it had loft enough to reach the infielders and gave up on the play. Jeter was the closest to no-man’s land when the ball thudded to the grass, but the only play on the ball was Soriano’s. The White Sox pinch ran, stole second and got the timely hit to pad the lead. But on this night, that insurance run was surplus to requirements.

In the middle of the game, I got the eerie feeling that I had seen this before. As Philip Humber, making his sixth career start, put the Yanks down with ease, and AJ Burnett put in a strong yet futile effort in response, this game last year versus the Royals’ Bryan Bullington crept into focus. And lo, it came to pass. In the tough loss, AJ Burnett was really a pleasure to watch. The strikeouts were not there, but his control was excellent and his April has been a good one.

Humber spotted his fastball and then used his off-speed stuff generously, keeping the Yankees off balance and on the front-foot all night. The guy had a great game, but I think he’ll get clobbered the next time around, just like Bullington did. I put this mostly on New York’s offense not making the necessary adjustments to the slow-stuff. He did sneak a high fastball past Cano in a crucial at bat in the seventh to derail the Yankees best scoring chance, so give him credit for that.

At this point in the year, I can still feel OK about a game like this given how well AJ Burnett pitched. But with the Red Sox and Rays charging, games like this will probably be tougher to stomach in the very near future.

I materialize in a hallway. Not sure where I came from, and not sure where I am. Tall, skinny, pale blue lockers line the corridors. Teenagers pop into and out of focus at the perimeter of my vision. I’m vaguely aware that I shouldn’t be here, but the environment is familiar and uncomfortable. I am face to face with a locker and my hand spins in the combination with no input from my brain.

As the door opens to blackness, panic hits hard in the back of my neck and the residual heat spreads over my skull. No uniform. But wait, is there a game today? Is it even baseball season? And didn’t I graduate a long time ago?

I deal with the uniform first. Either my mom can bring it to the school or I can drive home during free period. A small risk perhaps, but most of the disciplinarians are looking to catch smokers, not naked ballplayers.

As soon as I conjure the solution, the uniform appears. That works too. Phew.

Next, I examine the weather and recall my most recent glimpse at the calendar. Yes, it is baseball season. It’s opening day, in fact. A whole, pristine season stretches out in front of me and all that’s left of the hot panic gushes out of me. In its place is joy.

But this cannot be my opening day, can it? I remember making a note that my opening days were all used up. But everything around me supports the alternative. It is my school, my locker, and my number 35 jersey slouching in my hands.

I must have been mistaken. I’ve got one more season left. In a few hours, school will end, and I’ll be shagging flies in left field as the sun sets behind the school gym.

Left field is the sun field at my home park. And for one inning of every game, I can’t see anything. If the ball gets hit to me, I have to hear it.

I’ve got to know what the pitcher’s got and what each batter can do with it so that I’m starting in the ball’s most likely landing spot. Then there’s the crack of the bat – is it true, is it solid? It would be great if the left-side infielders could help, but they’re mostly blinded too. The centerfielder is my best friend, whether he likes me or not, and he’ll help in two ways. He’ll yell “back” or “in,” and he’ll yell it with the appropriate inflection to communicate urgency. We’ve got good pitching; I almost never hear “BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!”

I’m standing there now, testing a brand new pair of sunglasses that my father brought home from a business trip Japan. Supposedly you can stare directly at the sun and still pick out a mosquito zipping across the sky. We’ll see in the fourth inning.

It’s almost my turn in the batter’s box. We don’t usually take batting practice before a game, but maybe it’s a special treat for opening day? Maybe we’ve been snowed in so long this spring that we need some extra reps versus a live arm? I don’t know, but I’m not going to question the un-reality of this detail – pull a thread like that and who knows what falls apart with it?

I swing the bat in the on deck circle. The batting practice pitcher is a god of accuracy, wasting neither time nor patience as he rifles through the lineup. I’m squeezing the handle, testing the weight of the bat, taking short, swift strokes and approaching home plate.

I’ve walked these 20 feet hundreds of times in reality and hundreds more in my dreams. I stare at the pitcher, take one more purposeful practice rip, and then I coil.

I’m ready for anything, even waking up, but I’m hoping for a fastball.