The morning after David Robertson served it up to the White Sox, I told my son that the Yankees lost a “heart-breaker.” Now he looks at the scoreboard every morning and every one-run game is a “heart-breaker.” We played Scrabble, he beat me 110 to 108, promptly informed me that I just lost a “heart-breaker.” Someday he’ll learn that not all heart-breakers are created equal. Some heart-breakers are really head-scratchers with fangs.

How do these Rays keep doing this to the Yankees? Even without Longoria, with one of their lesser pitchers on the mound, in the midst of a horrendous stretch of baseball, they can sting the Yankees like no one else. Look around the diamond do you want any of those guys on the Yankees? Zobrist is a nice player, but this is a terrible baseball team right now and the Yankees should have been looking to step on their throats. Instead the Rays won a game they had no business winning, 4-3 and put the Yankees on the ropes to start one of the biggest weeks of the season.

Though both recent catastrophes have multiple culprits, they have a lot in common. The Yankees turned routine outs into shocking errors, and David Robertson got tagged. The errors were so freakish that you almost want to write them off. This time Mark Teixiera whiffed on an easy, inning-ending bounder down the first base line allowing the go-ahead run to score. The ball may have hit the bag, but Teixiera a) should have had his body in front of the ball and b) should have caught it anyway. None of this would have mattered of course if David Robertson was pitching well.

Robertson came in to the game with the Yankees leading 3-2 in the seventh, two out and a runner on second. I thought Girardi made a good call to bring him in in such an important spot. But Robertson fell behind, couldn’t locate and some doofus named Brooks Conrad blasted him off the wall in right. Then he got ahead of Elliot Johnson and couldn’t put him away because he had no feel for the breaking ball. Johnson grounded to Teixeira and the game was lost. (Alex Rodriguez did give it a whirl in the eighth, but those fly balls to right-center just don’t clear the fence when you don’t inject your Wheaties.)

Freddy Garcia, who had to throw it twice to reach 80 MPH on the radar gun in April, started and pitched well. I thought he was done as a Major Leaguer after the first few turns through the rotation, but I’ve got a terrible track record this year assessing Yankee pitchers, so I guess that doesn’t carry much weight. When you are ancient and getting by with smoke and mirrors, one morning you wake up and find that the smoke machine has crashed into the mirror and you go back to sleep.

Garcia didn’t quit however and accepted a demotion to the least important spot on the 25-man roster. In over 17 innings as the last man in the bullpen, Garcia turned in a 1.56 ERA and pitched well enough to earn this start replacing Andy Pettitte.

Garcia was on a short leash – only expected to throw 65-70 pitches. He used those pitches efficiently as they got him through five innings. The only blemish was a solo jack by B.J. Upton in the fourth. He was pitching so well, and the Rays looked so helpless against his particular brand of precision-slop, that Joe Girardi got greedy and sent him out for the sixth with a 2-1 lead. The first batter grounded to short, but the second batter, Carlos Pena, tattooed the 74th pitch, an 84 MPH flatball, to right to tie the game.

The Yankees scored two in the first when they strung a few hits together and Hideki Matsui badly misplaced a fly ball to right, but that was it until the top of the seventh. Curtis Granderson gave them the lead 3-2 when he battled his way to a hard-won sac fly to left. Maybe they should have had more runs. Rays rookie Matt Moore was good enough to get by, but not good enough to impress. The Yankees had the better starter, the better hitters. They had the game in their pocket.

But the story of these two teams head-to-head is that Rays dismantle the Yankee bullpen and the Yankees can’t sniff Fernando Rodney, who has two wins and three saves against them already this year. Typing that sentence just caused a panic sweat to break out on my back and my right arm is tingling. I wonder if it is my heart?

AP Photo by Brian Blanco

The Yankees beat the Red Sox 8-4 for their sixth straight win, increasing their American Leauge lead to three games over Cleveland. With DiMaggio having already tied Keeler’s mark, the crowd was much smaller, but those 8,662 in the Stadium that day watched as he took the record and stood alone at forty-five games in a row. DiMaggio’s lone hit was a screaming liner that rocketed over Ted Williams’s head and found the left field seats for his eighteenth home run of the season. After the game, a young Williams admitted admiration for DiMaggio. “I really wish I could hit like that guy Joe DiMaggio. I’m being honest.” Williams could hit pretty well himself. He was hitting .401 at the time.

[Drawing by Margie Lawrence]

Summer in New York is sweet because the town thins out some. People go on vacation, or at least they often vamoose for the weekend. The trains are less crowded cause kids are out of school.  The Farmer’s market has incredible fruit and veggies.

There’s plenty of flesh to enjoy.

So long as the power doesn’t go out–thank the heavens for ice cubes and air conditioning–life is good.

[Photo Via Bags and the most incredible, This Isn’t Happiness]

More than 50,000 fans packed Yankee Stadium to watch DiMaggio as he took aim at the all-time hitting streak record. Wee Willie Keeler had hit in forty-four straight games in 1897. The crowd was anticipating a record, and they were also no doubt excited to watch the Yanks battle Ted Williams and the Red Sox. In the opening game, DiMaggio came up empty in his first two at bats, fouling out to first in the first inning and grounding out to third in the third. In the fifth, he hit another grounder to third, but third baseman Jim Tabor bobbled it momentarily before firing wildly to first, allowing DiMaggio to reach second.

The official scorer gave him a hit, although many disputed the call. The crowd, incidentally, was left in the dark, as the scoreboard at that time did not flash the H or E that modern fans are accustomed to seeing. Most people in the park didn’t know whether or not the streak had been extended. With his next at bat, however, DiMaggio erased all doubt with a clean line drive into left field. The crowd erupted with an ovation that lasted a full five minutes. The Yankees won the game, 7-2, but for the first time in nearly a month they didn’t hit any balls over the wall. Their record of hitting home runs in twenty-five straight games still stands today. (I think it’s been tied recently, if I remember correctly; it’s a difficult record to track down.)

It should also be noted that there were two DiMaggios playing center field on this day; Joe’s younger brother Dom was in the other dugout with the Red Sox, and he hit his fourth home run of the season in the opener of the double header.

DiMaggio took care of business much earlier in the second game. He lined a single over shortstop for a single in the first inning to tie Keeler’s record. The Yankees won easily in an abbreviated five-inning game, 9-2, and stretched their lead in the American League to 2 1/2 games over the Cleveland Indians.

Adam Warren dug in for the first start of his big league career tonight, dealt to Alejandro De Aza, and came up with a satisfying strike out. Let’s leave Adam Warren right there because it was mostly a mess after that and why rub it in?

The Yankees were on the board early and looked to be playing the part of a big brother protecting his younger sibling his first time out at the playground. The Yankees gave Warren a four-spot in the first, but he must have had a hole in his pocket because it was gone before he could spend it.

Girardi mercifully ended his night in the third and handed the ball to David Phelps. Phelps would be a better option than Warren to begin with – he’s been better in the Minors and looks to have better stuff based on their side-by-side comparison tonight – but he’s been in the bullpen all year and is not prepared to throw a lot of pitches. The Yankees tied it at six in the fourth, but Yankee runs seemed to bring out the worst in the pitchers. Phelps gave the White Sox the lead back one batter into the fifth.

Pitching for the White Sox was a Yankees cast-off named Jose Quintana. He had pitched well in the low minors, but he was not in the Yanks plans. They let him walk as Minor League free agent and the White Sox snatched him up.

He’s been great for Chicago so far, but the Yankees bashed him around for four innings and he seemed destined to be on the losing end whenever the runs stopped scoring. He had nothing and seeing him out there in the six was shocking.

But the Yanks went cold and stupid while the Sox tacked on more runs. The lowlight was either Robinson Cano’s brainless pick-off in the fifth or Cory Wade’s lifeless pitch to Alexei Ramirez, sporting a .563 OPS heading into the game, in the seventh. The homer helped Ramirez add .032 OPS points tonight and finished off the Yankees.

The White Sox kept scoring from there and piled up an ugly 14-7 victory. Joe Girardi’s binder must have said “14-7 = time for a position player to do some pitching.” Dewayne Wise got the last two outs so quickly the other pitchers didn’t even have time to take notes.

Photo via Elsa/Getty Images

The Yankees arrived in the nation’s capital to play a doubleheader against the Washington Senators, and 31,000 fans showed up to watch DiMaggio’s attempt to tie and pass George Sisler’s record. Pitching for the Senators in the opening game was knuckleballer Dutch Leonard, probably the last type of pitcher a hitter on a hot streak wanted to face. DiMaggio had trouble in his first two at bats, lining out to center in the second and popping up to third in the fourth. In the sixth inning, Leonard made the mistake of trying to sneak a fastball past our hero, and DiMaggio roped a double to left center, tying the record at forty-one straight. In the ninth inning, Tommy Henrich knocked a two-run blast into the seats, capping the scoring in the 9-4 Yankee victory and stretching the team’s homer streak to twenty-four games in a row.

But back to DiMaggio. As he prepared for his opportunity to pass Sisler in the second game, he discovered that his bat had been stolen. In these days before star players had boxes of signature bats at their disposal, DiMaggio suddenly found himself without a sword to enter the afternoon’s battle. Some weeks earlier, however, Tommy Henrich had borrowed a bat from DiMaggio, looking to change his luck. It had certainly worked for Henrich, and now, in this desparate hour, he offered it back to DiMaggio.

With his new old bat in hand, DiMaggio looked uneasily towards the second game. He usually prepared his bats by sanding the handles to the desired thickness, but there was no time for that now. Also, in what was typical of ballplayers then and now, he was quite superstitious, and didn’t like the idea of changing anything in the middle of the streak, especially not his bat, but there was no choice.

For much of the game, it looked as if the bat thief had saved Sisler’s spot in the record book. DiMaggio flew out to right in the first inning, lined out to short in the third, then flied out to center in the fifth. As he came to bat in the seventh inning, it was possibly his last shot at the record. With the crowd buzzing, he lined a 1-0 fastball into left field for a clean single. The Washington crowd, unconcerned about their team’s 7-5 loss to the Yanks, roared in appreciation of DiMaggio’s feat — forty-two straight games. DiMaggio’s response? “Sure, I’m tickled. It’s the most excitement I guess I’ve known since I came into the majors.”

Joe Gordon’s second inning home run pushed that streak to twenty-five straight, and helped the Yankees move a game and a half ahead of second place Cleveland.

Viciedo's ninth-inning homer cooked the Yankees (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Going into Thursday night, Ivan Nova had a 1.27 ERA in four starts in June. This is good, because Ivan Nova is suddenly much more important to the Yakees than he was supposed to be. A day after CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte both headed to the disabled list, with Adam Warren and Freddy Garcia looming, an authoritative, effective performance from Nova was an oasis of relief — though, speaking of relief, that part of the equation didn’t go so well. The bullpen, specifically Clay Rapada and David Robertson, worked together to take turn a 3-1 lead in the ninth into a 4-3 loss thanks to a three-run homer from Dayan Viciedo. It was not a particularly charming party trick.

Any last-minute loss is a tough one, but this one was particularly so because it wasted a now-precious good start. Stinging even more was Clay Rapada’s ninth-inning throwing error, which cost the team a double play and probably the win, and the question of whether it all could have been avoided if David Robertson had just started the inning. Girardi said afterwards that he was trying to avoid overusing Robertson given his recent injury and use. I think that’s understandable, but of course Robertson ended up pitching anyway, and there’s room to second guess if you’re so inclined. It was hard not to feel for Rapada watching his postgame interview, in which he looked downright haunted, as if he had just accidentally run over Derek Jeter’s dog.

The runs the Yankees did get came from two doubles in the fifth – Alex Rodriguez knocking Granderson home, and then Cano doing the same for A-Rod – and a Mark Teixeira solo shot in the eighth. Chicago starter Dylan Axelrod ended up with a solid line, even though at times it seemed the Yankees were about to crack him wide open: 7 innings, 6 hits, 3 walks, 4 Ks, 2 ER. In fact, it was just about identical to Nova’s except that the Yankee hurler tossed an additional third of an inning, struck out one more batter, and allowed one less run.

This series also gave Yankees fans their first glimpse of Kevin Youkilis in another kind of Sox uniform, which took me aback even though I was of course expecting it. Youkilis’ odd bat-waggling stance still makes me want to yell obscenities at my TV, just because – the guy is inherently infuriating – but I’m nevertheless a bit sad about his unpleasant separation from Boston, where up til just recently I imagined he might stay for his entire career. It’s not one of the world’s tragedies, but seeing him in the Chicago uniform – and whatever other uniforms are to come – will always be odd.  He was 0-for-4 on the night.

How much panic is necessary about the Yankees’ sudden pitching concerns is still unclear, and will largely depend on your individual brand of fandom. It doesn’t sound like Sabathia will miss much too much time, though of course you never know and I just reached down to knock on the wood floor after typing that. But we will not see Pettitte again until September, at best, bringing to a crashing halt one of the best stories of this baseball season. I was in upstate New York visiting my dad when the Yankees announced Pettitte’s return; there’s not much reception where he is, and when I checked my phone as we drove through a rare three-bar zone, the news was so unexpected that I wondered if the phone was actually working properly — as if somehow I had just received a delayed tweet from 2007. That he would not only come back, but do so the tune of a 130+ ERA and regularly pitch into the eighth inning, surpassed my dreams of a best-case scenario. Even his injury was caused by a comebacker, a freak accident, not age or rust. But so it goes.

Hopefully, the Yankees have employees guarding Phil Hughes, Hiroki Kuroda and Nova 24/7, preventing staircase trips and cooking cuts and fending off stray meteors, lightning strikes and coyote attacks. I want their best men on it.

The Yankees rebounded from the previous day’s loss by beating the A’s 7-4. In addition to the win, which put the Bombers back into first place, both streaks were also extended. Charlie Keller’s seventh-inning homerun marked the twenty-third straight game the Yankees had homered.

The pressure on DiMaggio, who entered the game just two games shy of George Sisler’s modern-day record (by now Wee Willie Keeler’s 1897 streak of 44 straight had been re-discovered), was increasing daily. Most pitchers who faced DiMaggio during the streak took the match-up as a challenge, and tried desparately to get him out with their best stuff, but Philadelphia’s starting pitcher, Johnny Babich, approached this game with a different game plan. He had made no secret of his intention to give DiMaggio nothing to hit, no matter what the count or game situation.

True to his word, Babich pitched himself into a 3-0 hole with DiMaggio at the plate in the fourth inning. He then delivered what should’ve been ball four, a pitch several inches off the plate. Instead of accepting his walk, however, DiMaggio reached out and slashed a crotch-high line drive that narrowly missed Babich and then somehow sliced into the gap in right center for a double. The nation now looked forward to the next day’s action, when DiMaggio would have an opportunity to match and pass Sisler’s record in a doubleheader in Washington against the Senators.

[Photo Credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt]

DiMaggio and the Yankees took their two streaks into Philadelphia to face Connie Mack’s Athletics and dropped the first game of the series, 7-6. DiMaggio didn’t allow any of the previous day’s drama to repeat itself on this afternoon, however, as he singled on the first pitch he saw in the first inning. With his own streak safe for another day, DiMaggio took care of the team’s streak in the seventh when he launched a shot deep into the left field bleachers. It was his seventeenth of the season, which allowed him to reclaim the American League lead.

Back in the 1920s a sportswriter for the New York Morning Telegraph named John J. Fitz Gerald came up with a cute little nickname for New York City: The Big Apple. Fifty years later the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau turned that into a marketing campaign, and Gotham City will forever be the Big Apple.

When I was a kid growing up in Michigan in the 1970s, the good people of Cleveland apparently grew tired of simply providing gas for Michiganders on their way to New York City, so they started running commercials on Detroit television based on their spanking new ad campaign: New York might be the Big Apple, but Cleveland’s a plum!

Why drive all the way to New York when you can just go to Cleveland? Right about now Indians fans are thinking pretty much the same thing about their team: Why fly all the way to New York when you could’ve just stayed home.

After Monday night’s 7-1 loss to the Yankees, the Indians gamely showed up at the Stadium for another beating, and the Yankees obliged, starting things off in the second inning with the oddest thing — a two-out rally. With two outs and Nick Swisher on first, DeWayne Wise rifled a single to right, pushing Swisher around to third. Chris Stewart came up next and flicked a soft line drive towards third baseman Jack Hannahan. Hannahan moved to his right towards the line and directly behind the bag, but then simply dropped the ball, allowing Swisher to score the game’s first run.

I had accidentally recorded the Cleveland feed of the game, so I had the amusing pleasure of listening to announcers Matt Underwood and Rick Manning as they analyzed the play. Manning, in particular, was incensed. Even though he didn’t have the camera angle to support his opinion, he railed against third base umpire Mike DiMuro’s call, saying the ball was clearly foul. He went on to state that many teams have complained that visiting teams have a hard time getting calls in Yankee Stadium, as if this were the NBA.

Birthday Boy Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson followed with singles to score two more runs, and Manning got progressively more depressed. At no point did he mention that Hannahan should’ve simply made the play for the out. (Somehow the official scorer did not hang an error on the third baseman.) After the commercial break, Underwood and Manning revealed that they had seen a replay from the YES camera positioned directly above the third base line, and Manning sheepishly admitted DiMuro had gotten the call right. There would be more indignation later.

The Yanks picked up a fourth run in the fifth inning on a Mark Teixeira sacrifice fly, and that four-run lead looked like more than enough because Phil Hughes was back on the beam. Cleveland has been having some serious trouble scoring runs lately, and Hughes did them no favors over the course of his eight innings. He kept the hitters off balance all night, sometimes starting batters off with a darting 92-93 MPH fastball, other times getting ahead with his 72 MPH curve ball. In all, he threw 111 pitches over eight shutout innings, striking out four while allowing just six hits and a walk.

The Indians rarely mounted anything close to a threat, but Hughes responded when they did. When the first two batters singled in the third, Hughes induced a 4-6-3 double play. After a leadoff single in the fifth, another double play. With runners at first and second and one out in the sixth, Hughes muscled up for two swinging strikeouts. After a leadoff double in the seventh, the Indians went down ground out, fly out, foul out. Or did they?

Hannahan was the last batter of that seventh inning, and he floated a high foul pop towards the point of the stands that juts out close to the foul line midway between third base and the foul pole. Left fielder DeWayne Wise drifted into foul territory, leapt over the rail in pursuit of the ball, and disappeared into the crowd. In the confusion that ensued, the spectators closest to Wise helped him up, but a fan three seats from the action suddenly bent over and produced the ball, holding it over his head for all to see. All, that is, except for that man DiMuro, who called Hannahan out even before Wise emerged from the stands. DiMuro never asked to see the ball, and Wise never produced it. He simply sprinted to the dugout with his glove closed. “What was I supposed to do, run back to left field?” asked Wise after the game. “I saw him looking at my glove so I just got up, put my head down, and ran off the field.” Makes perfect sense.

Needless to say, the Cleveland announcers were at a complete loss. They dissected the replay as if it were the Zapruder film, asking their viewers to watch over and and over again as the ball struck Wise’s glove — pushing it back.. and to the right — before disappearing and then reappearing almost ten feet away. It was some magic pop up.

Alex Rodríguez jacked a home run in the bottom half, widening the lead to 5-0, Hannahan, still upset about being robbed in the top half, got himself kicked out as he headed back to the dugout. This led to more from Underwood and Manning, who couldn’t believe DiMuro would run Hannahan. “Hey, you missed the call. Just own up to it. Just say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see him drop the ball.’ Instead, he throws him out of the game for telling him exactly what the truth was, which was [he was] wrong.” Makes perfect sense.

The Yanks added a sixth run in the bottom of the eight, and Cory Wade came in to pitch the ninth and made a mess of things, coughing up four runs, three of them on a home run by Hannahan’s replacement, José López. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Rafael Soriano came in to throw two pitches for the final out, and before you know it his shirt was untucked.

Yankees 6, Indians 4.

[Photo Credit: Kathy Willens/AP Photo]

It’s Phil Hughes, folks.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Nick Swisher RF
Raul Ibanez DH
Dewayne Wise LF
Chris Stewart C

Never mind letting up now: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[This amazing picture was taken by our pal Bags]

By now much of the nation was following DiMaggio’s streak on a daily basis through radio updates and newspaper reports. In addition to the fans, DiMaggio’s teammates were acutely aware of what was going on, as evidenced by the drama of this thirty-eighth game. DiMaggio flied out to left in the second, but his fourth inning at bat was more eventful. He hit a sharp grounder which shortstop John Berardino booted for an obvious error. (The twenty-four-year-old Berardino, by the way, would have a forgettable eleven-year career with a handful of baseball teams, but a forty-year career as an actor. Soap fans might remember his thirty-year stint as Dr. Steve Hardy on “General Hospital”.) As DiMaggio crossed first base safely, his Yankee teammates gathered on the top step of the dugout, peering into the pressbox and awaiting the official scorer’s decision. When the error sign was given, the players were furious. DiMaggio was 0 for 2.

After another groundout in the sixth, this time to third, the pressure began to mount, and this is where things got interesting. The Yankees led the Browns 3-1 as they came to bat for what would likely be the final time in the bottom of the eighth inning, and DiMaggio was due up fourth. The first batter, Johnny Sturm, popped up for the first out, but Red Rolfe came up next and managed a walk. With DiMaggio on deck, Tommy Henrich stepped up to the plate but realized that all would be lost if he were to hit into a double play. He had homered earlier to extend the home run streak, but now he was more concerned about DiMaggio’s streak. He called time to consult with Yankee manager Joe McCarthy and suggested that maybe he should lay down a bunt. Even though the score and game situation clearly dictated otherwise, McCarthy gave the okay. Henrich dropped his bunt and advanced Rolfe to second, avoiding the double play and bringing DiMaggio to the plate for one final shot. At this point in the streak, DiMaggio had become more aggressive than usual at the plate, prefering to jump on the first hittable pitch he saw rather than put himself in a two-strike hole or accept a base on balls. In this final at bat, he took the first pitch he saw and roped it past the third baseman and into the left field corner for a double. Both the crowd and his teammates gave him a prolonged ovation. Thirty-eight straight.

As further evidence of the crowd’s focus on DiMaggio, Yankee starting pitcher Marius Russo took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, but no one seemed to notice. The Yankees won the game, 4-1, and remained in a first place tie, but on this day at least, that didn’t seem to matter.

[Photo Credit: Alfred Eisenstaedt]

My wife is reading “Charlotte’s Web” to my soon-to-be Kindergartner, one chapter a night before bedtime. The younger guy doesn’t have the attention span for that yet, so we read picture books while they visit with Templeton and get ready for the fair.

When it’s time to say goodnight, one parent stays in the room while they drift/wrestle to sleep. Allegiances from story time carry over. The little guy demands that I stay in the room; my older son wants my wife. Tonight it was my turn and it was a disaster. My older son wailed for Mommy for a long time. I pleaded half-heartedly, but basically was just hoping he was going to run out of tears.

Finally I got up and and calmly walked to the kitchen, snatched the iPad from the wall socket and, just as calmly, re-entered the room. I said, “I know you want Mommy, but I if I stay I can tell you the baseball scores.” He jumped into bed like Jack Flash and the “tears,” if there ever were any, dried up before his head hit the pillow.

In the dark I whispered updates and he counted runs the way some people count sheep. By the time the Yankees got to six, he was asleep and the Yanks were on their way to an easy victory.

The Yankees won a game tonight the old-fashioned way. By kicking Cleveland’s ass up and down; by having all the best players on the field and dominating every aspect of the game. Hiroki Kuroda’s splitter dug into the dirt around home plate with such precision that I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was writing a message down there – “Sit Down” or something to that effect. The Indians swung over it again and again and Kuroda racked up seven strikeouts.

The Yankees scored two runs in each of the first three innings. Everyone’s noticed that Robinson Cano is, suddenly and by far, the best hitter on the team? He drove in three on a ringing two-run double and a solo homer. Dewayne Wise knocked in another three runs – two with a homer and one with a triple.

But this 7-1 win is best summed up by the three outs of the top of the eighth. Girardi tried to squeeze the eighth out of Kuroda, but he was over 100 pitches and Sin-Soo Choo’s double put Indians at second and third with no outs. Clay Rapada replaced Kuroda and faced three Indians. None of them were especially turned around by his sidewinding delivery and all three slashed dangerous looking drives into right field.

Nick Swisher, breaking on balls like he was Carnac the Magnificent, tracked down all three. He raced in and towards the line to make an excellent sliding grab on the first ball. He went back toward right center to stab the second. And he ran deep into the right field corner to haul in the third. It’s not so much that any of the catches were difficult, it’s that he covered a ton of ground each time. And he did it with an ever-expanding grin. By the time he caught the third ball right in front of the fans in the right field corner, his smile was epic.

He led off the next inning and I was kind of glad he struck out. Had he hit his second homer of the game, he might have pulled the muscles in his face.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images

DiMaggio didn’t wait nearly as long as he had the previous day to keep his streak alive. He smashed a two-run homer to left in the fourth inning, extending the team streak to twenty straight games with a homerun and moving his number to thirty-seven in a row. He was now only four games shy of George Sisler’s 41-game streak. The homerun was DiMaggio’s 16th long ball of the year, and it moved him into first place in the American League in that category. Building on this early lead, the Yanks went on to top the Browns, 7-5, and moved into a tie with Cleveland for first place in the American League.

[Photo Credit: Carl Mydans]

The St. Louis Browns, one of the worst teams in baseball, came to Yankee Stadium for a three-game series, and the Yankees took advantage immediately, taking the first game in a walk, 9-1. Red Rolfe homered for the Bombers in the second inning, keeping the homerun streak alive, but DiMaggio made the fans wait a bit longer to see if he could extend his hitting streak. He grounded out in the first, popped out in the third, and then fell victim to the dimensions of the Stadium as he smashed a long fly to left center, only to have it hauled in some 457 feet from the plate for a long out. Finally, in the eighth inning, the Clipper ended the suspense and came through with a clean single over the head of the shortstop. Elsewhere, Ted Williams was “slumping.” He was hitless for the second game in a row, and his average plummeted to .403.

It took a while, but in the sixth inning DiMaggio stepped up to the plate and killed two birds with one stone as he sent a home run to right, bringing his personal hitting streak to thirty-five games and stretching the Yankee home run streak to a major-league record eighteen games in a row. The homer gave his team a brief lead, but the Yanks would need a two-out ninth-inning rally (which included a DiMaggio double) to earn a 5-4 win.

DiMaggio came to bat in the first inning and got jammed, but managed to muscle a single over the head of Detroit first baseman Rudy York, extending his streak to thirty-four straight. That total matched George McQuinn’s streak from 1938; all that remained was Ty Cobb’s 1911 streak of forty games and Sisler’s record forty-one. The other streak continued as well, as Phil Rizzuto (Holy Cow!) knocked one out to left. The Yankees had homered for seventeen games in a row, tying the major league record. None of this was enough to earn a win on this first day of summer, however, as the Tigers posted a 7-2 victory.

If you just look at the score, you’ll think the game wasn’t close. If you just watch the highlights, you’ll think the game was played in a time machine set for April of 2009 when every pop fly seemed like it floated into the seats. But if you skipped work and took in every pitch — or if you’ve got the entire summer off, like me — you know the truth. This was a close game, and there were exactly four moments that decided the outcome. Each moment fell in favor of the Braves; things might have turned out differently if even one had gone the Yankees’ way.

Moment #1: Top of the first, two outs. Michael Bourn on first base.
Bourn is one of the fastest men in the major leagues, and has stolen more than 250 bases in his career. Even though he plays in the other league, I’m guessing his name came up in the pitchers meeting this week. Still, Phil Hughes ignored him, and with two outs Bourn was able to take four steps towards second before Hughes even moved. It might’ve been the easiest steal of Bourn’s life. Four pitches later, Dan Uggla singled to left, easily scoring Bourn. If Hughes had paid attention to Bourn when he was still on first, that run wouldn’t have scored.

Moment #2: Top of the first, two outs. Dan Uggla on first base.
Hughes has been so good recently that some people (okay, me) have been thinking that maybe — just maybe — he might still live up to all that hype that’s evaporated over the past couple years. But even as good as he’s been, he still hasn’t been able to get past his home run issues. Facing Freddie Freeman immediately after yielding the Uggla single, Hughes peered in and located Russell Martin’s target, low and inside. I know you have to pitch inside, even in Yankee Stadium, even when you serve up gopher balls like heated towels on a first class flight, but it makes me nervous every time I see a Yankee catcher slide over to the first base side of the plate. Sure enough, the fast ball that was meant to be just a touch inside floated out over the heart of the plate and was quickly deposited into the right field seats. Braves 3, Yankees 0.

Moment #3: Bottom of the seventh, one out. Runners on first and third.
We’ve skipped over several home runs, all solo shots. In order: Derek Jeter in the first, Martín Prado in the third, Jason Heyward in the fourth, David Ross in the fifth, Eric Chávez in the fifth, and Alex Rodríguez and Robinson Canó, both in the sixth. All of that brought the score to 6-4, Braves, when Curtis Granderson singled to right to score Martin and push Jeter to third. The Yankees trailed by only a run, and Rodríguez was headed to the plate. I think it says a lot about the 2012 version of A-Rod that whenever he comes up in situations like this,  instead of hoping for a home run or base hit — or even a sacrifice fly — I find myself hoping he avoids the worst-case scenario. The camera zoomed in on him as he dug his cleats into the dirt and rocked back on his heels before coiling in anticipation of Chad Durbin’s first pitch. I took the opportunity to have a quick chat with him. “Please don’t ground into a double play,” I said. “Please.” He hammered Durbin’s second pitch to short for a made-t0-order 6-4-3 double play.

A strikeout or popout would’ve passed the baton to Canó; a fly ball would’ve tied the game; a base hit would’ve tied the game and upped the ante. A home run? That’s the old A-Rod. (Well, actually this is the old A-Rod, and we’d better get used to it.)

Moment #4: Top of the eighth, one out. Runners on first and third.
Still trailing 6-5 (see Moment #3, above), Freeman rifled a ground ball directly at first baseman Eric Chávez. The ball came up on Chávez a bit, and it bounced away from him. He recovered to make the out at first, but the run scored from third. Had Chávez fielded the ball cleanly and started a 3-6-3 DP, the inning would be over. (I know I’m not supposed to, but I just assumed the double play.) Heyward came up next and launched his second homer of the day, a no-doubter into the seats in right. Twenty minutes earlier the Yankees looked ready to tie the game at six; now they trailed 9-5, and nothing else mattered. Final score: Braves 10, Yankees 5.

The good news, of course, is that thanks to their torrid June, the Yankees still sit comfortably atop the standings in the American League East. We could worry about their failure to hit with runners in scoring position, but no one else would shed a tear. We could lament the end of a streak which saw Yankee starters pitch at least six innings in nineteen straight games, but we wouldn’t get any pity.

Here’s the bottom line. Even though yesterday’s recap had a funereal theme and this one focused on what might have been, we just might be talking about the best team in baseball. And that’s never a bad thing.

[Photo Credit: Al Bello/Getty Images]

The Detroit Tigers came to New York for a three-game series and were greeted rudely by the Bronx Bombers, who crushed Detroit pitching and came away with a 14-4 win. Tommy Henrich hit a high drive into the right field seats in the first inning, keeping the Yankee home run streak alive at sixteen games, and DiMaggio singled immediately after to keep his own string going. He would add three more hits, two singles and a double, to give himself a nice 4 for 5 afternoon. With seven hits in two days, DiMaggio’s season average was up to .354, good enough for fifth in the league but still far behind Ted Williams, who led the galaxy at .420. DiMaggio had now moved to within eight games of Sisler’s mark, still believed to be the all-time record, and he seemed to be paying attention. Much later, DiMaggio would look back at this game as pivotal: “I didn’t get warm about this thing until the 33rd game.” As summer arrived in the Bronx, he’d get warmer still.

Gather ’round family, friends and fans. Tonight we bear witness to the passing of a winning streak. It lived a long, rich life. It just turned ten games old yesterday as a matter of fact. It lasted longer than any of us could have hoped when it started.

It’s natural to think about the things that could have been done differently to extend its time here on earth. To beat your chest and moan about the two separate runners thrown out at home plate. Both were good sends by the third base coach; both runners were clearly out. To gnash our teeth about the Braves knack for the two-out RBI. To pity the unfortunate Hiroki Kuroda who pitched well enough to win on some nights. To wail about the unfair quality of closer Craig Kimbrel’s filthy arsenal.

All of this is natural and healthy. But while it’s proper to mourn the loss of something great, it’s also necessary to celebrate the greatness. Do not wallow in the sad, helpless, final moments of the streak, but rather revel in the wonderful, improbable events that led to this point.

Phil Hughes, given up for useless by every cognizant Yankee fan not related to him, has been outstanding. Ivan Nova, previously the undeserved beneficiary of massive run support, is now earning his victories and then some. A bullpen missing its heart, soul and right shoe has answered every bell with aplomb. And a lineup that has been better at creating opportunities than it has been at cashing them in, found a way to get it done ten games in a row.

Eleven games ago we didn’t really know what the 2012 Yankees could be. Now we know they just might be the best team in baseball. That’s a lot to digest.

So we send the winning streak to a better place. Give it one good cry and then dry your eyes, because after every loss there’s a chance that the next winning streak will start with the very next game. The next one might not be ten games long, it might not be five. But enjoy it, whatever it is.