Don Mattingly turns 50 today.  Happy Birthday to Donnie Baseball!

(image: Topps Heritage)

The 2011 season marks the 10th season of baseball on the YES Network, and YESNetwork.com. I was there for the first five and remember the trials, tribulations, sweat, tears, conniptions and aneurysms that went into putting forth a top-flight product on a daily basis. Looking at where the overall coverage is now compared to 2002, the difference is like listening to a song in Mono and then flipping to Stereo.

Technology made my job easier, just as it has made the jobs of beat writers and columnists more efficient. Hardware, software and fiberoptic advances made it easier for scribes to file stories on deadline, fact-check, and ensure accuracy of quotes. Laptop computers, digital/tape recording devices, headphones, WiFi access to the Internet, and the Internet itself have helped reduce the latency that previously existed for the written word to reach fans. These products and services were available in 2002, but have become consistently better over time.

Due to the immediacy of the publication and distribution of information of all kinds, sports teams and leagues reacted accordingly. I don’t know what the current Social Media policies are for MLB, or the Press Box protocol for it. When I was covering games regularly, Social Media as we currently know it didn’t exist. If the Yankees had information to be released, they made it clear to both Mark Feinsand — who at the time was the Yankees.com beat man — and I that we could not publish the info to either Yankees.com or YESNetwork.com before the team OK’d it.

It was made clear that we were not allowed to break certain stories. (This most commonly occurred when players were named to the All-Star ballot or All-Star team, and other similar stories.) So, we would load the items into the system and wait for the go-ahead from Yankees’ PR staff. Twitter, Facebook, and other microblogging services must be a nightmare for team PR staffs looking to maintain a certain level of control over the flow of information.

In addition to the publication advances, informational sites like Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference, Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs, and tools like those available at Inside Edge, ESPN.com’s Gamecast and MLB.com’s GameDay do the heavy lifting, to where the writer can provide the originally intended core function: storytelling.

Even storytelling has gotten a facelift. Perhaps no single entity has affected the craft like Twitter. Many of the writers’ handles are affiliated with their employers, so they are easily identifiable. Follow them during games, you can time the tweets of key plays and events to when they appear in GameDay or Gamecast. In a way, it’s replaced the “running” game story that was once a staple of the beat writer’s portfolio.

Some beat reporters use Twitter in a unique and innovative way. For example, Marc Carig of the Newark Star-Ledger makes it part of his modus operandi to Tweet quotes from certain players as they’re drafting their recaps. Maybe those quotes will appear in their stories, maybe they won’t. But the preview gives you the reader a definite reason to check. I’m amazed at the level of multitasking these men and women can endure.

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Diane makes the big time.

Mazelprops.

Fans like to call Ivan Nova “SuperNova” when things are going well. But keep in mind that, in fact, a nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion that triggers runaway nuclear fusion. To be fair, Nova’s start wasn’t all that bad, but I was reminded of that definition in the fifth inning tonight.

Given Phil Hughes’ trip to the DL, a solid start from Ivan Nova would have been nice and reassuring tonight. As it was, he did keep the Yankees more or less in the game, but it wasn’t pretty and it ended unfortunately. Nova pitched into the fifth inning and was charged with 5 runs on 4 hits and, more disconcerting, 5 walks (a career high). That’s no way to live, and the Yankees lost 5-3.

Nova’s trouble started in the second, with a double, a single, and a run-scoring groundout, and continued in the third, with an RBI Michael Young double. But despite the walks and general air of impending runs, the real trouble didn’t come until the fifth. It was a sad story, and it went like this:

• Mitch Moreland walks.

• Julio Borbon hit by pitch. Mitch Moreland to 2nd.

• Coaching visit to mound.

• With Ian Kinsler batting, wild pitch by Ivan Nova, Mitch Moreland to 3rd. Julio Borbon to 2nd.

• Ian Kinsler grounds out softly, shortstop Derek Jeter to first baseman Mark Teixeira. Mitch Moreland scores.

• Elvis Andrus walks.

• Michael Young singles on a ground ball to left fielder Andruw Jones. Julio Borbon scores. Elvis Andrus to 2nd.

That was, as you might imagine, that. Joe Girardi trotted out, retrieved Nova and beckoned David Robertson. If there was a silver lining to tonight’s game for the Yankees, it was that the bullpen was strong again, freezing the Rangers at 5 runs. David Robertson, Boone Logan (obligatory beard link), and then three quite impressive perfect innings from newest Yankee Lance Pendleton in his major league debut. That’s how you make a good first impression.

Rangers starter Matt Harrison doesn’t have a spectacular track record — it was one of those “this guy? You can’t hit this guy?” nights — but he’s off to a fine start this season, now 2-0 with a 1.29 ERA in 14 innings. He did give the Yankees a few fat pitches, but not too many, and displayed an irritating tendency to wipe out base runners with double plays (New York hit into six tonight).

As for New York’s scoring, it started in the third, when Nick Swisher, Thursday night’s hero, singled home Curtis Granderson. Granderson, who is looking good these days, came through again in the 8th inning with a solo homer (off a lefty in case you were wondering), and in the ninth, Alex Rodriguez doubled and came home on an Eric Chavez pinch-hit single. Not a terrible night by any means, and not in fact a cataclysmic runaway nuclear explosion, just one of those games.

The Yankees could really use some length tomorrow from Freddy Garcia. In related news, I could really use a free trip to Barbados.

One very nice thing: MLB may not do all that it could on Jackie Robinson Day (as Jay Jaffe notes at BP today and has noted before), but many of the players spoke on the subject today with real feeling and eloquence, not just canned PR lines. It’s moving to see how much Robinson still means to the guys who play the game, and how much very real respect they have for him.

I’m not ready to become all jelly-legged about Phil Hughes, not based on a trio of starts. Hughes’ drop in velocity is not as unusual as some make it out to be. I remember just last year the articles that were written in the Bay Area expressing dismay over Madison Bumgarner’s springtime loss of velocity. By the end of the regular season, Bumgarner was not only a significant part of the Giants’ rotation, but he was the No. 4 starter in the postseason, pitching for a world championship team. During the regular season, Bumgarner pitched to the tune of a 3.00 ERA. And then he pitched even more effectively in the postseason, culminating in a scoreless eight-inning start against the Rangers in the World Series.

Assuming that Hughes is not hurt, I think his velocity will return. (It was a bit better on Thursday night against Baltimore.) A 24-year-old pitcher doesn’t usually lose his fastball unless there is something wrong with his elbow or his shoulder. But Hughes could be serving as a test case for what is a flawed organizational pitching philosophy. The Yankees are so overly protective of their minor league pitchers, employing the strictest of pitch counts and innings limits, that it makes me wonder if they are hindering their development.

It’s one thing to avoid giving young pitchers 220-inning workloads in the minor leagues; it’s quite another to bend to the other extreme and do damage in another way. If pitchers don’t throw enough, they can’t develop arm strength, and if they can’t develop arm strength, they won’t be able to throw as hard as they are capable. If pitchers can’t even give you 175 innings in the minor leagues (Hughes never went higher than 146 in a season), how can they be expected to give you anywhere close to 200 innings in the majors, where the competition is stiffer and the pressure is greater?

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The Tigers recently called up Alberto “Al” Alburquerque.

That man’s parents had absolutely the right idea. If my last name were Alburquerque, which sadly it is not, I would name my son the same thing and my daughter Alberta. Al is a 24-year-old pitching prospect from the DR, and I wish him a long and productive major-league career. It’s also at times like this that I fiercely miss Bob Sheppard. How much do you wish you could hear him say “Now pitching for the Detroit Tigers, Alberto Alburquerque”? I would cut off a toe.

Not only does the name roll off the tongue, but it gives me an excuse to link to my favorite clips from one of my favorite movies, Billy Wilder’s inky-black and still alarmingly relevant social and media satire, Ace In The Hole. Sadly the clip can’t be embedded, but check it out:

“Even for Alburquerque, this is pretty Alburquerque.”

The longer Al stays in the majors, the more often I get to say that, is the way I look at it.

So there seems to be a formula to the Yankees’ wins in this young season: a whole big juicy bunch of runs. Yes, yes, April, I know – but thus far the Yankees have only won when they’ve scored 4 or more runs, and it’s usually more. Not that there’s anything wrong with scoring lots of runs, of course. And on the plus side, tonight those runs were paired with a nice, solid, hope-giving start by A.J. Burnett, as New York won 7-4.

It didn’t look so hot at the beginning, as the first two innings took more than an hour; and although A.J. Burnett didn’t allow a run in that span, he did burn through about 50 pitches and labored in and out of trouble. In the meantime, though, the Yankees went to town on Baltimore’s struggling starter Chris Tillman. The most damage came from Alex Rodriguez, who hit a three-run homer in the first, apparently being over his head cold, and then Robinson Cano in the second, with a two-run double. Jeter picked up a couple of infield singles, which if not exactly awe-inspiring at least got him on base and nudged his average towards respectability. And later, Jorge Posada broke an 0-for-19 streak with a booming solo homer.

Better yet, Burnett settled down after those first innings and came back to pitch a strong, encouraging game right into the 7th inning – which in retrospect may have been a bridge too far, as he promptly gave up two two-run homers. But as the Yankees had seven runs on the board by that time, there was no real harm done, and the trio of Robertson, Soriano, and of course Rivera ushered the team safely to a win. Which, weirdly, means that A.J. Burnett now has more wins by himself than the Red Sox. That’ll last a day or two max, but might as well enjoy these early season flukes where you can.

A much as I’ve been mistrustful of the Yankee rotation, a solid Burnett makes it merely short as opposed to horrendously short. Well – depending on what you think is going on with Phil Hughes.

The other night the Red Sox, who still haven’t won a game against anyone besides the Yankees, got blown out by the Rays (who have now amassed three entire wins), mainly because of a dreadful start by Daisuke Matsuzaka. Being in a contemplative mood at the time, I thought back to his signing – lots of exciting, tense negotiations and lots of freaking out by the Yankee fan base. I thought Matsuzaka was going to be an ace, or if not, at least a very good player. Why not? His career in Japan was fantastic. I can’t find it at the moment, but I remember writing something to the effect of, it’s going to be really tough for the Yankees to compete against that rotation now.

Mostly I loved the rumors about his mythical “gyroball.” So far as I know Matsuzaka didn’t start the rumors, but cannily, he didn’t deny them either, deciding that if batters wanted to psych themselves out waiting for the ball to do something crazy he wasn’t going to stop them. I spent a few weeks covering spring training in 2007, Matsuzaka’s first season in the U.S., and several batters who faced him in Grapefruit League games swore up and down that they’d seen the gyroball. In turned out that all they’d seen was a good slider, but the gyroball hype was a lot of fun, even though it didn’t last into the season. I wish more players would pretend to have imaginary pitches.

Anyway, Matsuzaka hasn’t exactly been a flop – not like, say, Kei Igawa, who the Yankees signed more or less in response, in a fantastic example of How Not To Make Baseball Decisions. Dice-K had an okay 2007 and a very a good (if lucky) 2008, got injured in 2009, and last year was mediocre but not useless. And of course his fate this year is hardly sealed; I don’t expect him to return to his 2008 form, but I also don’t expect him to keep being as bad as he was the other night, although I suppose it’s possible. In any event he hasn’t been the game-changer that it seemed like he could be, and while that’s good news for the Yankees it’s also somewhat sad. I don’t have much of a sense of Matsuzaka’s personality, largely because of the language barrier, but his body language and baby-face have always been expressive and he seems affable enough. It’s just yet another reminder, if we needed one, that when it comes to scouting players – especially pitchers – we still don’t know all that much.

Much has been made of the ever-increasing frequency of Derek Jeter’s ABs ending in a grounder to short or second.

I decided to take a look at this via Baseball Reference.  Here is Jeter’s year-by-year games, ABs that ended in a ball to the infield, total ABs for the year, and the percentage of total ABs that ended in the infield.

Verdict: Many more worms are dying at the hands of the Captain.

An interesting and occasionally somewhat heated conversation broke out a few days ago on the post about Manny Ramirez retiring. Partly it was a debate as to whether Manny’s (non-debatable) hitting skills outweighed his sometimes lousy behavior on and/or off the field, and partly it was about whether Manny’s race had played a role in the way people viewed both his game and his personality. And although I hesitate to open that can of worms back up, it’s an interesting issue and certainly, I think, worth thinking about.

As if race weren’t complicated enough to discuss, the conversation is especially twisty here, since:

-At least some of Manny’s critics (in the media and in the stands – I’m not referring to anyone on this site) seemed to be influenced by his race, or at the very least wrote and talked about him, intentionally or not, with somewhat racially-charged language;

-And yet: there are COMPLETELY legitimate reasons to dislike aspects of Manny Ramirez’s game and public persona, which have nothing to do with his race.

-Then, too, sometimes race can color our view of things without us even realizing that it’s happening.

I feel confident that very few people have ever thought to themselves, “I really dislike that Manny Ramirez fellow because he’s Dominican.” That’s not really the question here. I’m referring more to things like, the narrative among some fans and media that portrays Manny as a naturally gifted hitter, almost a savant, who didn’t work hard at his craft or hone it, out of laziness or indifference, but was simply physically gifted in this one respect. Is that true? I don’t really know, but I will say that many of Ramirez’s teammates have repeatedly told reporters that the guy actually works very hard at hitting, and is, in that regard, quite disciplined.

Besides that, the view of non-white athletes as unintelligent savants is very old and not a little harmful. And yet! He didn’t look to me like a guy who worked hard on his fielding; and he made plays that a person who was paying attention to the game would just not make. Is that accurate? Or is my view of his being subconsciously influenced by that older and uglier narrative? Honestly, I don’t know, but I do think it’s worth asking the question.

That’s what I mean when I say it’s complicated. Note that just because some of Ramirez’s critics may have been influenced on some level by his race, that doesn’t mean that a whole grab-bag of  criticisms of Ramirez have no validity. Like I said, there are many reasons to dislike the guy – the steroids, the unreliability, the being on the Red Sox. The leading one, from my point of view, is that he apparently shoved an elderly man to the ground in a debate about reserved tickets. I don’t really see how that happens without him being a dick.

That said, I think it gets trickier with the criticism of his playing style. If I describe Ramirez’s fielding as lackadaisical — which I’m pretty sure I have, probably on this very blog–well, I just want to be sure that I know where that’s coming from.  No one sane can argue that he wasn’t a great hitter, and I think most of us will agree that the man’s not much of a fielder; the statistics, beautiful numbers that they are, will back us up on both counts. The reasons we assign for that, though, are murkier.

Something worth keeping an eye on, whatever conclusions you ultimately draw.

CC Sabathia vs. Josh Beckett was billed to be a pitcher’s duel. In terms of score, it was a pitcher’s duel. But it wasn’t a “classic duel” in the way Clemens-Pedro May 28, 2000 was, where two strikeout masters overpowered hitters from the outset. Sabathia bent, but didn’t break, while Beckett was as dominant as he perhaps has ever been.

Sabathia had his B game, maybe his C game. His final line was an alphanumeric dream: 5 2/3 IP, 9 H, R, ER, 4 BB, 4 K, 118 pitches, 69 strikes. But as he’s done so often in his two Yankee seasons, Sabathia demonstrated an ability to make big pitches to get outs at crucial times. He allowed 13 baserunners but only one crossed home plate.

Beckett, on the other hand looked like the 20-year-old who led the Florida Marlins to a 2003 title, yielding just two hits and striking out 10. Beckett effectively mixed a two-seam fastball, four-seam fastball, and his wicked curveball to keep the Yankees off balance, and off the scoresheet. He tossed eight shutout innings and retired the last 14 batters he faced. Jonathan Papelbon came on and retired the side in order in the 9th.

Given Beckett’s mastery and the Red Sox leaving 16 men on base, the Yankees were fortunate to lose by only a 4-0 margin.

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Over at Baseball Think Factory, a heated debate has centered on Rafael Soriano’s decision to leave the clubhouse early on Tuesday night, before he could be grilled by reporters about his eighth inning blow-up at the hands of the Twins. Some posters have defended Soriano, saying that they do not want to listen to the media whine about the difficulty of doing their job. The Soriano defenders sympathize with him, saying that it’s understandable that he didn’t want to talk after such a poor performance. Others have criticized Soriano for failing to “face the music” after walking three batters, all of whom scored during Minnesota’s rally from a 4-0 deficit.

As someone who has worked in the media and has had to conduct interviews in locker rooms and clubhouses, I’ll always take the writers’ side on this issue. First off, those that think it is fun or glamorous to conduct interviews in a losing clubhouse, talking to guys who are probably not in the best of moods, are horribly mistaken. Reporters who venture into clubhouses do so because they are expected to by their bosses, whether it’s to pick up a good quote or two for the next day’s newspaper, or to come up with a sound bite that can be used on radio or TV. To me, it’s one of the least pleasant aspects of being a reporter/writer. So I figure that if I have to go into the clubhouse to do an interview, then athletes should shoulder a similar responsibility and make themselves available with a reasonable degree of civility.

Players who don’t stick around after wearing goat horns also place an unfair burden on their teammates, who are left trying to make explanations for the players who avoid the media. Do you really think that Russell Martin wants to sit there trying to explain what Soriano was doing wrong on the mound, or speculating about how he felt after blowing a four-run lead and essentially the game? A report in the New York Daily News indicated that several of the Yankee players were indeed upset with Soriano for leaving the clubhouse early and making them have to do the talking for him. We can be sure that at least one Yankee player pulled Soriano aside the next day and informed the temperamental reliever that he had made a bad choice. So it wasn’t just the Yankee front office that expressed its displeasure to Scott Boras, the agent for Soriano.

I’m not saying that it’s the law, or even a rule, that players must do this: I think it’s just the decent and ethical thing to do. Joe Sheehan and other Sabermetric Internet writers don’t care about players making themselves available because the kind of writing they do doesn’t depend on player interviews or quotes. They’re writing as analysts, and their writing is largely dependent on statistics and the evaluation of what they mean in regard to player performance. So how would Joe Sheehan and other writers react if teams and leagues didn’t make statistics available to the mass media? How would they feel if boxscores were not printed and statistics like on-base percentage or WHIP were not released to the public, but were instead treated as proprietary information? Would they be as quick to give teams a free pass for such a policy? After all, there’s no law or rule that says teams have to make this information available to the public for free. But once again, it’s the right thing to do.

As a fan, I don’t feel that I absolutely have to hear from the players after every game. A lot of what they say is clichéd and trite balderdash. If I hear “It is what it is” one more time, I may not be held responsible for my actions. But if a Yankee player screws up a game, I’d like to hear why it happened, or at least how it happened. And if a Yankee player blasts a game-winning home run, I’d like to hear him talk about it, even if it’s just for a moment.

The Yankee players seem to agree with that philosophy. For years now, their players have made a policy of always talking to reporters, even after losses and even after they themselves endured bad games. Yankee players believe in being accountable, and being willing to answer tough questions after difficult defeats. And they’re absolutely right about it. It’s called being a professional.

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… otherwise, it wouldn’t end. The Red Sox stopped their skid today, thanks mostly to an alarmingly poor performance from Phil Hughes in a sloppy game all around, with a 9-6 win.

The other ending? Manny Ramirez’s career. Baseball strangest superstar announced his retirement today, and in what is likely no coincidence, also reportedly tested positive for “a banned substance” during spring training. It was his second strike, and would’ve resulted in a 100-game suspension had he not won an appeal. Joel Sherman reports that he told the Rays he needed to leave for family-related issues. He wasn’t the most reliable guy, but for years on end he was amazing to watch. It’s a sad way to end such an impressive career, but maybe fitting too. Although I think it’s important to remember that we still have very little concrete evidence of how much performance- enhancers of the kind Manny may have taken actually impact performance. Will we ever know if he’d have been as great without them? If not, how do we figure out how to view him? I’m not as appalled by steroids as some fans and writers are, but I do hate the uncertainty it injects into certain players’ careers. I think I would still vote Ramirez into the Hall of Fame, but I doubt that a majority of writers will agree, and I can understand that point of view too.

Back to today’s game, although it’s one most Yankee fans won’t want to dwell on. Two games would be far too small a sample size to draw any dire conclusions about Phil Hughes… except his velocity drop is strange, and seems to me to indicate some sort of injury. Neither the Yankees nor Hughes has indicted any such thing, that’s just my instinct, because 24-year-old starters don’t typically just lose 3 or 4 mph off their fastball in the space of an offseason for no reason. So, yes, I am concerned.

Things started well enough for the Yankees, with Robinson Cano’s double plating Alex Rodriguez and Brett Gardner for an early lead. But it was clear from the start that Hughes didn’t have it; not only his velocity, but his control, as pitchers were flying across the middle of the plate. Dustin Pedroia homered in the first, and after the Yankees tacked on another run in the next inning – I should point out here that John Lackey was also awful for the Sox — Boston batted around, piling up 5 runs via death-by-singles for a 6-3 lead. Bartolo Colon came in for Hughes in the third and was actually quite effective, much to my surprise. But although the Yankees did eventually tie the game, with one run over each of the next three innings including an Alex Rodriguez homer, and Colon kept the Sox to one earned run over 4.1 innings, it wasn’t enough. Boone Logan was ineffective again in the 7th, the Sox made in 9-6, and the Yankees couldn’t muster anything much against Boston’s pen. So, the Red Sox are the owners of a shiny 1-6 record and we’ll try this again tomorrow.

In the meantime, pour some out for Manny, who was many things but certainly never dull.

… for the new Yankees to make an impact, both on the field and in the media.

Case #1: Russell Martin has proven, at least through one week, to be the kind of stopgap pickup the Yankees needed in order to transition Jorge Posada to the Designated Hitter role, and allow Jesus Montero to develop further in the minor leagues. He’s shown a deftness at handling the pitching staff — in particular AJ Burnett — and is hitting well enough to give opponents pause when reaching the 8th or 9th spot in the batting order.

[And on a side note (Emma Span will appreciate this), am I the only one relieved that the Yankees don’t put their players’ last names on their jerseys? The Dodgers, like the Red Sox, do not embroider last names their home whites but do so for their road greys, and the “J Martin” on Russell Martin’s #55 always confused me until I reviewed his profile page on Baseball Reference. He did it starting in the 2009 World Baseball Classic to honor his mother’s maiden name, Jeanson, and then carried that through to the Dodgers. Here, no last name on the jersey, no confusion.]

Case #2: Rafael Soriano. There were reported warnings over the winter about Soriano’s volatile personality, but take that with a grain of salt, since the Yankees have employed award winners in that category like Raul Mondesi, Jeff Weaver and Kevin Brown, to name a few. After Soriano’s first blown hold — I’m waiting for that stat to become a boxscore staple — he pulled a Boomer Wells and left the ballpark Monday without talking to the media. He apologized the next day, but that kind of behavior, in New York especially, is like throwing live bait into a shark tank. Fans allowed Wells to get away with it because at least there was a track record of success with the Yankees: a perfect game, World Series titles, etc. Soriano had one strong setup outing for Mariano Rivera to that point.

Perhaps he got squeezed a bit on the calling of balls and strikes. Some umps will do that. Own up to the fact that you didn’t make the pitches, be accountable and man up. Talking to the media is part of a professional athlete’s job, same as going down to the clubhouse to speak to players and coaches after the game is part of a reporter’s job. Soriano placed more of a focus on himself and extended the news cycle for really, two more days, due to Wednesday’s rainout. Until he proves otherwise, questions abound whether he’ll ditch the media again after another implosion in the future.

It’s right for reporters and columnists to draw that conclusion. Soriano brought it on himself.

IN OTHER NEWS…

* Congratulations to friend of the Banter Larry Koestler, whose insightful post at YankeeAnalysts on Phil Hughes’ cutter landed him a guest spot on ESPN.com’s SweetSpot podcast, with Eric Karabell and Keith Law.

Let’s see what happens with that pitch against the winless Red Sox.

* Mark Teixeira is a 3-run homer machine.

* Strange-but-true stat: AJ Burnett is 7-0 in April since becoming a Yankee. Not that that means much, considering he was winless in both June and August last year. Just an interesting nugget. Thursday’s win put him over .500 (25-24) as a Yankee.

* The rainout pushed Freddy Garcia’s season debut to Friday, April 15.

* In case you missed it, Derek Jeter passed Rogers Hornsby on the all-time hit list and is now 69 hits from 3,000.

It’s probably a little unfair to still be as wary as I am about AJ Burnett. Like his first start of the season, he pitched well enough, but I kept thinking it wasn’t the kind of dominating performance that would ease my mind about him; it still felt like things could’ve gone either way. They didn’t, though, and Burnett held things together, mixed his pitches well and didn’t implode when things went wrong. And at least, unlike the Mets’ Mike Pelfrey last night, he’s not actually gnawing on his own jersey between innings. That is never a good sign.

Burnett came out of the game having allowed 2 runs in 6 innings, with five hits, two walks and five strikeouts. No complaining about that, and I suspect he’s looking shakier to me – because of all my memories of last season – than he actually is. I guess that makes me the headcase in this situation.

Anyway, the Yankees offense was finally cooled a bit today in the early innings – by Francisco Liriano, which is nothing to be ashamed of – and when they broke through it was more on soft hits and base-by-base advancement than the fireworks we’ve seen in the early going this season. But hey, that’ll work too. Their first run came in the third, when Brett Gardner walked, stole second, advanced to third on Jeter’s groundout, and was sacrificed home by Nick Swisher. They added to that in the fourth, just after the Twins drew their only blood of the night from Burnett. Andruw Jones – who is looking better than I expected this season although a) that is not saying much and b) it is very early – doubled in Alex Rodriguez, Cano scored on Russel Martin’s groundout, and Gardner plated Jones with a well-placed soft little dunker.

In other news, Mark Teixeira did not his a three-run home run today. What gives, Mark?!

Things got tighter still in the seventh inning, when Joba Chamberlain allowed a run to make it 4-3 New York, helped by a rough Russel Martin throwing error. (Martin is not renowned as a defensive catcher, but he has at least played all-out so far, hurling himself over the Twins’ dugout railing in unsuccessful pursuit of a foul ball earlier in the game). The Yankees tried to add insurance in the bottom half of the inning – Nick Swisher took out Twins second baseman Tsuyoshi Nishioka with a clean (… I think) but very hard slide trying to break up a double play, and the new Twin had to be helped off the field. The Bombers couldn’t get anyone across the plate, though, and I very much hope Nishioka’s injury isn’t serious. Swisher wasn’t really out of line, but still, that was some takeout and you hate to see someone get hurt like that, especially so early in the season.

Rafael Soriano, who you can bet your ass will be at his locker after today’s game, began the 8th walking Joe Mauer but got through the next three hitters with minimal fuss, and Mariano came in for the save with even, uh, minal-er fuss, as is his wont. 4-3 Yankees.

Also today, in the player name department: the Twins’ 6th inning was pitched by one “Jeff Manship.” He had an impressive 1-2-3 inning, but this does not change the fact that his name is Manship.

Finally: As of this writing, the Red Sox and Rays are both 0-6. That is just weird.

Our pal Diane Firstman has a new site–with a great name–Value Over Replacement Grit. Bookmark it and make it a regular stop.

Tonight’s game has been postponed.

[Picture by Bags]

There are quite a few excellent player names and nicknames involving “Bunny.” (Don’t ask how I got started on this). My favorites, in chronological order:

Bunny Brief, who played in 184 games over parts of 4 seasons from 1912 to 1917, and who was actually born Anthony John Grzeszkowski (neither Bunny-related, nor brief; discuss).

Bunny Fabrique, who played for the Brooklyn team (then the Robins) in 1916 and 1917, and who sounds from the name like a seductive French lingerie model.

Hugh “Bunny” High, onetime Yankee outfielder (1915-1918) and possibly the best player of the lot, though that’s not saying much – for some reason the real stars are rarely called “Bunny.”

And the last great baseball Bunny, Sylvester Bunny, who played in the minors from 1947 to 1948. Bunny has gone out of vogue as a name and a nickname since then, perhaps as players have gotten bigger and stronger and more intimidating when they told people to never ever call them Bunny.

There are also quite a few Ducks and Duckys, and one Delbert Duckworth, but I suppose that’s a post for another day.

Yours truly is the “Listener of the Week” on the Baseball Prospectus “Up and In” podcast.  I get to talk about the world of competitive tournament Scrabble.

If you don’t feel like listening to the entire podcast (Itunes link), just forward to the 1:09:36 mark.

Up and In Podcast

Enjoy!

Anytime a pitcher has a season like A.J. Burnett did in 2010, you’re going to fret about him. Burnett’s performance tonight was somewhat reassuring, if short; but the guy’s recovering from a bad cold, and by the time he came out after five innings and 86 pitches (58 of them strikes),  having allowed three earned runs and struck out six, the Yankees had already put nine runs on the board. It was something he could build on. The Tigers chipped away later on, but even Luis Ayala could not quite give this one away, and the Yanks went on to a 10-6 win.

The Opening Day game was crisper, but today’s bludgeoning got the job done too. Brad Penny was fooling no one today. This was clear from the first inning, when Derek Jeter singled and advanced on a wild pitch, Mark Teixeira walked, A-Rod doubled, Cano singled, and Nick Swisher hit a sac fly to make it 3-0. In fact, Swisher would go on to be the only Yankee starter without at least one hit. The next big blow came the very next inning, on Mark Teixeira’s three-run homer — his second in two games. Guess those extra swings he took this spring worked out okay for him. It’s always fun to project trends from the first few games ahead into ludicrously impossible season numbers, so hey: Teixeira is on pace for 162 home runs and 486 RBIs!

Penny left after 4.1 innings and what is, for now, a 16.62 ERA. He got pulled after a Cano double and a Posada walk, with one out, but Russel Martin’s subsequent three-run homer off of Brad Martin gave Penny his 6th, 7th and 8th earned runs. Martin is wasting no time ingratiating himself, is he? Given the generally low expectations people had for him and how quickly he’s started contributing, I imagine he’s storing up quite a bit of fan goodwill for the season.

As for Burnett, he started strong with a one-two-three first, and got through the second scoreless despite a double (to Miguel Cabrera, so fair enough) and a wild pitch. In the third he allowed an Austin Jackson solo home run, then cruised through the fourth, but hit a wall and frayed in the fifth: three straight singles and a walk before he managed to get out of it, with two runs in. He said after the game that he’s been feeling lousy and ran out of stamina, so good for him for fighting through to the end of the inning. A respectable start, and I assume Girardi wanted to get him out of there on a positive note, in line for the win. I won’t argue with that.

Thursday we got the A-bullpen: Joba, Soriano, Mo. Today was more the JV squad. Dave Robertson got through an inning, and then Luis Ayala (who I predict is not long for this team) took care of two innings, but gave up two runs in the 8th (on a Victor Martinez home run) to make it 10-5 Yanks. Boone Logan [obligatory beard-link] was next up, and he got himself into a little bit of a scrape: a walk, a single, a groundout, and a run-scoring throwing error by Eduardo Nunez, which… Eduardo: do you think you’re on the team for your bat? C’mon kid. Anyway, the tying run still wasn’t on base, but at this point Girardi decided not to mess around even a little, and summoned Mariano Rivera to face Miguel Cabrera for the last out. One ground ball out later, and the Yanks are 2-0 in 2011.

I have many serious doubts about the Yankee rotation, but that offense is nothing to sneeze at, and I expect it’ll win them a healthy number of games no matter which sacrificial lamb of a fifth starter gets tied to the mound.