Today’s news is powered by the Double Dutch Bus:

• Guess who is coming to throw out the first pitches this weekend?:

The Yankees announced on Tuesday that they plan to welcome United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Panama President Ricardo Martinelli to throw ceremonial first pitches this weekend at Yankee Stadium.

Sotomayor, a Bronx native, will take the mound on Saturday, prior to the Yankees’ game against the Red Sox. Martinelli will perform the honors the evening before, on Friday, as New York opens its important three-game series with Boston.

The invitations are part of the Yankees’ continuing celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

• AL Cy Young contender Zack Greinke speaks of the comfort of pitching in KC:

Had he waited until free agency, or even just until the end of this year, he would have been in line for tens of millions more. But security had substantial appeal, especially given that Greinke recognized that Kansas City offered him a comfortable environment, on and off the field.

Even so, Greinke’s growing confidence becomes evident in hearing him suggest that he could succeed outside of the cocoon of the only organization that he has ever known.

“[The environment] had a lot to do with [signing the extension], for sure,” said Greinke. “Now, maybe New York would bother me, but I don’t think anywhere else would bother me anymore. Even though I’m in Kansas City, I’ve gotten used to it a lot more. New York, I still might have trouble in New York. I probably would. But I think almost everyone does.”

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The Yankees are clearly using their final 20 games to figure out who will make their 25-man roster for the ALDS. That’s why minor league journeyman speedster Freddy Guzman is on the major league roster and why relievers such as Brian Bruney are getting game opportunities that otherwise seem unearned given their overall performance.

There are still some questions that need to be answered, chief among them whether or not David Robertson will be available and effective by season’s end, but prompted by Joe Girardi’s use of Bruney and Jonathan Alabaladejo last night and Brian Cashman’s comments about Joba Chamberlain (coming up), I thought I’d weigh in on the subject.

First, here are Cashman’s comments on Joba via Pete Caldera’s blog:

He needs to declare himself. He’s no different than anyone else. Everybody loves his tenacity,but we’re going to take the best 10 guys. There’s no assumptions there. He’s put himself in a position where the manager has to make a decision that there’s not one guy ahead of him that he needs to give the ball to. He might not realize it, but he’s in competition with any number of guys to take the ball.

Also relevant to Joba’s situation is the fact that the Yankees, assuming they finish with the best record in the league, will be able to chose which of the two ALDS schedules they’ll play. One would require a normal four starters, but the other includes and extra off-day and would allow them to use just three starters in the first round. Given how Chamberlain has pitched of late, I’m guessing they’ll go with the three-starter scenario.

While I would understand the team trying to send a message to Joba by leaving him off the ALDS roster (while simultaneously allowing him to pitch simulated games to stay ready for the ALCS), I’d be surprised to see them pass up the chance to use him out of the bullpen in the ALDS.

Cashman’s quote indicates that the Yankees will bring just ten pitchers to the ALDS, which should result in something like this:

Rotation:

L – CC Sabathia
L – Andy Pettitte
R – A.J. Burnett

Bullpen:

R – Mariano Rivera
R – Phil Hughes
L – Phil Coke
R – Alfredo Aceves
R – Joba Chamberlain
L – Damaso Marte
R – Chad Gaudin

Marte has allowed a run in just one of his eight appearances since returning from the DL. In those eight appearances, he hasn’t allowed any of his ten inherited runners to score, hasn’t allowed a home run, and has struck out six in 5 1/3 innings against two walks. Gaudin, whose start tonight could significantly reinforce or undermine his chances for making the postseason roster, has a 3.68 ERA as a Yankee and can be an effective long-man in case of an early exit by a starter, a deep extra-inning game, or can eat innings in a blowout.

Note that David Robertson is currently rehabbing a sore elbow and was last seen playing catch at 60 feet. If he’s able to return effectively during before the season ends, he could bounce Marte, Gaudin, or even Chamberlain from the roster.

So, if the Yankees are only taking ten pitchers, who are their 15 position players? First the starting nine:

1B – Mark Teixeira
2B – Robinson Cano
SS – Derek Jeter
3B – Alex Rodriguez
C – Jorge Posada
RF – Nick Swisher
CF – Melky Cabrera
LF – Johnny Damon
DH – Hideki Matsui

Then the top bench guys:

CF – Brett Gardner
OF – Eric Hinske
UT – Jerry Hairston Jr.
C – Jose Molina

That leaves two spots, which is where you might find a third catcher (Francisco Cervelli) a bonus speed-and-defense player (Freddy Guzman), or an extra infielder (Ramiro Peña). Given the lack of opportunities given to Shelly Duncan since his recall, I don’t think he’s being considered as a right-handed pinch-hitting option. By that same token, Guzman has only appeared in two games thus far, suggesting that he’s not being seriously considered either. It could be that one of those spots goes to a healthy Robertson, giving the Yankees 11 pitchers and an eight-man bullpen in the ALDS.

There are 11 games left on the Yankees’ regular season schedule, including tonight’s. That’s enough time for those last two bench players to make themselves known or for certain relievers to pitch themselves on or off the roster. Alabaladejo and Bruney did themselves no favors last night. We’ll see if Gaudin can do better tonight.

Sometimes you can tell right away that you’re going to like a movie. I had that experience Friday night when I saw Fat City at the Film Forum with Alex (who posted his thoughts here and a few more here). It starts with an atmospheric Kris Kristofferson song – “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” which I downloaded about 30 seconds after getting home – and on-location establishing shots of dingy Stockton, California, then finds its central figure, played by a rough around the edges Stacy Keach, waking up in a bare flophouse room in his underwear. There follows a long, entirely visual sequence in which he grabs a cigarette, checks for matches, searches for them in his pants pocket, coat pocket, and on the end table, gets dressed and goes outside, looks around blinking in the sunlight for a few seconds, throws his unsmoked cigarette down and goes back to his room. I’m not sure if that scene would play as funny on every viewing, but that night in that particular theater it did, and by the end of the sequence I was sold.

I went in with pretty high hopes, too, because the movie was directed by John Huston, but as it turns out a lot of the Huston movies I’d seen and loved don’t have much in common with Fat City – the stylized awesomeness of Maltese Falcon or the fun camp of Key Largo or even Treasure of the Sierra Madre, although the underlying worldview of that last one is probably not all that different. Fat City is in the gritty*, naturalistic vein of a lot of 70s cinema, with a loose plot but a very specific setting and characters. Stacy Keach plays Billy Tully, a 29-year-old itinerant semi-ex-boxer on his way from low to lower, and a ridiculously young Jeff Bridges is Ernie Munger, just starting out in the ring and headed nowhere that great.

While hardly a cheery flick, it was not so slit-your-wrists grim as I’d been expecting from a movie that’s usually summed up as “70s boxing flick about losers and drunks,” and lot of that is thanks to Nicholas Colasanto (aka Raging Bull’s Tommy “He ain’t pretty no more” Como) as the boxers’ small-time manager, and Art Aragon as his assistant and foil. It’s all in the delivery with those two, and they’re pitch-perfect, often very funny and 100% believable – Aragon was a professional boxer in the ’40s and ’50s, and I was actually surprised to learn that Colasanto never was.

Fat City is not a movie with a particularly high opinion of women, but then, as Alex pointed out afterwards, it’s not a movie with a particularly high opinion of anyone. Susan Tyrrell was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as Tully’s dumb, shrill, alcoholic pseudo-love interest, and although she’s completely convincing in the role the character is so irritating as to be almost unwatchable. On the other hand it’s hard to argue that Tully, who finds a way to make bad luck worse four times out of five, really deserves much more.

What I liked most about Fat City was its subtlety – so few movies trust their audience to that extent. I kept waiting for something melodramatic to happen: Tully hits the woman, or her ex gets out of jail and tries to kill him, or a boxer is killed in the ring, or the characters scream at each other about their feelings… well, non-spoiler alert, nothing like that happens. There’s plenty going on in a given scene, but Huston never feels obligated to spell it out for anyone.

Finally, I realized in writing this that I actually have no idea why it’s called Fat City. But put in on your Netflix queue, and then when you watch it, lemme know what you think… or better yet see it at the Film Forum where it’s playing through October 1st. This is one of those movies that might get lost on TV and benefits from a big screen, dark room and into-it crowd.

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*Ugh, not only was that word already overused when talking about movies, but now I can’t hear it without thinking of David Eckstein. New Year’s resolution: I will stop using the word “gritty.” Right after this post.

Today’s news is powered by a Yellow Submarine:

• Are the Yanks interested in adding Aroldis Chapman?:

The Yankees are monitoring Chapman’s situation and will undoubtedly be interested in signing a 21-year-old left-hander whose fastball exceeds 100 miles an hour and who was touted as the best pitching prospect in Cuba. So far, General Manager Brian Cashman has not commented on Chapman, but the Yankees have been aggressive in signing international pitchers like Orlando Hernandez and Jose Contreras.

Roberto González Echevarría, a professor at Yale University who has written extensively about Cuban baseball, called Chapman “the most promising young pitcher” to leave Cuba in 50 years.

• Friend of the Banter Allen Barra is concerned about the Yanks:

(Joba) Chamberlain went just three innings, was hammered for seven runs on six hits and three walks, handing the Yankees their second series loss in the last ten days. And the excuse was the recent A.J. Burnett mantra: “If not for one or two bad pitches …” Memo to A.J. and Joba: a three-run homer is not — repeat, not — one mistake. It is, at the very least, three mistakes.

Joba hasn’t gone more than five innings since August 11, and in his last seven starts, has gone just 20 innings, giving up 39 hits and walking 12 against just 17 strikeouts. Let’s make that even more dramatic: in his five starts since the Yankees began this ridiculous “New Rules” (with apologies to Bill Maher) approach, Joba has pitched 16 innings, given up 23 hits, struck out 10, and given up 14 earned runs for an eye-gouging ERA of 7.87. . . .

Is there a team in baseball with a worse record of developing young pitchers than the Yankees? Was there any more illogical way to bring Joba along than to put him in games where he was expected to only go three or four innings? If whoever is calling the shots in the front office had conferred with Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave “No Man Is An” Eiland and at least agreed to put Job aback in the bullpen to be worked in front of Phil Hughes, they might at least have something to show for all the absurd coddling and pampering of Joba. All they’ve got now is a big fat ugly decision as to whether or not he should be included on the postseason roster — and if the numbers mean anything, the answer to that question is an emphatic no.

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The Yankees lost 5-2 to the Angels Monday night as Joe Saunders pitched a gem. Saunders allowed solo homers to Alex Rodriguez and pinch-hitter Hideki Matsui (Godzilla’s first career pinch-hit tater) in the seventh and eighth innings, respectively, but otherwise allowed just five hits, no runs, and walked no one. Meanwhile, the Rangers crushed the A’s 10-3 to postpone the Yankees’ postseason clinch at least one more day.

None of that was particularly important, however. The most significant thing that happened for the Yankees on Monday night was that Andy Pettitte turned in a quality start, recovering from a rocky, two-run first inning to retired the Angels in order in the second, third, and fourth before giving up a third run in the fifth on a walk and a pair of singles. Pettitte then retired Vlad Guerrero, Torii Hunter, and Juan Rivera in order in the sixth, finishing his day at 91 pitches with just five hits allowed in six innings.

Pettitte had skipped his last turn due to some shoulder discomfort in his previous start, but after shaking off some rust in the first, he looked sharp, and more importantly, said he felt good after the game. In fact, Pettitte said his shoulder hasn’t hurt since that previous start ten days earlier. That’s a tremendous relief given Joba Chamberlain’s disaster start on Sunday and A.J. Burnett’s inconsistency. The Yankees’ biggest concern entering the postseason is the effectiveness of their starting rotation. Having Pettitte healthy and effective is of utmost importance.

Trailing 3-0, Joe Girardi used the remainder of the game to audition relievers for the postseason roster, giving the seventh to Brian Bruney and the eighth to Jonathan Albaldejo. Neither made much of a case for himself. Bruney gave up two hits including a booming home run to pinch-hitter Kendry Morales (Bruney said after the game that he was trying to be too fine with the pitch). Albaladejo gave up a run on a Vlad Guerrero single and a double to the wall by Juan Rivera.

The Yankees arrive in Anaheim needing just one win (or a Rangers loss) to clinch their first postseason berth under manager Joe Girardi. That’s a big deal, but it’s also an inevitability. Yankee fans tuning in this week to see a preview of a potential playoff matchup might be disappointed to see their team playing out the string, but that’s what the Yankees are and should be doing right now.

That clinching win will come. In the meantime, the Yankees have to make sure that, when they get to the postseason, their important players are healthy and rested. Getting A.J. Burnett and Joba Chamberlain straightened out are priorities that met with differing results in Seattle. Tonight Andy Pettitte, whose last start was skipped due to some soreness in his pitching shoulder, takes the ball. Getting him and David Robertson healthy and effective again are also priorities.

Brett Gardner seems to have gotten his swing back, but he’ll sit tonight against the left-handed Joe Saunders. The Yankees will get a look at possible Joba-replacement Chad Guadin tomorrow and Burnett again on Wednesday against newest Angel Scott Kazmir. Somewhere along they way, they’ll clinch a playoff berth.

The Angels’ roster is the same as it was last time these teams met. The Yankees are 3-1 against the Angels in the Bronx this year, but 0-3 in Anaheim, but whether or not that latter mark is corrected or reinforced this week will have little bearing on how the Yanks are likely to perform in Disneyland in October.

Today’s news is powered by a cat, and its unusual perch:

• Ian Kennedy has made it all the way back:

Having missed four months of the season following surgery to repair an aneurysm in his right arm, Kennedy never expected to finish his year in the big leagues. Yet there he was Saturday night, getting ready to slip on his No.38 jersey before the Yankees’ game against the Mariners.

“This is crazy,” Kennedy said. “I didn’t dream of this happening. After not pitching all year, this seemed crazy. When he called me and told me it was going to happen … I’m still in shock.”

• President Obama thinks highly of the Yanks:

As for the American League, Obama says the Yankees are doing well. And he singles out New York shortstop Derek Jeter for breaking Lou Gehrig’s team record for career hits. Obama calls Jeter “a classic.”

• John Perrotto details the late-inning Yankee heroics:

Few teams have used home field more to their advantage than the Yankees in their first season at the new Yankee Stadium. The Yankees have had 14 walk-off wins, the most in the major leagues and the most by the franchise since the won a record 17 in 1943. Eight different Yankees have had walk-off hits. Furthermore, the Yankees lead the major leagues with 48 come-from-behind victories and 26 triumphs in their last at-bat. Of those comeback victories, 34 have been at Yankee Stadium, which ties the franchise record set in 1932, when the Yankees won one of their record 26 World Series titles.

“I think there is a feeling that you can always do it because you’ve done it so many times,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of his team’s numerous walkoffs. “When guys have that kind of confidence, they are different players. There is no doubt about that.”

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It’s hard to write about Joba Chamberlain these days without sounding like a disappointed parent – “oh honey, you have so much potential, if you could just apply yourself…!” Today’s start was not pretty, not progress, and not encouraging – 3 innings, 6 hits, 7 earned runs, 3 walks, yipes –  and when the dust settled the Yankees lost 7-1. Chamberlain wasn’t really any better than that line would suggest, and yet, per Peter Abraham and his post-game audio, he remains remarkably tone-deaf when talking to the media. “My delivery was great,” he says. Oh was it now?

Sergio Mitre relieved Joba and threw five innings of scoreless one-hit ball, with five Ks and just one walk, so I guess his delivery must have been super-ultra-great. Meanwhile, the Yankee hitters couldn’t get anything going against an impressive Ian Snell or a potpourri of Seattle relievers, save for a brief flash of life in the sixth which was quickly snuffed out.

I was going to write something along the lines of, “I can’t believe the Yankees have a five-game division lead on September 20th, with a virtual lock on a playoff spot, and some fans are panicking!” But, come on – of course I can believe it. That said, for those of you so inclined, now would probably be a good time to start making voodoo sacrifices to ensure Andy Pettitte’s quick and full recovery.

Skip to the bottom of the ninth. A.J. Burnett out-dueled Felix Hernandez for seven innings, passing a 2-1 lead to Phil Hughes, who mowed down the M’s in the eighth to hand that lead to Mariano Rivera in the ninth. Rivera had converted a career high 36 straight saves, the longest active streak in the majors and started the ninth by striking out Jack Hannahan and pinch-hitter Mike Carp.

Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu sends up veteran Mike Sweeney to bat for shortstop Josh Wilson. Rivera’s first pitch is at the knee, but over the plate, and the right-handed Sweeney crushes it into the opposite field gap. A home run in almost any other park, Sweeney’s blast hits the warning track just in front of the 385-foot sign in right-center, putting Sweeny, the potential tying run on second with one out and bringing Ichiro Suzuki to the plate as the potential winning run.

Suzuki was 3-for-4 on the night, but had been picked off first base twice by A.J. Burnett who both times caught the Seattle speedster leaning. The first pick-off came with none out in the third and was followed by a Franklin Gutierrez double that was subsequently plated by a Jose Lopez single for the only Mariner run of the game.

Now given a chance to make amends for those base-running blunders, Suzuki, like Sweeney, lights into Rivera’s first pitch, a cutter in off the plate but just below the belt. With his trademark bailing swing, Ichiro gets the sweet spot on the ball and deposits it four rows deep in the right field seats for a game-winning home run. The home run is just the fifth walk-off home run hit off Rivera in his career, and the first since Marco Scutaro’s shocker in Oakland in 2007. M’s win 3-2.

The Yankees scored their two runs on sac flies, both times with Johnny Damon doubles playing a key part in the inning, but failed to get Nick Swisher, who had doubled and moved up on a wild pitch, home from third with one out in the seventh when Jose Molina hit into a double-play. Other than that, there’s not much to reflect on here. Both starters and Hughes were excellent and Rivera had a lead with two-outs in the ninth. After the game, Rivera said he simply missed his location on both pitches. At least the Rangers lost, giving the Yankees a chance to clinch a playoff berth with CC Sabathia on the mound on Saturday with a win and another Rangers loss.

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The Yankees’ magic number for clinching a playoff berth is three. That means they could do it this weekend in Seattle, though it might require a little help from, ironically, the Angels, who are in Arlington facing the Rangers, the team whose inability to catch the Yankees would thus guarantee New York a return to the postseason. The most likely scenario would have the Yankees and Angels both taking two of three from their lesser opponents, putting the Yankees in the odd position of arriving in Anaheim on Monday with warm feelings about the Halos.

Looking at the pitching matchups in Seattle, the Yankees would seem to have the middle game, which pits CC Sabathia against the unfortunately named Doug Fister, in hand. Joba Chamberlain seems to finally be rounding back into shape after posting this combined line in his last two Rules-shortened starts: 7 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 2 HR, 1 BB, 5 K. That gives the Yankees more than a good chance against reclamation project Ian Snell on Sunday. One has to assume the Angels will at the very least avoid a sweep in Arlington. That’s three games. Of course, if the Yankees want to do it in style, they’ll start with an surprisingly unlikely win tonight.

A.J. Burnett has exceeded my expectations this year in exactly one way: he has made every single one of his starts. Tonight he’ll make his 30th start for just the third time in his 11-year career. That is worthy of a certain level of praise (Carl Pavano made four fewer major league starts in his four years as a Yankee combined), but the quality of those starts of late has been anything but praiseworthy. Just two of Burnett’s last five starts have been quality starts and over his last nine he’s gone 1-5 with a 6.14 ERA. Worse yet, he’s trending in the wrong direction. Four of his six starts in August were quality, but only one of his three in September has been and in those last five he’s posted a 7.67 ERA in part due to the eight home runs he has allowed in those outings.

Burnett hasn’t seen the Mariners yet this year, but shouldn’t find them much of a challenge given that they’re the second-worst offense in baseball and the only team in the junior circuit to have scored less than four runs per game on the season. What will be challenging is his mound opponent, Felix Hernandez.

Still just 23, King Felix seems to have finally become a pitcher worthy of his nickname. Despite the punchless M’s offense, Hernandez has already set a career high with 15 wins (against just five losses). More importantly, he has decreased his homer rate for the third year in a row, corrected the spike his walk rate experienced last year, and is striking out batters at a tick about his previous top rate (he’ll surpass 200 strikeouts for the first time in his career with seven more Ks). He has also benefited from the M’s improved defense, posting a BABIP below .300 for the first time since his rookie half season in 2005 and leading the league in fewest hits per nine innings. That last is a product of both his own effectiveness and the gloves behind him.

The Yankees have added first baseman Juan Miranda to the major league roster. With Jorge Posada serving a three-game suspension that finishes on Saturday, Jose Molina catches and bats ninth tonight behind the usual suspects. Melky Cabrera is in center despite Brett Gardner’s recent resurgence (six for his last 11 with two doubles).

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Today’s news is powered by Pete Abraham, giving us a quick tour of the old Stadium. We wish Pete the best of luck in his new gig in Boston:

• Buster Olney is a little skittish when it comes to the post-season rotation:

In his last five starts, (A.J.) Burnett is 1-3 with a 7.67 ERA, and this at a time when Andy Pettitte has some shoulder soreness and when nobody has any idea what Joba Chamberlain might provide in the postseason. And don’t forget that CC Sabathia, who has worked his way into the AL Cy Young conversation this year, has some postseason ghosts to slay as the Yankees start in the postseason — in five starts in October, he is 2-3 with a 7.92 ERA, with 33 hits and 22 walks allowed in 25 innings.

• Bernie Williams is up for a Latin Grammy.
• Everything you wanted to know about possible Game 1 opposing starter Justin Verlander.
• The Tampa and Staten Island Yankees won their respective league championships.
• Billy Traber (lousy cup of coffee . . . 7.02 ERA in 19 games with club in ’08) turns 30 today.
• On this date in 1965, on Mickey Mantle Day at Yankee Stadium, 50,180 fans see Mantle play his 2,000th game. Joe DiMaggio and Bobby Kennedy are on hand as Mantle is given a barbecue grill in the shape of a prairie schooner and a six-foot Kosher salami weighing 100 pounds. In Mantle’s first at bat, Detroit’s Joe Sparma comes off the mound to shake his hand. Mick then flies out. Detroit wins, 4 – 3, with reliever Denny McLain getting the win.
• On this date in 1979,Billy Martin reportedly pays rookie P Bob Kammeyer $100 to hit former Yankee Cliff Johnson with a pitch in Cleveland’s 16 – 3 rout of the Yankees. Johnson belts two homers as does Toby Harrah and the two combine for nine RBIs. The loss goes to Paul Mirabella but Kammeyer gives up all eight Tribe scores in the 4th inning without recording an out.
• On this date in 1993, trailing by two runs with two outs in the bottom of ninth, Mike Stanley hits a pop fly to left for the apparent third out, but time had been called just as the pitch was delivered due to a fan running out onto the Yankee Stadium field. Given a second chance, the Yankee catcher singles which is followed by a Wade Boggs’s hit, a walk to Dion James, and a Don Mattingly single driving in two runs to beat the Red Sox, 4-3.

Back on Monday . . .

Today’s news is powered by . . . The Brain, talking about . . . the brain:

• How do the Angels feel about the Bombers?:

“By no means have we dominated those guys,” manager Mike Scioscia said. “We’ve competed well against them but they’re tough.” Third baseman Chone Figgins told the Los Angeles Times‘ Mike DiGiovanna, “It’s always a battle against them and we’ve had our share of success but I don’t think it’s because we’re in their heads.”

Many scouts believe the Angels hold the edge on the Yankees because they have more team speed and athleticism. “We run the bases aggressively and we put pressure on you, but that stuff doesn’t show up in Kansas City and Seattle,” Figgins said. “It shows up more because it’s New York, and you’re not expected to have a good record against the Yankees.”

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Today’s news is powered by Levon Helm:

• Ticket prices for 2010:

. . . prices for more than 80 percent of the stadium will remain the same.

Some of the highest price seats will see reductions of up to 40 percent, including those in the Legends area and the Delta Sky 360 Suite. The first level of non-premium suites, which are one level up behind home plate, will be reduced from $325 to $250 or $235 per game per seat, depending on the location. . . .

The only increase will be seen by those who own tickets in a group of 1,700 seats that surround the Delta suite, which currently sell for $100 per game. Those prices will increase to $125 per game next year.

The much publicized $2,500 per game suite tickets, which were not part of the seats whose price was cut in half in April, will cost $1,500 in 2010.

[My take: I guess we should say . . . umm . . . “thanks”?]

• Joel Sherman is confused with by the hubbub over “The Joba Rules”.
• The preliminary schedule for 2010 has been released.  Here’s a review of what they have to look forward to.
• Andy Pettitte will skip his next start to rest a tired shoulder.
• Kevin Goldstein highlights the best Yankee minor league performances this season:

. . . Even though he began the year as the top prospect in the system, catcher Jesus Montero went from best prospect in the Yankee system to one of the best in all of baseball by batting .337/.389/.562 across two levels, and having no problems handling Double-A pitching as a teenager.

A 10^th-round pick last year who signed for nearly half a million, righty D.J. Mitchell cruised through the Sally League, posted a 2.87 ERA at High-A Tampa, and compiled a ground-ball ratio of nearly 3-to-1.

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The Yankees have gone 24-10 (.706) against the two non-contenders in their division, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays, but with this brief, two-game, mid-week series against the Jays in the Bronx, that gravy train is finally pulling into the station.

The Jays and Yankees split a four-game set in Toronto, two weekends ago. Given that Sergio Mitre is taking on Roy Halladay in tonight’s game, the Yankees would probably be happy with a split here as well. Though they beat him in their previous meeting, Halladay dominated the Yankees the last time he faced them, throwing a one-hit shutout against them while striking out nine. In his four starts against the Bombers on the season, Halladay has three complete games and lasted seven full in the exception. In those 34 innings he has compiled a 2.65 ERA and 0.91 WHIP.

Mitre’s last start, also against Toronto, was a disaster. He gave up 11 runs in 4 1/3 innings, though he wasn’t helped by his defense in what was one of the sloppiest games the Yankees have played all year. The Yankees run out their standard lineup behind Mitre tonight save for Brett Gardner starting in center over Melky Cabrera.

The Yankees will start Chad Gaudin against Brian Tallet in Wednesday’s finale, skipping Andy Pettitte until Monday due to a bit of late-season shoulder fatigue. Pettitte said he threw a light bullpen Monday night and “felt great,” so it seems the team is just being cautious in anticipation of the playoffs. Still, there will be some lingering concern given that it was a shoulder problem that undermined Pettitte’s performance in the second half last year.

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Today’s news is powered by vintage Peter Frampton:

• Hal Bodley touts Jeter for MVP:

The MVP Award should go to the player whose leadership and value has contributed to his team’s success more than any other individual. Jeter has been that player for the Yankees as they storm to another AL East title.

There may be teammates who have higher batting averages, hit more homers, driven in more runs, but no one has been more valuable to the Yankees this season.

• Don Zimmer appreciates Jeter:

“He might go down, when it’s all over, as the all-time Yankee,” Zimmer said by phone Sunday of Jeter, who got the lion’s share of his hits after rubbing the crusty old coach’s head and tummy for luck. “He’s right up there with ’em now and anyone who said he was slowing down or losing range or whatever don’t know what kind of man he is. It’s no surprise he’s gotten where he is with the hits. The guy plays. He’s played hurt more days than people will ever know – the kind of hurt other players would be thrilled to take the day off.”

Watching Jeter basking in the adulation of the Yankee Stadium crowds, Zimmer could not help thinking back to that first spring training with Torre in 1996. At the time, there was some debate among the Yankee hierarchy as to whether Jeter was ready to take over as the shortstop. As a hedge, the Yankees had kept their ’95 shortstop, veteran Tony Fernandez, around and were working him in at second base while they evaluated Jeter.

“I remember Clyde King (George Steinbrenner’s longtime special scout) coming into camp and saying Jeter’s not ready to be the shortstop after watching him for just two days,” Zimmer said. “Joe and I just smiled. By then we’d seen plenty to convince us that this kid was gonna be special. He had great hands, a good arm and was a hit machine the way he could ‘inside-out’ the ball. More than that, though, it was the way he carried himself. He was a baby then, but he acted like a seasoned veteran. Nothing fazed him.

• The team makes some personnel moves:

The Yankees can tell from looking at Freddy Guzman’s career statistics that he knows how to run. With an eye toward October, they’d like the chance to see it up close.

New York on Monday promoted the 28-year-old speedster from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, signing him to a big league contract and adding him to the active roster.

“Freddy is another option to pinch-run for us, play outfield defense, play an outfield spot for us,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He’s got great speed and, in some late situations, there’s a chance that you’re going to see him in there.”

In a corresponding move, right-hander Anthony Claggett was designated for assignment to create room for Guzman on the 40-man roster.

(more…)

Due to a relatively small number of tough big losses and the vagaries of human perception, the Angels have become a larger-than-life antagonist in my mind – I always expect the worst when they play the Yankees, and I have a fatalistic, forget-it-Jake-it’s-Anaheim view of facing them in the postseason, home field advantage or no. It’s not really justified, but when Howie freaking Kendrick is hitting .465 against New York you can hardly blame me.

Things didn’t go too badly for the Yankees tonight, though, and while it was touch and go at times they won 5-3. First of all, and most importantly, Joba Chamberlain was looking better tonight – not great, but much improved. He gave up one run on a solo shot by Vlad Guerrero, but that’s just going to happen sometimes; he left with four innings pitched, 67 pitches of which 41 were strikes, 2 Ks and mercifully no walks.

It was a nail-biter all the way through: the Yankees tied it at one in the third on Nick Swisher’s home run (looks like those lopsided home/away power splits are correcting themselves); the Angels regained a one-run lead with a double, bunt and ground out against Alfredo Aceves in the fifth; in the bottom of that inning, the Yankees went ahead 3-2 when Mark Teixeira tripled home Swisher and Johnny Damon. In the eighth, though, the Angels loaded the bases against Phil Hughes with nobody out, and while he wiggled out of it with only one run scoring, the game was tied at three. (Hughes later was awarded the win because, again, wins are stupid).

New York forced a little luck in the bottom of the eighth: Mark Teixeira doubled and Girardi put Brett Gardner in to pinch run for him, an unusually aggressive move for this year’s Yanks. I’m not really sure how I feel about this – I do not like watching Teixeira walk off the field early – but it paid off when Gardner stole third, and Angels catcher Mike Napoli’s throw got away from Chone Figgins, trickling into the outfield and giving the Yanks the go-ahead run. Then Alex Rodriguez, who had walked and stole third when Gardner came home, scored on Robinson Cano’s single – and for all the talk of Cano’s lousy numbers with runners in scoring position, he’s come through a number of times in the last few weeks. Anyway, after that Mariano Rivera came in and successfully navigated the ninth inning for his 40th save of the season. It was a heavily managed game on both sides, and therefore a little playoff-ish, although for my part if I never see the Angels in October again it will be too soon.

Finally, I was going to go into a whole rant about Derek Jeter’s bunting, in situations where he is much too good a hitter to be bunting – he’s been on a real tear recently and he did it again tonight. But I feel like on this blog, there’s really no need. I imagine most Banter readers have already expressed similar feelings directly to their televisions and with more pungent language than I like to use here.

Tomorrow: the Blue Jays come to town, and ace Roy Hallady takes on… ah yes… Sergio Mitre. I see.

A few days ago, the New York Times ran an article that claimed the Yankees bypassed several golden opportunities to sign a young Willie Mays in the months before he officially became a member of the New York Giants’ organization. Like the Red Sox and numerous other franchises that populated the Jim Crow landscape in 1950, the Yankees gave Mays less than lukewarm attention because they felt little motivation to fully integrate their organization. On their way to a 98-win season and a World Series sweep over the Phillies, the Yankees were content to leave Mays in the Negro Leagues—or let him sign with some other major league team, one that was needier and perhaps even a bit desperate.

So let’s speculate a bit how much Yankee history would have changed if they had taken a more aggressive approach with regard to the young Mays. Even without Mays, the Yankees did their fair share of winning throughout the 1950s and the early years of the 1960s. But could they have won more? Though never particularly outstanding in postseason play, Mays could have made a difference in the outcomes of the 1955, ’57, ’60, and ’64 World Series, when the Yankees fell short to the Brooklyn Dodgers, Milwaukee Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals, respectively. The Yankees lost all four of those Series in the maximum seven games; perhaps Mays’ presence would have been sufficient to turn World Series defeat into the alternate reality of a world championship. Who knows?

Putting aside the harsh realities of the bottom line of world championships, I am certain that Mays would have made a huge difference in terms of baseball aesthetics. With Mays on board patrolling the monuments at the original Yankee Stadium, the Bombers, at least by 1960, would have been capable of boasting the greatest outfield in the history of the game. Let’s imagine the wonders of an outfield featuring Mays in center, flanked by the phenomenal Mickey Mantle in left field and the meteoric Roger Maris in right field, with all three men in the prime of their mid-to-late twenties. I mean, what more could you have wanted from three major league outfielders? High on base percentages, check. Gold Glove defensive ability, double check. Speed, check. And upper deck power, triple check.

The addition of Mays to the Yankee stable would have provided another lasting benefit to fans of the franchise, especially those who regularly attended games at the old Stadium. For fans of baseball in the 1960s, in particular, one of the most lasting images involved the sight of Mays rounding the bases. We can make all sorts of arguments about Mays being the greatest all-around player of all-time—I’m tempted to make that call, but know it will be met with rounds of debate and skepticism—but there should be little doubt that Mays was the most memorable baserunner of the television era. (And he just might have been the greatest baserunner of any era, with apologies to Ty Cobb.)

By the time this author began following baseball in the early 1970s, Mays was no longer in his overall prime, but remained a vibrant and dangerous baserunner. When Topps decided to include a series of “action” cards in its massive 1972 set, the company wisely chose to include a card depicting Mays in the act of completing one of his memorably dynamic and frantic runs around the bases. Specifically, his 1972 Topps card shows the “Say Hey Kid” sliding into home plate, his right arm extended, piling a cloud of dust onto the helpless catcher with his unseen but nonetheless powerful legs. And then there’s the Mays trademark on the basepaths—the cap. By the early 1970s, most major league baserunners wore helmets on the bases, but not Mays. He had always run the bases while wearing only his cap on his head, and he saw no reason to change in an era when player safety became more prevalent. There was just something right about Mays wearing that cap, which often flew out from underneath him because of the sheer force and torque with which he ran the basepaths. By the time that Mays reached home, his lonely cap was often sitting between third and home, or resting between second and third, waiting to be retrieved by a diligent coach or a batboy. I can see that picture on my old black-and-white Sony as if it were the day before yesterday.

As much as baseball statistics shed light on the quality of its players, they do little to convey the aesthetic landscape of the game, including the simple beauty of a runner making his way from first base to home plate. Thankfully, with its 1972 action card, Topps captured a small sample of what it was like to watch the artistic and comforting image of Willie Mays running the bases. And for those who love the visual dynamics of the game, there was nothing quite like it.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

Today’s news is powered by men of constant sorrow (no, not fans of the Pirates):

• Monday’s make-up game with the Angels looms large:

With 18 games to play, the Yankees own a five-game edge over the Angels for the top seed in the AL — a title that comes with more than merely bragging rights. If New York captures it, the club will not only own home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, but it will be able to choose whether or not it wants to proceed with an extra off-day in the AL Division Series — a scenario that would allow erratic righty Joba Chamberlain to be skipped from the first-round rotation.

“We understand what’s at stake here,” Girardi said on Sunday. “That’s an important game tomorrow.”

• Mike Vaccaro has an appreciation of Derek Jeter.
• Here’s some helpful info regarding gameday weather updates.
• Jerry Coleman turns 85 today.  Coleman was a member of four championship teams between ’49 and ’57.  He is currently the well-liked, long-time radio man for the San Diego Padres.
• On this date in 1974, Graig Nettles homers for the Yankees in the first inning, and brother Jim Nettles homers for the Tigers in the 2nd. This is the 2nd time that the two brothers have homered in the same game for different teams, having done it on June 11, 1972, when Graig was on Cleveland and Jim was with Minnesota. Graig’s team wins 10 – 7.
• On this date in 1999, the Yankees rally with a pair of grand slams, just the 3rd time in club history, to beat the Blue Jays, 10 – 6. Bernie Williams ties the game with a slam in the 8th inning, and Paul O’Neill wins it in the 9th with another slam.

I generally try not to make assumptions about a team’s mental state, because who knows what players are actually thinking during any given game? But I couldn’t help wondering this weekend, with a playoff spot all but sewn up and the Jeter hype finally over, if the Yankees hadn’t lost focus a bit. It would certainly be understandable.

The fourth inning of today’s game, when Johnny Damon forgot how many outs there were and nearly threw a live ball into the stands, allowing a run to score, did nothing to undermine this theory. But after that little wake-up call – and after Alex Rodriguez and Joe Girardi were both ejected for arguing balls and strikes – the Yankees got their act together, and they went on to win 13-3.  Correlation is not causation but hey, the human mind loves to impose a narrative.

CC Sabathia started off a little shaky this afternoon, and he couldn’t hold the 1-0 lead provided by Alex Rodriguez’s first inning double. But after allowing three runs in the first four innings, he settled in and kept the O’s off the board through seven. In the bottom of the fourth, Melky Cabrera’s two-run single (he whacked a slider into center with a neat little piece of 0-2 hitting) tied the game at three. The promising inning ended when Alex Rodriguez struck out looking on a pitch that, while close, was pretty clearly a bit outside on the replay. And once A-Rod got the chance to duck into the video room and confirm his suspicions, just before the bottom of the fifth, he started hectoring home plate ump Marty Foster about it from the dugout. So Foster tossed him. And then Joe Girardi hulked out.

At first I thought Girardi was just trying to get tossed to “fire up” the team, which we’ve seen him do before; sometimes it seems like he’s just going through the argumentative motions, waiting to get run. But today he looked genuinely furious – he was yelling just inches from Foster’s face, and I think it’s pretty hard to fake that scary bulging-vein thing. He was thrown out, of course, so Tony Pena and Eric Hinske took over in the dugout and at third, respectively.

The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth, took the lead when Jeter and Damon scored on a Hideki Matsui single, and that was it for O’s starter Jeremy Guthrie. Ex-Yank Sean Henn – who per Tyler Kepner’s nice Bats post, has no idea how he even ended up on the Orioles – got Baltimore out of the inning, but subsequent relievers did not fare as well. After Phil Hughes did his thing in the eighth, the Yankee offense unloaded: Damon walked, Teixeira singled, Matsui homered – nice day for him – and things went on in that vein until New York led 13-3. This was not enough of a lead for Brian Bruney to refrain from walking two batters in the ninth, but it was enough for that not to matter.

After the game both Joe Girardi and Alex Rodriguez explained their outbursts by talking about how important this game was, which… it wasn’t, really. But there are still two weeks of baseball left to be played, and a 2007-Mets-style death spiral is not yet technically impossible, so I guess you would have to keep telling yourself that.

No one expected the Orioles to blow into the Bronx and take the first two games of this weekend’s three-game set, handing the Yankees just their third series loss of the second half. The O’s have done not just that, but won those two games by a combined score of 17-7. It seems the Yankee bats are in a bit of a mini-slump, with the team averaging just 3.5 runs per game over it’s last four contests, and unlike the final two games of the Rays’ series, the Yankees haven’t gotten the pitching performances they needed to make those paltry seven runs stand up.

Nonetheless, the Yanks are still 12-5 (.706) on the season against the Orioles, and 40-15 (.727) in the second half, and they have CC Sabathia going in today’s finale looking to help avoid an embarrassing sweep at the hands of Jeremy Guthrie. CC is seven starts into a dominant late-season run (5-0, 1.75 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 11.05 K/9, 5.73 K/BB, 7 1/3 IP/GS, all Yankee wins).

Guthrie has had a nice little run of his own over his last five starts (3-1, 1.33 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 3.75 K/BB, 6 2/3+ IP/GS), his one loss in that stretch coming against Andy Pettitte and the Yankees in Baltimore on the final day of August.