Today’s news is powered by … a flight attendant with a beat!

• Sutcliffe leaves a big tip:

Hours before they were to do battle with the Red Sox Tuesday night, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez were involved in different type of confrontation, this one inside the Yankees’ clubhouse.

Upset with an accusation made by ESPN’s Rick Sutcliffe two weeks ago, the two players approached the former Cy Young winner to discuss the situation.

Sutcliffe said on the air that A-Rod had been feeding Teixeira verbal signs from the on-deck circle, giving his teammate a heads-up on the catcher’s location before the pitch was delivered. Teixeira and A-Rod pulled Sutcliffe aside when they saw him in the clubhouse last night, expressing their displeasure with his charges.

“Me, Alex and him talked about it,” Teixeira told the Daily News, confirming that the conversation took place. “No doubt it’s disappointing when someone makes an accusation like that. Whatever. I can’t control what they say.”

[My take: Has Rick been hitting the sauce again?  Doesn’t he have better things to do, like ogle Erin Andrews or something?  Sigh …]

• Ken Davidoff is NOT a fan of A.J. Burnett:

If you’re going to invest $82.5 million in a guy in part because he pitches well against the Red Sox – rather than, you know, his larger body of work – then what choice do we have but to crush him when said guy doesn’t deliver on his alleged skill set?

The blame must fall on the $82.5-million man Burnett, who has pitched horribly in his two starts against the Red Sox as a Yankee, last night’s worst than his first. . . .

In two starts against the Sawx this season, both at Fenway, Burnett is 0-1 with a 12.91 ERA.

That doesn’t quite live up to the career numbers versus Boston – 5-0 with a 2.56 ERA, in eight starts – that he brought to last winter’s negotiations.

• Johnny Damon is on a mission . . . :

Johnny Damon wants the Yankees to get back to the postseason for many reasons. One is to prove Joe Torre wrong.

Damon said Torre’s book, “The Yankee Years,” has “fired” him up to have a big season. The ex-Red Sox star went into last night’s Battle for First at Fenway batting .299 with 12 home runs, 34 RBIs and five stolen bases.

“It really did,” Damon, 35, told The Post, “because it was a private matter. This game is a team game. Me and Jason [Giambi] weren’t the reason we were losing. If [Torre] feels that way, then, oh well, but I’ll tell you one thing, me and Jason were the reason why we made the playoffs [in 2007]. We made that push. As soon as I got healthy, this team got going.”

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Chien-Ming Wang’s start in Boston Wednesday night was a set-back for both the pitcher and the team. Wang had velocity, frequently hitting 95 miles per hour on the YES gun, and movement, but much like A.J. Burnett the night before, he had no control. It was almost as if the Red Sox had ball-repelling magnets installed under home plate.

Wang look good striking out Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay to end the second inning, but by then he’d already given up three runs on three hits and three walks and thrown 58 pitches. He tried to start the third with a gimme strike to Mike Lowell, but Lowell parked it on top of the Green Monster to give the Red Sox a 4-1 lead (the Yankee run came on a Jorge Posada homer off Tim Wakefield leading off the second). David Ortiz followed by lifting a 400-foot fly out to center, and Mark Kotsay hit a hard single up the middle on Wang’s next pitch. A batter later, Wang was out of the game having thrown just 57 percent of his 69 pitches for strikes.

Phil Hughes pitched admirably over 3 2/3 innings in relief of Wang, striking out five men along the way, but he got into some bad counts in the fourth and wound up throwing two very hittable fastballs to J.D. Drew and Kevin Youkilis, resulting in a triple and an opposite-field homer, giving the Sox two crucial insurance runs.

The Yankee offense chipped away. A pair of walks set up a Melky Cabrera RBI single in the fourth. Mark Teixeira hit right-handed against Wakefield and went 3-for-3 against the knuckleballer with a single and a double off the Monster and another double down the left field line. That last came leading off the fifth and two groundouts plated Tex with the third Yankee run. Switched back to the left side against Ramon Ramirez in the seventh, Teixeira followed a Johnny Damon lead-off homer with a solo shot of his own to bring the Yankees within 6-5.

Unfortunately, that’s as close as they’d get. Nick Swisher worked a walk off Hideki Okajima to start the eighth, Brett Gardner ran for him, and Melky Cabrera bunted Gardner to second, but Derek Jeter (an ugly 0-for-5) struck out, as did Damon, stranding Gardner, who never attempted a steal.

In the ninth, Alex Rodriguez ignored the Fenway crowd’s “You Did Ste-Roids!” chant to work a one-out walk against Jonathan Papelbon, and pinch-runner Ramiro Peña stole second in his place, but Robinson Cano struck out and Jorge Posada flied out to the warning track in left to end the game.

After the game, Posada seemed more fed up with Wang’s struggles than frustrated by them, Wang said he would understand if the Yankees wanted to move him back into the bullpen, and Joe Girardi uncharacteristically refused to say that Wang would make his next start, or even to say “he’s in the rotation right now” (his typical code for “but won’t be five days from now”). Given how well Hughes pitched by comparison, I’d expect the two to swap roles next time around.

Barring injury, last night’s series opener couldn’t have gone much worse for the Yankees. Now their remaining hopes of winning this series rest on tonight’s starter, Chien-Ming Wang, who hasn’t thrown more than 4 2/3 innings in a major league game this year and hasn’t been good for more than three frames in a single outing.

Wang returned to the rotation on Thursday and looked great for two innings, showing the velocity and drop on his sinker the Yankees had been waiting to see, but things flattened out after that, and he left with two outs in the fifth having surrendered five runs to the Rangers. Still, he got all but one of his 14 outs via groundball or strikeout, which was encouraging. Wang will be on a 90-pitch limit tonight, which could mean another short outing even if he pitches well (though Wang at his best could make those 90 pitches last into the eighth).

Also encouraging is that, after a strong April, Tim Wakefield, who starts tonight for Boston, has posted a 6.37 ERA over his last seven starts with opponents hitting .307/.393/.452 against him. Wakefield is 5-2 over that stretch as the Sox have scored an average of 7.14 runs per game for him. As much as I’m thinking good thoughts for Wang, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a slugfest like that break out again tonight.  At the very least, the Yankees should do better than the two measly singles they managed last night.

The lineup returns to normal tonight (Damon in left, Swisher in right, Matsui to DH, though Matsui has hit just .170/.264/.319 lifetime against Wakefield), while rookie George Kottaras catches Wakefield for Boston.

Today’s (brief) news is powered by a dog-tired day-after-birthday girl who has a sore throat (too much rain, and insomnia).

• Teixeira takes over lead at 1B in the All Star balloting.
• Nady may be able to return late next week?
• Why all the homers? Its not the wind, but the height and curvature of the walls.
• A fan planted Yankee grass seed in Fenway Park last month.
• Mo gets a judge’s robe for his next Kangaroo Court.
• OF Slade Heathcott is Yanks’ 1st round amateur draft pick.
• A father and son are trying to see the Yankees win in all 30 parks.
• Tyler Hepner wonders what the Yankees should do with Hughes.

Back with a more-normal report tomorrow.

The Yankees look to reboot their season series with the Red Sox with three games in Boston starting tonight. They’re 0-5 against the Bosox entering the series, but hold a one-game lead over Boston in the American League East and have played their best baseball in the month since the two team’s last met. Dig:

April 6 to May 7

Red Sox 18-11 (.621)
Yankees 13-15 (.464)

May 8 to June 8

Yankees 21-8 (.724)
Red Sox 15-13 (.536)

Take out their five head-to-head games, and the Yankees outplayed the Sox against neutral opponents during the season’s first month as well (13-10 to 13-11). Having taken series from all of the league’s other winning teams (the Rays, Jays, Rangers, Tigers, and Angels), all the Yankees have left to prove in the first half of this season is that they can beat the Red Sox head-to-head.

Not that it is likely to matter in the short run. As I wrote in my initial Red Sox preview in April, since the implementation of the unbalanced schedule in 2001, the season series between these two teams hasn’t put one team in the playoffs while keeping the other out, and all signs point to both making it to the postseason again this year. Still, bragging rights are fun, and despite the Yankees’ dominance of the league over the past month, the Red Sox still hold them.

The big news in Boston is that David Ortiz seems to have gone from hero to zero for realsies, forcing Terry Francona to drop him to sixth in the order. Ortiz actually enters this series on a six-game hitting streak and hit his second homer of the year on Saturday, but he’s still hitting just .197/.288/.308 on the season. I had figured Ortiz for a quick decline following his wrist injury last year, but I never thought he’d just vanish like this, which probably means he’ll pull out of it. Just look at Jason Varitek. The Red Sox’s catcher looked washed up last year when he hit .220/.313/.359 at age 36, but he has rebounded this year, hitting a solid .247/.337/.519 with ten homers.

Despite Ortiz’s vanishing act, what the Sox have done well this season is hit (fourth in the majors in runs scored per game) and pitch out of the bullpen (major league best 2.76 pen ERA). What they have not done well is field (second-worst defensive efficiency in the AL) and start games (fifth-worst starters ERA in baseball at 5.02).

Tonight’s starter, Josh Beckett, leads the Sox rotation with a 4.09 ERA and is the only Boston start to have an ERA below league average. Beckett had a terrible April, including allowing eight runs in five innings to the Yankees at Fenway on April 25, but he’s been awesome in May, going 4-0 with a 1.94 ERA in six starts and posting a 0.40 ERA across 22 2/3 innings over his last three starts.

A.J. Burnett, who helped turned that April Beckett blow-up into a Red Sox win by also allowing eight runs in five innings, again starts against his former Marlins rotationmate. In his six starts from that first match-up against Beckett through his return to Toronto on May 12, Burnett went 0-2 with a 6.34 ERA, but he rebounded nicely in his last two starts, both wins over Texas. In those two games, he posted a combined line of 13 IP, 11 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 15 K. Some more of that would help get the Yankees’ reboot off this series off on the right foot.

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Bronx Banter Interview

By Hank Waddles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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On a warm Monday night at the Stadium, the first inning foreshadowed the rest of the series finale between the Yankees and Rays. Three Yankees hit long fly balls against Rays starter Andy Sonnanstine in that initial frame, including Mark Teixeira’s towering home run into the second deck of the right-field stands. The Yankees would hit several more long drives against Sonnanstine in later innings, including home runs by Nick Swisher (a two-run homer), Johnny Damon (a solo shot), and Derek Jeter (also a solo blast), all big parts of a 5-3 win over Sonnanstine and the Rays. The four home runs accounted for all of the Yankee scoring against Sonnanstine, who entered the game with an ERA of over seven.

Damon’s sixth-inning home run provided the winning margin. With the score tied at 3-3 and one man out in the bottom of the sixth, Damon launched his 12th home run of the season, easily reaching the right field seats. Two innings later, Jeter padded the lead with a leadoff home run, again hit to the familiar bull’s-eye region in right field.

Andy Pettitte’s first inning also provided a glimpse into his overall performance against the Rays. After loading the bases, Pettitte escaped on Joe Dillon’s slow roller to shortstop, handled deftly by Derek Jeter. Pettitte managed to escape from every jam he faced except for the third inning, when he permitted all three Tampa Bay runs. Though Pettitte struck out a season-high seven batters, he allowed five hits and three walks in what turned out to be a workmanlike effort at the Stadium. For his career, Pettitte has now won 16 of 20 decisions against the Tampa Bay franchise.

The two Phils, as I’m sure they’ve already been dubbed, then turned in standout relief efforts in the seventh and eighth innings. Phil Hughes, showing increased velocity with a 95 mile-an-hour fastball in his 2009 relief debut, pitched a 1-2-3 seventh. (The successful appearance will surely fuel speculation that Hughes will be used in Joba Chamberlain’s old role as the primary bridge to Mariano Rivera.) Phil Coke then followed with a scoreless eighth, setting the table for another masterful ninth inning by Mariano. More than 48 hours removed from his Saturday afternoon horror show, Rivera logged his second straight 1-2-3 appearance, capped off by a 93 mile-per-hour fastball thrown past the elevated swing of B.J. Upton.

The Yankees, now equipped with a full game lead in the American League East, will prepare for the start of a three-game series against the reviled Red Sox. It remains to be seen whether Rivera will be available for the first game at Fenway Park on Tuesday night, given that he has pitched three straight days. Joe Girardi says he’s inclined to give Rivera the night off, but the future Hall of Famer may attempt to talk his manager out of that plan, especially after throwing only 11 pitches in Monday night’s finale against the Rays.

Yankee Doodles: Nick Swisher was the only Yankee to pick up more than one hit against Rays pitching. With his 2-for-3 against Sonnanstine, Swisher lifted his batting average to a more respectable .257… Former Yankee left-hander Randy “The Snake” Choate made his second appearance of the series. The journeyman sidewinder, who was once part of the package sent to the Montreal Expos for Javier Vazquez, struck out Johnny Damon and walked Mark Teixeira in the eighth inning before being lifted in favor of former Met Jason Isringhausen. Isringhausen induced an inning-end double play from Alex Rodriguez, who heard a smattering of boos after going 0-for-3 with an error at third base… Former Red Sox outfielder Gabe Kapler hit a two-run homer for the Rays, his first of the season.

Today’s news is powered by quite possibly my FAVORITE scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” . . . (It helps if you imagine Lonn Trost as the fellow on top of the castle, and any generic dad wanting to take his kids to the game as King Arthur) 🙂

• Bruney elbowing his way back towards the bullpen:

Yankees reliever Brian Bruney took what he called a “huge positive step” on Sunday after completing a 30-pitch bullpen session. Bruney pronounced himself pain-free (yes, we’ve heard that one before, and no, I didn’t check to see if his nose was growing).

To simulate a game, Bruney threw 15 pitches, rested four minutes, then threw 15 more. In his second round, bullpen coach Mike Harkey stood in the batters’ box for several pitches. Bruney expects to throw a similar session again during the team’s trip to Boston.

“I think we’re definitely going in the right direction,” said Bruney, who this season has fibbed about his achy elbow. “I feel good.”

• Steve Serby Q&A’s Johnny Damon:

Q: I thought you were washed up.

A: (Smiles) Sometimes when you hear it enough, you start questioning yourself, and then you find something, you reach down, and you go out and start proving people wrong again.

Q: So that lit a fire under you?

A: When they started saying I was washed up, well, I had a pulled calf muscle. So what helped me start my playing days in baseball was now wrecking it — my legs have always been my most important asset. . . . So as soon as my legs got healthy, I was able to turn it back around

• Rivera battled more than the Rays on Saturday:

For several hours before Rivera took the ball Saturday afternoon in that tie game, he’d suffered with a stomach ailment that brought aches and repeated vomiting, according to one Yankee. Rivera had rolled off the trainer’s table, where he’d hoped to sleep it off, and into the bullpen in the eighth inning, when he began to warm up.

So, no, he didn’t have his best command. And, no, he didn’t have his best fastball.

But, he didn’t sprinkle the Yankee Stadium mound with breakfast, which, in itself, was a small victory, even in defeat.

“He was so upset afterward,” the teammate said.

And yet, Rivera did not mention it after the game, and he did not reveal it late Sunday afternoon, when it would have played less like an excuse than, in victory, the simple retelling of a trying 30 hours. He did not hang those hittable fastballs or that loss on his illness. He did not blame manager Joe Girardi for asking him to pitch in a tie game when a healthier body might have – and probably should have – done.

[My take: A tummy-troubled Rivera was the best option the Yanks had in a tie game in the ninth inning?]

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Man, it’s gorgeous out there today. I’ve gotta say, once it gets hot and sunny out, I can’t summon any real sense of urgency for day games. Not that I enjoy watching any less… but I get pretty laid-back about it.

Today’s game was appropriate, then, as the Yankees beat the Rays 4-3 with one of the least exciting three-run eighth inning comebacks you’ll ever see. It was still a nice win (and the Yanks’ 20th come-from-behinder of the season), it’s just that a few walks, an error, and a couple of dinky shoulda-been DP balls is hardly the stuff of legend. For an inning there it was like playing the old Devil Rays of a few years ago. Still, whatever works, and the Yanks, for now, have regained their .5-game division lead.

For the first five innings, the game was mostly a Matt Garza-Joba Chamberlain pitching duel. They both allowed a single run in the third – Joba on a B.J. Upton RBI double, Garza on a Nick Swisher homer – but that was it. Then in the sixth Joba, who’d been cruising along pretty efficiently, lost his fastball control and got himself into a mess. With the bases loaded, Gabe Gross hit a single up the middle and the Rays took a 3-1 lead. Chamberlain recovered to K Dioner Navarro, though, and that combined with Alfredo Aceves’s impressive six outs meant New York’s deficit never got too daunting.

The Yankees launched their passive-resistance-style comeback in the eighth. Damon and Teixeira singled, A-Rod walked, and then Cano walked – and if I were a manager and my reliever managed to walk Robinson Cano with the bases loaded, I’d be out of the dugout so fast the cameras would only pick up a Superman-like blur. Anyway, then Posada reached, and the game was tied, thanks to a painful error on a likely DP ball by Willy Aybar at third. Matsui hit another likely DP but beat the throw to first (yeah, you heard me) and got away with a force out. And with that, the offensive fireworks were complete. The Yanks’ one-run lead was all they needed, since Mariano Rivera returned to his customary awesomeness and made short work of the Rays, including final out Evan Longoria.

Meanwhile, I’m really liking David Cone as an announcer these days. He seems to enjoy himself, he throws around obscure player slang, and he always seems to be just moments away from forgetting where he is and telling some great, wildly inappropriate story about his playing days that will traumatize young children and gpossibly get him canned. Fun.

Despite the 9-7 final score, Saturday afternoon’s game between the Rays and Yankees actually started out as the pitchers’ duel everyone expected given the starting matchup of lefties CC Sabathia and David Price.

Through four innings, each starter had allowed just one hit, and the Yankees held a slim 2-0 lead. The Bombers’ one hit was an Alex Rodriguez home run that bounced off the top of the right-center field wall and into the waiting hands of bullpen coach Mike Harkey. Their other run came when Rodriguez led off the bottom of the fourth with a walk, stole second, moved to third on catcher Dioner Navaro’s throwing error on the steal attempt, and scored by taking a chance on a grounder in on the grass at third off the bat of Robinson Cano.

Ben Zobrist tied the game in the fifth by parking a 1-2 cutter in the left field box seats. Joe Dillon then hit a shot down the left field line that Johnny Damon collected in time to hold Dillon to a single only to airmail his throw over the entire infield, allowing Dillon to reach third base with no outs. A subsequent sac fly by Navarro tied the game.

The Yankees took the lead back in the bottom of the inning when Melky Cabrera led off with a double, was bunted to third by Francisco Cervelli, and scored when Navarro tried to pick him off and threw the ball past third baseman Willy Aybar. The error was Navarro’s third of the game, and the second that led to a Yankee run.

So it was 3-2 heading into the sixth. The Rays had three hits, the Yankees two. Then Sabathia walked B.J. Upton to start the sixth, and gave up a well-placed single to left by Carl Crawford on his next pitch. His very next pitch was a changeup to Willy Aybar, that Aybar deposited in the visiting bullpen for what appeared to be a game-breaking three-run homer.

Of course, these are the Comeback Kids. No game is ever over ’til it’s over, not even with David Price on the mound. The Yankees ran Price’s pitch count up quickly, working five walks and bouncing him after 107 pitches in 5 2/3 innings. With Grant Balfour on the mound in the eighth, Mark Teixeira led off with a booming home run that grazed the suite level in deep right field to bring the Yankees within one run. After an Alex Rodriguez fly out, Jorge Posada walked and Joe Maddon brought in lefty J.P. Howell to face Robinson Cano. Cano singled, Nick Swisher walked, and that man again, Melky Cabrera, tied the game by beating out a double-play ball to plate Posada.

Of course, it wasn’t quite that clear cut. Ball four from Balfour to Posada came on a full count and could have rightly been called a strike as it was at most a pitch off the inside corner, and a frame-by-frame replay on Melky showed that he was actually out by a few inches at first base. In other words, the Rays wuz robbed. Really.

Veteran crew chief Tim McClelland must have noticed this, because with the go-ahead run on third and two outs, he called pinch-hitter Hideki Matusi out on a checked swing that was clearly checked. Nonetheless, the Yankees had tied the game and, after a 29-pitch inning that included a pitching change, Joe Girardi decided to relieve CC Sabathia, who had thrown 101 pitches over the first eight frames, and give the ball to Mariano Rivera in the ninth.

Being the huge Sabathia fan that I am, and given his 112-pitch average over his last six starts, I wanted to see CC throw the ninth, but I never expected what followed: Rivera blew it, big time.

Ben Zobrist led off the ninth by splitting the left-field gap for a triple. Rivera then fell behind 2-0 on Joe Dillon before giving up a single that gave the Rays the lead once again. After that, Rivera got a groundout and a fly out, but with two out and major league RBI leader Evan Longoria pinch-hitting, Joe Girardi ordered Rivera to put Longoria on and pitch to B.J. Upton instead. Upton singled home Dillon to make it 7-5, and Rivera was out of the game after 21 pitches, just ten of them strikes.

Phil Coke came on and gave up two more runs, both charged to Rivera, one of which scored on a ball that skipped off the heal of Alex Rodriguez’s glove and was ruled an error. It was those last two runs that would be the difference in the game.

Facing Dan Wheeler, Derek Jeter led off the bottom of the ninth with a single. Johnny Damon followed with a double over B.J. Upton’s head in center that pushed Jeter to third. Mark Teixeira then hit an 0-2 pitch for a double to right that scored both men and brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate as the potential tying run with no outs, but despite working a seven-pitch at-bat, Rodriguez grounded out to third, freezing Teixeira. Jorge Posada followed with an eight-pitch at-bat that culminated in a fly out right at Upton, who was by then playing very deep. Maddon then called sidewinding lefty and former Yankee Randy Choate to pitch to Robinson Cano. Cano got ahead 3-1, fouled off a pitch, then drove one to the warning track in center, but Upton was again playing deep after being caught short on Damon’s double, and made a leaping catch at the wall to end the game.

I’ll do this one Alex-style and end with a song:

Coming off their World Series appearance last year, the Rays were expected to be one of the best teams in baseball yet again in 2009, but two months into the season, they have yet to be a factor in the AL East race. It’s not for lack of trying. The Rays have the second-best Pythagorean record in all of baseball (behind the Dodgers). They are second only to the Yankees with 5.57 runs scored per game, and have been better than average at keeping runs off the board, ranking sixth in the AL in least runs allowed per game.

What’s gone wrong is some bad luck in one-run games (they’re 6-11 in such contests), and some bad luck in April. Since the beginning of May, the Rays gone 19-14, winning at a .576 clip. That despite the litany of other things that have gone wrong for them.

Expected to be a boon to the offense, designated hitter Pat Burrell landed on the DL in early May with a neck problem having hit just one home run and slugged .315 to that point. Second baseman Akinori Iwamura was lost for the season two weeks ago after tearing his anterior and medial collateral ligaments on a collision at the keystone. Slick-fielding shortstop Jason Bartlett was off to a fluky start, hitting .373/.418/.596, but he sprained his ankle in the same game, landing on the DL.

The Rays new and improved right-field platoon of lefty Matt Joyce, acquired from the Tigers in the offseason, and righty Fernando Perez never got off the ground when Perez dislocated his wrist in spring training, ending his season. The Rays then inexplicably kept Joyce in Triple-A for most of the first two months of the season while persisting with the unexceptional Gabe Gross (.256/.362/.400) as the strong side of that platoon.

The Rays have finally called up Joyce, who hit .315/.408/.530 for Durham, as well as his Triple-A teammate David Price, who was supposed to fill the rotation spot vacated by the man the Rays traded for Joyce, Edwin Jackson. Price was kept down because of arbitration and innings limit concerns, but now that he’s here, he’s replacing the injured Scott Kazmir (quad), not Jackson or Jackson’s early-season replacement, rookie Jeff Niemann. Then again, maybe that’s just as well. Kazmir posted a 7.69 ERA before hitting the DL, and Andy Sonnanstine, who will start Monday, has posted a 7.07 mark.

As for Price, after a shaky, abbreviated first outing, he dominated the Twins for 5 2/3 innings his last time out, striking out 11 against just two walks while allowing just one run on five hits. He takes on CC Sabathia this afternoon in what should be a thrilling pitchers duel. Over his last five starts, Sabathia has gone 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA. In those five starts he’s averaged nearly eight innings per start, and held opponents to a .187/.242/.259 line.

Francisco Cervelli will continue to catch Sabathia this afternoon. Jorge Posada will DH. Evan Longoria, who leads the majors with 55 RBIs, is expected to return to the Rays lineup after missing a couple of games with a tight left hamstring.

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When a team plays well for an extended stretch of games, the intensity of the rumor mill tends to lessen. That’s certainly been the case for the Yankees, who have played well for the last month in taking a share of the top spot in the American League East. The only prominent name that I’ve heard linked to the Yankees in recent weeks is Cleveland’s Mark DeRosa, a player that the Cubs foolishly traded over the winter for three middle-of-the-road pitching prospects. Ravaged by injuries, the Indians are going nowhere in the AL Central. DeRosa is 34 years old and just a few months away from free agency; he is almost certain to be traded sometime between now and July 31.

So should the Yankees make a play for DeRosa? I’d say yes, but within reasonable limits. Let’s begin with DeRosa’s potential contribution. As well as the Yankees have played since Johnny Damon hit that three-run homer on a Sunday afternoon against the Orioles, their bench remains mediocre at best. Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner have been assets, but the Yankees have received precious little offense from their backup infielders and have virtually no power in reserve—at least until (or if) Xavier Nady returns. DeRosa would solve the latter two concerns. He can play third, second, or first, along with the outfield corners. He has above-average power, along with a team-first grittiness that would play well in New York.

Yet, the Yankees should be conservative in what they offer for DeRosa. After a career year for the Cubs in 2008, DeRosa brought back only three mid-level prospects on the trade market. In the midst of a mediocre campaign with the Indians, DeRosa’s value has decreased further. I might be willing to give up two young pitchers—pick two from a group that includes Anthony Claggett, Jonathan Albaladejo, Edwar Ramirez, and Christian Garcia—but no more. I’m not giving up Mark Melancon, or Alfredo Aceves, or even an injured Ian Kennedy. DeRosa would help, but he’s not currently worth a price tag involving any of those right-handers. If the Indians insist on any of the three, I’d suggest that Brian Cashman hang up the phone…

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Wednesday afternoon, Yankees GM Brian Cashman held a press conference in which he discussed Chien-Ming Wang’s return to the starting rotation.

“He’s a starter and he’s got a huge history of nothing but success,” he said. “It’s time to find time to slot him in.”

Now is, and was, that time. Wang made Cashman and manager Joe Girardi look smart for two innings, until he reverted to the pitcher whose ERA resembled the national debt ticker in midtown Manhattan. Was that what the Yankees were waiting for?

Speaking of waiting, the way the Yankees have treated Wang, admittedly rushing him back before accurately gauging his progress, one wonders if he was accelerated and placed in the starting rotation in order to be showcased to potential trade suitors. Cashman would never say that and no local scribes have gotten that provocative yet, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Newsday’s former Yankee beat man Jim Baumbach went there, sort of, giving some insight into the tenuous relationship the organization has had with Wang, going back five years.

The Yankees gladly would have traded Chien-Ming Wang in a package for Randy Johnson during the 2004 season if only the Diamondbacks had any interest in him. After the trade deadline passed with no moves, the Yankees even let Wang pitch in the Olympics, something they never would have done if they thought Wang was a legitimate prospect.

Is he right? Think about it. The Yankees could have signed Wang to a long-term deal last year, but opted not to. They instead signed Robinson Cano to a long-term deal and took Wang to salary arbitration, where the pitcher was awarded a $4 million contract. This year, the Yankees and Wang went to arbitration again, with the righty getting a $1 million raise.

Baumbach wasn’t done, though. In a column recapping Thursday’s victory, in which the Yankees got Wang off the hook, Baumbach wrote:

Seemingly every time the Yankees talk about Chien-Ming Wang, they reference how he won 46 games for them in the previous 2 1/2 seasons, as if that should count toward something here in 2009.

But we’re more than a third of the way through this season, and pretty soon the Yankees will have to come to grips with the fact that the pitcher who used to be their ace hasn’t been heard from since he hurt his right foot last June in Houston. And there’s no guarantees that pitcher is going to make it back this season.

It should be noted that the pitcher who won 46 games from 2006-08 only won one playoff game in that time frame. In 2007, his second straight 19-win season, he lost both of his ALDS starts, pitching just 5 2/3 innings over those two appearances and logging a 19.06 ERA. Why is this relevant? The Yankees told Wang what they thought of his ace status by shelling out $242 million in long-term contracts to pitchers they believed had a better upside. That the 2009 version of Wang looks more like the pitcher who faced Cleveland in ’07 as opposed to the one who helped lead that team to a wild-card berth hasn’t helped his case.

As far as Phil Hughes is concerned, he is in the bullpen now, and as Baumbach and others have written, the Yankees view his future in the rotation. The same is true with Wang. He’s viewed as a starter. But what happens if and when Brian Bruney or Damaso Marte return to their respective relief spots? Whose future is in the Yankees’ rotation then? Will the Yankees wait that long to make their move?

We’ll know the answers soon enough.

First things first . . . Happy Birthday to new daddy Cliff Corcoran!

Today’s news is powered by . . . a reallllllly old McDonald’s commercial:

• Burnett gets disciplined:

Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett was suspended six games Thursday for throwing high-and-tight to Texas’ Nelson Cruz earlier this week.

Burnett appealed the penalty, which had been set to take effect immediately. He can continue to pitch until a hearing is held.

“You kind of expect something to happen when the ball comes that close,” Burnett said before New York played the Rangers in the series finale.

• MLB.com previews the Yankees’ plan for the upcoming amateur draft:

As always, the Yankees will shoot for quality over need at No. 29, but they must be sure they can actually sign the player since there is no compensation. A position player looks like a strong possibility. The Yankees believe the pool is more unique and balanced than past years.

The Yankees could highlight an athletic outfield prospect like California’s Brett Jackson on their Draft board, and there has been talk about Southern California shortstop Grant Green and Boston College catcher Tony Sanchez.
(Yankees scouting director Damon) Oppenheimer outlined desires for athleticism, power arms and left-handed pitching. “There are holes that we need to address — the system is in pretty good shape, but we need to continue to pound stuff in it,” he said.

• Sam Borden of LoHud.com wants folks to chill over the homer-happy Stadium:

First of all, it’s presumptuous to label a park a “hitters’ haven” or any other term after such a limited sample. While a park can’t necessarily “get better” the way a struggling (but talented) rookie might, there are any number of factors – starting with weather, wind patterns and surrounding buildings – that may or may not affect the way a ballpark plays as its history grows. At the very least, the new Stadium deserves a full season before it’s excoriated as a joke.

Beyond that, though, is this: Even if the park does turn out to be more homer-prone than its predecessor, even if it does yield more home runs than expected, there is nothing particularly wrong with that. It’s not better or worse than the old Stadium. It’s just different. It’s just the way it is. Consider: Home runs are a part of baseball. Baseball games are played at Yankee Stadium. So home runs are hit at Yankee Stadium. Where is the crime in that?

[My take: Well, as an example, MLB has rules that maintain that outfield walls must be a certain minimum distance from home plate.  Why would that be?  Because they don’t want football-type scores.  While it would seem MLB has been looking to pump up scoring in the last 40 years (via lowering the mound and instituting the DH), they’ve still maintained those distance standards.  When Coors Field was having football-type scores, MLB allowed the Rockies to use a humidor for the baseballs, and the scoring dropped to more “normal” levels.  I would expect MLB and the Yankees to do some serious studying of the Stadium’s wind currents in the off-season (once the old park is torn down).]

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Chien-Ming Wang looked like his old self over the first couple of innings Thursday afternoon. His sinker was clocking in at 94 miles per hour on the YES gun and showing good drop, and after striking out two men in his perfect first inning, his second frame went groundout, groundout, strikeout.

Things started to flatten out in the third, however, when Chris Davis led off with a ground rule double. The Rangers eeked out two runs in that frame, then added two more in the fourth when Davis again doubled, this time with two on and none out. In the fifth, Nelson Cruz crushed a pitch up in the zone into the visiting bullpen, driving Wang from the game 11 pitches shy of his intended limit of 80. Wang’s final line was 4 2/3 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 5 K, but that more than halved his season ERA (to 14.46), and 13 of his 14 outs came by strikeout or groundout. Those first two innings were worth building on, and he’ll take his next turn in Boston on Tuesday.

As for the Yankees, Johnny Damon led off the bottom of the first with a home run off Brandon McCarthy, but the Yanks couldn’t get much going for the next few innings while the Rangers were running up the tally on Wang.

After failing to plate a leadoff double by Mark Teixeira in the fourth, the Yankees entered the bottom of the fifth down 5-1 with Francisco Cervelli and Ramiro Peña due up. Surprisingly both rookie singled after which McCarthy walked Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher to give the Yankees their second run. Teixeira then hit a cue shot down the third base line that skipped under Michael Young’s glove and rattled around in foul territory near where the stands bend, giving all three runners time to score and tie the game on what looks like a ringing bases-clearing double in the box score. With Teixeira on second and still none out in the inning, Alex Rodriguez silenced the boo birds that had begun to chirp by singling Tex home with the go-ahead run.

Unfortunately, that lead only lasted a few minutes, as Ian Kinsler homered off Alfredo Aceves (and the left field foul pole) in the top of the sixth to tie the game at 6-6. Aceves, Phil Coke, David Robertson, and Texas’s Jason Jennings combined to keep the score there until the bottom of the eighth, when Ron Washington brought in lefty C.J. Wilson. Wilson had been throwing high-90s cheese in his scoreless 1 2/3 innings Wednesday night, but didn’t have the same snap on his pitches less than 24 hours later. Wilson walked Robinson Cano on four pitches to start the eighth, then after getting Hideki Matsui to fly out, floated a changeup to Melky Cabrera.

Melky deposited the pitch in the left field box seats for yet another big late-inning hit, and Mariano Rivera nailed down the 8-6 win in the ninth. The Yankees are now tied with the Red Sox, who also won on Thursday, atop the AL East with the best record in the American League. They’ll be in Boston next week, with Wang opening the series.

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Today’s news is powered by  . . . a little . . . Sabotage!

• Me and my friends and Wang Time!:

No matter how well Phil Hughes was pitching in their rotation, the Yankees knew they could not keep one of the winningest starters in the American League shackled in their bullpen for long. And so on Wednesday, they made the decision that they had been avoiding for the better part of a week.

The Yankees announced that Chien-Ming Wang will start Thursday afternoon’s game against the Rangers, pushing CC Sabathia back to Friday and knocking Hughes to the bullpen.

“I kind of knew something had to give eventually,” Hughes said. “With the way Wang’s been pitching out of the bullpen, he looks like he’s back to his normal stuff. That kind of leaves me as the odd man out.”

But he’s hardly out. Largely because Hughes struck out 21 batters and walked three over his final three starts — posting a 3.50 ERA during that span — the Yankees decided to keep him in the bullpen rather than option him to Triple-A.

[My take: I’d prefer he not take on the still-potent Rangers in the jetstream of the Stadium on a warm Spring afternoon, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.]

• How is that Swisher for Betemit deal looking now?:

According to a tweet by MLB.com’s Noah Coslov, the White Sox will designate infielder Wilson Betemit for assignment before Thursday’s game and call up top prospect Gordon Beckham. Beckham was the eighth overall pick in the 2008 Draft, and hit .318/.372/.512 in 184 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this year.

• Jesus Montero has indeed been promoted to Double-A.

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So it rained before the game, and it’s raining now, but the heavens closed tonight just long enough for the Yankees to play a listless nine innings and lose, 4-2, to the Rangers.

During the game I was thinking that Phil Hughes may be back in the rotation sooner rather than later, because it sure seemed like something was off with Andy Pettitte. After the game he said he was fine, but his first couple innings tonight were a festival of walks and singles – both his stuff and his location were giving him trouble. It’s a testament to either Pettitte’s luck or his guile that he  limited the damage to four runs and then got himself through five innings, given how rough he looked in the early going. Could just be an off-night, or maybe his back still hurts and he’s  being macho about it, which (note: complete speculation) would be my guess.

Meanwhile Scott Feldman, going for the Rangers, was not exactly dominating but did do a good job of preventing the Yankees from stringing anything together. Alex Rodriguez singled in Nick Swisher in the first, and then in the seventh, Jorge Posada knocked a line drive over the right field wall, and that was it for New York.

Despite all their come-from-behind wins this year,  I never thought they’d pull one of those off tonight – the game just didn’t have that feel. Low-energy, and a bit of a comedown after the last two doozies, but hey, they were certainly due for one of these. My personal favorite moment of the game was Paul O’Neill’s extended shocked silence at the revelation that Randy Choate is currently closing for the Rays.

So, I’m off to sleep. Over the last few weeks I’ve been having really odd, vivid dreams, which I only mention because a lot of them have been baseball-related. There was one the week before last in which Jeter and A-Rod were kidnapped and for some reason I had to find them when the police couldn’t. Then I had one of those classics where you show up to class and discover there’s a huge exam you’re totally unprepared for, and all the questions were about the ’94 strike. Oddest of all, a few nights ago I dreamed I was… making out with Johan Santana at an Enrique Iglesias concert. (Please note that my admiration for Johan Santana is considerable, but platonic, and that I can’t stand Enrique Iglesias.) The subconscious is a strange place.

Anyone else have any weird baseball dreams you’d care to share?

Let’s get right to it . . .

• Joe Sheehan weighs in on the never-ending “Joba to the pen” saga:

Joba Chamberlain is a fantastic starting pitcher. He’s the team’s second-best starter right now, and there’s a chance that he’ll be the best starter by 2010. His SNLVAR of 1.3 is just a fraction behind Andy Pettitte‘s mark of 1.4 for second on the team, a gap that would likely not exist had Chamberlain not been knocked out of his May 21 start against the Orioles by a line drive. Used exclusively as a starter this year, Chamberlain has a 3.71 ERA in 53 1/3 innings. Last night was his fifth quality start in ten, with one of the others being that injury-shortened outing. Durability is an issue, but it’s as much a created one-the Yankees continue to be hypercautious with Chamberlain-as it is a weakness in his game.

In his career, Chamberlain now has a 3.19 ERA in 22 starts, averaging a little more than 5 1/3 innings pitched per. He has 125 strikeouts, more than one per inning, and a K/BB of 2.6. There’s never been a team in MLB history that could afford to move that guy to the bullpen. Even if you were to say that Chamberlain is a six-inning pitcher, something that isn’t clear yet, getting 192 innings of 3.19 ERA ball in a season would make him a top 40 starter in baseball every season, a six-win pitcher in line to make tens of millions of dollars a year.

The conversation on whether to move a starter to the bullpen begins with whether the pitcher can be a successful starter in the majors. Chamberlain has proved that he can prevent runs with the best of them, so that’s not a problem. While he’s suffered nagging injuries on occasion, he hasn’t had the kind of durability problems that, say, Rich Harden has. By pitching standards, Chamberlain has a good health record, and the kind of record that doesn’t warrant a role change.

• Tyler Kepner profiles prospect Austin Jackson:

Through Monday, he was hitting .349, third in the International League, with 11 stolen bases in 11 tries.

A 22-year-old center fielder, Jackson is still developing in his first season at Class AAA. As well as he has played, including a .436 average with runners in scoring position, he has not hit a home run all season. . . .

“There’s nothing about Austin — defense, arm, base running, nothing — that gives me any doubts that he’s going to be a good player one day,” said the Class AAA hitting coach Butch Wynegar. “I just hope nothing happens at the big-league level where they yank him out of here premature. I’d love to see him stay here all year, see what kind of year he has and go from there. Because he’s not there yet.”

• Here’s how a Yankee Triple-A player can make it to the show.
• It’s nearly impossible to get a player’s autograph in the new Stadium:

The Yankees’ gleaming new ballpark opened this spring to mixed reviews, with criticism for sky-high ticket prices, obstructed views and the ease with which batters hit home runs there. But the difficulty in getting autographs at the new stadium has particularly chafed many fans, who routinely add three or more hours to their game outings for the chance at personal interaction with a player.

The situation is little better inside the stadium, where visitors continue to be restricted from the prime autograph areas — near the dugouts — during batting practice, unless they have tickets in those sections. The best of those tickets now go for $1,250, which reflects the Yankees’ recent 50 percent discount. The team had an even more restrictive policy, but eased it last month; fans can now watch batting practice from the field-level box seats in the outfield.

The loss of these traditional access points has fans complaining of the further widening of the already huge gulf between those who make millions playing the game and the fans who support the team with their hearts, time and money.

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The Yankees and Rangers enter this week’s three game series in the Bronx separated by a half game for the best record in the American League. Since the Yankees took two of three from the Rangers in Arlington last week, both teams won three games of a four-game series against a lesser opponent. Beating up on losing teams has been the Rangers’ m.o. thus far this season, but they’re just 5-10 against teams currently over .500, including last week’s series loss to the Yankees.

The Yanks, meanwhile, are flat-out rollin’, beating all comers. Dating back to May 8, they’re 16-6 (.727) and 6-1 in series. Their one series loss came at home against the NL East-leading Phillies, but their current run also includes series wins against the then-AL best Blue Jays and still-AL best Rangers. Since May 13, the Yankees are 14-4 (.778) and have not made a single error, setting a major league record with 18-straight errorless games. Just three American League teams have turned balls in play into outs at a higher rate than the Yankees (Texas is one of them), and no team in the majors is scoring runs more often than the Bronx Bombers.

The Yankees current run began after they were swept at home in consecutive two-game series by the Red Sox and Rays. After this week’s three-game set against Texas, the Rays return to the Bronx for four games after which the Yankees travel to Boston for three. That will be the real test, of course, but by taking two of three from the Rangers now, they could enter that gauntlet with the league’s best record.

As for the Rangers, they haven’t changed much since we last saw them save for tonight’s starter, Vicente Padilla, who returns from the disabled list to reclaim his rotation spot from the now-injured Matt Harrison (sore shoulder). Padilla ran off three impressive starts (23 IP, 4 ER) before landing on the DL with a strained shoulder two weeks ago, but had a 7.42 ERA entering that stretch, so who knows what to expect from him tonight. Last year, he faced the Yankees just once, allowing four runs in six innings in Arlington in early August.

Padilla will be opposed by A.J. Burnett, who ten starts into his Yankee career looks an awful lot like the same old A.J. Burnett. He’s struck out 21 men in 18 2/3 innings across his last three starts, but also walked 12 in that span and allowed three home runs in a loss to the Phillies two starts ago. Last time out, he held Texas scoreless on three hits (and four walks) over six innings to earn the win. Here’s hoping for a repeat of that tonight.

Throughout the new month, I’ll profile some of the former Yankees who will be coming to Cooperstown on June 21 to participate in the first-ever Hall of Fame Classic. The list of Yankee old-timers scheduled to play at Doubleday Field includes Phil Niekro, Lee Smith, Dennis Rasmussen and Kevin Maas. In the first installment, we take a fond look at the career of the man affectionately known as “Kitty.”

Jim Kaat has not thrown a meaningful pitch in more than a quarter of a century, but I can still see that pitching motion in my mind today. The photograph from his 1980 Topps card brings it all back: a delivery featuring virtually no windup and the smallest of leg kicks, accompanied by a mechanical precision. It’s no wonder that Kaat’s career lasted a marathon of 25 seasons with hardly a stay on the disabled list.

Like Bert Blyleven and Tommy John, “Kitty” is part of a contingent of longtime starters who fell just short of the 300-win club but remain on the cusp of election to the Hall of Fame. Unlike Blyleven, I’ve never given Kaat a vote in any of my mythical Hall of Fame elections, but I would not exactly shed a tear if he somehow joined the elite in Cooperstown. Though never really dominant and hardly an overwhelming collector of strikeouts, Kaat achieved a high level of successful longevity, fulfilling at least one of the requirements of Hall of Fame enshrinement.

As a pitcher, Kaat enjoyed two careers. The first spanned from 1962 to 1975, when he carved out a niche as a durable and effective starter for the Twins and White Sox. Over the course of his long tenure as a starter, I came to know Kaat for three attributes. First, he loved to throw the quick pitch, often catching hitters off guard by throwing without a windup. Second, he was a skilled and highly conditioned athlete who could run and hit better than most pitchers. (In 1973, Topps issued a card for Kaat showing him batting—not pitching—in a game for the Twins.) And third, Kaat could field his position like no other moundsman. With catlike reflexes that reinforced his nickname of Kitty, Kaat snared a record 15 Gold Gloves.

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