C.C. Sabathia dominated the Mariner hitters last night for stretches at a time. He gave up a solo home run and the Yanks only led 2-1 but it seemed like it was 10-1. But there’s the rub in baseball, right? A masterpiece can turn into a flop in no time at all. And Kevin Millwood pitched a good veteran game, mixing speeds. You know if you like pitching, it was hard not to appreciate watching Millwood.

C.C. gave up a long two-run home run in the ninth inning but by that point the Yanks had given him four more runs (including two on a ball by Eric Chavez, using Andruw Jones’ bat, that bounced off the top of the right field wall).

Rafael Soriano was in the bullpen ready to replace Sabathia. After the home run Joe Girardi walked to the mound, eyes wide open and he looked at his pitcher, shouted a few words and then returned to the dugout. C.C. got the last three outs, had his complete game, as the Yanks won, 6-3.

[Photo Credit: Anton Dorokhov]

The Score Truck showed up today, made deliveries early n often capped by a grand slam from Robinson Cano.

Yanks in a blowout, 12-3. The only blip was a rough return for Joba Chamberlin but I’m not complaining.

[Photo Credit: Mark Cappelletti]

I got one word for this game: Horseshit.

Nova was horseshit, the hitters, after the first inning when they got a couple of horseshit hits which led to what turned into some horseshit runs, were horseshit. Crowd was horseshit. Skreech and Snuffleupagus in the YES booth were horseshit. Hell, I was a steaming pile of horseshit watching at home and that’s before my cousin the Mets fan called and I was horseshit enough to complain to him.

The final was Baltimore 11, New York 5. I’d recap it for you but I’m too horseshit to do it much justice (not that it deserves any).

I’ll leave you with this from Kevin Kerrane’s wonderful Dollar Sign on the Muscle:

Any baseball talent, body, body-part, effort, action, player, team, city, or scouting assignment can be horseshit. The term covers everything but the world of words–the world of stories, explanations, and scouting reports–at which point bullshit takes over.

A real sentence spoken by a scout discussing a former colleague: “His written report was all bullshit, and that’s when I knew he was a horseshit guy.”

Bullshit can be a verb; horseshit can’t. (A sentence like “Don’t horseshit me would make no more sense to a scout than to a nonscout.) Novices sometimes elide the word into horshit, but the veterans get that first S down deep in the throat, with the tongue at the back of the palate, lots of air whistling past the lower teeth, and then they follow through for full emphasis. horsse-shit!

The word is popular throughout baseball–with players, managers, umpires, and executives.

Ah, man, this is getting to be all too familiar.

One run game, another fuggin loss.

I got back to the Bronx this afternoon after spending the last week with family. It was a week of missing out on Yankee baseball, save some highlights and bits and pieces of the games against the Red Sox last weekend.

So I unpacked and settled in for the game tonight, watched a couple of innings when a call from an old friend pulled me away from the action. The Yanks were down 3-2 when I left and losing 5-3 when I returned, just in time to see Ichiro hit his first home run in pinstripes.

The wife was happy. I took one look at the score–5-4 Yanks trailing–and my joy was tempered. Even more so when I saw the replay of Mark Teixeira diving after a base hit and falling hard on his glove hand. The play was bad enough for Tex to leave the game. Never a good sign and we’ll hold our collective breath for the details on his injury.

Robinson Cano picked the wrong time to go into a slump and not only did he have poor at bats tonight but he botched the tail end of two sure-fire double plays (fortunately, neither led to a run).

In the ninth, Nick Swisher led off with a double and was replaced by Ramiro Pena. Raul Ibanez, who homered in the fifth, followed and whiffed on a 2-2 change up in the dirt. Eric Chavez, who also homered earlier–a long, whiffle ball-wet-dream-of a homer–walked which brought Ichiro to the plate:

Fastball low for a ball. Sinker, soft ground ball to short. They go to second for the out, no chance to double up Ichi at first. So, first and third, two out and Russell Martin stepped in as a pinch-hitter:

Breaking ball, 81 mph, called strike. Fastball, 95 mph, low, 1-1. Another breaking ball, Martin took a late, feeble hack, swung right over it, 1-2. Fastball outside, Ichiro takes second. I’m sitting at home thinking there is no way Martin gets a hit. No way…And I was right as he swung over a sinker.

Orioles 5, Yankees 4.

The Yankees have lost eight times in their last eleven games. As we mentioned earlier, they’ve all been close games, these losses, but at some pernt that doesn’t mean Jack Boil Scratch. Their lead over Baltimore is down to six-and-a-half.

Fuggin’ Frustrating.

[Photo Credit: Bruce Stanfield; Jim McIsaac/Getty Images]

There was a pitcher’s duel between Hiroki Kuroda and Felix Doubront on Sunday night baseball in the Bronx. Ryan Sweeney doubled home a pair of runs in the second inning. Otherwise, both starting pitchers piled up the outs and the score remained 2-0 Boston. The ground ball was Kuroda’s friend and he got four double plays to keep his team in the game.

In the seventh, Russell Martin got the Yankees on the board when he hit a lead off home run. Ichiro reached on an infield hit and though Jason Nix couldn’t push him into scoring position (fail, as he whiffed) but was the last batter Doubront would face. Matt Albers replaced him to pitch to Derek Jeter and after a throw to first Ichiro took off for second on the first pitch Albers threw. And he was safe by plenty.

Jeter slapped a sharp base hit to right field too hard to score Ichi. Runners on the corners and the lefty Andrew Miller replaced Albers and got Curtis Granderson to pop up to shallow left on one pitch. Fail and boy, this has been a rough couple of games for Granderson. Mark Teixeira  jumped at Miller’s first pitch too (fail) and grounded out weakly to second. Dustin Pedroia bobbled the ball for a moment but still made the play without incident.

Two pitches, two out: so much for patience.

Kuroda worked a one-two-three ninth, surviving a bullet line drive off Jacoby Ellsbury’s bat that landed safely in Teixeria’s glove for the third out.

Cano grounded out to third to start the bottom of the inning. It was a close play at first but the ump got the call right. Nick Swisher, two hits on the night, was next and got ahead 2-0 and then 3-1 but looked at a beautiful 3-2 curve ball right over the plate for strike three. Andruw Jones cranked a 2-2 fastball–don’t throw him a heater ,willya, hah?–into the left field corner for a double and the Yanks were still alive. That was it for Miller. Showtime for Alfredo Aceves. His first pitch to Martin was a fastball right down the cock. Martin drilled it into centerfield for a base hit, Jones scored, tie game.

Ichi took a curve for a strike. A wild pitch, Martin to second. His first big moment? Nah, not so fast. A line drive to Carl Crawford ended the inning.

The ninth. Soriano, and am I the only one worried? Well, the sombitch hit Crawford in the foot with the second pitch he threw. Dustin Pedroia flew out to center and then Adrian Gonzalez popped out to Jeter. The ball wasn’t far behind third base and Jeter, shifted close to second, had a long way to run to make the play. This after Crawford got caught leaning and narrowly avoided being picked off. Cody Ross, who never gets cheated on his swing, took a big hack, and a few more throws over to first by Soriano, Ross squibbed one off the end of his bat. It rolled down to Teixeira who fielded it and recorded the third out.

What, me worry?

Eric Chavez, pinch-hitting, led off the bottom of the inning, worked the count full and then swung under a high fastball. Jeter hit grounded out to Will Middlebrooks and Aceves stayed in to pitch to Granderson. Curtis was 0-8 lifetime against Aceves with five strikeouts. Make that 0-9 when Grandy got under a fastball and flew out to right.  The game headed to extra innings.

So David Robertson walked Salty to start the tenth and then Middlebrooks was hit on a failed bunt attempt. The umpire ruled that he didn’t attempt to get the bat out of the way. Bobby Valentine didn’t like the call and he was thrown out of the game. Josh Beckett bitched and bellowed from the dugout and he was run, too. Course Middlebrooks singled to left. First and second, no out. Sweeney couldn’t get a bunt down and hit into a 4-6 force. Too slow for a double play. Runners on the corners with one out.

You know I was praying for another double play. But with the speedy Pedro Ciriaco at the plate, man, that was a tall order. So the string bean bloops a single into short right field and the Sox were ahead. It was a good pitch by Robertson, a shitty hit by Ciriaco and I could hear ol’ John Sterling say, “You know, Suzyn, you can’t predict baseball.”

Naturally, Ellsbury hit into that tailor-made double play to end the inning.

Teixeira popped a ball into the right field seats and the fans did a terrible job letting Sweeney catch the ball. They would have had to jump to disrupt Sweeney from reaching into the stands and making the play, it would have been a tough play, but dammit, it could have been made.

Robbie Cano didn’t go up there looking to do anything but swing and swing he did at the first four pitches. The at bat ended in a little ground out to Pedroia. Swisher got plunked in the elbow with a breaking ball and Ramiro Pena replaced him as a pinch-runner. Ibanez for Jones. And it was a good at bat. Fastball after fastball and finally on the ninth pitch a breaking ball swung on and missed.

Final Score: Red Sox 3, Yanks 2.

A big game for the Sox who get back to .500. A vexing loss for the Yanks who’ve had a week to forget. Just ugly.

[Photo Credit: Past Tense; Joram Roukes]

The Red Sox beat the Yanks last night after a decent rain delay, 8-6. They had a 6-1 lead on a count of C.C. Sabathia was off his game but the Yanks tied it up in the bottom of the eighth inning when Mark Teixeira hit a two-run home run off his old pal Vicente Padilla. Tex admired his work too which isn’t like it (unless Padilla is pitching).

The way this season has gone you figured the Yanks would find a way to win but Curtis Granderson played a fly ball into a triple in the ninth, the Sox scored twice and, well, that’s just baseball, Suzyn, you can’t predict it.

Nuts.

[Photo Credit: WebMD; Seth Wenig/AP]

“I fucking love winning. You know what I’m saying? Its like, better than losing.” –Nuke LaLoosh

Phil Hughes gave up a solo home run to Dustin Pedrioa in the first inning. He gave up solo shots in the third and fourth, still by the end of the fourth the Yanks were ahead 6-3. Just another turgid night for the Yanks and Sox, right?

Not really. The game ended before 10 o’clock because Hughes calmed down and pitched well over seven innings. Raul Ibanez and Russell Martin homered for the Yanks (both two-run shots) and Curtis Granderson put the game out of reach in the eighth when he hit a two-out grand slam. It was Grandy’s third hit of the night. Ichiro had a base hit and scored twice as the Yanks sailed to a Score Truck Style Beat Down.

Final Score: Yanks 10, Sox 3.

Oh, hell yes.

A Goldbricker’s Delight today, afternoon game in Seattle and the Yanks trailed the Mariners 2-1 in the eighth inning. The sound you heard was not the grinding of gears but the grinding of teeth back  in New York. The hapless fuggin’ M’s. Enough already. So anyway, the Bombers loaded the bases and with one man out, Jason Nix planted a 2-2 pitch into the gap in left center field. That cleared the bases, gave the Yanks the lead and that lead would be good enough for a 5-2 victory thanks to an excellent performance from the bullpen.

Exhale y’all. Tomorrow gives a day off. Then: BoSox in the Boggie Down this weekend.

[Photo Credit: Hasisi Park; Procaine]

King Felix Hernandez worked out of trouble repeatedly last night as great pitchers often do. Fourth inning, Curtis Granderson and Alex Rodriguez singled and Robinson Cano got ahead 2-0 then fouled off fastball, slider, curve, change-up before popping up for the first out. Mark Teixeira walked but Raul Ibanez whiffed and Eric Chavez flied out. And that’s how it went.

But I’ve buried the lead. The story of the night is not that the Yankees lost it’s that Hernandez hit Rodriguez in the hand on a 3-2 change up–a 90 mph change-up at that–in the eighth inning and the news is not good: a non-displaced fracture. While the Yankees believe that Hernandez hit Rodriguez–or Derek Jeter or Ichiro, intentionally–Rodriguez will not play for the next 6-8 weeks.

“We lost Mo. We lost Andy and now we have lost Al,’’ Jeter told the New York Post. “We will see how good we are. It will be a challenge.’’

“It’s very unfortunate, a big loss. Alex was swinging the bat well,’’ Mark Teixeira added.

The hope is that he’ll recover with enough time to get his swing back before the playoffs. He couldn’t do it last year with a different injury. Either way, it’s a major drag. He goes out 128 hits away from 3,000; 63 RBI from 2,000.

He’s in decline but he’s never stopped playing hard and this year he stole bases and played smart. Another substantial injury for the Yanks to overcome. They can make it, of course, but even as an old man, Rodriguez makes the team better.

[Photo Credit: Kevin P. Casey/AP]

Some players fill their uniforms better than others and few guys look as neat and purposeful as Ichiro has in his garb. He’s a superhero–though we’ll leave it to Jon and other experts to tell us which one–trim and sharp: a cool motherfucker. Kind of guy makes me want to pick up a pen and draw. Yet the first thing I noticed when I saw him wearing a Yankee costume last night was how much he’s aged. Lot of grays on the hair, the face with deep lines and I could imagine what he’d look as a old man.

He bowed to the crowd at Safeco field in his first at bat–the pitcher, Kevin Millwood, graciously stepped off the mound to allow for the moment–and then singled to center field. Stole second too.

He was stranded at third and that was the only time he’d reach base but still, the game was one to remember–seeing Ichiro play his first game for the Yankees against the Mariners in Seattle.

Mark Teixeira had three hits and Alex Rodriguez had a couple of extra base hits–double and a solo home run–but the star was  Hiroki Kuroda who allowed a run on three hits and a walk over seven innings of work (he struck out nine). Sure, the Mariners can’t score, but the Yanks needed a win. Robertson and Soriano pitched took care of the eighth and ninth as the Yanks won, 4-1.

Last night, we wondered here in the comments section which veteran pick-up Ichiro will most resemble: Lance Berkman, Pudge Rodriguez, Straw, Rock Raines, Chili Davis? Does he have anything left? Is he an upgrade over Dwayne Wise? As our pal Matt Blankmon noted, Ichiro is certainly good for TV. He may be well past his prime but we’ll be eager to watch him, especially in the field. Thoughts of him nodding–even bowing?–to the bleacher creatures fill my head. Then watching him gun down a runner trying to take an extra base.

Yeah, the optimist in me is looking forward to this, a proud old DC character plopped into a winning Marvel Universe.

[Photo Credit:  Lindsey Wasson/seattlepi.com; Elaine Thompson /AP]

I missed the whole damn thing. Nothing but checked the score. I saw that the Yanks had a 4-0 lead, know that Rafael Soriano blew the save in the ninth and that scoring opportunities were squandered in the tenth and twelfth, and I know that the A’s won again.

Final Score: A’s 5, Yanks 4.

David Waldstein has the unsavory details.

That gives the home team a four-game sweep. The A’s won each game by one run and this is undoubtedly the high pernt of their season. Good for them. And lousy for the Yanks, a team that came into the weekend playing well and got their asses handed to them.

“You just can’t predict baseball,” as John likes to tell Suzyn.

Motherfuck it all.

Not the end of the world, of course, but this isn’t the sort of thing that’d make any fan pleased let alone this short-tempered Yankee fan.

Grrrfugginumble.

Notice a pattern here? The Yanks lost another well-pitich, one-run game last night, this time 2-1. It’s their third straight loss in Oakland.

Okay, so that’s the frustrating part. Three losses. But good starting pitching, man. Really good. Sometimes, these things happen. Bartolo Colon goes for the A’s today–against the local boy, C.C. Sabathia–so we won’t dwell on what happened last night cause the Yanks will win today.

[Photo Credit: Kevin Cooley]

Two game losing streak? Nothing to worry about. But enough. Time for a win, ya hoid?

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez DH
Russell Martin C
Dewayne Wise RF

Never mind the late night–and the game starts at 9 eastern, so it won’t run too late: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

One streak died on Friday night in Oakland, another survived, but more important to the overall picture, a losing streak was born.

When last the Yankees visited Oakland, they thumped the A’s in three straight games, and I spent a lot of time making fun of them in the one recap I wrote, comparing them to a minor league team as I shamelessly listed Oakland batting averages from one to nine, laughing all the way.

Things are different now. (For one thing, Yoenis Cespedes was on the disabled list during that series back in May. He’s been healthy and punishing Yankee pitching during this series, but more on him later.)

Early in the game a preposterous graphic popped up beneath Yankee starter Iván Nova. According to said graphic, not only did Nova lead the league in extra base hits allowed, he apparently led by a wide margin — 61 extras compared to the second place hurler who had only surrendered 49.

I was so baffled by this, that I spoke aloud to the television. “That can’t possibly be true.”

And here’s where things got a bit strange. Nova paused during his warm-ups, waited for the camera to zoom tight, then, as if he were Woody Allen or Ferris Bueller, he turned and looked directly into the camera… and answered me. Surely you noticed it, too.

“You don’t think I can give up extra base hits?” he asked. “Just watch me.”

With two outs in the first, he gave up a double to Josh Reddick, but recovered to escape the inning without allowing a run. In the third, there was a leadoff triple yielded to Coco Crisp, who scored the game’s first run on a Jemile Weeks sacrifice fly. The fourth inning opened with a Brandon Moss double, followed by a Brandon Inge double (Double Brandon doubles?) to double the lead to two.

Guess what happened in the fifth? Another leadoff double, this time to Reddick, but Nova survived that inning without allowing a run. He wouldn’t, however, survive the seventh, leaving after two outs with a deceptive line: only two runs allowed, but nine hits — five for extra bases.

Even so, Nova’s night would’ve been good enough for a win in any of the previous forty-three games, but on Friday night the fearsome Tommy “May Day” Milone was on the hill for the A’s, and the Yanks never got a sniff against him. He cruised through the first three innings, allowing just a harmless single to Curtis Granderson in the first.

Only twice in Milone’s seven innings were the Yankees able to put two runners on in an inning. The first instance was in the fourth, but it lasted only about ten seconds. Mark Teixeira singled with one out, and when Alex Rodríguez followed immediately with a soft single to right, third base coach Robby Thompson inexplicably started windmilling Teixeira around second and into third. To everyone in the stadium, aside from Thompson, I suppose, the outcome was never in doubt. The ball arrived two strides before Teixeira did, and the rally was dead.

Milone struck out the side in the fifth, then found a bit of trouble in the sixth. Derek Jeter reached on an infield single with one out, and one out later Teixeira moved him to second on a single of his own. A-Rod came up with an opportunity to change this recap, but instead he bounced into a fielder’s choice to third.

Millone did yield a somewhat questionable single to Robinson Canó leading off the seventh, but he set down the next three hitters — the last two on strikes — to finish off his night.

How good was Milone? He had been pitching well over his previous five starts, but nothing like this. Seven innings, six hits, ten strikeouts, and nothing else. I’m sure you remember the last time an Athletics pitcher struck out ten or more Yankees without allowing a run. It was ninety-nine years ago when Eddie Plank turned the trick.

And so it all came down to the ninth inning with the Yankees trailing 2-1. (Russell Martin had homered in the eighth.) When Canó validated his twenty-three-game hitting streak by leading off with a line drive that barely cleared the wall in left field to tie the score at two, everything seemed possible. There was life in the dugout, and suddenly it looked like the Yankees might steal a win in Oakland… I’ll give you a second to recover after reading that last phrase… and in doing so they’d extend that other quirky streak.

As the game rolled over to the bottom of the ninth, I convinced myself that it would happen. I should’ve known better, and the YES producers quickly reminded me by sliding one cold-water graphic after another up on the screen. First there was this: The Yankees are 0-30 and the only major league team without a win after trailing in the ninth inning or later. Next: The Oakland A’s have 9 walk-off wins, most in the major leagues.

Josh Reddick struck out swinging, but the rest of the night went like this: single, single, single, dog pile. (Cespedes, Jonny Gomes, and Brandon Moss, if you must know.) A’s 3, Yankees 2.

A new streak starts tomorrow.

[Photo Credit: Ben Margot/AP Photo]

If you’re out there on the East Coast and you decided not to stay up late for this one… Well, you made the right decision, as very little of note took place on Thursday night in Oakland.

One thing I love about baseball is that franchises have identities, and as odd as it might be, teams cling to those identities from one decade to the next, for better or for worse. How much have the Chicago Cubs changed over the past century? Aren’t the Dodgers always developing young talent, whether that kid is named Rick Sutcliffe or Mike Piazza or Matt Kemp? And the Yankees? Goes without saying.

On Thursday night the Oakland A’s reached back to their roots and made Charlie O. Finley proud, reminding us all that even through the division titles and league pennants and World Series rings they’ve won over the years, they’ve really just been a minor league team at heart. In an attempt to set a world record, the A’s invited fans to bring their dogs to the game; before the first pitch all 718 dogs and their owners paraded around the warning track, some in costume, others au naturel (the dogs, not the fans), and then retired to the stands to watch the rest of the game. There was no word on whether or not they actually set the record, but since neither Kevin Millar nor Pedro Martínez were involved in the attempt, it might actually have worked.

If you only watched that opening before going to bed, at least you saw the best part.

The Yankees started out as it seems like they’ve been starting all their games recently. Derek Jeter singled to right, and two batters later Alex Rodríguez hit a laser to left, putting runners on first and second with one out and the game’s hottest hitter coming to the plate in Robinson Canó. Business as usual.

The A’s had young A.J. Griffin on the mound, a big dorky-looking kid with glasses and four major league starts to his name. He had been good in those four starts, throwing six innings in each and allowing just seven runs for an ERA of 2.63. We know the Yankees tend to wilt in the presence of new pitchers, but surely this night — with this promising start — would be different.

It wouldn’t.

Canó sliced a line drive towards left, but Yoenis Cespedes raced in and made the grab for the first out. Or did he? After catching the ball on the run, he fumbled the ball on the transfer and it trickled to the turf behind him. Chaos ensued. Jeter assumed it was an out, so he went back to second, and A-Rod danced around a bit, shuffling back and forth at least five times between first and second. Cespedes stood stock-still for a few seconds in left, as if not even he knew what the hell was going on.

Third base umpire Brian Knight finally singled safe, but not everyone was convinced (probably because they knew he was wrong.) Cespedes picked up the ball and fired to Brandon Inge at third, nipping Jeter by about eighty-nine feet, then Inge flipped it to second, just missing A-Rod for what would’ve been the strangest 7-5-4 double play you’ve ever seen.

Replays confirmed that Knight and the rest of the umpiring crew had botched it, but the end result was the same as it would’ve been — two outs and runners on first and second. It just kind of set the wrong tone. Mark Teixeira grounded out to first and the inning was over.

Freddy García drew the start for the Yanks, and he was decent enough, allowing nine hits over almost six innings, but usually able to wriggle out of the trouble he started, just not here in the first inning. With two outs and Jemile Weeks on third, Cespedes pounded a monstrous home run to left for a 2-0 Oakland lead.

And then the Yankee hitters went to sleep for a while, lulled into submission by Griffin’s assortment of fastballs, changeups, sliders, and seventy-mile-an-hour curveballs. Raúl Ibáñez singled with one out in the second, but the next eleven Yankees went down like dogs, a string that stretched until Jeter opened the sixth with a blooped single to right.

By this point the A’s had added two more runs to double their lead to four, but it looked like the Yankees might make at least some of that back in the sixth. Following Jeter’s single and a Curtis Granderson strike out, A-Rod and Canó singled to load the bases, Canó’s hit extending his hitting streak to a worth-talking-about twenty-two games.

With Teixeira coming up, the only hitter in the lineup who’s been as hot as Canó, it was impossible not to dream about a game-tying grand slam, and when Tex launched a fly ball to deep center, there was a brief second when it looked like he might’ve done it… but alas, it was just a warning track sacrifice fly to score the Yankees’ first run. Swisher backed that up with a hard single to right to plate A-Rod and bring the Bombers to within shouting distance at 4-2.

Nothing of interest happened until the top of the ninth, as two questions remained. Could the Yankees pull out the win? (A graphic of cold water immediately told us that they were 0-30 this year when trailing after eight innings.) And if they couldn’t win, could they at least scratch out a run to keep their quirky but potentially historic streak alive, as they had scored three or more runs in forty-two straight games. Swisher rocked a homer to right to keep the streak going, but it wasn’t enough. A’s 4, Yankees 3.

Before the storm hit town and cut today’s game short–called after seven–Hiroki Kuroda didn’t allow a run and that was good enough to give the Yanks a three-game sweep over the Blue Jays.

6-0 was the final and the Bombers will enjoy their flight out west.

[Photo Credit: Dhani Jones]

Sure is nice to have C.C. back, isn’t it?

Yanks 6, Jays 1.

Andruw Jones had the big hit, a three-run homer. He’s got 12 dingers on the year, 432 for his career. Let me ask you this? Is Jones a Hall of Famer? I know that voters don’t tend to like players who have a long fade to black but Jones was a brilliant defensive player for what, ten years, right? I don’t think he’ll get in but I think he’s probably got a case.

Another question. Rank the following players as Hall of Fame candidates: Jones, Jim Edmonds, Johnny Damon and Bernie Williams.

[Photo Credit: Excess]

At the start of the broadcast today Paul O’Neill reminded viewers that Ivan Nova “knows how to win.” Then Erick Aybar hit a home run. Albert Pujols followed with a home run. So started an afternoon of frustration with Nova, and more pointedly (if irrationally), with O’Neill.

Alex Rodriguez tied the score with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first and the Yanks took the lead in the second on an RBI single by Derek Jeter. Jered Weaver wasn’t fooling the Yankee hitters much and Rodriguez and Robinson Cano had back-to-back hits in the third with one man out putting runners on the corners. Weaver stepped off the rubber and did the ol fake-to-third-throw-to-first play. He caught Cano who was tagged out in a short rundown and then Rodriguez was thrown out at home.

In the fifth, Eric Chavez singled and was doubled up when Russell Martin popped a bunt in the air back to Weaver.

Nova didn’t pitch poorly but he got into trouble in the sixth and couldn’t get out of it. Maicer Izturis–don’t ask because “Nova knows how to win,” right Paulie?–had the big two-run homer and the Angels were ahead, 5-3.

They added another run in the seventh but the Yanks hung around. Curtis Granderson, who made two fine, running catches, hit a solo homer in sixth, and Chavez hit a solo homer in the seventh. Then Chad Qualls shit the bed in the eighth as the Angels hit a few bloopers, ran, squeezed, one in the gap, and by the time Yanks came to bat, the game was 9-5.

Mark Trumbo hit a solo homer in the ninth and it seemed like that was that. But these Yanks don’t go quietly and against the Angels’ closer Ernesto Frieri they stagged a rally. Cano walked and then Mark Teixeria hit a two-run homer into the right field seats. Nick Swisher worked a 3-2 walk and after throwing ball one to Raul Ibanez, Frieri was replaced by Scott Downs. Ibanez took a breaking ball for a strike and then hit a ground ball up the middle. Looked like a sure double play, but it knocked off Downs glove and everyone was safe.

Meaning that Andruw Jones, pinch-hitting for Chavez, represented the tying run. Downs stayed away from Jones, keeping the ball low, keeping it slow. And he got him swinging on a tough, 2-2 slider. Russell Martin grounded into a fielder’s choice for the second out but then Jeter walked and Granderson walked, bringing home a run. 10-8.

Jepsen vs Rodriguez. Fastball, fouled back. Argh. It was smoke and Rodriguez put a good swing on it but he was just late. Slider, up, 1-1. Fastball, up and in, 97, swung on and missed. Another fastball, even higher, 2-2. Slider? No, another fastball, good pitch, 98 mph and Rodriguez was late. Popped it up to Pujols.

Fuck and shit is what you could see Rodriguez say as he ran to first and then walked to the dugout. And he wasn’t alone.

Final Score: Angels 10, Yankees 8.

Credit the Angels for taking this one. But it was a game the Yanks should have won.

[Photo Credit: Retro New York; Al Bello/Getty Images; Kathy Willens/AP]