Tampa spanked a Scranton-New York mash up 15-8, and that score does not do the game justice. It was 12-0 after four innings. The American League East Champions are entitled to a sleeper after clinching last night.

From this game we should take the following, in decreasing order of importance: nobody got hurt, Bartolo Colon was terrible, and Jesus Montero went three for three with two walks after a couple of ghastly games. The only regulars in the lineup were Jeter, Swisher and Teixeira, and they all came out after the game was out of hand in the fourth. Mad props to the Scranton boys who scored eight runs in the final few frames.

If I didn’t mention it earlier, the Yankees are American League East Champions. Before the season, I thought they had little chance to take the East crown. During the season, they proved me wrong and stayed close to the top, but I still never thought they’d outclass Boston because Boston was murdering them head-to-head. So to win the East so early that the last series with the Sox means diddly squat? Inconceivable.

Happy to be wrong. Hope I’m as bad at prognosticating the Postseason results because I still can’t see this rotation getting it done. To me, we’re in 2004-2007 territory. A great season, a great run differential, but having to throw one bad starter after another in the Postseason. The good news is that in AL at least, looks like everybody is in a similar jam. The Yankees can coast home from here, win a couple of the remaining games, rest players liberally and still pick up the best record in the AL. That’s what they’ll probably do.

But of course, given the fact that they play out the string against Red Sox and the Rays, the Yankees will determine the Wild Card winner. Should the Yankees arrange the off-days for the regulars so that the Rays play Scranton four times and the Red Sox draw the Bronx Bombers for all three games at the Stadium? There are two possible reasons for doing this: 1) The Yankees hate the Red Sox and want to ruin their season as early as possible. 2) The Yankees fear the Red Sox and want to avoid them in the ALCS if possible.

Going out on a limb, I think the first one is purely a fan’s reaction. Yankee fans would love to stick to the Sox, but for the Yankee organization, I hope it’s low on the priority list. If it came down to the last day of the season, and everything else was set in stone, and the Yanks could twist the needle by starting Brackman in the final game at Tampa, I could see that happening. But not some week long choreography.

But the second one deserves consideration. The Yankees are 4-11 against the Red Sox. CC Sabathia has struggled in all five tries against them this year. Of all the teams in baseball, they seem the most comfortable against Mariano. The most able to lay off the cutters outside the zone anyway. As a scaredy cat fan, I think they should do whatever possible to end Boston’s season now so that they don’t have the chance of losing to them in the ALCS.

Luckily, the Yankees are not comprised of scaredy cat fans. When I was a player, I certainly was not upset to see a top team knocked out of a tournament before we had to deal with them. But I also didn’t get too worked up about it one way or the other. If a team wants to consider itself a true champion, they’ve got to have the huevos to take out all comers. Whatever lineup Girardi puts out there should just try to win every game they play, and let the chips fall where they may.

Give guys rest. Line things up for the ALDS. But manipulate the final week of the season to push a floundering team out of the Postseason in favor of an equally good surging team? Pass.

The Yanks beat the Rays in the afternoon game today, 4-2, thanks to good pitching from seven different pitchers and some offensive muscle via Robinson Cano, and in the process secured a postseason spot – not that this had been too much in doubt the last few weeks. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Rays get a few wins in this series just to make the Red Sox sweat some more – there ain’t no Schadenfreude like Red Sox Schadenfreude – but as the night game went on, and the Sox lost, and the Yankees were poised to clinch the AL East, the whole enchilada… well, no complaining about that. It was 4-2 Yanks again, thanks to C.C. Sabathia and old pal and pinch-hitting hero Jorge Posada.

It was reassuring to see C.C. Sabathia looks slid after a few disconcertingly unsteady outings. The Big Man went 7.1 innings, allowed two runs, walked 2 and struck out 6. He did exit the game with the score tied at two, the bases loaded, and one out – but that’s what David Robertson is for. He entered and needed just a single pitch to get Ben Zobrist to ground into a double play and end the inning.

The excitement came in the bottom of the 8th, when Nick Swisher doubled, Mark Teixeira walked, Robinson Cano was intentionally walked, and then – somewhat to my surprise – Jorge Posada pinch-hit for The Jesus. You could hear a million Yankees fans, with the Al East title within reach, thinking “wouldn’t it be great if…” – and then he did. Okay, not a grand slam, the most dramatic possible outcome; but a nice two-run single that gave the Yanks the lead, the game, and the division. I don’t know how many more big ABs Posada has with the Yanks, but I’ll bet you can count them on your fingers.

I was one of those people who, before the season started, did not think the Yankees wouldd make the playoffs – I just thought they didn’t have the pitching. I’m not embarrassed by that prediction (unlike, say, my AL Central prediction, which I will aggressively suppress), because the Yankees’ staff, A.J. Burnett aside, has over-performed all year. No one expected Freddy Garcia, Bartolo freaking Colon, or Ivan Nova to be as good as they were- not Brian Cashman, not Joe Girardi, not even Garcia and Colon themselves. The team’s success is a testament to those guys, to the offense, and to the bullpen, with a hat-tip to Girardi – who drives me crazy at times, as all managers drive all fans crazy at times, but damned if he hasn’t pulled another good bullpen more or less out of his ass. Anyway, I thought they’d be good, but not this good, and whatever happens in the playoffs I am happy to’ve been wrong.

So many of this season’s big memorable moments have been about their aging greats – Jeter’s 3,000th, Mo’s 602nd, and now Jorge’s clincher, which while not supremely important – the Al East was not much in doubt – felt like a nice last hurrah. The old guard’s going out in a blaze of glory.

And you know, if the Rays were to win tomorrow…that’ll be just fine.

Yanks are back in the playoffs as they rally to beat the Rays, 4-2. Cano+Mo=Good to Go. Sox fans everywhere breath a sigh of relief.

We already knew that Ivan Nova has pitched well enough to be the Yankees number two starter. David Cone said on the broadcast tonight that young pitchers often start at home in the playoffs but that Nova has pitched even better on the road. So there’s that. And we know the kid makes us feel better than Bartolo, Hughes, Fab Five Freddy or A.J. Burnett. Against the Rays, he showed us why as he had a slider working, threw a sharp breaking curve ball and the heater was moving, clocked around 94 mph. He didn’t putz around and threw strikes. Mmm, mmm, good.

And when he ran into trouble, Nova didn’t panic. He gave up a lead off single in the top of the seventh, leading 5-0. Then a phantom hbp call put another runner on before Nova walked the number nine hitter to load ’em up. But he got Desmond Jennings out on a fly ball to Brett Gardner in left and then “escaped unscathed,” as they like to say, when B.J. Upton grounded into an inning-ending double play. Good thing too because although a five-run lead might sound like plenty, the Yanks left 637 men on base over the first six innings (for good measure they left the bases juiced again in the seventh and two men on in the eighth). Curtis Granderson did most of the damage with three hits, including two doubles, and four RBI. Eric Chavez also had an RBI base hit.

Nova lasted through two outs in the eighth, gave up a hit and Boone Logan got the final out. Luis Ayala came on to pitch in the ninth and the first pitch he threw was smacked right back at him. Ayala got a glove on it and the ball continued on past him. Robinson Cano moved to his right, slowed down to make sure his timing was right, fielded the ball, turned his body and side-armed the ball to first in time for the out. It’s a play that has become Cano’s signature move and man, does he ever look smooth making it. Always tops it off with a big smile too. After a walk, Jeter started a slick 5-4-3 double play to end it. Mark Teixeira with the beautiful scoop–and he had a couple of those tonight.

Final Score: Yanks 5, Rays 0.

And the magic number to clinch a playoff spot is down to two.

[Photo Credit: Symbiopsychotaxiplasm]

Ground ball, fly ball, strike out (looking). That’s how Mariano Rivera became the all-time saves leader this afternoon as the Yanks beat the Twins, 6-4.

The best. The greatest. The pleasure has been all ours.

Thank you, Mo.

[Picture Credit: Ricardo Lopez Ortiz]

Freddy Garcia suffered his first loss since July 15th. (Photo Credit / Darren Calabrese - Canadian Press)

Author’s Note / Excuse: Apologies for the delayed post. If you need further proof that the NFL, not Major League Baseball, is the National Pastime, try getting online between 1 and 4 p.m. on a Sunday to access photos from a baseball game to include in a recap. The requisite sites were performing at speeds not seen since 1997.

Threads in this space, elsewhere in the Blogosphere, the Twitterverse, Facebook — basically anywhere you search for Yankees information — have featured criticism of Joe Girardi for managing passively over the past week and a half. That judgment was typically reserved for his bullpen maneuvering, specifically in the one-run losses in Baltimore, Anaheim and Seattle, and then again in the series opener at Rogers Centre Friday night. Not as prevalent in those threads was that the “A” lineup, while physically present on the field, was doing little to help the winning cause.

Then on Sunday, with the Yankees’ magic number to clinch a playoff spot at five, the starting lineup looked more like one you’d see in mid-March than mid-September. Girardi has stated publicly that he’s been looking for places to give the regulars some rest. The counter, “Win the games, win the division, secure the playoff spot and then rest people.” And so it was that the only regulars in the starting lineup were Brett Gardner, Nick Swisher, A-Rod and J Martin.

The result was a feeble, fundamentally unsound 3-0 defeat that left the Yankees 4-6 on this season-long 10-game, four-city road trip. Brandon Morrow dominated the Yankees, striking out seven and walking only one. The Yankees had five hits, only two of which left the infield. Like in the early going Saturday, they ran themselves out of potential scoring opportunities. In the first inning, with Eduardo Nuñez Nuñez on second and Robinson Canó on first, Canó was thrown out on the tail end of a double steal. Later, in the top of the sixth, Nuñez, who Michael Kay and John Flaherty lauded on the YES telecast during his first at-bat, once again incited fans’ ire by inexplicably trying to turn a single into a double. Nuñez hit a clean single to rightfield. Nuñez tried to catch Jose Bautista napping, but it didn’t work. Bautista fired behind the runner to first base, where Edwin Encarnación fired to second to catch Nuñez by a mile. Inning over, potential rally over. Nuñez’s one-out double in the ninth inning marked the only other time in the game the Yankees had a runner in scoring position.

Meanwhile, Freddy Garcia surrendered three runs on five hits and three walks in 4 2/3 innings, and he made a throwing error that contributed to one of the three runs. In short, Garcia did little to pitch himself into consideration for either five-man rotation over the final two weeks of the regular season, or the playoff rotation.

Other things we learned …

* The Ghost of Raul Valdes, who pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh, may have shown that he could be the Yankees’ LOOGY over the next two weeks and into the postseason.

* The Yankees’ bullpen, in the last two games, pitched 9 1/3 innings of shutout ball. The group allowed just two hits and walked four — three by Scott Proctor — in that span.

* The Rays are white-hot. They beat up the Red Sox again and are surging toward a September comeback to rival the 2007 Colorado Rockies. The Yankees have a six-game edge over the Rays in the loss column, which may seem cushy with only 10 games left, but this week’s series at Yankee Stadium cannot be taken lightly. Depending on Monday’s result against the Minnesota Twins, sweeping the Rays would clinch that coveted playoff spot for the Yankees, leaving next weekend’s series against the Red Sox open for clinching the division.

This week features the games the regulars get paid the big money to play. Let’s see how the manager and the team respond.

Because there is no clock in baseball–or because the clock is controlled by outs not time–a single play or at-bat can become its own mini drama. Take Saturday afternoon. Bartolo Colon got smacked around and the Yanks made some base running mistakes (Robbie Cano, lookin’ at you, son) and were trailing 6-1. Then Alex Rodriguez hit a line drive, three-run home run in the sixth inning and suddenly they were back in the game, down 6-5. It was the first pitch and it was inside but Rodriguez tucked his hands in and turned on it, an encouraging sign.

Derek Jeter led off the seventh with an infield base hit and then Curtis Granderson had an at bat that was long and memorable. It lasted twelve pitches but there was a time out in the middle of it when a foul tip struck catcher Jose Molina on the forearm that lasted almost five minutes. When play resumed, with the count 2-2, Granderson kept fouling pitches off, and some good pitches at that–fastballs and especially good curve balls, diving down in the strike zone. He fouled one ball on the ground by his feet and it bounced straight up and knocked the bill of his helmet. “A painful at bat,” said Michael Kay on the YES broadcast. Finally, pitch number twelve, a change up, also a good one, down and away, was put in play. Or out of play, as Granderson skied a home run to left center field, his 40th of the year.

How good must that feel? He’d already gotten two hits and drawn a walk. Then he hung in there, fouling pitches off, and hit a tough change up for a home run.

It was the difference in the game. Mariano Rivera worked a scoreless 9th for the save, tying with with Trevor Hoffman at 601.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Jays 6.

A most satisfying win–a come-from-behind special–especially since the Red Sox also lost.

C.C. Sabathia had a live fastball but little control. Nick Swisher had a pair of two-out RBIs and Eric Chavez hit a two-run home run, otherwise, the Yankees’ offense was stuck in customs or wherever the hell they’ve been for the better part of the past week. And Boone Logan screwed the pooch in the end–though it was Cory Wade who allowed the game-winning hit–the dog being none other than one of those damned Molina brothers.

Yanks lose: 5-4.

Fug.

[photo credit: Nick Laham/Getty Images]

The Yankees started this West Coast trip in Los Angeles, against a great pitcher, after a rough travel schedule. They gagged a winnable game, 2-1, walk-off style. They won three of the next four. They seemed to have their feet under them, set to sweep Seattle, against a mediocre pitcher, looking ahead to their last day off of the season. And they gagged another winnable game, 2-1, walk-off style.

As easy as it was to anticipate the loss to Jered Weaver and the Angels on Friday night, the Yankees had to think this one was in the bag. But the Yankees did nothing for twelve innings and the Mariners, probably just out of sheer boredom, figured they’d better end the thing. Luis Rodriguez hit a game-ending home run off Cory Wade. He’s 31 years old, was out of baseball last year, and is hitting .176. Pretty much the same hitter as Jeff Mathis. It was his third extra base hit of the game.

It was Ivan Nova’s turn to shoot the fish in the barrel tonight. Against this team we have to recalibrate our expectations. A no-hitter would be a good game, a shut-out would be a quality start, etc. So Ivan Nova pitching over seven innings and allowing one run is an “OK job.”

The Yankees threatened to open the scoring in the third. Eduardo Nunez tucked a double inside the left field line, springing Andruw Jones from first with one out. Third base coach Rob Thomson waved Jones around third base. Given that Jones looked like he was reaching out for a little paper cup of water from Thomson at the time, it seemed like a bad move. Left fielder Mike Carp hit the second cut-off man Dustin Ackley, who relayed to Miguel Olivo, who ran out for a quick coffee from Zeitgeist around the corner, and then applied the tag with ease when he returned.

The Mariners broke the ice in the bottom half of the fourth, but to be fair, it was by accident. Ivan Nova lost the strike zone, walked two and threw a wild pitch. With two outs and men on the corners, a ball slipped high over Martin’s head. He got his glove to it, but couldn’t make the catch. Mike Carp was ready to run and scored the first run.

Flash forward to the seventh, yes, the seventh, and Nick Swisher notched the Yanks third hit with a solo homer to left. Eric Wedge removed Jason Vargas at that point. He held the Yankees to three hits and four base runners, and several trillion foul balls over six and two thirds. Even though the Yankees were pathetic, and they abandoned their patient approach after three innings, those first three frames served to jack up the pitch count so much that Vargas couldn’t even finish the seventh.

Ivan Nova came out for the eighth, and grooved a fastball to Luis Rodriguez. Having the night of his life, he doubled into deep right center. The Mariners bunted him to third. Eduardo Nunez vacated the position again, so Nova couldn’t nab the lead runner, even though the bunt was too hard.

The Yankees walked Ichiro intentionally in front of Kyle Seager and Dustin Ackley. Or as new pitcher David Robertson knows them, a couple of nails. The Hammer fell, pop out, strikeout, and preserved the tie.

Curtis Granderson led off the ninth and hit a long Yankee Stadium homer off of Brandon League. In Safeco, Ichiro caught it in front of the wall. Robinson Cano slapped a two-out double to left, and the Mariners walked Swisher to face Jesus Montero. League set him up with heat, and put him away with breaking stuff in the dirt. Montero struck out three times, popped out and squibbed one about ten feet in front of home plate.

Rafeal Soriano pitched the ninth. He blew away Mike Carp, but Adam Kennedy fisted one into shallow left. Eduardo Nunez could have caught it but didn’t. Friggin defense. Then Olivo lofted the ball down the left field line. Off the bat it looked like an out at medium depth. But when Gardner came in the picture, he was acres away from where the ball was going to land. He covered the distance in an instant and made a sweet sliding catch. Friggin A, defense! Soriano downed Wily Mo Pena to end the inning.

In the bottom of the tenth, Boone Logan came in for his first action since Baltimore. Logan got four outs and allowed two hits, but at least he got some lefties out. He stranded two runners in the tenth and then gave way to Cory Wade to strand one more in the eleventh.

In the top of the 11th, Mark Teixeira hit another deep out. It was well struck, but this place is just a black hole. The Yanks got four hits in twelve innings. They took two walks and got plunked twice. What a mess.

Justin Smoak and Jesus Montero were on the same field this series. It’s not Smoak’s fault, but as long as he is a Mariner, I’ll root against him. Smoak hurt his groin, Montero avoided injury, unless his feelings were hurt by having a really bad night. So advantage Montero, I guess. Montero sure doesn’t like to get a strike called on him. He spends a lot of time walking around the batter’s box, rolling his eyes and sighing.

Smoak’s dismal stats thus far in 2011 are .230/.324/.394, but somehow that OPS+ is above average, 103. How down is offense in general and how fallow a hitting environment is Safeco for that P.O.S. line to be above average? In Dodger Stadium in 1965, a dude named Lou Johnson hit .259/.315/.391 for an OPS+ of 104. So Safeco is basically a time machine.

This is getting depressing, let’s try some jokes.

Hey, how about this Mariner lineup? The Ghost of Ichiro, top prospect Dustin Ackley, and then seven guys they promoted from the food court earlier that day. No offense, but that’s no offense. How far gone is Ichiro? He grounded into a double play. Yeesh. Their best hope of moving out of the cellar next year is Bud Selig forcing the Houston Astros to relocate there.

And thank goodness Bud Selig’s fourteen year nightmare of having six teams in the NL Central might be over. Can you remember back in 1998 when that bastard owner of the Brewers, Bud Selig, forced the saintly commissioner, Bud Selig, to shoehorn the Milwaukee Brewers in there? He’s totally justified in strong-arming the potential new ownership in Houston to accept the move as a pre-condition of the sale.

Nah, not helping.

By the time this game reached extra innings, victory became secondary to just getting the hell out of that offensive graveyard. Heaven forbid the Yankees get permanently tainted by whatever’s going there to make that such a miserable team.

The Yankees have had every opportunity in these last eight games to take the division by the throat, make the next Boston series meaningless, and to rest their players in the final two weeks with nothing at stake. Instead they have lost four one-run heartbreakers, including three in extra innings and two as walk-offs.

If it feels like they never win in extra innings, you’re right. They are 4-10. But the Red Sox lost and they still have a four game lead, and something just as nice, a day off.

For eight innings in Seattle it was just a throwaway game on a Tuesday night. Robinson Canó hit a beautiful home run early on, A.J. Burnett was perplexingly effective with eleven strikeouts in six innings, and the Alabama Hamma pitched a perfectly imperfect inning in the eighth, loading the bases while striking out the side.

And then came the Great One.

He jogged in from the bullpen just the same as he had more than a thousand times before, not looking towards the mound but instead at the path that lay before him. One stride at a time, one save at a time. There was nothing different about this appearance except for the number attached. He came to the mound with 599 career saves, and since we like the round numbers more than the crooked ones, people were paying attention.

Every player, coach, and trainer in the Yankee dugout found a perch on the rail as the Great One took his warm-up tosses and prepared to face his first batter, pinch-hitter Wily Mo Peña. Peña struck out on five pitches for the first out, bringing up Ichiro. It’s looking like Ichiro will finish this season short of 200 hits for the first time in his career, but you never would have guessed that after watching this at bat. He took a ball and then a strike, exaggerating his bailout as if he were looking to drive a cutter over the fence in right. Perhaps noticing this (or failing to realize he was being set up) Russell Martin called for the fastball on the outside corner, and Ichiro pounced on it, neatly directing it between third and short as if he were hitting it off a tee.

Someone named Kyle Seager came up next, but his part in this narrative lasted just five pitches before he struck out and exited, bringing up Dustin Ackley. Ackley took ball one, then ball two, but suddenly Martin was jumping out of his crouch, the Great One was kneeling, and Martin was rifling a throw to Jeter, looking to nab Ichiro as he attempted to steal second. Ichiro was out, and Rivera had save number six hundred.

As soon as Jeter made the tag, the cameras cut back to Rivera, who was walking stoically down the mound towards his catcher just as he had 599 times before. In the days and weeks leading up to this, Rivera had spoken often about how neither this milestone nor the record that will come with his next save means anything to him, since he focuses only on winning. But sometimes people don’t understand the impact or importance of what they’ve done until they see how it affects those around them. When his teammates reached him, every single one of them embracing him and congratulating him, Rivera finally allowed himself to enjoy the moment.

Grumpy statisticians have dismissed the save as a misguided attempt to quantify the contributions of an overrated position, a pitcher who doesn’t get the most outs, simply the last handful. But more than any player on the roster, a closer is completely dependent on his teammates. A dominant starting pitcher can rise above poor hitting or shoddy fielding to lead his team to a win, but a closer can’t even get into a game unless the rest of the teammates have performed well enough to put the team in position to win. Equally important, the team cannot be successful in the end unless the closer gets those final, most precious outs.

There’s nothing new in any of that, but it points out that this record doesn’t belong only to Rivera. If you look closely you’ll see the fingerprints of John Wetteland, Bernie Williams, Jim Leyritz, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Paul O’Neill, Jeff Nelson, David Cone, Scott Brosius, David Robertson, Joe Girardi, Andy Pettitte, and countless others. Was Rivera great because he played for the Yankees or were the Yankees great because he was in their bullpen? It’s impossible to rip one half of that question from the other, but one thing is clear.

Mariano Rivera is the best there ever was.

[Photo Credits: Otto Greule, Jr./Getty Images; Elaine Thompson/AP Photo]

When you checked the names on the marque, you probably quickly decided that this would be the west coast game you wouldn’t stay up to watch. With King Felix Hernández on the hill for the Seattle Mariners and Phil Hughes hanging by his fingernails for the Yankees, this game was a Yankee loss written in ink. A funny thing happened, though. The Yankees won.

Don’t beat yourself up about going off to bed early. Judging by the lineup he trotted out, even Joe Girardi seemed to have chalked this one up. Nick Swisher was playing first, Eric Chavez was at third, Chris Dickerson was in right, and rookie Austin Romine was behind the plate.

It wasn’t exactly Murderers’ Row, but it was good enough as the Yanks jumped on Hernández in the top half of the fourth. Perhaps Mark Teixeira said it best when he explained , “He left a few balls up in the zone, in the middle of the plate, and we made him pay.”

Teixeira led off the fourth with a long home run deep into the Seattle night, and his teammates followed along. Including Tex’s homer, the Bombers had a single, two doubles, two home runs, and the King seemed like a commoner.

Hernández settled down, but all that heavy lifting in the fourth inning sucked a lot of the life out of him, and he was forced out of the game after the sixth. It didn’t much matter, though, because Hughes was dealing. He gave up just five hits and a single run, and stated his case to remain in the rotation for at least another turn. I doubt if Girardi even knows what he’s going to do.

There were two other notes of interest. Romine made his first career start at catcher, and he picked up his first major league hit, a sliced line drive to right field. Later on, when the game was salted away at 9-1, Girardi (or at least I assume it was Girardi) teased us by asking top prospect Dellin Betances to throw a bit in the bullpen. It would have been great to get a sneak peek at the 6’8″ Betances, but it didn’t happen on this night. Maybe later this series.

It’s hard to complain, though. A great night all around for the Yanks. Yankees 9, Mariners 3.

[Photo Credit: Otto Greule, Jr./Getty Images]

First day of pre-school tomorrow for my older boy. It’s the de facto last weekend of summer for us and we Phineas & Ferbed it. A worm hunt, sleep-over, co-op wide bar-be-cue, birthday party, soccer practice, knight’s quest, and a long walk through Washington Heights to Inwood. And he had questions about memorials around town today that I just couldn’t answer adequately, though I tried my best. There were also baseball games. I know because my phone is set to text me every score change in every Yankee game. So I saw the Yanks scored one run on seven hits over 18 innings against the Angels. I even watched the Friday night game.

But this losing streak didn’t phase me in the least. This team can hit. Jered Weaver and Dan Haren can pitch, especially in their ballpark. The Yanks have thumped those guys before, especially in our ballpark, which is probably where we’ll see them if they work themselves into the Postseason. Ervin Santana isn’t quite as good as Weaver and Haren, but he’s no slouch. And the Yankees did just fine against him today.

They fought back several times as Freddy Garcia put them in a hole and kept digging. And when they finally evened the score, the baseball gods rewarded them with the type of break we’re unaccustomed to seeing in Anaheim. Mark Teixeira lofted a fly ball to deep center with one out and the tying run on third. It was well struck, but it never looked like anything other than an out. Right up until it clanked off the heel of Peter Bourjos’s glove. Derek Jeter scored the go-ahead run all the way from first and the bullpen made it stick. Yanks win, 6-5.

Freddy Garcia threw to Jesus Montero catching his first big-league game. Montero will remind nobody of Johnny Bench back there, but shockingly, he prevented a few of the balls from skipping to the backstop, threw out a runner stealing second, and did not spontaneously combust at any time. It was the second inning when Mike Scioscia decided to test the rookie for the first time. He sent Alberto Callaspo on a 1-2 count. Freddy Garcia obliged with a slow slider, low and outside. Montero snagged the ball as he drew himself into throwing position and delivered a seed on target to Eduardo Nunez. Not that close.

One play will not rewrite the story on Montero, but we need to remember that scouts don’t like his long-term ability to stick at catcher. That doesn’t mean he can’t play there sometimes in the short-term. The Yankees can still get excellent value by playing him there occasionally, DHing him often, and perhaps teaching him how to play right field and first base in the mean time. The Angels stole two bases on him later in the game and he couldn’t prevent a run-scoring wild pitch. Wake me when the Rays steal nine bases on him or something like that.

Speaking of rookie catchers, due to injuries to Cervelli and Martin, Austin Romine got the quick call-up and jumped behind the plate to catch the top three Yankee relievers. He didn’t get a chance to bat, but going from AA to a cup of coffee with Scranton was supposed to be the high point of his season. Catching Mo’s 599th save in his MLB debut must have blown his noggin.

Freddy Garcia wasn’t very good, but the bullpen was. If the Yankees are going to win games in the Postseason started by someone besides CC, expect the box score to look like this one. Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano hit home runs to keep the game close. Granderson’s recent slump illustrates how crucial his production is to the lineup. He’s been a bedrock this season, month-to-month reliability. And then five for 38 to start September. The slump has quieted any MVP talk, but there’s still time to turn that around with a hot finish. Regardless of appearances, with Arod contributing little this year, the team revolves around Granderson and Cano.

Mariano Rivera is one save away from 600, two saves away from tying the all-time record, and three away from claiming the record for himself. We all know saves are a poorly conceived statistic that have probably caused more harm than good in the game, but as long as Mariano is the all-time leader in something, they can’t be all bad.

The Red Sox couldn’t break their losing streak today, so the Yankees inched forward to a 3.5 game lead, four in the loss column. The Rays are charging as the Yanks and Sox stumble, but they’re too far back to bother the Yankees. They’re too far back to catch the Red Sox, but bother them…yeah, I think they have officially bothered them.

All this transpired on the last day of our summer vacation. I didn’t see it, but I did see this:

The snail was slow and it left a trail of slime, but eventually it got where it was going.

Even before Saturday night’s game in Anaheim, it seemed like the Yankees hadn’t won a game in a week. Now it feels like a week and a half.

For the second night in a row, the Yankees received a representative outing from their starting pitcher only to be shut down by a dominant Angels’ hurler. On Friday night it was Jered Weaver out-pitching Bartolo Colón (although in fairness to Colón, the only run he allowed was unearned), and Saturday saw Dan Haren topping CC Sabathia.

How good was Haren? He gave up a leadoff double to Derek Jeter to open the game, then a harmless single to Jesus Montero to lead off the second, and that was it for a while. He set down the next eighteen Yankee hitters, and by the time Eric Chávez singled in the eighth to snap the string, the Angels led 5-0 and the game was out of reach.

Sabathia wasn’t nearly as dominant, but he was good. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, yielded a run in the second on consecutive two-out doubles by Jeff Mathis and Macier Izturis, and fought through what must’ve been utter disbelief when Jorge Posada replaced Russell Martin behind the plate in the third. (In related news, the world did not come to an end.)

The Big Man’s most eventful inning was the sixth. Rookie Mike Trout doubled to lead off the frame, and Erick Aybar immediately squibbed a bunt that died midway between the plate and the mound. Both pitcher and catcher reacted slowly, and by the time Posada fielded and fired it to first, Aybar was safe and the speedy Trout had raced all the way home to give the Angels a 2-0 lead.

Even as the play was developing, something didn’t seem right. Both Sabathia and Jeter pointed in at the plate before Posada had even fielded the ball, and Girardi rushed from the dugout as soon as Trout touched home. Replays showed that Aybar’s bunt had actually gone foul before ricocheting off his knee back into fair territory. The umpires convened and got it right.

What was interesting, if not surprising, was how the Yankees’ and Angels’ broadcasters had completely different reactions to the play. The YES cameras found Girardi immediately, and they were quick to cut to multiple replays confirming the foul ball. As the home plate umpire listened to Girardi’s argument, Michael Kay breathlessly declared, “If they don’t reverse this, Girardi’s going to get kicked out of the game!” Seconds later, there was an air of righteous relief in the booth as the announcers congratulated the umpires for doing the right thing.

From the other side of the press box, it was a completely different play. The Fox Sports cameras zoomed tight on Trout as he jumped up from the plate, exultant after doubling his team’s lead. They cut quickly to the overjoyed crowd, then found Trout again as he bounced triumphantly into the dugout to receive his congratulations. When the cameras finally cut to Girardi and the umpires, the Angels’ announcers seemed completely surprised and wondered openly about what was going on. Here’s where things got really interesting, though. When the replay showed what happened, they wondered why they would overturn the call if they hadn’t seen it and called it in the first place. When manager Mike Scioscia rushed out to argue, they supported him completely, even though they must’ve known that Scioscia knew the ball had been foul.

After Aybar returned to the plate, Sabathia hit him with his next pitch and eventually loaded the bases with one out before producing two groundouts to escape and strand the bases loaded for the second time in the game. Sabathia’s evening was done. He wasn’t great during those six innings — eight hits, four walks, a hit batter, and 119 pitches — but on most nights it would’ve been good enough for a win.

On this night, though, Haren was unbeatable. (If you must know, it was Hector Noesi who coughed up four runs in the seventh to put the game out of reach, but I don’t really want to talk about that.) Haren gave up two singles in the eighth, but wriggled free when short stop Aybar dropped an Eduardo Núñez line drive and turned it into a 6-4-3 double play. (More nonsense from the Angels’ announcers: Mark Gubicza gushed about Aybar’s “baseball intelligence” for having the presence of mind to throw to second for the force after misplaying the line drive. Aybar will likely miss Sunday afternoon’s game because he’ll be in Stockholm to accept the first ever Nobel Prize of Baseball.)

But back to Haren. He cruised through the ninth to finish his 5-0 shutout, and the Yankees were left to ponder a sobering reality. In seventeen innings against Weaver and Haren, they looked like Little Leaguers. The combined line: 17 IP/7 H/1 R/2 BB/18 K. The Angels are charging, and I think it’s likely that they’ll overtake the Texas Rangers and win the A.L. West. Three weeks from now the Yankees might be looking at the prospect of facing Weaver in Game 1 and Haren in Game 2.

Buckle up.

[Photo Credit: Jae Hong/AP Photo]

The Yankees are in the middle of a tough stretch. Bad breaks. Horrid weather. Stupid travel. And waiting for them after a long flight to the west coast, Jered Weaver and the still-kicking Angels. After wining at 2:15 am on Wednesday morning to keep a 2.5 game lead over the Red Sox, they’ve lost three in a row…and still have a 2.5 game lead over the Red Sox. So things could be a lot better, but they could also be a lot worse.

Jered Weaver’s stats sparkle. And that’s even considering he allowed six homers and 21 runs in three recent games – over a third of his season total in both categories. Before that, they were really special. It seems like he was thrown off track by some irregular rest. First he had too much, as he served a suspension and returned to a rout by the Jays. And then too little, as Mike Scioscia juggled the rotation so he could face the Rangers on short rest. He got drilled in Texas and still wasn’t sharp when he beat Minnesota.

He’s caught up on regular rest now, though, and chewed up the Yankee lineup with his sneaky fast 90 MPH heater and 12-to-6 deuce. Weaver threw eight innings of three-hit ball, striking out eleven. There weren’t many comfortable swings and few hard hit balls. Jesus Montero might have had all of them. Batting eighth, the rookie DH was able to snap the bat head out to meet a two-strike fast ball on the inside corner. Live, it looked like he was jammed. But slow motion showed him pull his hands in so he could get the barrel on the ball. He struck like lightening and sent the ball to the back of the bullpen in left. He also tagged one straight to the right fielder and made a bid for extra bases down the third base line but was foiled by Alberto Callaspo’s hockey-goalie reflexes.

Bartolo Colon was not as impressive as Jered Weaver, but he still made short work of a weak lineup. He only allowed six hits in seven innings, and two of those were bunts. Colon’s going to be in the post season rotation and a game like this show why. He went toe-to-toe with one of the best pitchers in the league, on the road, and was very good. In fact, he might he beaten Weaver if his defense didn’t let him down in the fifth.

Speedster supreme Peter Bourjos bunted for a single. Alex Rodriguez wasn’t playing too deep, broke quickly and fielded cleanly, but still didn’t even bother to make the throw. If this guy puts down a credible bunt, it’s a hit. Next, Derek Jeter botched the throw on a fairly routine play. Bourjos was in motion, forcing Jeter to go to first, but his errant heave looked amateurish at best – like he was expecting to make the play on 60 foot bases, and then looked up and realized he was playing on the big field. Colon got another grounder, but the Yankees couldn’t turn two. Howie Kendrick’s two-out single seemed inevitable.

In the bottom of the seventh, the Angels got their second bunt hit of the game. Erick Aybar showed bunt a hair early, got Arod to commit to charge from third, and then bunted hard right past him into left field. If Jeter didn’t get to the ball quickly, it would have been a bunt double. Impeccable bat control. How often do we see that play? Once a decade?

The Angels have 38 bunt hits. They are carrying the scars of one of the worst transactions in recent memory, in which they gave up Mike Napoli for the chance to play Vernon Wells and Jeff Mathis in the same lineup. Their rest of the offense is not exactly compensating for their struggles. And yet here they are, a few games out of the division lead behind everybody’s darlings, the Texas Rangers (who figured out how to put Mike Napoli in their lineup everyday). Mike Scioscia does it a different way. 38 bunt hits.

The starters gave way to the Plan A relievers. David Robertson hammered through his customary 1-2-3 inning. Jordan Walden, a stranger to the strike zone every time I’ve ever seen him throw, walked Alex Rodriguez with one out. Joe Girardi pinch ran for Arod with Eduardo Nunez. Scioscia called the pitch out when Girardi called the steal, and Mathis gunned down Nunez.

So let’s see, cleanup hitter, owner of 628 Major League home runs, taken out of a tie game. Good fielding third baseman, owner of several good plays tonight, taken out of a tie game. Pinch runner, thrown out stealing, killing the ninth inning of a tie game. New third baseman, Ramiro Pena, immediately tested in the bottom of ninth in the tie game, can’t make the play and the winning run is one base with no outs.

Joe Girardi threw a hand grenade into this game in the ninth inning. And that’s without even mentioning that he chose Aaron Laffey and Luis Ayala to pitch the ninth inning. After Callaspo singled past Pena, Scioscia called for a hit and run, and Vernon Wells singled past Pena. (I don’t know if Arod could have come any closer to making those plays. Pena was hugging the line to prevent doubles, maybe Arod would have positioned himself differently. They were both catchable for a third baseman at normal depth.)

The Angels were set up at first and third and nobody out and it was just a matter of choosing the weapon and the room of the mansion at that point. It went defensive indifference, HBP, and a sac fly by pinch hitter Macier Izturis with the bat in the library. Angels 2, Yanks 1.

Bartolo Colon pitched well and that’s good looking ahead. Jesus Montero was all over Jered Weaver, on a night when the rest of the team couldn’t sniff him. That’s great news looking ahead. Joe Girardi keeps pinch running for his best players and choosing crappy relievers over Mariano Rivera (though I don’t know who was available after the recent craziness), that sucks.

Dogs can hear things that people cannot but at 4:15 this afternoon most Yankee fans, no matter where they were or what they were doing, tilted their head to the side and listened with a bemused look on their face, struck by the piercing, collective wail that came from any Yankee fan who happened to be watching TV when Scott Proctor entered a 4-4 game in the bottom of the ninth.  Nobody else could hear this sound, of course, but we all could. Some of us might have had the urge to scratch ourselves, some, no doubt,  started foaming at the mouth, while others still just shrugged and went back to sleep, or work, or whatever else they were doing.

Now, you can’t blame Proctor for being what he is–and after all, this is the same guy who burned his mitt after a bad outing a few years ago–but would you believe, he worked around two base runners and sent the game to extra innings. It’s the truth.

It had been a nutty game to that point so maybe it wasn’t such a surprise. It was  gritsey and gutterly or plain fuggin stupid, depending on who you were rooting for. Ivan Nova had an early 4-1 lead but then the Yankee offense did plenty of nothing while the O’s chipped away–they got on base while the Yankees made errors. They had two men thrown out at the plate (crash, boom, bang) but tied the score against Rafael Soriano. By this time, any self-respecting Yankee fan following along was irritable bordering on Bill Bixby furioso.

Kevin Gregg struck out four Yankee batters in a row–Andrew Jones, Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira and on to the bottom of the tenth they went. Ol’ Proctor struck out Mark Reynolds and maybe got ahead of himself. Nolan Reimold reached on an infield single, Chris Davis walked and then some twerp named Robert Andino screwed the pooch for good, singling home the winning run.

You can’t blame Proctor. He is what he is. You can howl at the moon all you want. But it’s probably best to lick your privacy, curl up, and go back to sleep.

O’s swipe it, 5-4.

The nice thing about running your own blog is that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I just got home, it’s cold and raining, I’m hungry, and the last thing on my mind is recapping a 5-4 loss in extra innings. It’s enough to say that A.J. Burnett was wild in lousy conditions, Jesus Montero had a couple of RBI, and the Yanks were this close to tying it in the bottom of the eleventh. It wasn’t to be.

Let’s take the long view–we won’t remember this game in three weeks let alone three months.

Fuck it, Dude, have a hot coco:

[Photo Credit: via bitchassbidness]

The future schedule is packed so tightly there’s no room for rainouts and make-ups. Last night’s game was rainout from start to finish, yet they played anyway. The first pitch was after 11:00 PM and the game didn’t end until 2:15 AM. The Yankees won 5-3, and much more importantly, no one got hurt.

Phil Hughes got the water-logged ball late last night. I wonder if he was glad to pitch while nobody was watching. He was very good under adverse conditions, striking out five in six innings and only walking one. He held the Orioles scoreless for the first five innings before Weiters touched him for a two-out, two-run homer. It tied the game at two and Hughes was done after six. The fact that Hughes did not dissolve in the rain was a positive result; six good innings were bonus material. Teix singled in Jeter to back-up Hughes and give him a brief shot at earning the victory.

Posada had a time-capsule game for us – a homer and a base running blunder. If he only got behind the plate and made no attempt to frame any pitches and dropped a couple of fastballs down the middle, it would have been a definitive collection.

Girardi asked three pitchers to get through the seventh when one probably would have been a better choice. Boone Logan came in to face one lefty and failed. When a LOOGY fails, it shakes the earth. They get one hitter and no chance at redemption.

Forgive the Orioles for looking past the bottom of the seventh after Posada ran into the second out. With nobody on, Francisco Cervelli at the plate and Brett Gardner on deck, Buck Showalter might have been looking ahead at match ups for the eighth when the top of the Yankee order would come to bat.

Snap, crack, back-to-back jacks. Cervelli has been channelling Bill Dickey lately and Gardner is having a strong start to September. It was an unlikely pair to hit consecutive homers, their fourth and seventh respectively.

The Yankees pounced on the lead and sent the Hammer and the Sandman out to seal the win. The Hammer had a very disappointing outing, only striking out one batter. Let’s chalk it up to the rain. Mariano worked around a error by Teixeira and zipped through the next three hitters. I hope the Yankees have PJs in their lockers, because tomorrow afternoon figures to be much more of the same – a rainy day and an unforgiving schedule.

Just when the authors of this blog had given up on the chance of a game being played and decided to hit the sack–it is a school night, after all–the Yanks and Orioles took the field. They got it in and the game ended after two in the morning New York time. We are happy to report that under 1,000 fans, often referred to as “brave souls,” but more aptly known as “complete nuts” or “stadium employees,” watched the Yanks win. Upon further review, it would have been worth staying up just to hear John Sterling bellyaching.

Jon D will be around in a bit to give you some more details.

That is all.

Freddy Garcia got lit up but good this afternoon. He gave up seven runs, didn’t make it out of the third, and yet the Yanks were still leading when he went to the showers. That’s cause they put up six runs in the second inning, highlighted by a grand slam from Robinson Cano. It came off the second Orioles pitcher of the day, Chris Jakubauskas, who threw Cano nothing but fastballs. I couldn’t figure it at the time and sure enough, Cano ripped the seventh pitch he saw into the right field bleachers.

The Orioles kept at it–they scored a run off our old pal, Scott Proctor (and yes, the comments section here was alive with mordant humor)–but the Yanks stayed in front thanks to two home runs by Jesus Montero, a solo homer and a two-run shot, both to right field. Couple of curtain calls, the full Monty.

Sometimes they don’t come easily and even Mariano Rivera struggled.

He allowed a run in the ninth and there were runners on second and third when he struck out J.J. Hardy to end the game.

Hey, perfection is overrated. Bottom line, Mo got the save, Yanks got the win.

Exhale, lay back, smile.

Final Score: Yanks 11, O’s 10.

C.C. Sabathia, another fine performance. He left the game with one out in the eighth and the best player in the American League did this to Rafael Soriano. (Never mind that he’s 0-18 against Sabathia.)

But then the Yanks scored a mess-o-runs in the bottom of the inning and sailed to a 9-3 win. Mariano Rivera was warming up in the Yankee bullpen when Nick Swisher hit a two-run home run to make it 7-3. Before the ball landed, Rivera stopped throwing, and headed back into the bullpen clubhouse. Not a wasted movement with that man.

Derek Jeter hit a three-run homer and had 5 RBI in all. Alex Rodriguez added a solo shot–he got jammed and was frustrated with the swing but the ball carried over the right field fence all the same–and Jesus Montero had a couple of hits.

The Red Sox lost. Sabathia has win #19. We are happy.

Meanwhile, after the game, Joe Girardi announced that the Yanks are sticking with a six-man rotation for now.

[Photo Credit: Icekingg]