We know the old cliche–heck, when it comes to sports and sports writing, sometimes everything feels like a cliche–“He pitched just well enough to win,” or “He pitched good enough to lose.” Last night, Johan Santana, vexed by bad luck on a bad team, pitched just good enough to lose. Again. Meanwhile, CC Sabathia, a good pitcher on a good team, pitched poorly, but well enough to keep his team in the game.

As Tyler Kepner writes in a good column today about Felix Hernandez:

Mike Mussina used to say that the best pitchers win half their starts. Mussina did that almost precisely over 18 seasons, winning 270 of his 536 career starts. Mussina understood the finicky role luck plays in wins and losses. But he also knew that, over time, a pitcher’s luck tends to even out. He deserved 270 victories, and that is what he got.

When the smoke cleared–presumably from all the fireworks that explode after a White Sox hits a home run–the Yanks survived a wild night of offense, 12-9. A good thing, as the Rays edged-out the Red Sox. Once again, the Yanks and Rays are tied for first place.

For the best and brightest of recaps, check out our friends at: River Ave Blues, Yankeeist, the Daily News, New York Post and New York Times.

Mark Teixeira left the game early and is listed as day-to-day with a bone bruise.

[Picture by Bags]

Atrocious. That’s how Michael Kay described AJ Burnett’s performance tonight in Chicago. Nine runs in 3.1 innings. Maybe it was all a bad dream, huh, Meat?

Nope, it actually happened. Seen it with my own eyes. And if Burnett wasn’t bad enough, the rest of the team played like Chico’s Bail Bonds. Francisco Cervelli’s little star has not only crashed to earth, it’s been dismantled to the point where it doesn’t matter how cute he is, his performance, behind the plate and at bat, is lacking. That Yankees were listless for long stretches of the game, scratching out just six hits.

Here’s a shot from Joe Girardi’s post-game team meeting with the team.

Bull Durham and The Bad News Bears. Makes for a great double feature but a lousy model for, you know, winning a real game.

“This is one of those games where you hope the whole team gets it out of its system because they just want to turn the page quickly,” said Ken Singleton. The long view. Right, what he said.

The White Sox whipped the Yanks, 9-4. The Red Sox also beat the Rays, so the Yanks remain tied with Tampa for first place. Boston is just four-and-a-half back.

The Yanks are the defending World Champs and share the best-record in baseball with the Rays. But after CC Sabathia–who pitches on Saturday night–their starting rotation is suspect. The Red Sox are lurking. Could the Yankees–or the Rays, for that matter–spit the bit down the stretch? Could the Red Sox, improbably, make the playoffs?

Stranger things have happened. I’m not panicked but I haven’t been impressed with the Yankees of late and I’m far from comfortable.

It was raining at the Stadium this afternoon when Robinson Cano launched a gram slam into the bleachers. That gave the home team a 5-0 lead for CC Sabathia, more than enough even after a long rain delay. When it was all said and done, Cano had a career-high six RBI and the Score Truck put a ten spot on the board as the Bombers cruised to a 10-0 win. That’s win number 17 for CC.

It started ugly but ended, if not pretty, than well enough for the Yanks today in the Bronx as they beat the Mariners, 9-5. Ichiro! led off the game with a home run against Javier Vazquez and then Russell Branyon became the first man to hit a home run into the right field upper deck at the new Yankee Stadium (Branyon is also the only player to hit the Mohegan Sun bar in center). The Yanks scored four in the bottom of the first (two-run single by Robinson Cano and a two-run dinger by Jorge Posada) but Vazquez gave it back and didn’t last long–three innings. This after not making it into the fifth in his previous two starts.

Right now, it’s CC Sabathia and pray for the Score Truck…

Jason Vargas, meanwhile, retired fifteen straight Yankees after the tough first inning. The score remained tied at four until the bottom of the sixth when Eduardo Nunez got his first big league hit–punching a high change-up, well out of the strike zone, through the hole in the right side of the infield for an RBI single. The ball came back to the infield and was passed over to the Yankee dugout. On its way, Nunez, briefly held it. He was standing on first, smiling. He kissed the ball, smiled some more and tossed the ball to Gene Monahan, the Yankee trainer, for safe keeping.

The Yanks added a couple of more runs, then another one in the ninth on their way to the win. Mariano Rivera, that bum, that zero, that dog, allowed a run in the ninth raising his season ERA to 1.18 (bum!). Otherwise, the Yankee bullpen was terrific, especially Chad Gaudin, who pitched three scoreless innings.

A nice win for the Yanks, though another rotten outing for Vazquez does nothing to help the digestion. On top of that, Alex Rodriguez is headed to the DL. “We’re going to play it safe,” Joe Girardi said after the game. “We don’t think he’s any worse than the time before.”

Right-handed pitcher Ivan Nova will take his place on the active roster. Nova will make his first major league start on Monday.

* * * *

Elsewhere, around the majors, Cliff Lee got beaten about the face and neck again today, this time by the Orioles (eight runs in 5.2 innings). The Red Sox and Jays play at 7, the Rays are in Oakland again later tonight.

[Picture by Bags]

It was over before it started. Ichiro singled to begin the game last night and Chone Figgins followed with a walk before Russell Branyon hit a long three-run homer, putting the Yankees in a hole that they would not climb out of against the dominant Felix Hernandez who tossed another gem at ’em in the Bronx. Actually, dominant might be overstating things, the man only threw eight shut-out innings this time, and didn’t have the nerve or reserve to finish them out. By that time, the game was in hand, however, as the Mariners skipped to a 6-0 win.

The bad news is that Alex Rodriguez had to come out of the game after just one at-bat. He hasn’t been placed on the DL but is back to being day-to-day.

Good news from out-of-town helped ease any hard feelings Yankee fans might have. The Red Sox were pounded at Fenway to the tune of 16-2, and the A’s staged a late-inning comeback to beat the Rays, 5-4. Yanks are still in first, ahead of the Rays by a game and in front of the Sox by six. And although Jason Vargas, today’s pitcher for the Mariners, has been outstanding this year, the Yankees can at least take stock in the fact that he’s not a King.

In the second inning yesterday afternoon, Mark Teixeira chased a pop fly hit by Johnny Damon. Teixeira was in foul territory when he put a glove on the ball and started to slide. What followed will be sure to make those How About That? highlight reels that are played on Stadium Jumbotrons between innings. The ball popped out of his glove twice but he held on and made the catch.

The very next pitch Phil Hughes threw was lined to deep left center field. Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner raced for the ball, headed straight for each other, giving viewers that sickening feeling that you get right before you see an accident. They arrived at the ball at the same time, both tried to make the catch. Granderson came up with the ball as Gardner spun away. Fortunately, neither man was hurt.

The Score Truck showed up in the sixth inning as the Yanks rallied for nine runs, more than enough to dispose of the angry Tigers.

For more on the game, check out:

River Ave Blues

The Yankeeist

It’s About the Money, Stupid

and The New York Times.

Yanks 11, Tigers 5.

The score truck brings treats.

Right, Nigel?

From his first pitch, which nailed Brett Gardner on the right leg and prompted some pointing (and possibly a warning, more on that later) from the home plate umpire Eric Cooper, Jeremy Bonderman exhibited the disposition of a dull teenager enduring the facts-of-life lecture from prattling parents. His annoyed expression and frequent shoulder shrugging suggested he wanted to anywhere else but on the hill at Yankee Stadium. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, he managed to stick around for five innings, seven runs and three homers. In fact, after he drilled Brett the Jet and let up back-to-back jacks (courtesy Teixeira and Cano) in the first, it crossed my mind that Bonderman just might rear back and fire one at Swisher’s melon to earn the automatic heave-ho and the warmth of an early shower. With times being tough all over, I guess the probable suspension was too much of a financial risk, and luckily for the Yanks, he stayed in the game.

As soundly as the Yankee hitters pounded Bonderman’s weak offerings, Dustin Moseley prevented the game from becoming a laugher. For awhile, he was holding the non-Cabrera portion of the lineup at bay, surrendering “only” two solo homers to Miggy through the first four innings. But when Don Kelly brought his .279 career slugging percentage to the plate in the fifth and deposited a hanging breaking ball a few feet over Austin Kearn’s outstretched glove for a two-run home run, the game took on an ominous, too-close-for-comfort feeling that persisted (for me anyway) until it was over.

The battle of the bullpens got interesting in the seventh when Boone Logan and Kerry Wood loaded the bases on three singles. With one out, Wood dug deep and produced big-time strikeouts of Santiago and Raburn. (Other than a few too many walks, Wood has had a really fine first nine innings for the Yankees) Then the Tigers tried to walk the same tight rope, but Austin Kearns played the bully and sent them spilling to the earth with a booming ground rule double to plate two runs and increase the Yankee lead to five.

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Open skies! Pour forth your cleansing draught. Purify this field, this team, this season. Wash away age and rust. Leave gleaming life where spread decay and rot. And quietly, gently carry away the dead in your bubbling floodwaters. Give us the promise of a new day, with blazing sun, clean slate and the hope of…

What’s that? It stopped raining? Oh crap, they kept playing.

Javy Vazquez discharged pus for 105 pitches through four innings and made Sergio Mitre’s appearance a welcome sight. Until the ninth, the Yanks best offense was either a dropped pop-up or Francisco Cervelli’s feeble attempt to drive in the tying runs in the seventh (Granderson did have three hits, but batting in front Cervelli nullifies anything but a home run)

Just as Cervelli was failing in the seventh, Tampa was mounting a gutsy, late-inning comeback against Cliff Lee, the blazing sun, to settle the Rays into a first place tie in the AL East. They needn’t feel claustrophobic sharing the penthouse, the Yanks won’t be staying there long playing like this.

The ninth inning deserves its own paragraph. After Miguel Cabrera padded the lead to a really daunting 3-0, Valverde completely lost the strike zone and walked Cano, Cervelli and Gardner (none of them even took the bat off their shoulders) around one of Granderson’s singles. Derek Jeter’s season-long battle with his strike-zone judgment and weak ground balls reared its ugly head at the worst possible time. Instead of simply not swinging, he flailed at a 2-1 pitch out of the zone that would have made the count 3-1, and then tapped weakly into a game ending double play (amazing turn by Carlos Guillen) after the count ran full. By simply not swinging, I bet he would have walked and given the Yanks a real shot an undeserved victory.

Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher left the game with injuries. It seems the Yankees are really going to attempt to win the World Series with only a couple of guys having decent seasons. Color me skeptical. In losing to the reeling Tigers 3-1, they looked like a tired, broken-down mess.

After a herky-jerky motion Max Scherzer issues sick stuff from odd angles, so given the current state of the Yankee offense, he presented an insurmountable challenge. So much so that I was happy to see Curtis Granderson get a hit early, dispelling the very real chance of being no-hit. They looked slightly more comfortable against the bullpen, though they couldn’t break through until Valverde walked the park. As it was, that’s back-to-back games with eight total hits and one run. I ask that I be relieved of recapping duties until the Yankees produce a double-digit victory.

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Lean Back…

For the first part of the game tonight, the Yankees hit one fly ball after another deep into the outfield at Kaufman Stadium. They just didn’t hit anything hard enough or far enough to carry over the fence. Whole lot of warning track outs. Mark Teixeira kept the Yankees in the game with a series of brilliant fielding plays–leaping, diving, picking–and eventually the fly balls started to carry. Alex Rodriguez broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the sixth with a solo home run to dead center. Jorge Posada and Curtis Granderson added solo shots of their own and the Yanks were up by three.

The Royals scored a couple to make it a game but then Rodriguez hit a pair of two-run homers (another one to center—the “lean back” shot pictured above,  and finally one up in the water fountain in left field). That was more than enough to finish the Royals. All three of Rodriguez’s homers came off fastballs, low and over the plate.  And that’s the fourth three-dinger game of Rodriguez’s career. He DH’d tonight and now has 21 homers on the season, to go 97 RBI.

Final Score: Yanks 8, Royals 3.

[Photo Credit: Jamie Squire/Getty Images]

The Yanks prior series with the Royals this season, back in July at the Stadium, featured nearly four hours of rain delays.  Apparently the rain likes these teams . . . a lot.

It was 98 degrees with a Heat Index of 106 at the start of Friday’s game.  Nasty clouds were just off to the west.  The wind was blowing in hard from left to right.  Thunderstorms were in the forecast.  The Royals’ Kyle Davies, with a 5.21 ERA, a 1.544 WHIP and less than 6K per nine innings was taking on Dustin Moseley (he of the pitch-to-contact, 4.7K per nine).  It had all the makings of a looooong evening.

Moseley struggled mightily with his command in the first two innings, laboring through 55 pitches, allowing three runs on six hits.  Given the lack of command, Jorge Posada was pretty much helpless to stop the Royals aggressive baserunning, as KC stole four bases (three by Gregor Blanco).  It could have been worse, had Blanco managed to dislodge a tag from Posada at home on a hit in the first inning (credit to Brett Gardner for a nice one-bounce throw).

Meanwhile Davies spaced out two walks and a hit through two.  But then, he remembered he was Kyle Davies, and the third inning resembled one that sends Joe Posnanski into fits of depression.  After a Derek Jeter groundout to short, Curtis Granderson singled to center.  Mark Teixeira doubled sharply down the RF line, sending Granderson to third.  Alex Rodriguez scorched one to Royals 2B Mike Aviles, who couldn’t handle it, and it was scored a hit, driving in Granderson.  Robinson Cano then lined another single to right to score Teixeira and  cut the lead to one, with A-Rod advancing to second.

Jorge Posada then grounded a ball down to 1B Billy Butler, who forced out Cano at second.  Yuniesky Betancourt’s throw back to first base appeared to beat Posada to the bag, but 1B ump Fieldin Culbreth ruled that Davies missed the bag as he fielded the throw.  (Replays showed Davies may have caught the edge of the base with his right heel)  So, with first and third and two out, Lance Berkman mashed a long double to right field, scoring Rodriguez and tying the game.  Austin Kearns struck out to end the inning, and then the rains came.

31 minutes later, it was 23 degrees cooler, but Moseley was apparently heating up.  The command on his breaking stuff was improved, and his fastball didn’t sail out of the zone like it had the first two innings.  He breezed through the next two innings in 17 total pitches.

Unfortunately for the Bombers, Moseley’s gas gauge seems to hit empty around 85-90 pitches.  Pitch #84 of this evening, with one out in the fifth, was banged off the right field foul pole by Butler, putting the Royals back in front.  After a walk to clean-up hitter Wilson Betemit (yes, you read that batting order assignment right), the rains came again.

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The Yankees won last night’s game 7-6, but that’s kind of like saying the plot of The Sun Also Rises is “a guy watches some bullfights.” I really don’t know where to start with this particular thrill ride, which, around 10 PM, I thought the Yankees had absolutely no shot at winning. (I wasn’t far wrong). In fact, I didn’t really think they had a shot until they actually took the lead and put Mariano Rivera on the mound, and then right away the first batter he faced hit a triple and I still wasn’t so sure. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. They say when you don’t know where to start, you should start at the beginning.

The Yankees were facing Cliff Lee, who, in case you’d forgotten, is mind-bogglingly awesome. Since arriving in Texas he’s walked three batters – two of those intentionally. (Though why the hell Cliff Lee was intentionally walking anybody I can’t imagine). He’s allowed nine walks all season, which makes me think of Joe DiMaggio and that crazy 1941 season where he only struck out 13 times. I’ve had a platonic baseball-crush on Lee ever since he made that sick behind-the-back catch in Game 1 of last fall’s World Series and then shrugged it off with Steve-McQueen cool; I’ve also been looking at him as a bit superhuman, and so I didn’t expect much from the Yankees last night. Especially since Marcus Thames was batting third*.

And, against Cliff Lee, they indeed didn’t do much… except they had some good at-bats, and made him work (though of course not actually walk anybody), which is often really the only thing you can do when facing someone like Lee. The Rangers didn’t beat around the bush, starting their scoring in the 1st with a Michael Young homer, as Javier Vazquez continued to struggle with both his velocity and his location. The Yankees evened things up in the 4th, when Marcus Thames singled and A-Rod doubled him home and I thought, not for the first nor last time over a four-hour span, okay maybe I’ve been a little hard on Marcus Thames; but it didn’t take. The Rangers scored two more in the bottom of the inning (two-run Mitch Moreland single, off the glove of Lance “not Mark Teixeira” Berkman at first), and three more in the fifth (single, single, botched run-down, double, fielder’s choice, single), and when Javy slumped off the mound to make way for Sergio Mitre it was 6-1 and I was thinking about how I should frame the loss in the recap.

But Sergio Mitre was just fine, actually – 1.2 hitless, scoreless innings – and it turned out the Yankees were only mostly dead (“mostly dead is slightly alive!”). In the same way they used to have some success against aces like Pedro Martinez back in the day, they took a bunch of pitches, fouled others off, kept scuffling, and got Lee out of the game after 6.1 innings – which is, by Cliff Lee standards, quite early; as Michael Kay pointed out, Lee had pitched 8 innings or more in ten straight starts. The comeback trail began in the sixth, when Derek Jeter tripled –  seems like it’s been a long time since I wrote that – and scored on a rare Cliff Lee wild pitch, but I don’t think the Rangers were exactly quaking in their boots at that point. The next inning, though, things started to get a little interesting: Robinson Cano doubled, and Austin Kearns singled, hard, and when Austin Kearns creams one like that it’s a pretty good sign that Cliff Lee is probably starting to get a little tired. (It was 100 degrees in Texas last night, which couldn’t have helped any). Lance Berkman hit a ground-rule double, and then Brett Gardner singled, and suddenly it was a decently close 6-4 game. The Texas bullpen is very good, though, and the Yankees were relying on Kerry Wood for two innings, so I remained unimpressed except in a vague, it’s-nice-they’re-showing-some-fight-however-futile sort of way.

Like Sergio Mitre before him, Kerry Wood exceeded my expectations, although he did add a little spice, in the form of two straight singles in the seventh before he induced a Nelson Cruz double play. But he kept things from getting any worse, and so when Marcus Thames led off the 8th inning with a sonic boom of a home run off Frank Francisco – huh, perhaps I really was a little hard on that guy – it was suddenly a one-run affair. Cano and Posada walked… but then Austin Kearns, who giveth and taketh away, ground into a DP of his own and you had to figure that was probably that.

In the top of the ninth inning, Lance Berkman walked and, being rather less swift than a puma these days, Curtis Granderson came on to run for him. And he drew a lot of attention from the hard-throwing Rangers reliever of the moment, Neftali Feliz, but he still hadn’t gotten anywhere when Brett Gardner singled him over. Derek Jeter was getting ready to bunt (grrrrr), but Feliz — perhaps overcome with admiration for Jeter’s selflessness in being willing to sacrifice himself for his team! — threw a wild pitch and both Granderson and Gardner advanced, no bunt necessary. Jeter then bent over, picked a four-leaf clover, and hit a sneaky seeing-eye hopper of a single that came within an inch of being caught by both the pitcher and the second baseman before trickling into the outfield. Tie game. Nick Swisher struck out, but that brought up Marcus Thames, who singled off of Alexi Ogando, scoring Gardner and giving the Yankees their first lead of the game.

You know, it’s possible I’ve been a little hard on Marcus Thames.

Anyway, the one-run lead meant Mariano Rivera for the bottom of the ninth. I’d say he was looking for redemption after the previous night’s rare blown save but, really, Mariano Rivera doesn’t need any redemption; he’s got redemption coming out of his ears. He did, however, give everyone a bit of a start by immediately giving up a whopping triple to Elvis Andrus.

Michael Young flew out, just not quiiiiite far enough to score the run.

Josh Hamilton grounded directly into Rivera’s glove.

Vlad Guerrero took one whole pitch before swinging from his heels and sending the ball to Alex Rodriguez, who made a nice play and tossed him out by several entire feet.

If the Yanks and Rangers meet down the road in October, it could be quite a series. In the interests of being prepared, I recommend you start discussing blood pressure medication with your doctor sooner rather than later.

—

*There’s no doubt that the Yankees miss Mark Teixeira – that lineup hasn’t been looking all that awe-inspiring the last few days. (Still, to the people who are actually upset that Teixeira is taking several days off to be with his newborn child and wife, I can only say: you’ll feel differently about this down the road, once you’ve matured a bit, and passed puberty.) Ken Singleton made the extremely good point that, as with the Bereavement List, when players leave for the birth of a child, their team should be able to call up a replacement. Teams would therefore feel less of a squeeze when a player like Teixeira does the right thing and spends a couple of days with his family, and there would be less pressure on the player himself to rush back immediately. Paternity leave: get on it, MLBPA.

I knew sooner or later I would have to write about a Mariano loss. When Mariano comes into a game, I turn on the recorder, I turn off the TV and I wait 30 minutes. Then, I check the score, and if he has blown it, I lose it. I don’t lose it out loud anymore, and I don’t act out. But my hands are shaking with anger as I pound the remote control buttons to delete the recording and stew around for hours because I’m too upset to sleep. The days following are tough, and I’d rather do anything than talk about and read about baseball, but you know you can’t avoid it in this day and age. There’s an angry buzz on the subway the next day. Plus the barely contained glee from the Yankee haters. A Mo loss is like a straightjacket for me. The only thing that brings me back is reminding myself (over and over) that he’s already moved past it in time for the next game.

Before Mariano got involved, the Yanks could not get their feet straight tonight and it cost them another very winnable game. Four times awkward footwork turned plays against them and it’s possible all four plays had an impact on runs crossing the plate. Bad AJ showed up briefly to groove four or five fastballs in the sixth and the Rangers bullpen wriggled out of some jams that the Yanks bullpen couldn’t and lost a really tough game 4-3 in ten innings.

The first foot fault, and probably least hurtful, happened when Josh Hamilton skied to center for the first out of the bottom of the fourth. Michael Young liked his chances to take second on Gardner, but I thought Gardner had it lined up perfectly to prevent the extra base. Either he didn’t know Young was tagging or he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in his arm, because he took a loping crow hop before firing the ball in. Young was safe easily. I thought an aggressive throw would have either kept Young at first or nailed him at second. He may have scored anyway on the two out double that followed, but at least the Yanks would have had a slim chance to hold him or make a play at the plate if he was starting from first.

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I’m guessing that even the most optimistic among us were a bit on edge heading into Sunday night’s game.  Josh Beckett was on the mound for the Red Sox, and the Yankees were countering with Dustin Moseley, starting in place of A.J. Burnett, who’s been at least temporarily shelved due to back spasms.  (Unconfirmed reports indicate that these “back spasms” could be the result of torque on the spine caused by his frequent need to snap his head around to follow the flight of home runs.)  The good news coming in, though, was that Moseley had showed promise in his last outing against Toronto while Beckett had struggled against the Yanks this year, allowing 19 runs in three starts.  Both trends would continue.

Moseley worked efficiently through the first four innings, yielding just two hits and two walks.  Bill Hall led off the fifth with a home run, but this was only a minor blip as Moseley needed just six pitches to retire the next three hitters.  On the other side of the scorecard, Beckett was struggling.  After working around two singles in the opening frame, he gave up two runs in the second inning thanks to a Lance Berkman double and consecutive two-out singles by Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, and Nick Swisher.  (Jeter’s hit was the 2,874th of his career, one more than Babe Ruth.)

Beckett appeared to settle down, looking disturbingly like the old Josh Beckett as he blitzed through the fourth, but Mark Teixeira opened the fifth with a no-doubt home run deep into the right field bleachers, and things unravelled from there.  A walk to A-Rod was followed by a plunking of Robinson Canó (no drama, though — the pitch just nicked Canó’s knee cap), and Berkman plated the fourth Yankee run when he laced a double down the left field line.  My daughter Alison and I looked at her scorebook and noticed that Fat Elvis was 3 for 3, and she said, “You were right when you said he’d have a good game tonight.”

But the inning wasn’t over.  A few batters later Jeter smacked Beckett’s last pitch of the night into the gap in right center, and suddenly it was 7-1.  Beckett grimaced atop the mound as he waited for Francona’s inevitable hook, and I tried to explain to Alison why it was extra delicious to watch Beckett suffer.  “Is he mean?”  Well, no, but he isn’t very nice.  “But if he isn’t nice, doesn’t that mean that he’s mean?”  I didn’t have an answer, so we just turned back to the game.

All that was left was to watch Joe Girardi mismanage the bullpen.  Moseley got in a bit of trouble in the seventh, putting runners on first and third with one out.  With a six-run lead and a low pitch-count (82), it seemed like it might’ve been a good idea to let him try to finish the inning, if only to see how he’d respond to a jam like that, but Girardi pulled him in favor of Joba Chamberlain.  Joba wasn’t bad, he just didn’t get the job done.  He allowed a run to score on an infield single, but that wasn’t the problem.  After getting Jacoby Ellsbury to pop up for the second out, he quickly jumped ahead of Marco Scutaro, and the inning looked to be over.  With a 1-2 count and a 96-MPH fastball in his quiver, Joba tried to get cute with his slider and walked the Boston shortstop to load the bases for David Ortíz.  Minutes earlier the game had been in hand, but suddenly it was just a swing away from being 7-6.  Lefty Boone Logan replaced Chamberlain and made things a bit sweaty by running the count full before getting Papi to ground out to end the inning.

But wait — there was more mismanagement.  Girardi brought David Robertson in to pitch the ninth inning, and I was thinking that it was nice that Mariano Rivera would have  the day off.  But when Robertson walked Ellsbury to put runners on first and second with two outs — and a five run lead on the eighth day of August — Girardi called for Rivera.  He threw one pitch.  Scutaro bounced a ball to Canó, who flipped to Jeter to end the game. Yankees 7, Red Sox 2.

The one good thing about all this is that Girardi’s machinations gave me an excuse to write a little more about Rivera.  In 1990 Dennis Eckersley had what is probably the best season any closer has had in the current era.  His ERA and WHIP were identical at 0.61, but here are the interesting numbers: 48 saves, 41 hits, 4 walks.  Right now Rivera has 23 saves, 19 hits, and 6 walks.  Following that 1990 campaign, Eckersley said (and I’m paraphrasing), “I had more saves than hits and walks combined.  If anyone ever does that, I’ll walk out to the pitcher’s mound and kiss his ass in front of 50,000 people.”  It just might be time to pucker up.

* You can get a cool scorebook just like Alison’s by visiting http://www.ilovetoscore.com/, a New York-based company operated by loyal Banterite, Michael Schwartz.

Victor Martinez led off the second inning on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium and CC Sabathia fell behind him, 3-1. On the Fox broadcast, Tim McCarver said that Martinez was probably looking for a fastball on the inside part of the plate. When Sabathia delivered just that, Martinez hit a home run over the left field fence. Adrian Beltre doubled and then Mike Lowell doubled Beltre home.

But that was the only scoring the Red Sox would do as Sabathia pitched eight innings and the Yankees beat the Red Sox, 5-2. Sabathia fell behind hitters in the early innings but found his way, throwing more off-speed stuff than gas. He had some help from the home plate umpire, Jerry Layne, who called some wide strikes, particularly to David Ortiz.

Perhaps the late afternoon shadows gave Layne as much trouble as it seemed to be giving the hitters. The Yanks tied the score in the bottom of the second when Curtis Granderson tripled home Lance Berkman and then Ramiro Pena, a last minute replacement for Alex Rodriguez who was accidentally struck by a line drive off the bat of Berkman during batting practice, grounded out but collected an RBI (Rodriguez is day-to-day).

Then, John Lackey went to work and looked impressive. The shadows were looking especially tough as Lackey cruised through the first two batters in the bottom of the fifth. But then four straight singles–Swisher, Teixiera, Cano and Posada–gave the Yanks the lead (man, does Cano ever look good swinging the bat these days). Pena’s RBI single in the sixth was the cherry on top. Mariano Rivera pitched a 1-2-3 ninth and the Yankees’ lead over Boston is back to six. Even better, the Bombers gained a game on the Rays, who were blitzed by the Jays this afternoon, 17-11.

So, for the moment, my nerves have settled. Curtis Granderson had a couple of hits, Pena had a nice game (despite making an error and looking uncomfortable at third), and even though Berkman went hitless, and got booed as a result, I think it’s just a matter of time before Fat Elvis starts hitting.

This was a game the Yanks had to have. AJ Burnett is on the hill tomorrow night and that won’t fill Yankee fans with confidence, but who knows? Maybe Burnett goes out and throws a gem. Hope is the thing with feathers, said Emily D. And that’s word to Todd Drew.

[Photo Credit: Mike Stobe/Getty Images]

Well, I’ve had a gnawing feeling about this weekend for a few days now. The Red Sox lose Kevin Youkilis for the season, the team is reeling, trailing the Yanks by six games coming into the series, and yet, all these signs did nothing to soothe me. In fact, they only encouraged my irritation. Which is how it goes for the true baseball neurotic, doesn’t matter that I root for the Yankees, doesn’t matter that they’ve got the best record in the baseball. Nuts is Knuts and I plead guilty.

Right on cue, Javier Vazquez came up small, serving up a 3-2 cookie to David Ortiz in the first inning that Ortiz promptly deposited over the center field fence. In the second, Vazquez and Francisco Cervelli let a harmless pop-up drop (Cervelli dropped it but Vazquez didn’t help matters any–they looked like a Benny Hill routine minus the laughs). Then Vazquez walked the ninth place hitter and the struggling Jacoby Ellsbury and when the smoke cleared the Sox had scored three more runs.

And Yankee Stadium was virtually silent–a mausoleum.

Mark Teixiera stayed back and waited on a curve ball in the bottom of the first and hit a two-run home run. After that, Clay Buchholz settled into a groove. Thanks to a throwing error by Marco Scutaro, the Yanks put runners on first and second with nobody out in the bottom of the fourth. Curtis Granderson, whose entire season appears to be fouling good pitches off and then bouncing out to second or popping out to center, smacked a line drive, hit in on the screws, right at Mike Lowell at first. Double play.

Alex Rodriguez fisted an RBI single to left the following inning, pulling the Yanks to within one run, but Vazquez, again, seemingly on cue, gave up a two-run home run to Ryan Kalish, who will later drink his first beer and pop his cherry with a 12th Avenue Jackie.

Vazquez pitched good enough to lose; Buchholz, good enough to win. Yankee fans sat on their hands. With AJ “Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline” Burnett and Dustin Mosley set to pitch two of the next three games, CC Sabathia cannot afford to lose  tomorrow. This could be a long, frustrating weekend at the bright, shinny mallpark in the Bronx.

Final Score: Red Sox 6, Yanks 3. The Sox now trail the Yanks by five games.

The good news? I get to feel righteous about being right, at least for one night. Wait, that’s not good news. The Rays lost, right, that was the good news.

Back tomorrow for more fun–especially since the game will be televised on FOX. Get ready for another four-and-a-half-hour affair to remember.

Sure, Shaun Marcum gave up Alex Rodriguez’s 600th home run in the bottom of the first inning Wednesday afternoon, but in the early innings of the game, he was pitching better than Phil Hughes, who didn’t give up a run until the fourth. Hughes, who later revealed he had a head cold on a muggy afternoon in the Bronx, just didn’t look sharp early on, and though he retired the first six men he faced, striking out three, he needed 28 pitches to do it and seemed to get away with a number of mistakes.

Hughes opened the third by walking Lyle Overbay, then gave up a single to Edwin Encarnacion, but despite Overbay reaching third base with one out after a fly to center field by John McDonald, Hughes wiggled out of the jam, getting Travis Snider to pop out and Aaron Hill to ground out to third.

Marcum, meanwhile, allowed three runs on five hits in the first three innings, but looked sharp and seemed to be making his pitches. Derek Jeter led off the first with a slow ground ball that just happened to find the hole between short and third. Marcum then struck out Nick Swisher on a perfectly placed cutter and got Mark Teixeira to pop out on two pitches. Marcum’s first two pitches to Rodriguez were off the plate inside, but his third was a hanging slider out over the outside half of the plate, and Rodriguez got his arms extended and lifted it into the netting over Monument Park just a few feet to the right of dead center field.

I was pleased to see that the game didn’t really stop the way it did when Derek Jeter passed Lou Gehrig for first place on the all-time Yankee hit list, and his teammates all came out of the dugout to congratulate him. The team did great Rodriguez in front of the dugout, but the hugs and congratulations weren’t extended, and his subsequent curtain call, while it was a full-on Reggie (both feet on the grass), also didn’t linger excessively.

In the second, Marcum got Jorge Posada to ground out on his first pitch, then struck out Lance Berkman before Curtis Granderson delivered a two-out single. Granderson stole second, almost breaking both ankles with a horrific slide less “into” and more “near” second base, but Marcum struck out Brett Gardner to end the threat.

In the third, Jeter shot a ground-ball double down the left field line, and with one out, Mark Teixeira went down and got a low outside curveball and yanked it into right field for an RBI double. Rodriguez and Robinson Cano then both ground out weakly to strand Teixeira at second.

Rodriguez’s homer didn’t break the damn of his recent slump. After that weak groundout, he popped out to short in the fifth and ground back to reliever Shawn Camp in the seventh, but you could see the relief and relaxation in his face during his post-game press conference, after which he gave the security guard who retrieved the ball from Monument Park a signed bat in exchange for the milestone rock.

The Yankees padded their lead in the fifth, with Marcum starting to look more the part of the losing pitcher. Gardner led off with a ground rule double to right that bounced off a fan’s shoulder and back onto the field (Mr. Wonderful Jose Bautista flipped the ball back to her). Jeter then dropped down a perfect bunt single up the third base line, moving Gardner to third. Nick Swisher walked, and Teixeira delivered a two-RBI single to set the eventual final score at 5-1.

The lone Toronto run came off Hughes in the fourth. That man Bautista led off with a single. With one out, Adam Lind walked, and with two outs, Lyle Overbay delivered an RBI double. Hughes then struck out Edwin Encarnacion to end the threat.

Hughes never really did settle down, but he never really got in much trouble either. He just sort of labored through his 5 1/3 innings. After Bautista led off the sixth with a rare single to right that he practically queued off the end of his bat while trying to pull the ball, Vernon Wells sent Hughes’ 100th pitch to the wall in the left-center-field gap on such a massive arch that Granderson had plenty of time to drift over and catch it with his shoulder pressed against the padding.

That was enough for Joe Girardi to get out the hook with an off-day coming on Thursday. The Yankee end-game got some nice warmup work for this weekend’s Red Sox series. Boone Logan got the last two outs of the sixth, striking out Jose Molina, whose one offensive skill is hitting lefties, and getting lefty Lyle Overbay to ground out. Joba Chamberlain worked around a ground ball single up the middle in the seventh. David Robertson recovered from a leadoff walk to Bautista by retiring the next three batters in the eighth, striking out Lind and Molina to end the frame. Then Mariano Rivera got some work in, hitting Encarnacion with a pitch but otherwise working a flawless inning to seal the win.

The Red Sox and Rays both lost, so the Yankees pulled back into a first-place tie in the East with the win and now lead Boston by 6.5 games. Both play again tomorrow, but the worst case scenario entering the weekend’s wrap-around four-game set against the Bosox would be a half-game deficit in the division and a comfy six-game lead on the visiting Crimson Hosers.

All in all, a good day for the home nine.

For a month and a half the Yankees sat atop the American League East, and even though their lead never looked insurmountable, I admit that I’m a bit surprised that they suddenly find themselves in second place after Tuesday night’s loss to the free-swinging Toronto Blue Jays.

It all started well enough.  Dustin Moseley (much more on him later) set down the Jays in the top of the first on six pitches, bringing the home side to bat.  Derek Jeter led off with a walk, Nick Swisher was retired on a blistering line drive to short, and Mark “How Ya Like Me Now” Teixeira launched a large home run into the back bleacher section in left field.  Sure, Agent 599 struck out and Robinson Canó grounded out to end the inning, but it really felt like a good night.  Really.

What happened next was that Toronto starter Ricky Romero turned out the lights.  He set down the side in order in the second, third, and fourth innings, then had his string snapped by a Marcus Thames infield single to lead off the fifth.  Hope!  But Romero responded to this blip by blitzing through the next fifteen Yankee batters to wrap up a dominant complete game victory.  To sum up, here’s how the Yankee hitters did against Romero:

Jeter walk.  Out.  Teixeira home run.  Eleven outs.  Thames single.  Fifteen outs.  Drive home safely.

So Ricky Romero was clearly the story of the game, but I’ll leave that for someone else to write.  What you won’t find in the box score is that Dustin Moseley pitched a great game.  Seriously.  The Blue Jay hitters were aggressive all evening, swinging early and often at Moseley’s assortment of fastballs, cutters, and curves, and if a few things had gone differently, well, Moseley still would’ve lost, but it might’ve been closer.

The Jays scored two runs in the second inning on a double and a single, but Moseley still seemed to be in control as he cruised through the third, using just thirty pitches to record nine outs.  The game turned in the top of the fourth.  A lead-off single by Vernon Wells was almost immediately erased by a 5-4-3 double play, complete with an unconventional underhanded flip from third to second as Agent 599 relived his days as a shortstop.  But before he could relax (or perhaps because he relaxed), Moseley plunked Aaron Hill and gave up a double to John Buck — and then an interesting thing happened.  Newcomer Austin Kearns did a decent job of tracking down Buck’s double in the left field corner and got the ball in to Jeter quickly enough that Hill should’ve been out easily at the plate.  I’ve never seen another shortstop better at handling relay throws, and two plays are etched in my memory as evidence: Jeter jumping towards the third base line to snag an errant throw from David Justice, then somehow contorting his body into position to throw out Timo Pérez at the plate to end the sixth inning in Game 1 of the 2000 World Series; leaping high to grab a sailing throw from Bernie Williams, then beginning his throwing motion before hitting the ground and firing a strike to third base to nail Danny Bautista trying to stretch a double into a triple in the sixth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

This play on Tuesday night was a walk in the park compared to those two plays, and Jeter almost seemed surprised that Hill was trying to score.  He double pumped, then pulled his throw about six feet wide of the plate.  What should’ve been the third out of the inning turned into the second Toronto run, and the game was tied at two — but not for long.  Travis Snider reached across the plate to lunge at the first pitch he saw and still managed to pull a lazy fly ball towards right center.  It drifted lazily into the visitors’ bullpen as Moseley stood on the mound with arms outstretched and palms turned upwards in the universal symbol of disbelief.

To his credit, Moseley recovered nicely over the next few innings and became the first Yankee starter to record an out in the eighth inning of a game since July 8th.  His team was down 5-2 as he walked off the mound, but neither that fact nor Moseley’s stat line in the morning paper tell the true story.  He deserved better.  After Moseley left the scene the Jays tacked on three more runs courtesy of one home run each off of Kerry Wood and Sergio Mitre.  Final score: Blue Jays 8, Yankees 2.  (And by the way, what if I had told you back in April that José Bautista would have more than twice as many home runs as our Agent 599 on August 4th?)

So if the Yankees are to avoid a sweep, Phil Hughes will have to find a way to keep the ball in the park on Wednesday afternoon. Sweet Baby Jesus.

Friday night’s game in a nutshell: Nick Swisher hit a two-run home run in the first. Matt Joyce hit a three-run home run in the sixth. Rays win 3-2. That hurt. Phil Hughes cruised through the first five innings, not allowing more than one baserunner in any of those five frames and  allowing just one man to reach second base (B.J. Upton on a walk and a steal with two outs in the second). Then in the sixth, John Jaso led off with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch with one out. Evan Longoria followed with a walk. Carl Crawford moved Jaso to third and replaced Longoria at first via a fielder’s choice, and Joyce cracked a 2-2 pitch into the right-field seats to turn a 2-0 Yankee lead into a 3-2 Yankee deficit.

Working to keep the Yankees within reach, Joba Chamberlain pitched two perfect innings striking out three, but Rays end-gamers Joaquin Benoit and Rafael Soriano were perfect as well, and Carlos Peña made a nice lunging stop on a Jorge Posada hot-shot headed for right field, beating the lumbering Yankee catcher with a flip to Soriano for the final out.

In other news, the Yankees made a pair of trades Friday evening, one official, one to become official today. In the official deal, the Yankees promised a player to be named later to the Indians in exchange for right-handed-hitting outfielder Austin Kearns. I’m not impressed.

The Yankees had amassed nine hits in the first two games of the current series with the Indians.  They had gone 0-10 with runners in scoring position.  Tuesday night, they were silenced by yet another rookie making his major league debut.  Now they had to face the Indians lone All-Star representative in Fausto Carmona.

Carmona had won his last three starts, two of those against the Rays, and had ten wins for a 42-58 team.  He had had only one start shorter than five full innings the entire season.  So, of course they pummeled Carmona into submission by the end of the third inning Wednesday.

The Yanks took a 1-0 lead in the first on a Mark Teixeira double and an Alex Rodriguez single up the middle. The Bombers kept Indians right fielder Shin Soo-Choo very busy in the second, as they laced three consecutive one-out singles (Curtis Granderson, Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner) and then a two-out two-RBI single by Teixeira, all to right.

The third inning featured a Cano double high off the wall in left, a Granderson RBI triple (making him 16-36 lifetime against Carmona), a Cervelli HBP and a Gardner RBI double to right.  An RBI single by Nick Swisher finally knocked Carmona out after 2.2 IP, having surrendered ten hits and seven runs while throwing 73 pitches.

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