You don’t want to read a recap of this game.

I don’t want to write a recap of this game.

Indians started a 25-year-old command and control righty Tuesday night. A total non prospect with a recent violence-related arrest making his major league debut. So the S.O.B. goes out and faces the minimum the first two times through the Yankee order. The only Yankee baserunner in the first six innings against Josh Tomlin last night was Derek Jeter, who singled to start the fourth, then got caught stealing with two outs and Alex Rodriguez at the plate.

Rodriguez didn’t hit hit 600th home run. We can get that one out of the way. There was no big birthday milestone for the now-35-year-old third baseman. He did come to the plate representing the tying run in the ninth, but he tapped out to short on an 0-1 pitch. In his first three at-bats, he grounded out twice, then flew out to strand Nick Swisher at third in the seventh.

The fourth inning was the nadir. After Jeter got thrown out to end the top of the inning, CC Sabathia started the bottom of the frame by yielding a single to Asdrubal Cabrera and a double to Shin-Soo Choo to put runners on the corners. Austin Kearns followed with a hard grounder to third and Alex Rodriguez fired home to get Cabrera. The bottom of the first had ended when Brett Gardner threw out Choo at home on a single through the shortstop hole with Francisco Cervelli making a nice block of the plate. This time Cervelli had to reach into fair territory to get Rodriguez’s throw then reach to make the tag on Cabrera in foul territory. He did both successfully, but when his left arm hit the ground, the ball bounced out of his glove and Cabrera was ruled safe on Cervelli’s error.

Did I mention Cervelli was starting because Jorge Posada’s left knee is acting up on him? It’s an old injury; he has a cyst back there that causes him occasional pain, but, yeah.

After Shelley Duncan popped up, Jhonny Peralta hit into a would-be double play, but Kearns was called safe at second after Robinson Cano came off the bag too early on the pivot, and his relay throw was just a hair too late to get Peralta, so instead of ending the inning, the play loaded the bases with just one out. Matt LaPorta followed with a sac fly, and though Sabathia held the line there and both runs were earned, it mattered little with the Yankee bats unable to touch Tomlin.

The Indians scored two more runs in the sixth, which were Sabathia’s fault. The highlight there came when Joe Girardi ordered CC to intentionally walk the number-eight hitter, righty Jason Donald, to load the bases with two outs, and Sabathia responded by walking the number-nine hitter, right-handed swinging back-up catcher Chris Gimenez, to force in a fourth Cleveland run.

Even when the Yankees finally scored it was embarrassing. After Swisher was stranded in the seventh, Robinson Cano led off the eighth with a double. Indians manager Manny Acta the lifted the rookie Tomlin and brought in lefty Rafael Perez to face Curtis Granderson. Perez sent Cano to third via a wild pitch, but got Granderson to ground out to first. The play on Granderson’s grounder wasn’t easy for LaPorta, but Cano failed to come home on it. Girardi then sent up Marcus Thames to pinch-hit for Juan Miranda only to have Acta counter with righty Joe Smith, at which point Girardi counter-countered with . . . Colin Curtis? Yeah, I know he had that improbable pinch-hit homer the other day, but I’m reasonably confident that any strategy that ends in Colin Curtis has failed, even if Curtis succeeds. Indeed, Curtis got the run in with an even better-placed groundout to the right side, but that was all the Yankees got out of the inning.

In the ninth, Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter led off with singles against closer Chris Perez, but Nick Swisher struck out and Mark Teixeira popped out to Cabrera in shallow center on the first pitch he saw. That set up Rodriguez to get number 600 on a game-tying three-run shot, but, as I mentioned above, he meekly tapped out on two pitches.

Indians win 4-1.

You want bright side? here’s the extent of it: Jeter went 2-for-4 and the Yankees only needed seven pitches from their bullpen, all from Chan Ho Park. That’s it. Heck, we didn’t even get to see Carlos Santana play.

Boo.

Phil Hughes gave up three runs on a couple of homers through five innings today but had a lead when the skies opened-up thanks in part to two dingers off the bat of Curtis Granderson. It started pouring by me in the north west corner of the Bronx before it hit the Stadium. The tops of the trees whipped around in a frenzy and I had half a mind to go outside and run around just cause. You know, little kid stuff. Then the old man in me sighed, thought better of it, and sat my ass right back down.

Pretty soon the tarp came on the field at the Stadium and it wasn’t until two hours later that play resumed. The Yanks rolled from there. The only blip came when Joba Chamberlain walked the lead off runner in the eighth and then gave up a two-run homer. But the Yanks piled it on late and ran away with it. One scary moment in the eighth when Alex Rodriguez got plunked on the forearm and had to leave the game.

Fortunately, he was okay, didn’t need to go for x-rays and is expected to play tomorrow. The bum didn’t hit a homer. Stuck on 599. Only got two hits and three RBI. Loser. Jeter had three hits, Teixeira had two, and so did Robinson Cano, who got the 1,000th base hit of his career.

Final Score: Yanks 12, Royals 6.

The Rays won but the Sox lost. Yanks stay three ahead of Tampa and are now eight ahead of Boston. And we prepare for the week ahead and go to sleep the heppiest of kets.

[Photo Credit: Al Bello/Getty Images]

It started ugly for Serge Mitre today, deep counts, base hits, boiling-hot afternoon, and by the time he left the game, seven runs were on the board for the Royals, which proved to be enough to hold-off the Yanks, 7-4. Jose Guillen crushed a home run into the second deck in left field. Can’t recall seeing one hit up there in the new park yet, man, it was a shot.

Mark Teixeira continued his hot hitting–even the balls he hits foul are ripped these days–with two dingers but made the final out of the game. It was a tough play, two men on base, Teixeira the tying run, Alex Rodriguez, sitting on career homer #599 on deck. Replays showed that Teixeira just beat out an infield hit, but it was a close play and he was called out. Tough way to end the game, but Teixeira didn’t argue.

The Yanks can still win the series tomorrow.

Hose off, people. Grab something cool, get a nice beverage, and we’ll see youse in the morning.

[Photo By Nick Laham/Getty Images]

Sitting on 599 home runs, Alex Rodriguez drew a walk from Brian Bannister to load the bases in the bottom of the first inning of Friday night’s game against the Royals at Yankee Stadium. Robinson Cano followed by lacing a high fastball into the left-field gap for a bases-clearing double, and Jorge Posada followed with a double into the right-field corner that plated Cano for Posada’s 1,000th career run batted in. Posada is the 11th catcher (and third Yankee catcher after Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra) to reach the 1,000 RBI mark. Of the men ahead of him Lance Parrish (1,070) and Ted Simmons (second to Berra with 1,389) are the only eligible players not in the Hall of Fame.

Posada’s milestone was the only one reached in Friday night’s game, which was effectively over once the Yankees took that 4-0 lead in the first. A.J. Burnett held the Royals scoreless through five innings before an hour and 25-minute rain delay with two outs in the bottom of the fifth ended his, and Bannister’s, evening.

Brett Gardner singled home a pair of runs off reliever Victor Marte in the sixth. Posada picked up RBI 1,001 with a single off lefty Dusty Hughes in the seventh. Only then did the Royals get off the schnide with doubles by the just-activated Rick Ankiel and Yuniesky Betancourt to start the eighth against Chad Gaudin, who had already pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings by that point. Gaudin finished that frame without further damage and Jonathan Albaladejo worked a perfect ninth, striking out two to wrap up the 7-1 Yankee win.

As for Rodriguez, after his first-inning walk, he reached on an infield single in the third, struck out looking in the fifth, and singled in the seventh. With two out in the bottom of the eighth, Dusty Hughes walked Mark Teixeira on four pitches, giving Rodriguez one more chance at number 600, but Rodriguez hit a broken-bat grounder to third on the first pitch. Next up: Saturday’s starter Kyle Davies, who gave up Rodriguez’s 500th home run at the old Stadium in the bottom of the first inning on Saturday, August 4, 2007.

On the surface, the game Wednesday afternoon seemed tailor-made for a Yankee victory.  Starting pitcher Javy Vazquez had been on a roll as of late, compiling a 4-2 record in his last eight starts, with a 2.55 ERA and only 32 hits allowed in 53 innings.  He was facing an Angels’ lineup including Kevin Frandsen (on his third team this calendar year) at third and Bobby Wilson (he of the broken ankle suffered in a perhaps unnecessary collision with Mark Teixeira back in April) behind the plate. The Anaheimers were also flying to Texas after the game for the beginning of an important four-game series tomorrow.  So perhaps they could have been looking ahead.

However, Vazquez’s mound opponent, Joel Piniero, had proven to be tough on Yankee batters in the past.  Coming into today’s game, current Yanks had a career line of .249/.312/.411, with only Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher having much success (8-for-13 and 9-for-25, respectively).

Vazquez started out very strong, breezing through the first four innings yielding two singles and a double through a mere 37 pitches.  Meanwhile, the Yanks built a run on two hits and a groundout in the first, and then flexed some muscle in the third.  Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira went single, double, two-RBI single to start the inning.  One out later, Mr. 8-for-13 Cano launched one deep into the Yankee pen, and it was suddenly 5-0.  The Bombers tacked on another in the fourth (Teixiera RBI #27 since June 19), and you thought “this is what the Yanks were supposed to look like all year.”

But then, Vazquez reverted back to the form that frustrated Ozzie Guillen so much during his time in Chitown, inexplicably losing “it” in the 5th and 6th innings.   The first four batters reached base in the fifth, including a two-run homer by career .213 hitter Wilson.  Vazquez was bailed out of further damage by an inexplicable attempted steal of third by Erick Aybar with one out and Bobby Abreu up, down 6-3.   After Aybar was gunned down, Abreu K’ed.

But Vazquez continued to slip slide away in the sixth, allowing a two-run jack to Hideki Matsui.  David Robertson relieved, and managed to dance around two singles and a walk to hold the lead at 6-5.

DH Juan Miranda extended the lead to 7-5 with a solo homer in the 7th.  Later in the inning, with Curtis Granderson and Francisco Cervelli on base, Brett Gardner was ejected for arguing a strike call on an inside corner pitch, so Colin Curtis took over the 0-2 count.  Curtis worked the count from Scot Shields to 3-2, and then lined a wall-scraper homerun over the auxiliary scoreboard in right.  It was Curtis’ first major league dinger . . . and curtain call.

The Yanks survived some Joba Chamberlain unsteadiness in the eighth, yielding a run on two hits, and Mariano Rivera worked a perfect ninth.

10-6 Yanks.

[Photo Credit: Nick Laham, Getty Images]

Things haven’t gone well for the Yankee rotation since Saturday. First A.J. Burnett cut his pitching hand by punching a wall in the clubhouse and has to be removed in the third inning. Then Andy Pettitte went down with a groin injury that will have him out at least a month. Then, Tuesday night, Phil Hughes continued his recent struggles by coughing up six runs on nine hits, two of them homers, and three walks in five-plus innings while striking out just two.

Not that the Yankee offense helped much. After pushing across two first-inning runs again replacement starter Sean O’Sullivan, one of them on a Nick Swisher solo homer, the Yankees made ten straight outs and failed to get another hit, never mind a run, until a two-out Juan Miranda single in the seventh. They never did add to their tally. Meanwhile Jonathan Albaladejo, Chan Ho Park, and Chad Gaudin coughed up four more runs, two of them on a wall-scraping homer to right by old pal Hideki Matsui off Park.

Jorge Posada threw Bobby Abreu out stealing second twice, Miranda and Alex Rodriguez both had two-hits, Rodriguez with a double that was the Yankees’ only extra-base hit other than Swisher’s homer (heck they only had six all night), and Mark Teixeira walked twice and scored the other run. That was the sum total of highlights for the Yankees in a game that was a total team loss. 10-2 Angels.

On Thursday, the Yankees thought they were going to have to hit against Cliff Lee Friday night. Friday afternoon, they thought they’d be welcoming Lee as a new addition to their rotation. By the time Friday night’s game finally rolled around, neither of those things happened. Instead, Lee was on his way to Texas, and journeyman right-hander David Pauley was on the mound for the M’s.

Pauley did his best Lee impression for five innings, allowing only a Mark Teixeira solo homer in the first and setting down 13 Yankees in a row after Alex Rodriguez’s subsequent single. That streak was broken when Brett Gardner worked a walk to start the sixth and Jose Lopez booted a hard grounder from Derek Jeter to put men on first and second with none out.

That’s where Lee’s absence finally reared it’s head, as Pauley was hooked after just 82 pitches. Former Nationals closer Chad Cordero replaced him and threw gasoline on those little sparks. After Nick Swisher bunted the runners up, Mark Teixeira walked, Alex Rodriguez plated Gardner with a deep sac fly, Robinson Cano cleared the bases with a triple, Jorge Posada walked, and Curtis Granderson singled home Cano.

That made it 5-0 Yankees thanks to a strong outing from Phil Hughes, who said he and Dave Eiland had corrected his arm angle after his last start in which he allowed five runs and three home runs in six innings against the Blue Jays. Hughes protected that early 1-0 lead for five innings then coughed up a lone run in the bottom of the sixth once he had the room to do so. He then held the line there, going seven strong while striking out five and walking no one.

Mark Teixeira added a right-handed home run off Luke French in the ninth for good measure, and David Robertson and Chan Ho Park wrapped up the tidy 6-1 win, a small consolation prize for having lost Lee made all the more satisfying by a strong outing from the Yankee starter who had been struggling most of late as well as the knowledge that Jesus Montero remains a future Yankee.

Phil Hughes took the mound against Brandon Morrow on Sunday, trying to put his last start, a flu-and-skipped start-dogged subpar affair behind him.  For a while, the only thing in his and the rest of the Yankees’ way were gopherballs and the outfield arms of the Blue Jays.

Hughes cruised through the first two innings on 20 pitches, featuring three swinging Ks.  Leading off the 3rd, Lyle Overbay launched a Monument Park homer, the ninth homer Hughes has allowed at home this season (strangely, Hughes hasn’t allowed one in his road starts).

The Yanks put two on the board in the bottom of the inning on a single to left, an infield single to third, a Jeter sac bunt in which Lyle Overbay tried and failed to get Brett Gardner on a force out at third, a Mark Teixeira sacrifice fly and an Alex Rodriguez RBI single.  While it didn’t match the Bombers’ 11-run 3rd inning outburst from Saturday in terms of clout and duration, Hughes was pitching well enough that one thought it might be enough.

The Yanks tacked on a gift run in the 4th. With one out and Curtis Granderson on first, Grandy was allowed to advance to 2nd on a Gardner called swinging third strike/wild pitch, even though the ball appeared to nick Gardner’s leg, which would have made it a dead ball.  Ramiro Pena plated Granderson with a 2-out single.

The Jays got to Hughes again in the 5th, with the big blow coming from DeWayne Wise, a 3-run doink high off the right field foul pole on a floating breaking ball mistake from Hughes.  Wise was only starting in center for the Jays due to Vernon Wells getting a day off in the midst of an 0-for-18 slump.  Mr. Wise’s day would get more interesting soon thereafter.

Nick Swisher led off the bottom of the fifth with a single to center, and then Teixeira boomed a double over Wise’s head (Wise plays a notoriously shallow centerfield).  Swisher hesitated rounding second to make sure Wise didn’t catch it, then was waved around third, and was gunned down 8-6-2, with our old friend Jose Molina deftly blocking the plate and applying the tag.  Teixeira took third on the throw home.

Then Rodriguez lofted a flyball to medium center, and Wise threw a one-bouncer to Molina, who tagged Teixeira as he was trying to hook his arm around home plate.  End of rally.

Hughes served up yet another homer (his 7th in the last four starts) in the sixth, this time a bullpen blast off the bat of  Adam Lind.  Hughes’ day would be done after the sixth, having allowed five runs on nine hits and a walk, with seven Ks.

Down 5-3 now, Jorge Posada knocked a one-out single and after Granderson K’ed (one of four on the day for him), Gardner belted another ball over Wise’s head.  This time though, Wise caught up to it in time enough to put up his glove, only to lose the ball in the tough sun, and have it tick off his glove as Wise fell to the ground in self-defense.  Gardner circled the bases on a debatable inside-the-park homer, tying the game at 5.

Damaso Marte pitched a perfect top of the 7th, but the Yanks lost Jorge Posada with one out in that frame due to a foul tip off the edge of the glove that bent Posada’s fingers back.  It was eerily reminiscent of the recent injury to the BoSox’ Victor Martinez.  (Fortunately, x-rays proved negative, and a sprained ring finger makes Jorge day-to-day).

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There was one positive that came out of Friday afternoon’s game: A.J. Burnett pitched well. It’s impossible not to credit pitching coach Dave Eiland for that. Eiland had been away for most of the last month due to an undisclosed family issue, and Burnett went 0-5 with a 11.35 ERA in five starts without his pitching coach around. Eiland got back on Tuesday, talked some “Arkansas talk” to the righty from North Little Rock, and got him to fix the sloppy mechanics that had derailed his season by making sure all of his energy was directed toward the plate.

Burnett looked sharp in the first inning, working around a two-out single, throwing all but two of his 13 pitches for strikes and striking out Alex Gonzalez and Vernon Wells on a total of seven pitches. The Yankees then scored a run in the bottom of the first without the benefit of a hit (two walks followed by two productive outs). With that, the Yankee bats said, “there’s your run,” and Burnett made it stand up into the seventh, frequently working out of small jams by making the sort of in-game corrections he had seemed incapable of during Eiland’s absence.

Burnett got some help. Curtis Granderson made a running catch, going back and leaping over the lip of the warning track to reel in a one-out drive by Lyle Overbay in the fourth, Burnett’s only 1-2-3 inning. Damaso Marte got the final out of the seventh for Burnett, and Brett Gardner one-upped Granderson with a leaping catch at the wall on a shot to lefty by Gonzalez off Joba Chamberlain to start the eighth.

Then it all went wrong. Joba walked Jose Bautista on five pitches and, with two outs, gave up back-to-back singles that tied the game. Mariano Rivera worked around a single in the ninth and David Robertson worked around a two-out walk in the tenth, but the Jays broke the game wide open against Robertson in the 11th.

Overbay and John Buck led off with singles. Jarrett Hoffpauir bunted the runners up to second and third. Joe Girardi had Robertson intentionally walk lefty Fred Lewis to face the righty Gonzalez, and Gonzalez responded by singling home the go-ahead run.

With the bases still loaded and just one man out (via Hoffpauir’s sacrifice), Girardi called on Chan Ho Park. Park used up seven pitches on each of his first two batters. The first, Bautista, struck out looking on a sinker just below the knee and got run for arguing the call. The second, Wells, worked a walk to force in an insurance run. That brought up Dewayne Wise, who had pinch-run for Adam Lind in the eighth. Park fell behind Wise 2-1 after which Wise creamed one into the right-field gap for a back-breaking, bases-loaded triple. Kevin Gregg set the Yankees four, five, and six hitters down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning, and the Blue Jays won 6-1.

Blame the bullpen, they deserve it, but where was the offense in this game? The Yankees had two on and none out in the first and eked out just one hit-less run. In the third they had the bases loaded with none out and got nothing as Toronto starter Brett Cecil struck out Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano before getting Jorge Posada to ground out. Francisco Cervelli singled in the second and fourth but was stranded both times, then in the sixth, with two on and none out, he hit into rally-killing double play (after which Brett Gardner popped out with a man on third to end the inning).

Then the Blue Jays bullpen came on and the Yankees managed just one more baserunner in the final five innings, a one-out single by Nick Swisher in the seventh that was erased when Mark Teixeira lined out-to Overbay, who doubled off Swisher for an inning-ending double play.

Don’t expect things to improve against Ricky Romero tomorrow, or against emerging Yankee-killer Brandon Morrow on Sunday. The Yankee offense is slumping in part because they’re facing some very good pitchers (even Cecil was 7-2 with a 3.22 ERA before a recent three-start skid), but Romero (a lefty with a 2.83 ERA, 8.3 K/9) and Morrow (2.20 ERA in his last seven starts, 10.0 K/9 on the season) are pretty darn good as well.

Incidentally, after the game, Kim Jones asked Girardi if he thought about having Cervelli bunt before he hit into that sixth-inning double-play. Girardi’s answer was impressively thorough:

That’s a legitimate question. You have a slow runner at second [Posada]. You have a lefty on the mound. He’s falling off toward third base. It’s gotta be a perfect bunt. Cervy’s got two hits off of this guy. Lefties are hitting .180 [off Cecil (actually .178 heading into the game)], there’s a lefty behind [on deck: Gardner]. The wind’s blowing in. Sac fly’s gonna be difficult.

Cliff Lee was good on Tuesday night, limiting the Yankees to a pair of Nick Swisher solo home runs and two meaningless ninth-inning tallies on his way to a complete game victory. Felix Hernandez was great Wednesday night, limiting the Yankees to a trio of walks and just two hits, one of which was a pop-up to second that Chone Figgins lost in the gloaming and Colin Curtis hustled into a double, on his way to an 11-strikeout complete game shutout. Lee and Hernandez thus became the first two pitchers to throw back-to-back complete games against the Yankees since 2000 and Hernandez became the first visiting pitcher to shutout the Yankees at the new stadium.

Meanwhile, the Mariners scored seven runs against the Yankees in each of the last two contest. Phil Hughes, who was not only pitching on nine-days’ rest but also fighting off a cold, gave up all seven on Tuesday. Last night, Javier Vazquez turned in a bare-minimum quality start (6 IP, 3 R), striking out eight but using up 113 pitches in the process, then the bullpen coughed up four more Mariner runs in the final three frames. All but one of those Seattle runs came on home runs. Milton Bradley hit a solo shot of Vazquez in the second. Michael Saunders had a pair, a solo of Vazquez in the third and a two-run jack off Chad Gaudin in the eighth. Lefty-swinging Russell Branyan, just reacquired before this series to give the Seattle lineup some thump, did his part with a two-run shot off Damaso Marte in the seventh. The other Mariner run came with two outs in the third when Vazquez hit Branyan with an 0-1 pitch, Bradley reached on an infield single, and Jose Lopez singled Branyan home from second.

The lone legitimate Yankee hit was a double down the left field line by Mark Teixeira to lead off the fourth. He never got to third base as Hernandez retired 17 of the next 18 men (the exception being Curtis’s dropped pop-up) until Ramiro Peña, who entered the game with the subs in the top of the ninth, walked with one out in the bottom of the ninth and Hernandez up past 100 pitches.

Amazingly, this was just the second time all season that Lee and Hernandez registered back-to-back wins, though the first time was just two turns ago. In their last six combined starts, Lee and Hernandez have gone 5-0 with five complete games. In the sixth game, Hernandez allowed just one run in nine innings, but the Mariners lost in 13.

Coming into last night’s start, Cliff Lee was 4-1 with a 1.62 ERA over his last six starts, half of which were complete games. In that span, he had struck out 44 men against just three walks and three homers. Given that Lee had dominated the Yankees the last time he came to the Bronx, there wasn’t much reason for optimism heading into Tuesday night’s series-opening tilt against Lee and the Mariners, I don’t care how pathetic the Mariners’ offense has been this season.

That Phil Hughes lacked his good stuff pitching on extra rest after being skipped the last time through the rotation sealed the deal. Hughes fastball topped out around 91 miles per hour and his location wasn’t sharp. As a result, the Mariners were able to build a picket fence against him with runs in the second, third, fourth, and fifth, before delivering the finishing blow with a three-run sixth as Hughes seemed to lose it around 90 pitches. Boone Logan and Chan Ho Park held the line from there, but when the line is a 7-1 deficit against Cliff Lee and the opposing offense is the worst in the American League, who cares?

Through the first eight innings, all the Yankees managed against Lee was a pair of solo homers by Nick Swisher. Hitting a pair of right-handed home runs off a pitcher who had allowed just three dingers in his last six starts isn’t impressive, particularly when those were just Swisher’s second and third right-handed home runs of the year, but the rest of the offense didn’t show up until the ninth.

Just one other Yankee made it as far as second base in the first eight innings (Jorge Posada following a one-out walk in the second, the only walk Lee has issued in his last five starts), and no more than one Yankee reached base in any of the first eight innings of the game. Swisher’s two home runs came in the first and the sixth, and after the second, Lee retired the next nine men he faced until Mark Teixeira led off the ninth with a double down the left-field line. A Robinson Cano single, Michael Saunders throwing error, and Posada ground-rule double got the Yankees to within 7-4, but it took Lee just three more pitches to retire Curtis Granderson (who did have a pair of singles earlier in the game and was the only Yankee other than Swisher with a multi-hit night) and Chad Huffman (who started for the injured Brett Gardner) to nail down his third-straight complete game victory.

While Hughes season-worst outing was somewhat reminiscent of Joba Chamberlain’s struggles after the Yankees started skipping his starts last year, Hughes didn’t blame the rest for his poor performance, and he didn’t really get lit up until the sixth. He’ll stay on-turn until the All-Star break as the Yankees have no off-days in the next two weeks. His next start comes on Sunday at home against the Blue Jays. Meanwhile, here’s hoping Cliff Lee gets traded back to the National League, just don’t get your hopes up about him coming to the Bronx, the Yankees made clear their unwillingness to trade prospects for a pending big-money free agent such as Lee by letting CC Sabathia go to the Brewers and Johan Santana go to the Mets.

In other news, Dave Eiland returned to the team and Gardner could be out for a few days with a wrist contusion after being hit by a Clayton Kershaw pitch on Sunday. Meanwhile, Marcus Thames is expected to start at designated hitter for Triple-A Scranton on Wednesday, meaning he could be activated from the disabled list soon.

Sunday night’s rubber game between the Yankees and Dodgers didn’t deliver on its promise as a pitchers duel. Dodgers lefty Clayton Kershaw was nails, but Andy Pettitte made two throwing errors on bunts in the third, putting the Yankees in an 3-0 hole, then coughed up two more runs in the fourth, the latter on a Ronnie Belliard solo homer, to put the Yanks down 5-0.

Kershaw, meanwhile, allowed just three baserunners through five innings, those coming on a Derek Jeter leadoff single, a pitch that hit Brett Gardner in the wrist, and a single by Gardner’s replacement, Chad Huffman (Gardner will see the team doctor on Monday). Jeter singled again to lead of the sixth, but Kershaw struck out Nick Swisher, and Casey Blake made a nice play on a hard grounder to his right by Mark Teixeira to force Jeter at second. That brought up Alex Rodriguez with two out. Rodriguez worked the count full, then turned on an inside fastball, sending it over the “Mannywood” sign in left for a two-run home run, his third jack in the last five games, to bring the Yankees within 5-2.

The Dodgers added an insurance run against Joba Chamberlain in the eighth, handing a 6-2 lead to their dominant closer, Jonathon Broxton, in the ninth. Broxton entered the game with some ridiculous numbers, including a 0.83 ERA, 13.2 K/9, and 9.60 K/B, and had allowed just one earned run in his previous 23 appearance, including 1 1/3 hitless innings against the Yankees on Saturday.

The Ox started his night by striking out Teixeira on four pitches, but Rodriguez singled on his fifth. Alex took second on defensive indifference on the first pitch to Robinson Cano, and when Cano connected for a double to right, Rodriguez scored to make it 6-3 Dodgers.

That brought up Jorge Posada, who quickly fell into a 0-2 hole, then battled Broxton for seven more pitches, working the count full before singling to right to bring the tying run to the plate. Following Posada’s nine-pitch battle, Curtis Granderson worked Broxton over for an eight-pitch walk, putting the tying run on base and loading the bases for . . . Chad Huffman?

With Brett Gardner knocked out of the game and no designated hitter, the Yankees’ rally came down to Chad Huffman and Colin Curtis, who had gone in for Nick Swisher as part of a double-switch, a pair of rookies who to that point in their major league careers had combined for three hits and three walks in 15 plate appearances. Joe Girardi’s bench at that point consisted of Francisco Cervelli, the backup catcher, and Ramiro Peña. On the mound stood the 300-pound Broxton, one of the game’s most dominating closers. It hurt to watch.

Until Huffman singled to right on a 1-1 pitch, scoring Cano and Posada and pushing Granderson to third. Suddenly all Curtis had to do was deliver a productive out with a speedy runner at third to tie the game. Curtis fell into a quick 0-2 hole, but then took three balls, one of which looked like strike three at the knees, and one of which, a slider in the dirt, almost tied the game on its own. With the count full, Curtis fouled off four pitches. Then, on the tenth pitch of his at-bat and Broxton’s 40th of the inning, he hit a hard grounder to James Loney at first base.

With two outs, Huffman on first, and Granderson on third as the potential tying run, Loney had two choices. He could either throw home to prevent the run, allowing the inning to continue, or he could throw to second in the hope of turning a game-ending double play. Loney chose neither of those options, instead trying to accomplish both at once by scrambling over to force out Curtis at first, then firing home to get Granderson. Only Loney’s throw tailed away from the runner and the time it took him to get the force was enough to allow Granderson so slide in clearly ahead of Russell Martin’s tag with the game-tying run.

From there, the Dodgers lost their cool as both Garret Anderson (who entered the game in the ninth as a defensive replacement for Manny Ramirez) and Martin got ejected for arguing over called strikes that were indeed strikes, while the Yankees made it look easy. Mariano Rivera worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth around Anderson’s ejection. Robinson Cano responded to Joe Torre’s decision to bring in lefty George Sherrill to face him in the top of the tenth by launching a two-run home run to left center, and Rivera worked around an infield single and Martin’s ejection to nail down the 8-6 win in the bottom of the tenth.

Meanwhile, the ESPN camera’s lingered on Joe Torre, who had the look of a man watching his ex-wife make out with an underwear model. Torre said before the game that he was looking forward to putting this much-hyped and emotionally charged series behind him. I don’t imagine that was ever more true than when he was watching Mariano Rivera nail down a comeback win against him for the first time.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Yankee offense did it’s best to keep ahead of A.J. Burnett’s advancing vortex of suck Saturday evening. Before Dodger starter Hiroki Kuroda could record an out, the Yankees were up 3-0 thanks to walks to birthday boy Derek Jeter and Curtis Granderson and a home run by Mark Teixeira, who extended an eight-game hitting streak during which he has homered as many times as he’s struck out (thrice each). Burnett gave two of those runs back in the bottom of the first, the big hit being an RBI double by Manny Ramirez on a fastball up in the zone, but he worked around a walk in the second and the Yankees got a run back in the third on singles by Jeter and Granderson and a throwing non-error by Blake DeWitt on a would-be double play pivot.

That 4-2 lead lasted all of four batters. Burnett’s bottom of the third started with a five-pitch walk to Matt Kemp, an Andre Ethier single, a wild pitch that moved both runners up, a walk to Ramirez to load the bases, and a game-tying single by James Loney. After a five-pitch walk to Casey Blake to reload the bases, Burnett got Russell Martin to hit into a double play, though the go-ahead run scored in the process. Burnett then walked DeWitt and struck out the pitcher, Kuroda, to end the inning.

Amazingly. Shockingly. Stunningly, after that performance, Joe Girardi let Burnett hit with runners on the corners and one out in the top of the fourth. Burnett sacrificed, but didn’t squeeze, trading an out for putting a second runner into scoring position. Kuroda then struck out Jeter on three pitches to end the threat.

If it wasn’t already clear that Girardi was less than fully committed to trying to win the game at the expense of blowing out his bullpen, after Burnett lasted just two batters in the bottom of the fourth, he brought in Boone Logan, who suddenly seems to be some sort of long man for Girardi despite the fact that righties were hitting .289/.372/.421 against him entering yesterday’s action. Logan swelled the Dodger lead to 7-4, after which Chan Ho Park added on a couple more runs to set the final at 9-4.

Meanwhile, Kuroda quashed a two-out Yankee rally in the fifth, and fireballing lefty Hong-Chih Kuo stranded two runners for Kuroda in the sixth. The Yankees did bounce old frenemy Jeff Weaver before he could complete the eighth, but George Sherrill and Jonathon Broxton shut things down from there.

Burnett is now 0-5 with a 11.35 ERA in June. By way of comparison, Javier Vazquez had a 9.78 ERA in his first five starts of the year in which the Yankees went 1-4. That was enough for the Yankees to skip Javy’s next turn. Ivan Nova, meanwhile, has a 1.34 ERA over his last five starts for Triple-A Scranton. Nova threw three scoreless, walkless innings for the Yankees in mid May. I say it’s time to give him another look and let A.J. work things out in the bullpen for a while. Logan can be optioned to make room for Nova.

It’s official, the Yankees are in a team hitting slump. Since opening up a can of Whoop-Ass on Roy Halladay on Tuesday, the Yankees have scored a total of four runs in three games started by 47-year-old Jamie Moyer, Phillies’ sixth-starter Kyle Kendrick, and Mets fill-in Hisanori Takahashi, and two of those runs came on solo homers off Moyer.

Through the first five innings against Takahashi Friday night, the Yankees managed just a walk and two singles. One of those singles, an infield hit to second base by Derek Jeter, should have been ruled an error as Mets first baseman Ike Davis dropped the throw on a bang-bang play on which the ball hit Davis’s glove an instant before Jeter’s foot hit the bag. That, by the way, stands as Jeter’s only hit in the last four games. He is “2”-for-21 with two walks and a caught stealing in his last five.

Nonetheless the game was a compelling one, because Javier Vazquez nearly matched Takahashi pitch-for-pitch. In fact, through the first seven innings, the difference in the game was a matter of mere inches on a play at home with two outs in the top of the first.

Vazquez got the first two outs of the game on six pitches, but the red-hot David Wright spoiled things with a two-out double into the left-field corner. Ike Davis followed with a single into right. As Wright rounded third, Nick Swisher uncorked a strong throw to the plate. However, while the ball was in the air, Francisco Cervelli inched just slightly up the first base line for the catch. Wright saw that and slid to the far side of the plate. Cervelli caught the ball and lunged, but just missed Wright’s left arm, which Wright then stuck out to catch the tip of the plate with his fingertips.

Watching it live, I thought Wright had failed to touch home, but on replay I noticed a telltale streak of dirt across the point of the plate, which was otherwise sparkling clean given that the game was just 11 pitches old. Cervelli was convinced he had tagged Wright, but replays proved he didn’t.

That was it for seven innings. Vazquez pitched around a two-out single in the second, then didn’t allow another baserunner until the sixth, when he walked two men only to have the first of them, Angel Pagan, caught stealing by Cervelli from his knees. Vazquez then struck out Davis to end that non-threat and pitched around a two-out walk in the seventh as well. His final line was a sparkling 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 4 K, with all three of those walks coming in his final two innings.

The only downside to Vazquez’s outing was that one run, which slipped in by the smallest of margins, and the Yankees’ complete inability to do anything to support him.

The Yankees didn’t get a man past first base until the sixth, when, with one out, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira delivered consecutive hard singles up the middle to put men on first and second. Takahashi got Alex Rodriguez to ground out for the second out, and while that moved the runners up, it also allowed Takahashi to pitch around Robinson Cano, who walked on eight pitches. That brought up Jorge Posada, who was essentially the entire Yankee offense through the first five innings, owning both the walk and the only legitimate single. However, Posada chopped Takahashi’s 0-1 pitch to the third base side of the mound where David Wright charged it and made a great, bare-handed play that proved a bit excessive as he threw Posada bout by about 15 feet.

With Elmer Dessens on in relief of Takahashi, who passed 100 pitches during the Yankees’ sixth-inning rally, Cervelli, likely still burning from that play in the top of the first, led off the seventh with a double. With the lefty starter out of the game, Joe Girardi then called on Curtis Granderson to pitch-hit, but Jerry Manuel countered with ace LOOGY sidearmer Pedro Feliciano, who struck out Granderson. Brett Gardner did what Granderson couldn’t grounding to the right side to get Cervelli to third, but it was of little use after Granderson’s out, particularly as the slumping Jeter tapped out to Feliciano on the first pitch to strand Cervelli at third.

Then things fell apart. Girardi went to Chan Ho Park to start the eighth, and Park coughed up two runs to the first three hitters he faced before recording a single out. Boone Logan cleaned up that mess, but then yielded a run of his own in the ninth to make it 4-0 Mets.

For their part, the offense got a man to second in the eight when Nick Swisher led off with a single then ill-advisedly took second on a fly out to left, benefiting from another dropped ball on what was ruled an assist and an error, but stranded him there when Feliciano struck out Rodriguez and got Cano to fly out.

With lefty Raul Valdes on in the ninth, the Yankees built another rally on one-out singles by Cervelli and Granderson, forcing Manuel to call on his closer, Francisco Rodriguez. Gardner greated Rodriguez with a 12-pitch battle that saw him foul off seven pitches including five 3-2 offerings before finally getting ball four to load the bases, but Rodriguez struck out Jeter on three pitches, the last an unsuccessfully checked swing, and Swisher fouled out to Wright to end the threat and the game.

The Yankees are now 12-12 in games against left-handed starting pitchers and are on a three-game losing streak having gone 2-5 in their last seven games against teams with winning records. They also now face having to beat the Mets’ two-best starters, Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana, each of whom shut the Bombers down in Queens four weeks ago, in order to win this series.

On the bright side, the Yankees  continue to share first place in the AL East with the Rays, who lost for the sixth time in their last eight games last night. Oh, but the Red Sox won and are now just a game out of first place.

Gulp.

The good news out of Wednesday night’s game is that, through the first seven innings, every Yankee hit was a homer, Alex Rodriguez returned to the lineup and contributed and RBI double, and the bullpen was dominant, pitching in 5 2/3 scoreless innings allowing only a walk and striking out six.

If 5 2/3 innings from the bullpen sounds suspicious, you’re beginning to figure out the bad news. Here’s another clue for you all: the relievers were Boone Logan and Chad Gaudin, the last two men on the Yankee bullpen depth chart.

Yup, A.J. Burnett got lit up and bounced after just 3 1/3 innings, burning through 87 pitches (just 55 percent of them strikes) and leaving the Yankees in a 6-1 hole half-way through the fourth inning. Burnett simply had no command of his pitches, particularly his fastball, as he walked four men, hit a fifth, and uncorked a wild pitch in his short stint. When he got the ball over the plate, he gave up a bases-clearing bases-loaded triple to Shane Victorino to blow the game open in the second, and back-to-back solo homers by Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth to start the third.

The first run Burnett allowed came after 38-year-old Raul Ibañez walked on five pitches then stole his first base of the year, giving Burnett the most stolen bases allowed by any pitcher in the majors thus far this year. Burnet allowed 23 steals in all of 2009, but has already allowed 19 this year, the 19th coming in the fourth inning after Victorino led off with a five-pitch walked then stole second.

Placido Polanco followed Victorino with a fly out, then Chase Utley hit a hard shot down the first-base line that Mark Teixeira smothered only to discover that Burnett broke late for first base and wasn’t there to take the throw. Certainly Burnett couldn’t have anticipated Teixeira’s fine play, but it seems like more than a coincidence that Joe Girardi chose that moment to take Burnett out of the game to heavy booing from the Yankee Stadium crowd.

Logan stranded Victorino and Utley, but the story of the game was Jamie Moyer, who was flat out dominant. Other than solo homers by Robinson Cano in the second and Jorge Posada in the fifth, Moyer didn’t allow a baserunner until the seventh, when Alex Rodrguez drew a one-out walk and was promptly erased by an inning-ending double play. With two outs in the eighth, Kevin Russo reached on an infield single that scooted under Polanco’s glove at third and was fielded too deep in the hole by Wilson Valdez for Valdez to record the out. Brett Gardener then flied out to end the inning.

That was it. That was all the Yankees managed in eight innings against Moyer, who at 47 years and 211 days became the oldest pitcher ever to record a win against the Yankees, trumping Phil Niekro, who picked up a win against his former mates in a rare relief appearance in the second game of a double header back on August 1, 1986. Ron Guidry took the loss for the Yankees in that one and Pat Tabler scored the winning run for the Indians on Julio Franco’s double. Three days earlier, Jamie Moyer pitched a gem for the Cubs to beat the Mets at Shea, the first game he ever pitched in New York. Yankee manager Joe Girardi (who, like YES announcers Paul O’Neill and Al Leiter and four of Girardi’s coaches, is younger than Moyer) was in his first year of pro ball at low-A Peoria at the time. Most impressively, Moyer’s performance was only his second best of the season, just outranking his complete game against the Padres on June 5.

Moyer threw 106 pitches in those eight innings and, despite a four-run lead, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel used the opportunity to give his closer, Brad Lidge some work. Facing the top of the order, Lidge got two quick outs (one on a high called strike three to Derek Jeter that was well within the rulebook strike zone but above where umpires typically call strikes, much to the chagrin of pitchers and myself), but Mark Teixeira drew a two-out walk, launching a rally that got Jorge Posada to the plate as the tying run only to strike out on one of the 900 sliders Lidge threw in the inning. Game over, Phillies win 6-2. Rubber game tomorrow. Andy Pettitte on the hill, I like the Yankees’ chances.

So much for that pitchers’ duel.

In 13 starts this season prior to Tuesday night, Roy Halladay had allowed more than two earned runs in just two of them and allowed a total of three home runs on the entire season. Tuesday night, he matched his season worst six earned runs allowed with four of those runs scoring in a trio of Yankee homers that doubled his season total.

I’d like to know who saw that coming.

Halladay cruised through the first on ten pitches, eight of them strikes, then got Robinson Cano to ground out on an 0-1 count to start the third, but Nick Swisher followed with a single and everything went to pot for the Phillies’ ace after that.

Jorge Posada drew a four pitch walk and Brett Gardner tattooed a hanging slider into the right-center-field gap for a two-RBI triple (aided slightly by Shane Victorino bobbling the ball at the wall). In the third, Curtis Granderson led off with a solo homer, and after Mark Teixeira flew out, Robinson Cano doubled to right-center on the first pitch he saw. That brought Swisher back around and on a 2-0 count, he cracked a two-run homer to give the Yankees a shocking 5-0 lead over Halladay with one out in the bottom of the third.

Halladay settled down a bit with a 1-2-3 fourth, but with one out in the fifth, Teixeira snuck a 1-2 pitch just inside the foul pole down the right-field line, hitting a ducking YES cameraman in the back with a solo home run of his own. The Yankees made some noise against Halladay in the sixth as well, loading the bases with two outs but failing to push across another run.

CC Sabathia, meanwhile, didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning, though things got dicey at that point. Utley led off the fourth with a bouncer that Sabathia stabbed at with both hands, deflecting the ball enough to give Utley a hit. Placido Polanco followed with another single and on a 1-2 count, Sabathia hit Ryan Howard to load the bases. Jayson Werth and Raul Ibañez followed with RBI singles.

With the bases still loaded, two runs in, and no one out, Ben Francisco hit a would-be double play ball to a far-ranging Mark Teixeira in the second-base hole. Teixeira could have come home with his throw to try to get the slow-footed Howard on what still might have been a close play, but he opted instead to start a 3-6-1 double play, trading Howard’s run for a pair of outs. Only Sabathia never broke for first base and the Yankees had to settle for a single out as Howard scored to cut the Yankee lead to 5-3.

Sabathia picked himself up by getting the next two men out, but then got into more trouble in the fifth when with one out, Utley singled, was replaced by a Polanco fielder’s choice, Ryan Howard drew a five-pitch walk, and both runners move up on a wild pitch. That last might have been a blessing as it allowed Sabathia to turn a 2-0 count on Werth into an intentional walk, after which he got Ibañez to ground out to leave the bases loaded.

That was the end of the excitement. Sabathia retired the last seven men he faced and David Robertson and Chan Ho Park each tossed a scoreless inning, a Robertson walk to Ibañez being the only blip, as the Yankees padded their lead against the Philadelphia bullpen by plating a pair of hit-batsmen on a two-out Francisco Cervelli single in the seventh.

Yankees win 8-3 as the Phillies drop the one game in this series they had to have. With the pitching matchups favoring the Bombers the next two nights, suddenly a sweep is not out of the question. Then again, as Halladay proved on Tuesday night, anything can happen.

With a debate raging over our reactions to yesterday’s draw with England, we went to bed a Banter divided. Tonight, because of a tie of a different sort, a tie for first place, we’re reunited in contentment, or as our esteemed founder would say, as a bunch of heppy kets.

The Yankees completed their sweep of the Astros 9 to 5 just before the Marlins won their series with the Rays, dead-heating the AL East rivals at 40 and 23. The Rays’ funk came after the Yankees’ rut, but they are remarkably similar. After a blistering 21-8 start, the Yankees lost one to the Red Sox and proceeded to gag 12 of 20. The Rays were a mind-boggling 30-11 before getting swept by the same Red Sox on their way to losing 11 of 19. At least the Yankees can point to some injuries – the Rays can only blame gravity. And the schedule plays a part in this too. The Rays benefitted from a soft start, the Yankees are currently enjoying the Snuggle Fabric Softener portion of their schedule en route to a fluffy-fresh bounce back – 11 wins over the last 14 games.

If Phil Hughes falls short of any statistical milestones this season, I think he’ll look back on the rain-soaked battle with Tony Manzella in the sixth inning today and the ensuing four runs will stick between his teeth like broken pieces of sweet summer corn. Six innings, five hits, one inconsequential run and six strikeouts would have been another fine plank in his pleasantly plausible Cy Young platform. As the box score reads, he got bombed by the weak-hitting Astros. I was miffed about Jeter’s inability to get to Manzella’s topper, and before I could finish the grouse, Cash had homered.

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Andy Pettitte won his 200th game as a Yankee Friday night, and it came in the midst of what just might be the finest season in the 38-year-old’s 16-year career. After allowing just two earned runs on four hits and a walk in 7 1/3 innings, Pettitte improved to 8-1 on the season with a 2.46 ERA, keeping him right behind the Rays David Price in the Cy Young hunt. Pettitte has posted an ERA below 3.00 just twice in his career. In 1997, as a 25-year-old, he went 18-7 with a 2.88 ERA, and in 2005 as part of the pennant-winning Astros impressive rotation along with Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt, he went 17-9 with a 2.39. If Pettitte keeps up his current pace, he’ll go 21-3, that 21st win being the 250th of his career.

It’s difficult to believe that Pettitte will get through the entire season without some sort of lull, but it’s nearly mid-June and Pettitte historically pitches better in the second half of the season than in the first. After 12 starts this season, Pettitte has had just one dud, that coming at home on May 20 against the Rays, when he gave up seven runs (six earned) in five innings thanks in part to three home runs. He has allowed a total of just four home runs in his other 11 starts, none of them coming Friday night.

Pettitte has had just two other non-quality starts. One of them missed by a single run (six innings, four runs against the White Sox on April 30), the other missed by a single inning (five innings, one run against the Orioles his next time out). Those were the two starts during which he reported discomfort in his elbow. His next turn was skipped. He then held the Twins scoreless for six innings on May 15 before suffering that one dud against the Rays his next time out. In his four starts since then, he has pitched a minimum of seven innings and allowed a maximum of two earned runs each time out producing this combined line:

30 IP, 21 H, 8 R, 7 ER, 3 HR, 4 BB, 23 K, 3-0, 2.10 ERA, 0.83 WHIP, 5.75 K/BB

To put it another way, in 12 starts, Pettitte has allowed more than two earned runs just twice, lasted fewer than six innings just once (that on account of his elbow, not his performance), and the Yankees have lost just two of games that he started, one of them by a 3-2 score in extra innings.

As for Friday night’s game, Pettitte locked horns in a pitching duel with former Phillies righty Brett Myers. Both had a bad inning early, then settled down and pitched through the seventh in a swift game that took a season-low two hours and 19 minutes.

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I never do this, but last night I didn’t watch the Yankee game despite the fact that I knew I’d have to write it up in this space. You know why. I was watching Stephen Strasburg strike out 14 men in a major league debut that did the impossible by living up to all of the hype that preceded it. I clearly made the right choice, not because the Yankees lost (they didn’t), but because the opening game of their three-game set in Baltimore was yet another of those ugly, high-scoring affairs that made up in aggravation what it lacked in suspense.

The game was almost over before it begun as Derek Jeter led off by drawing a five-pitch walk and Nick Swisher sent Kevin Millwood’s sixth pitch over the center-field wall for a two-run homer. With two out in the third, Curtis Granderson inflated the Yankee lead to 6-0 with the second grand slam of his career. Phil Hughes let the O’s cut that in half with two runs in the fourth and one in the fifth, but though he allowed nine hits and struck out just four in his six innings of work, all of the hits were singles and he walked no one.

With Hughes likely out of the game after 102 pitches, the Yankees put the game away with a six-run top of the seventh against relievers Matt Hendrickson and Matt Albers, the key hit being a bases-clearing, bases-loaded double by first-inning hero Nick Swisher off Albers which was immediately followed by a solo homer by Mark Teixeira, just his second tater since May 15.

The aggravating part came in the final two frames as, after a solid inning from David Robertson, Chad Gaudin, in to mop up with a 12-3 lead, coughed up two runs in the eighth on a walk and an Adam Jones homer, and two more in the ninth to the first three batters he faced to bring the Orioles within 12-7. Gaudin managed to finish things off before Joe Girardi had to go to the big guns, but the O’s hadn’t scored more than five runs since May 20 (when they also lost, 13-7), and there was no reason to let them break in their hitting shoes in a route.

Still, it was a successful night of baseball. Strasburg dominated. The Yankees won, and I didn’t miss anything by opting to watch the former.

In other news, Josh Paul is up to serve as the bullpen coach with Mike Harkey subbing for Dave Eiland who is taking a leave of absence from the team for personal reasons. Paul is the manager of the short-season Staten Island Yankees, who have yet to begin play this year, and is best remembered as  the catcher on the controversial “dropped third strike” call on A.J. Pierzynski in the 2005 ALCS. Paul is also three years younger than Chad Moeller and owns a comparable major league batting line (Paul: .244/.303/.341 in 797 plate appearances, Moeller: .226/.287/.352 in 1,533 PA). Is it a bad sign when your bullpen coach is as qualified to be your backup catcher as your backup catcher is?

In other catching news, Jorge Posada has started working behind the plate, though there remains no timetable for him to return to catching in games.

In his series preview, Cliff pointed out the peculiarity that is the 2010 Blue Jays, a team that abhors smallball, and lives and dies by the homer.  Coming into today’s game, the Jays were leading the majors in homers . . . by a whopping 17 over the Red Sox (94 to 77).  Their gaudy, majors-leading  .476 slugging percentage was tempered by a 23rd-best .248 team batting average.   Their resulting ISO (isolated slugging; the difference between batting average and slugging percentage) of .228 would be the highest season total in at least 20 years.  They are also dead last in GB/FB ratio, at .63.  The edict in Toronto seems to be “we are Jays . . . everything we do must involve flying”.

Furthermore, they’ve executed exactly two sacrifice bunts and attempted only 29 stolen bases all year.  Smallball is apparently not spoken in Canada anymore.

Andy Pettitte looked to stem the Gashouse Gorillas conga line of homers today as he faced off against Ricky Romero.   Pettitte worked both corners well throughout the game, striking out a season-high ten, all of them swinging.

Meanwhile, Romero, when he wasn’t toying with Mark Teixeira like Teix was a frenzied kitten,  was inducing many groundballs with a solid changeup.  The Yankees best early threat came in the top of the second, as Alex Rodriguez singled, and two outs later, Francisco Cervelli and Brett Gardner each walked.  On his already-40th pitch of the game, Romero got Kevin Russo to ground out to short.

Leading off the bottom of the second, Vernon Wells took a Pettitte fastball up in the zone out beyond the RF fence. Two outs later, Lyle Overbay hit a one-hop double to the RF wall.  But Andy got John Buck to foul out to Francisco Cervelli to end the inning.

After a couple more well-struck pitches in the third, including a ground-rule double leading off the inning, Pettitte really settled down, as there were no more pitches left up in the zone.   From that double through the end of the sixth, he allowed but two walks and one single.  In a one-run game seemingly dominated by the pitchers, for each of those three baserunner opportunities, Jays manager Cito Gaston eschewed trying to build a run through a sacrifice, hit-and-run or stolen base attempt.

Meanwhile Gardner led off the Yankee 5th with a double down the RF line, and then Derek Jeter capitalized on a rare Romero mistake, a changeup left up and outside, to collect his 6th homer of the season, giving the Bombers a 2-1 lead.

The Yanks had a rare, but golden opportunity to extend the lead in the 7th.   Cervelli led off with a hard-hit grounder to Edwin Encanarcion which knocked him down, allowing Cervelli to beat the throw to first.  Gardner walked again, and then Russo complied with General Joe Girardi’s smallball order, executing a nice 1-3 sac bunt to put runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out.

With the infield a few steps in all around, Jeter then lined a ball right at second baseman Aaron Hill.  Hill caught it, then dropped it on the transfer to his throwing hand.  Cervelli made the mistake of not watching the ball to see if it got out of the infield, and took off for home on contact.  Hill easily doubled Cervelli off third, as Jeter wondered what had happened.  Your not-so-basic 4-5 double play.

Meanwhile, the top three hitters in the Jays lineup had gone 0-10 against Pettitte as he took the mound in the bottom of the 7th.  Unfortunately the cosmic laws inherent in the Yanks missing a scoring opportunity bit Pettitte, as #6 hitter Alex Gonzalez led off with a homer on an 0-1 pitch, knotting the game at two.

Soon after, the game turned into a battle of the bullpens.  Girardi had relieved Pettitte after 107 pitches with 2 outs in the eighth, while Romero had completed eight innings, finishing by inducing a double play grounder from Alex Rodriguez.

Joba Chamberlain relieved Pettitte and promptly gave up a single to Wells.  But once again, Gaston didn’t put any wheels in motion, and Jose Bautista struck out looking on a nasty curve.

Chamberlain was still pitching in the ninth when he yielded a one-out single to Lyle Overbay.  Surely this would be the time for a pinch-runner for the sluggish Overbay? Nope.  Instead John Buck popped up to Cano and Encanarcion struck out.

The Yanks mounted a 2-out rally in the 10th against Kevin Gregg on a Jeter single and an eight-pitch walk by Swisher, but Teixeira struck out swinging for the fourth consecutive time, on his way to his own hellish version of a 5K.

Against David Robertson, Bautista led off the bottom of the 11th with a full-count walk, and again . . . the Jays did not play for one run . . . in a tie game in extra innings.  Gonzalez promptly banged into a 6-4-3 DP.  Even after Overbay immediately singled, there was no pinch-runner, and Buck flew out to deep left.

The Yanks did try to make something happen with their limited opportunities in extras.  Gardner singled with one out in the 12th, and one out later, stole his 20th base of the season.  But Jeter ended the threat grounding out to third.

In the bottom of the 12th, Chan Ho Park came on and walked the sub-.200 hitting Hill with two outs, but Gaston sat on his hands as Lind K’ed.  Park was still pitching in the 13th when Gonzalez placed a two-out single down the LF corner and Overbay walked.  But Buck buckled under the pressure, grounding to short.

In the top of the 14th, the Yanks tried to show Gaston about this smallball thing one more time, as Posada laced a long one-out single, and pinch-runner Ramiro Pena came on.  Pena couldn’t get a good lead on new pitcher Casey Janssen and somewhat curiously, Cervelli wasn’t asked to bunt.  Cervelli eventually struck out.  Pena did manage to steal second with Gardner up, but was left stranded when Gardner flied to Bautista.

Finally, in the bottom of the 14th, Gaston finally seemed to have the smallball impetus, and the absolute best players to employ it.  It also helped that they were now facing Chad Gaudin.  Encanarcion walked on four pitches leading off, and then Lewis executed a nice little 5-3 sacrifice.  Girardi elected to have Gaudin pitch to Hill, rather than setting up the force/DP by walking him and facing the lefty Lind.  Hill promptly ripped a hanging slider to plate the winning run in an excruciating 3-2 game.

(photo credit:  RoyalsReview.com)