My TV is busted. Been without the glow and hum since May 20th, and really, it’s not that bad. But it makes writing a game recap a little more difficult. There’s always the radio though, and I planned on listening to the game and relaying that experience to you. It wasn’t the best laid plan, but damn if it didn’t go astray anyway.

Photo by Greg Stone

What happened is the new public art project in New York called “Key to the City” and it’s unexpected popularity at 5:45pm on Friday night. The project is designed to recreate the experience of receiving a key to the city, but one that actually opens things – 24 locations scattered around the five boroughs. I work right next door to the kiosk where they are handing out the keys, and figured I would surprise my wife and bestow a key upon her, and make it home in plenty of time for the first pitch, natch.

Two hours later, the Yanks were already knee deep in Cecil-induced frustrations and I was finally getting that key. Starving, we headed to Bon Chon on 38th for some fabulously fried chicken wings and plopped down right in front of AJ Burnett and Jose Bautista facing off in the bottom of the second.

We stayed through the bottom of the fourth. As we left, I had a strong suspicion (and trail of garlic-soy) I had seen the five pitches that would be worth writing about. Here they are chronologically:

1) Bottom 2nd, none out, none on, 3-2 count on Jose Bautista. Blammo. A string-straight fastball, crushed appropriately. As he circled the bases, a YES graphic informed me it was his 17th of the year. What the shit?

2) Top 3rd, man on 2nd, 2 out, no count on Derek Jeter. Derek swung at the first pitch and was badly beaten on a change-up. He grounded out weakly to 3rd. I think a large part of why Cecil was so effective was his use of the change-up versus aggressive hitters in big spots. Jeter got totally abused there, as did Cano in the fourth when he struck out on five straight balls, none of them close.

3) Top 4th, man on 1st and 2nd, 0 out, 0-1 count to Arod. Ball in the dirt, scooted through Buck’s legs and he jumped up with no clue where the ball was. Swisher was not ready to take third. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It immediately occurred to me as important, but that is not because of any prescience, it’s just because I’m a buzzkill.

4)  Top 4th, man on 1st and 2nd, 0 out, 1-1 count to Arod. Somewhat well struck one hop liner turned into a DP with a high degree of difficulty for both the shortstop and the second baseman. The former had to stick with the hard hit ball to his left and the latter had to barehand an errant shovel pass. Not only was this double play made possible by Swisher’s failure to run the bases aggressively, I think it was a base hit if Gonzalez is not playing at double play depth.

5) Bottom 4th, man on 1st, 1 out, 2-0 on Bautista. Hard to believe, but this pitch was even more hittable than the last one, and number 18 went even further than number 17 (or seemed to anyway, I don’t have the distances). To make matters worse, there was a guy on first via one of the cheapest hits you’ll ever see.

And then a nice subway ride home and a check on the score did nothing to inspire me to catch Sterling’s call of the final few futile innings of the 6-1 loss. Not a good game, and the Rays are only down 3 runs in the seventh right now, so that’s probably an 80-20 shot at another victory for them. Glad I waited on line for that key.

The Yankees weren’t playing their best baseball coming into their just-completed seven-game homestand, but the prospect of facing two of the three worst teams in the majors, the Indians and Orioles, as well as getting Curtis Granderson and Jorge Posada back from the disabled list promised better results. The Yankees got them by taking three of four from the Tribe, then sweeping the lowly O’s, wrapping up a 6-1 homestand with a 6-3 win over Baltimore on Thursday afternoon.

Despite the relatively close score, there wasn’t much drama in this one. The Yankees put up two runs again Baltimore starter Kevin Millwood in the bottom of the first, the first scoring on a balk when Millwood’s spikes caught on the mound in the middle of his slide-step, the second scoring on a Robinson Cano double that extended the Yankee second baseman’s hit-streak to 17 games. CC Sabathia gave up a solo homer to Adam Jones in the top of the third on what looked like another sinker up in the zone, but the Yankees answered right back with three runs in the bottom of the frame, two scoring on a home run by newly-minted active career homer leader Alex Rodriguez that hitting coach Kevin Long predicted was coming before the game, the third manufactured from Millwood’s ensuing walk to Cano.

Brett Gardner led off the sixth with a home run to right, his third of the year, all three coming at home and going to right field. That set the Yankee tally at six, making room for the two-run jack by Luke Scott that Sabathia allowed in the top of the seventh. Sabathia cruised through most of the game. In the first six innings, he allowed only Jones to reach base (on his home run and a comebacker that Sabathia swatted down with his big bare paw only to pull Mark Teixeira off the bag with his throw, ruled an error). He seemed to wilt in the heat a bit in the seventh when his pitch count approached 90, allowing a single to Ty Wigginton before Scott’s homer, a booming shot into the second deck in right, then walking the struggling Garrett Atkins, but CC rallied to strike out Jones (his seventh K of the game) and get a fielder’s choice to wrap up his seven innings with 94 pitches. Sabathia allowed just three hits in the game, two of them were home runs.

Joba Chamberlain followed Sabathia with a perfect eighth. Mariano Rivera then made things slightly interesting by starting out the ninth by walking Nick Markakis and hitting Wigginton to bring the tying run to the plate, only to reach back and strike out Scott on a sharp 94 mile-per-hour cutter, then hit 95 twice while getting the final two outs, one of those pitches being a fastball riding in that the righty Jones swung through for the final out.

Credit Rivera’s velocity, Sabathia’s homers and “early” exit, and perhaps Gardner’s shot as well, to the heat. It was hot Thursday afternoon, and so are the Yankees, which is exactly what they needed to be in this soft spot in their schedule. The Yanks are just two games behind the Rays, and, if they can survive their three game set in Toronto against the surprising Blue Jays this weekend, they should stay hot next week when they rematch against the Orioles (who seem likely to have a new manager by then) in Baltimore then return home to face the National League’s worst team, the Astros.

The 2010 versions of Javier Vazquez and the Baltimore Orioles: on their own, neither suggests a well-pitched game, but in combination they produced exactly that Tuesday night. Vazquez and the O’s highly-regarded rookie left-hander Brian Matusz opened this week’s three-game set in the Bronx by not allowing a hit in the first two innings, not allowing a run in the first four, and taking a 1-1 tie into the seventh.

Both runs scored on solo homers. Curtis Granderson led off the fifth by homering to right on a full count. Corey Patterson answered that shot with two outs and a 1-2 count in the top of the sixth. Both pitches were fastballs up and out to lefties who reached out and pulled them over the fence. Granderson’s went into the box seats in the right-field gap. Patterson’s was hooked into the second deck close to the foul pole.

The game was ultimately decided in the seventh inning. Vazquez got into trouble in the top of the frame when Nick Markakis singled and Luke Scott doubled to put men on second and third with one out. It was the first time in the game that Vazquez allowed multiple baserunners in an inning and the first time other than Patterson’s homer than an Oriole had gotten past second base against him.

With first base open, Joe Girardi had Vazquez walk switch-hitter Matt Wieters and go after righties Adam Jones and Julio Lugo. Vazquez rose to the challenge, striking out Jones on four pitches then getting Lugo to ground out on one.

The bottom of the seventh saw Derek Jeter single and Nick Swisher draw a four pitch walk to put men on first and second with one out. A Juan Miranda groundout move them up to second and third presenting Orioles manager Dave Trembley with the option of walking Alex Rodriguez to have his young lefty face Robinson Cano with two outs and the bases loaded.

Trembley opted to bring in a righty, deposed starter David Hernandez, to face Rodriguez, a tribute to the MVP-quality season Cano is having. Rodriguez hit the first pitch hard to third base, but right at Miguel Tejada who, ignored Jeter at third in an effort to get the out at first. Tejada’s throw was in time, but it was short, hitting the wet grass in front of first base and skipping under the glove of first baseman Ty Wigginton, who has spent most of the season playing second base. Rodriguez was safe, as was Jeter, who scored the go-ahead run, and Swisher came around to score as well as the ball trickled up the firstbase line past Rodriguez, who walked casually back to the bag.

The play was ruled an error on Tejada (both runs unearned, no RBI), but the only scoring that counted was the 3-1 tally, which the Yankees promptly nailed down via a perfect eight-pitch inning from Joba Chamberlain and a scoreless ninth from Mariano Rivera.

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“It’s a bad loss. There’s no doubt about it. It’s a bad loss. You know, you gotta believe if you’re up 10-5 going into the seventh inning that you have a good chance of winning. We didn’t do it today. And they never stopped fighting, and, uh, they scored more runs than we did.”

–Joe Girardi

“You’re not going to be up until 3am again, are you?”

–my wife

It took the Yankees nearly four and a half hours on Saturday afternoon to build up a huge lead over the Indians then, slowly, like a mighty mountain being eroded by the wind, give it all back plus some for a soul-crushing, mind-numbing, eye-gouging, 13-11 loss to the hapless, punchless Indians. Indians broadcaster Tom Hamilton had a flight to catch out of Newark International, the last flight of the night back to Cleveland where his daughter was having a graduation party later that night and her graduation on Sunday. Between innings late in the game, he told Yankee announcer Michael Kay, “I cover a team that never scores and today they score 12 runs.”

It was ugly in almost every way that a game could be ugly. In the middle of a third-inning rally, Alex Rodriguez lined a ball off the forehead of Indians starter David Huff, who fell face-first onto the mound and lay motionless for several minutes before being strapped to a board and carted off. His family was in town to see him pitch. They wound up spending the afternoon with him at New York-Presbyterian hospital where, thankfully, his CT scan came back negative (“they x-rayed my head and found nothing” goes the classic Dizzy Dean line). He was back at the ballpark soon after the last out.

What he missed was the Yankees adding a third run to his ledger in the bottom of the third, then a fourth inning in which the two teams combined for nine runs. CC Sabathia, who looked sharp in the first three innings, suddenly started to struggle again, perhaps due to the long delay from Huff’s injury. He couldn’t seem to get in sync with catcher Francisco Cervelli and threw 31 pitches in the inning in the process of allowing the Indians to tie the game at 3-3 on an infield single, a wild pitch, a walk, an RBI single, and a tw0-RBI double by Matt LaPorta, the key player the Indians received for Sabathia back in July 2008.

Facing Huff’s replacement, fellow lefty Aaron Laffey, the Yankees picked up their struggling ace with a six-spot in the bottom of the fourth, the key hit being a two-RBI double by Robinson Cano, but Sabathia let the Indians chip away at that 9-3 lead with a run in the fifth (which the Yankees got right back to go up 10-4) and a run in the sixth.

Out after 113 pitches in six innings, Sabathia yielded to  David Robertson, but after allowing a run on a hit-by-pitch, stolen base, and RBI single, Robertson, who had been hit in the back by a Joe Mauer comebacker in his previous appearances, came out of the game with a stiff lower back. That caused another long delay in the game as Sergio Mitre took some 30 pitches to get warm on the game mound only to complete a four-pitch walk to Jhonny Peralta and get pulled in favor of Damaso Marte as Joe Girardi began playing matchups with a four run lead in the seventh.

Marte got his man, but he was promptly replaced by Joba Chamberlain, who didn’t. Having entered the game with a four-run lead, runners on first and second, and two outs, Chamberlain proceeded to cough up the lead via a single, walk, back-to-back doubles by rookies Lou Marson and Jason Donald, the eighth and ninth men in the Cleveland batting order, and another single. By the time Chamberlain finally got the third out of the inning, the Yankees were down 12-10.

After Derek Jeter erased a leadoff walk to Brett Gardner by hitting into a double play in the seventh, Chad Gaudin, effectively the last available man in the Yankee bullpen save for Mariano Rivera, gave up a solo homer to Russell Branyan in the eighth, but the insurance run was unnecessary. After stranding a two-out Robinson Cano single in the bottom of the eighth, the Yankees did push a cross a run against closer Kerry Wood in the ninth when Curtis Granderson drew a pinch-hit walk, was balked to second, and scored on a Jeter double, but that was all the Yankees would get.

I don’t know if Hamilton made his flight or not, but the game, which I didn’t start watching until the evening due to a busy day with my daughter and some preparation work for her first birthday party on Sunday, did indeed keep me up until 3:00 am, even with the benefit of the fast-forward button on my DVR. All totaled, the game saw 402 pitches thrown, 159 of them balls, across the course of 92 different plate appearances resulting in 24 runs scored on 26 hits, 13 walks, and three hit batsmen.

I’m glad Huff is okay. I hope Robertson is (Girardi said he was day-to-day). I also hope Sabathia’s problems had more to do with the long delay fouling up his rhythm, as Girardi suggested, than with his poor outings against the Mets and Tigers. I also hope I don’t have to watch a game like this one again anytime soon, and that someone takes the time to read this recap before we all move on to Sunday’s 1:05 matchup between Justin Masterson and A.J. Burnett, a pitching pairing that doesn’t seem to suggest the clean, crisp game we all deserve after Saturday’s mess.

I also hope I don’t pass out in my daughter’s birthday cake. My wife would not be pleased.

As our man Hank Waddles pointed out in his recap of last night’s game, the Yankees on Friday night began a stretch in which they will play 13 of 16 games against the three worst teams in baseball: the Indians (four games in this current wrap-around Memorial Day weekend series), the Orioles (six games, three home, three away), and the Astros (three games at home to end the stretch). Of those 13 games, ten of them come at home, and the only winning team the Yankees will face during that 16-game stretch is the overachieving, third-place Blue Jays.

This is the time for the Yankees to fatten up, and they did exactly that Friday night.

Phil Hughes opened the game by striking out the first five men in the Indians order. In the bottom of the second, Nick Swisher launched a two-run home run off Tribe starter Fausto Carmona that hit the right-field foul pole maybe a foot from the top. Clinging to a 2-1 lead in the 6th, the Yankees added another couple of runs via a bases-loaded, no-out rally that was cut short by the feeble bottom of the order on a day that Joe Girardi opted to rest Alex Rodriguez and Francisco Cervelli, both of whom needed it. Then in the seventh, Robinson Cano, who went 3-for-4 with a walk while batting cleanup for the first time in his career, launched a grand slam off lefty reliever Tony Sipp that iced the game.

Hughes gave up a second run in the seventh on a Russell Branyan solo homer that got out so quickly that Michael Kay’s only description of the action as it was in progress was “there that went”, but that was the extent of the damage in Hughes’ seven innings of work as he struck out eight in total against just one walk. Sergio Mitre and Chan Ho Park wrapped things up without incident, and the Yankees won 8-2.

Heading into Friday night’s game, Hughes needed a good start, and the Yankee offense needed to put a big number on the board. Both ate well. Here’s hoping the Yankees continue to feast for the next couple of weeks.

The Yankees limped into this series, but it hasn’t mattered much; if the Twins didn’t have bad luck against the Yankees, they wouldn’t have no luck at all. Minnesota lost two one-run games in the space of an evening – the second half of last night’s suspended Scoreless Wonder, which ended up a 1-0 Yanks win thanks to Derek Jeter’s solo home run (and lead-preserving nifty defensive play), and then tonight’s 3-2 duel, which saw Andy Pettitte prevail over Francisco Liriano. Mariano Rivera saved both games, and if he didn’t quite radiate moonbeams and rose petals and ride off the field on a pegasus like he normally does, it was at least a step in the right direction.

I figured on the bullpen being a minefield today (as just getting through nine innings has proved plenty tough enough for those guys recently), but David Robertson, Joba Chamberlain, and Mo staggered through to the end of the first game unscathed, and Andy Pettitte gave everyone a break tonight by throwing 72 of his 94 pitches for strikes — “attack-tastic,” as my friend put it — powering through eight relatively smooth innings with a little help from his good friend the DP grounder. Safe to say he’s showing no ill effects from his recent elbow issue (…well, safe to say, but I’m knocking on wood anyway, just in case). He hit a few speed bumps: in the first inning, when my guy Denard Span doubled, stole third, and was delivered to home plate by Joe Mauer; and in the seventh, with Delmon Young’s RBI double. Beyond that, though Pettitte allowed eight hits, he walked no one, struck out four, and was generally able to keep his anguished, muttered self-criticism on the mound to a minimum. When he induced Joe Mauer to hit into the Twins’ third DP of the night and end the eighth inning, his fist pump was downright Joba-esque.

With the Yankees still staging their community theater adaptation of Waiting For Godot, starring Mark Teixeira’s offense (“We are all born mad. Some remain so”), they patched together a few runs from the bottom of the lineup. In the fourth Francisco Cervelli went all speed-demon on the Twins, beat out a potential double play throw, and scored from first on Kevin “Strong Island” Russo’s double; Russo himself scored in the seventh inning when Brett Gardner tripled. (“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!”).

Each team had two runs and eight hits when Nick Swisher came to the plate in the top of the ninth to face Jon Rauch and his neck tattoos. The third pitch of the at-bat was a ripe fastball, and we can only hope its violent death was quick and painless, as Swisher absolutely creamed it. It soared over the right field wall and gave them a 3-2 lead that they held onto, thanks to a much more Mariano-like Rivera appearance than we saw in the first game. Take a deep breath, the Yankees won another series.

The opening game of the Yankees’ first series at the new outdoor stadium in Minneapolis was suspended after the fifth inning Tuesday night due to the increased intensity of a storm that brought steady rain beginning in the bottom of the second inning. The game, which remained scoreless when lightening strikes and heavier rains forced the umpires to call out the tarp after the bottom of the fifth, will be made up at 4:05 central time, 5:05 eastern on Wednesday afternoon with the regularly scheduled game between the two teams to follow thirty minutes after the last out, or at 6:10 central/7:10 eastern, whichever is later. The rain delay and eventual suspension of the game was the first weather-related delay of a Twins home game since September 26, 1981, the Twins’ fifth-to-last game at their previous outdoor home, Metropolitan Stadium.

There was very little action in the first five innings as both starters, A.J. Burnett for the Yankees and Scott Baker for the Twins, were sharp, allowing just three hits and no runs. Burnett walked two but struck out five, while Baker walked just one and struck out just two but needed only 50 pitches to get through five innings.

The only batter to reach third base for either team was Denard Span, who led off the bottom of the first with a walk, stole second, and moved to third when Joe Mauer grounded out for the second out. He was stranded when Michael Cuddyer ground out to short after Burnett pitched carefully to Justin Morneau and walked him.

The only Yankee to reach second was Derek Jeter who led off the fourth with a single to center, then moved up on a walk to Brett Gardner, who had singled in the first and thus showed signs of breaking out of his slump by reaching base in both of his plate appearances. Jeter was stranded when a still-struggling Mark Teixeira, who erased Gardner in the first via a double play, popped out, Alex Rodriguez struck out, and Robinson Cano flied out.

Thanks to that double play off the bat of Teixeira, Baker faced the minimum through the first three innings. Burnett countered by retiring eight straight from the third through the fifth, a streak broken when Span took advantage of the soft ground by dropping down a two-out bunt base hit that stopped dead a quarter of the way up the third base line. Span then stole second again, but Burnett struck out Orlando Hudson to strand him. After that, the game was delayed for about an hour and a half before being suspended. No word on who will pitch for either team in the sixth inning tomorrow.

Give the Yankees this: they’re in a team-wide slump right now, but they’re still not boring. Even in a game in which they look listless, they’re almost a sure bet to put together a late-inning rally that falls just short of the necessary number of runs to qualify as an actual comeback.

They did it again Sunday night. For the third time in his last four starts, CC Sabathia was off his game, his pitches staying up in the zone, two of them leaving the park. Sunday night it was Jason Bay who turned around, in Joe Girardi’s words, “a changeup that cut” and a sinker that was up in the zone, tripling his home run output on the season. Those two blasts, one over the 384 sign in the left-field gap, one more than 400 feet to the opposite-field gap, plated three Mets runs. Prior to Bay’s first shot, in the second inning, a single by lefty Alex Cora, a last-minute sub for the aching Luis Castillo at second base, plated the Mets’ first two runs. After Bay’s second shot in the fifth, rookie lefty Ike Davis singled and was driven in by a David Wright double.

That made it 6-0 Mets and prompted me to comment in my liveblog from the pressbox, “I’m calling another just-short late-inning rally tonight.”

Bingo.

Johan Santana gave up three singles in the first three innings, but only CC Sabathia, who singled to lead off the third, got past first base. From the third through the seventh, Santana retired 13 straight Yankees. Then in the seventh, the Yankees finally broke through when Nick Swisher worked a two-out walk, and Francisco Cervelli hit a ball off the top of the left-field wall, inches below the foul pole for a long single.

Down, 6-1, the Yankees loaded the bases on a pair of walks and a Mark Teixeira slump-busting single in the eighth as Santana passed 100 pitches, but Jerry Manuel brought in side-arming lefty Pedro Feliciano, who got Robinson Cano to pop out to strand all three runners.

Finally, the Yankees put an honest-to-goodness rally together in the ninth against Ryota Igarashi, a first-year Japanese import fresh off the disabled list. Another Swisher walk was followed by a Cervelli single, Kevin Russo fielder’s choice, Juan Miranda pinch-hit RBI single. That forced Manuel to go to his closer, and Derek Jeter greeted old foe Francisco Rodriguez with a big RBI double to make it 6-3. Brett Gardner followed with an RBI groundout to third, failing to get a close call, though replays showed he was out by the tiniest of margins.

Teixeira followed with a flare that dropped in front of Cora for a hit, putting the tying run on and bringing up Alex Rodriguez for a big time confrontation with K-Rod. Rodriguez battled Rodriguez for eight pitches, getting ahead 2-0, then 3-1, fouling off four pitches in the at-bat, two of them with the count full, but once again the Yankees fell short. The third 3-2 pitch in the fourth full count of the inning was a changup in the zone that dipped just below Alex Rodriguez’s swing for strike three.

Mets win the game, 6-4, and the series.

The Yankees take a travel day and head to the new ballpark in Minneapolis. Here’s hoping they don’t run out of gas in St. Paul.

So, Jorge Posada’s achy foot that got hit by a foul ball off the bat of Michael Cuddyer on Sunday? Yeah, it’s broken. He’s out three to four weeks. Hey, but he wasn’t playing anyway, so at least putting Jorge on the disabled list frees up a roster spot for . . . a backup catcher that will never play? Right. And Nick Swisher . . . still isn’t ready.

Oh, and Marcus Thames stepped on his own bat while running to first on a single during Wednesday night’s game and sprained his ankle. Oh, but he’s not going on the DL. No, his x-rays were negative and he’s day-to-day. So, the Yankees will still have two unusable players on their bench tomorrow and heading into Queens this weekend, where their pitchers will have to hit.

Yeah, it was that kind of night for the Yankees. Jason Bartlett hit A.J. Burnett’s second pitch for his first home run of the season. Brett Gardner got picked off in the bottom of the first. Burnett gave up a run in the third without allowing a hit by walking the ninth-place hitter, hitting Carl Crawford in the back foot, walking Ben Zobrist, then giving up a sac fly to Evan Longoria.

Hey, but that could have gone worse, what with Longo up with the bags juiced, right? Oh right, it did go worse in the fourth, when Burnett coughed up four runs. That inning that started with a pair of infield singles and a double steal, with Hank Blalock of all people on the back end, followed by a two-RBI double by Rays catcher John Jaso, a Francisco Cervelli throwing error that moved Jaso to third, an RBI double off the right field wall by Crawford, yet another walk to Zobrist, and an RBI single by, hey, look at that: Evan Longoria.

The Yankees eeked out a run in the bottom of the fourth when  Rays starter Wade Davis issued a leadoff walk to Alex Rodriguez and Rodriguez came around to score on a Robinson Cano single and a Cervelli sac fly. Rodriguez later doubled the Yankee tally by leading off the sixth with a solo homer that made it 6-2 Rays, but Derek Jeter ended that inning by grounding out with the bases loaded, and Boone Logan gave that run back in the eighth, giving up a walk and an RBI double to the only two men he faced.

Down 7-2, Joe Girardi broke the glass on Mark Melancon, and Melancon returned the favor by shattering the Yankees’ hopes completely by coughing up three more runs (the first of which was charged to Logan) on a series of singles and a sac fly.

Down 10-2, the Yankees were in the process of going down meekly in the bottom of the ninth, Randy Winn grounding out on a 1-2 count, Derek Jeter grounding out on the first pitch he saw, when suddenly they found a new life. Eight runs behind and down to their final out, the Yankees rallied against Tampa Bay longman Andy Sonnanstine.

Brett Gardner singled to center. Mark Teixeira drew a four-pitch walk. Tex beat the flip to second on an Alex Rodriguez grounder to short that was ruled an infield hit and loaded the bases. Robinson Cano singled home Gardner. Francisco Cervelli walked on five pitches to force in Teixeira. Ramiro Peña, who had been the only available man on the bench and thus came in for Thames in the sixth, hit a dying quail to center that ricocheted off the glove of B.J. Upton, who lost track of the ball long enough for both Rodriguez and Cano to score and Peña to reach second on what was scored a single and an error.

That brought Juan Miranda up one baserunner shy of bringing the tying run to the plate, but Joe Maddon killed the mojo by taking Sonanstine out of the game and replacing him with Joaquin Benoit, who struck out Juan Miranda to kill the rally and earn an extremely unexpected save.

I expect the Yankees will move Nick Johnson to the 60-day DL on Thursday to create room on the 40-man roster for veteran backup Chad Moeller, who will play sparingly, though Robby Hammock, who could double as a utility man having played all four corner positions in the majors, would be an even better option. Jesus Montero, who is struggling at the plate and behind it and was recently benched for loafing, won’t be considered, nor will Austin Romine, largely because Cervelli is already well-established as the starter. Also look for the Yankees to shed a pitcher, likely Melancon, in favor of an outfielder, likely Greg Golson, who can be recalled as an injury replacement for Posada.

By the way, everyone saying they’ve never seen a player step on a bat and injure himself before is forgetting about John Olerud, who did just that in Game Three of the 2004 ALCS, leaving first base in the hands of Tony Clark until the seventh inning of Game Seven, when his return was too little too late. Talk about your bad omens . . .

Though it’s an everyday occurrence for beat writers who work on deadline, I rarely start writing my game recaps before I’ve seen the last out, and given that I typically watch the games on DVR-delay, that can lead to some pretty late nights. Tuesday night’s game, delayed for an hour by rain, slowed by the deliberate pace of the two starting pitchers, Josh Beckett and CC Sabathia, extended by a controversial moment when Beckett was removed ostensibly due to a back injury just after giving up a two-run double on his 101st pitch, prompting Joe Girardi to put the game under protest as the Red Sox didn’t have anyone warming in the bullpen and reliever Manny Delcarmen was allowed unlimited time to warm up on the game mound, and inflated by the usual rain-related business (pitchers cleaning their spikes, the grounds crew applying drying agents to the mound, etc.), took so damn long that I decided, with the Yankees leading 5-1 in the eighth, to start writing.

Bad idea.

The reason I usually don’t start writing before the last out is the same reason I never leave games before the last out. In baseball, until the final out is made, anything can happen.

As I began to type, Alex Rodriguez made a bad throw on a ground ball, pulling Mark Teixeira off first base and allowing Marco Scutaro to reach base to start the inning. From there, Joba Chamberlain, the first man out of the Yankee pen after CC Sabathia gutted out seven innings allowing just one run on a Kevin Youkilis solo homer, began to unravel.

Dustin Pedroia singled. J.D. Drew doubled Scutaro home. Kevin Youkilis singled home both Pedroia and Drew, and after a Victor Martinez groundout moved Youkilis to second, David Ortiz hit a would-be double off the wall in front of the Yankee bullpen to plate Youkilis and tie the game at 5-5.

I say “would-be double” because Ortiz, failing to account for the wind blowing in, didn’t run out of the box on what he thought was a home run, and was easily thrown out at second. It was that kind of game. The Yankees scored their first two runs in the second after Scutaro muffed a would-be double play ball, failing to get even one out. Rodriguez’s error started the Red Sox’s comeback.

The worst gaffe of the game, however, came in the top of the ninth with the score still knotted at 5-5 and Mariano Rivera on the hill. With one out and Darnell McDonald on first via a single, Scutaro popped up to shallow right. Robinson Cano went back and Marcus Thames came in. Thames call for the ball, which was clearly his to catch, but after Cano peeled off expecting Thames to make the catch, Thames dropped it, putting the tying run in scoring position with still just one man out. Rivera got Pedroia to ground out, but Jeremy Hermida, in the game for Drew who hurt himself running the bases during the Sox’s rally in the eighth, crushed a 2-2 pitch over Randy Winn’s head in left for a two-run double.

Having won the night before on a pair of two-run home runs off Jonathan Papelbon in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees rallied against the Boston closer again. Again the inning started with an error, an Alex Rodriguez grounder that skipped under Scutaro’s glove. Robinson Cano, who hit the two-run double that drove Beckett from the game, followed with a double that scored Rodriguez, then was bunted to third by Francisco Cervelli to put the tying run on third with just one out.

That brought up Monday night’s hero and Tuesday night’s goat, Thames. Likely aware of Thames’ ability to lift a game-tying sac fly, never mind another game-winning two-run homer, Papelbon threw just one of his six pitches to Thames in the strike zone and Thames accepted the free pass. Ramiro Peña ran for Thames and took off on a 1-1 count to Juan Miranda, who earlier had driven in the first Yankee run of the day with a single and later added a solo homer. Miranda hit a hard grounder back up through the middle, but Papelbon made a nice stab to hold Cano at third and could have had a double play had Peña not been running. That passed the baton to Randy Winn with two outs, the Yankees down by one, and men on second and third. Winn battled Papelbon for eight pitches, three of which he fouled off on his way to working the count full, but ultimately Papelbon got the upper hand, blowing a fastball by Winn to seal the 7-6 win for Boston.

The whole affair took four hours and nine minutes, which is long enough for a nine-inning game, but with the hour rain delay, miserable weather, and sloppy play, it felt like six hours. Hell, it felt like eternity.

Chalk this one up to the Go Figure Department. Serge Mitre pitches well, David Robertson does the job even if he still can’t throw strikes consistently. The Twins hit the ball hard but have little to show for it. Meanwhile, Randy Winn drives in two with a triple and the Yanks hold a 3-1 lead in the eighth. But Joba can’t get out of the inning, and loads the bases. With two out, Mariano comes in and falls behind 3-0 to Jim Thome (the second pitch was close, a pitch Mo usually gets, but was off the plate). Throws a strike, Thome fouls off two pitches and then takes ball four to force home a run.

Jason Kubel is next and he slaps Mo’s second pitch into the seats in right for a grand slam.

Silence. Kick a hole in the speaker, pull the plug, then…jet.

Improbable, maybe. Bound to happen? Yeah. Just a reminder that winning games is hard even for the best of ’em. First two runs Mo have given up all year.

So in the bottom of the ninth, Winn singles up the middle and then Ramiro Pena pokes a base hit to right against Minnesota’s closer, Jon Rauch. Derek Jeter’s next and takes two huge cuts and the crowd is into it again. Tying man at the plate. Couple more foul balls and Rauch screws him into the ground on a curve ball in the dirt. Jeter can’t hold up, one out. Next, Gardner whiffs on three pitches. Finally, Mark Teixeira takes two strikes, looks at a couple of balls, swings late and barely manages to foul a pitch down the first base line, and then looks at strike three–a tailing fastball that hits the inside corner–as the Twins salvage the last game of the series, 6-3.

Only real drag is that the Rays won again so the Yanks drop another game out of first.

Can’t win ’em all.

[Photo Credit: Bags and Al Bello/Getty Images]

The Yankees haven’t played many see-saw games this year, but Friday night’s homestand-opening tilt against the Twins teetered back and forth repeatedly before the final blow was struck in the seventh.

A.J. Burnett struggled early on, working around a single and a walk in the first, then getting into a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the second after Jason Kubel singled, Delmon Young walked, and Alex Rodriguez flubbed an Alexi Casilla bunt. Feeling the pinch from home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez, Burnett walked Nick Punto on four pitches to force in the first run of the game, but then wrangled a Denard Span comebacker in his baggy jersey to start a 1-2-3 double play and struck out Orlando Hudson to strand all three remaining runners.

Burnett settled down from there, which allowed the Yankees to return serve against Twins starter Scott Baker in the fourth. Brett Gardner led off that frame with a no-doubter home run into the right field bleachers, his second roundtripper of the season. Mark Teixeira followed with a single, moved to second on a walk to Alex Rodriguez, and came around to score on a double by Robinson Cano. Baker, who bears a resemblance to actor Joseph Gordon Levitt, then struck out the weak underbelly of the Yankee order (Randy Winn, a mid-game replacement for Nick Swisher whose bicep tightened up again in his first at-bat though a subsequent MRI was negative and Swisher said he was fine, Marcus Thames, and Juan Miranda) to hold the score at 2-1.

The Twins tied things right back up in the top of the fifth when, with two outs, Joe Mauer connected for an opposite-field solo homer. The Yanks then got that run back in the bottom of the fifth when, again with two outs, when Gardner singled and Teixeira doubled him home. In what initially seemed like a big play, Rodriguez followed with a single to left, but third base coach Rob Thomson sent Teixeira home from second against the strong arm of Delmon Young, who threw Tex out by about 20 feet, ending the inning and keeping the Yankee lead at 3-2.

That score held until the seventh, when with Span on second via a single and a productive out, Joe Girardi hooked Burnett at exactly 100 pitches (just 51 of which were strikes) and brought in Damaso Marte to face the left-handed Mauer and Justin Morneau. Marte, who hadn’t pitched since the previous Saturday, entered without much command or much break on his slider and promptly gave up a game-tying opposite-field single to Mauer.

With the speedy Span sprinting home, Brett Gardner made an ill-advised and wild throw home allowing Mauer to go to second, but with first base open and Joba Chamberlain heating it up in the bullpen, Girardi opted not to walk Morneau, who has been among the hottest players in the league in the early going, and have Chamberlain pitch to the vastly inferior right-hander Michael Cuddyer. Instead, Marte threw his rusty slop at Morneau, and Morneau smacked a double, which with Mauer on second thanks to Gardner’s bad throw, plated the go-ahead run for Minnesota. Only then did Girardi hold up four fingers, instructing Marte to walk the righty and stay in to pitch to the lefty Kubel, who flew out to end the rally.

Between Thomson’s send of Teixeira, Gardner’s throw, and Girardi’s excessive faith in a rusty Marte, it looked like the Yankees were in the process of kicking away a close game, but in the bottom of the seventh, team sparkplug Francisco Cervelli led off by beating out an infield single to Orlando Hudson’s right and Derek Jeter followed by ricochetting a ball off Baker’s knee and into shallow right field for an unusual double. That bounced Baker at exactly 100 pitches (72 of which were strikes). Twins manager Ron Gardenhire called on lefty Brian Duensing, last year’s ALDS Game 1 starter, who got Gardner to fly out for the first out. Gardenhire then had Duensing intentionally walk Mark Teixeira to set up a force at every base and brought in groundballing ace setup man Matt Guerrier to face Alex Rodriguez.

The catch is that Rodriguez had three home runs in six prior at-bats against Guerrier. Rodriguez hit Guerrier’s first offering just foul over third base and grimaced at the loss of what he thought was a go-ahead double. Guerrier’s next pitch was a hanging sinker up in the zone and Rodriguez crushed it into the left-field box seats for a game-breaking grand slam.

The Yanks added an extra run in the eighth when Juan Miranda doubled and Francisco Cervelli shot a ball into the right-field corner that kicked past Cuddyer and allowed Cervelli to cruise into third with an RBI stand-up triple. Around that, Joba Chamberlain struck out the side in the eighth, and Mariano Rivera worked a 1-2-3 ninth, getting ahead 0-2 on every batter. Yankees win 8-4.

Nice way to kick off a homestand.

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Despite an overnight deluge, the Yankees and Tigers got the finale of their four-game set in on Thursday afternoon, though the Yankees probably wish they hadn’t. Not only did they lose, but because Tuesday night’s rain-out forced Phil Hughes and Javy Vazquez to both pitch on Wednesday, the Yankees will have to choose between Sergio Mitre or a minor league call-up (such as Ivan Nova, who finished Thursday’s game for CC Sabathia) to pitch against the Twins on Sunday because both Hughes and Javy would be on short rest that day. Had Thursday been rained out, everyone could have been pushed back a day, erasing the need for another spot start, but there were no raindrops to hide the Yankees’ teardrops on Thursday, just a hard wind blowing in that kept a hanging curve from Justin Verlander that Juan Miranda tattooed with a man on in the top of the second from even reaching the warning track in straight-away center.

Despite giving up all six runs in the 6-0 final score, CC Sabathia actually pitched pretty well and even seemed to be out-pitching Justin Verlander in the early going, despite giving up an early lead. The Yankees didn’t get a lot of hits against Verlander (just four on the day), but they worked him over for four walks and got his pitch count up early. He ultimately worked 6 2/3 innings, but struck out just four men and needed 119 pitches to get that far. Sabathia, by comparison, walked no one and needed just 54 pitches to get through the first five innings despite giving up three runs along the way.

The first Tiger tally came in the bottom of the second, when left-handed rookie slugger Brennan Boesch doubled over Brett Gardner’s head in center and, with two outs, Gerald Laird drove him in by accident on a check swing bloop that dropped in to shallow right field for a single. Then in the fourth, Sabathia floated a 2-1 sinker up in the zone and right over the plate for Miguel Cabrera, who launched it the other way for a solo homer. Boesch followed by yanking a 1-2 hanging curve down the right field line for another solo shot to make it 3-0.

With CC pitching efficiently and Verlander’s pitch-count climbing, there was reason to be optimistic about the Yankee offense, which had scored fewer than three runs just twice all season, closing that gap, but in the sixth, CC fell apart, giving up singles to Johnny Damon and Magglio Ordoñez to start the inning, then floating another two-seamer to Cabrera, who crushed it into that wind for a double that plated both runners and ran the Tiger lead to 5-0. Sabathia rallied to strike out Boesch and got Brandon Inge to fly out to center without Cabrera advancing, but, with two outs, Laird, who entered the game hitting .157 and had just one prior multi-hit game this season, doubled home Cabrera to set the final score.

Rookie Ivan Nova pitched the final two innings, stranding a pair of two-out singles in the eighth and working a 1-2-3 ninth. He looked sharp in his major league debut, showing low-90s heat that touched 95 and a sharp curve as well as a changeup that split the difference. It will be interesting to see if the Yankees tap him for Sunday’s game over Mitre, who pitched well enough but wasn’t terribly impressive in Monday’s spot-start.

The loss sent the Yankees home with a 3-4 record on their two-stop road trip. That after winning a pair of blowouts in Fenway to start the trip. It also handed the Yankees just their second series loss of the season. Blame the offense, which after scoring as few as two runs just once prior to arriving in Detroit was shut out twice, once by a pitcher who entered the game with a 7.50 ERA (though, in fairness, Rick Porcello is closer to a shutout pitcher than a 7.50 ERA pitcher). Setting aside their six-run outburst against a pitcher who had just arrived from Triple-A in the ninth inning of Wednesday’s nightcap, the Yankees have scored just nine runs in the last five games. On Thursday, the lineup was missing Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson, and Nick Swisher. Late in the game, Derek Jeter, whose single on Thursday was his only hit in those five games, was hit in the pinky by a Verlander pitch. Jeter stayed in the game and says he’s fine, of course, but those who remember his slump after being hit by a Daniel Cabrera pitch two years ago will likely be holding their breath until he gets hot again. Swisher is merely day-to-day with a biceps strain and should be in the lineup on Friday, but these mounting injuries are finally beginning to show up on the bottom line. The Yankees are home on Friday and need to get well quick as the AL Central leaders will be followed into town by the Red Sox and Rays.

Sergio Mitre took the ball to the hill for an emergency start against the Tigers tonight. That’s not a good initial ingredient for a victory, but his opposite number was also a fill-in named (checking his name…) Brad Thomas. So there was some reason to hope. The Tigers cracked Mitre for four runs, but the Yankees merely dented Thomas for two. And after some radar-gun frying relief pitching, the clearing smoke revealed a 5-4 victory for Detroit.

Both starting pitchers were bad, but Jim Leyland tossed his pea-shooter aside earlier than Joe Girardi. The bridge to the endgame flame throwers featured only an annoying run charged to Boone Logan’s suspiciously modest account (Is he hiding runs in an off-shore ERA?).

Zumaya, Chamberlain and Valverde took turns trying to short circuit the radar gun – Zumaya winning bragging rights by going over 100 mph several times. However, he almost lost the game, as the Yanks did manage to get to him for two runs in his third inning of work. Jeter had a particularly brutal game at the plate, but almost delivered the game-changing hit with the tying and go-ahead runs on with two outs in the eighth. I never thought it was going to fall, but at least he worked the count and hit it hard. The game ended on six straight K’s and only one of the victims even managed a foul ball.

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In a rare turn of events, I didn’t take a swipe at A.J. Burnett’s reliability in my preview of Sunday night’s finale at Fenway. Burnett was a key contributor to the Yankees’ 27th world championship in his first year with the team and had gotten off to a strong start in Year Two (4-0, 1.99 ERA entering last nights game). I was finally beginning to soften on the guy.

Then, with a chance to push his team into first place following a Rays loss earlier in day (to a perfect game by Dallas Braden, of all people), he shows up on the hill at Fenway without his fastball command and coughs up nine runs in 4 1/3 innings, setting the Yankees up for a 9-3 loss.

After dominating the Red Sox in his walk year with the Blue Jays, Burnett gave up 22 runs in 12 2/3 innings across three starts at Fenway Park last year, but in his first game of 2010, which also came in Boston, he pitched relatively well, allowing just four runs, three earned, in five innings as his team won 6-4. Sunday night was 2009 at Fenway all over again.

To be fair, Marcus Thames helped the Sox get on the board for the first time in the second by misplaying a catchable Jeremy Hermida fly ball that would have been the third out of the inning, taking a bad route, then having the ball glance off his glove for a two-base error that allowed J.D. Drew to score. Then again, Drew was in scoring position after singling and moving to second on a wild pitch by Burnett, and though Hermida’s drive was catchable, it was struck well and did require Thames to retreat toward the warning track in left.

Thames’s day wasn’t quite as bad as Burnett’s, but that error was ugly, he went 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch at the plate, and after his inning-ending strikeout in the fourth, he got his manager ejected by starting an argument with homeplate umpire Tim McClelland over the called third strike.

The Sox did the bulk of their damage in the third, loading the bases on walks to Marco Scutaro and Kevin Youkilis sandwiched around a Victor Martinez double. With one out, Drew scored Scutaro with a sac fly. David Ortiz then hit a ground-rule double to deep rightfield that plated Pedroia. Youkilis had to hold at third because the ball hopped into the stands, but he and Ortiz both came around on Adrian Beltre’s subsequent double, and Jeremy Hermida, who later drove Burnett from the game with a two-run homer over the Green Monster in the fifth, singled home Beltre to put the Sox up 6-0.

Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez got two back with solo homers over the Monster in the bottom of the third, but that was all the Yankees were able to get against Boston starter Jon Lester, who struck out seven and allowed just two other hits in his seven innings of work.

If there was a positive to this game, it was the 3 2/3 innings of one-hit relief provided by Romulo Sanchez, who not only pitched well, but finished the game for Burnett, saving the rest of the bullpen. Then again, with Sergio Mitre and Javier Vazquez starting the next two games, it would have been nice if the Yankees could have saved Sanchez for one of those two games.

The first five innings of Friday night’s series-opening tilt between the Yankees and Red Sox were crisp and closely contested. Josh Beckett came out blazing, spotting 96 mile-per-hour heaters and dropping hammer curves. He struck out the side in the first, two of three batters in the second, and struck out Derek Jeter for a second time to strand a Francisco Cervelli single in the third. Phil Hughes kept pace, retiring the first seven men he faced, then following a walk to Beckett’s personal catcher Jason Varitek with two strikeouts to strand him.

The Yankees finally broke through in the fourth when, with one out, Mark Teixeira battled back from 0-2 to work a walk and Alex Rodriguez followed with a single that moved Teixeira to second. Beckett rallied to strike out Robinson Cano on four pitches, then made Nick Swisher look silly on a check swing on a cutter inside before spotting a 96 mph heater on the outside corner for strike two.

At that, Swisher spun on his heel and took a walk out of the batters box, seemingly to gather himself. Swisher has a deserved reputation as a flake because he’s a motormouth and a goofball, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a smart ballplayer. In the bottom of the inning, he made a great play in right, sliding in front of a would-be double to cut it off and hold J.D. Drew to a single. On this occasion it was obvious that Swisher was determined to win the mental battle with Beckett as well as the physical one.

After stepping back in, Swisher took a fastball well high, then took a curve in the dirt and stepped out again. Bat under his right arm, lips drawn tight, eyes peeking out toward Beckett, Swisher had a look on his face like he had figured something out, as if he thought he knew something Beckett didn’t. He then stepped back in the box and hit a curve up in the zone over the wall in straight-away center to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. After the game, Swisher said he was lucky to run into one. He’s humble, too.

The Sox got one back in the bottom of the fourth on Drew’s single (the first Boston hit in the game), another by Kevin Youkilis, and sac fly by David Ortiz, but when Boston threatened again in the fifth with two out singles by Darnell McDonald and Marco Scutaro that put runners on the corners, Hughes got Dustin Pedroia to fly out to center to strand them.

Then came the top of the sixth. Alex Rodriguez led off with a low line-drive through the shortstop hole that was hit so hard it rolled all the way to the wall for a double. Beckett then threw a 1-0 cutter down and into Robinson Cano and hit the Yankee second baseman on the top of the right knee. The impact was loud and frightening as Cano let out an audible shout. After a visit from the trainer, Cano took his base, but two pitches later he took himself out of the game (he’s day-to-day and likely won’t play Saturday).

Beckett’s 1-1 pitch to Swisher was a fastball, but Varitek, expecting a curve, lowered his glove and the ball hit off his left arm and rolled toward the Yankee dugout, moving the runners (Rodriguez and pinch-runner Ramiro Peña) up. After the Red Sox’s trainer visited Varitek (who later came out with a bruised left forearm), Beckett struck out Swisher, but then curiously intentionally walked Brett Gardner to face Francisco Cervelli with the bases loaded and one out.

Here’s where things got weird. In his previous at-bat, Cervelli had called time while Beckett was taking a long set to freeze Gardner at first. Beckett responded by coming up and in to Cervelli and making him jump out of the way. In this at-bat, Cervelli battled the count full, then called time on Beckett again. Again Beckett’s next pitch was up and in, but this time it was ball four and forced in a run. The first time it was clearly intentional, but Beckett wouldn’t throw at a guy to force in a run in a two-run game . . . would he?

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A few years ago I realized that one of the qualities I appreciate most in people, and value most in friends, is enthusiasm. I’m not talking about perkiness or a simple excess of energy–unrelenting positivity can be grating, and someone who is revved up all the time can be exhausting–but the capacity to nerd out over something specific, to get almost inappropriately jazzed about some little thing in life that brings you joy, seems to me to be a key to happiness, and when I see someone I know showing that kind of oddball affection for something, it fosters affection in me for that person.

That has a lot to do with why I absolutely love watching Francisco Cervelli. It’s not that I think he’s a coming star in the major leagues (he’ll stick around due to his defense, but he has no power at the plate and seems headed for a career as a Plan B starter or well-regarded backup). I have no real desire for him to get more playing time as long as Jorge Posada is still active and hitting and Jesus Montero is still catching. Whenever Cervelli does get into a game, however, I can’t keep my eyes off him.

It’s not just his superficial resemblance to a young Chris Penn. Cervelli has enthusiasm for miles, and he’s not your typical sour-faced, hard-nosed baseball red-ass (Cervelli hits without batting gloves and wears his socks high, but he didn’t balk at wearing a silly-looking, newfangled batting helmet per his doctor’s orders), nor is he a Nick Swisher-style flake. Cervelli just loves to play the game. When he’s on the field, every move he makes broadcasts how much fun he’s having, whether he’s celebrating a big play, making a dramatic windup to throw strike three around the horn, cracking up his pitchers during his quick, energetic mound visits, or recounting the previous half inning in rapid-fire speech between explosive smiles in the dugout. Cervelli did all that and more Tuesday night as he went 3-for-3, made an entertaining circus catch on a foul ball, and scored two of the Yankees’ four runs in their 4-1 win over the Orioles.

A.J. Burnett cruised through the first two innings of Tuesday night’s game, using his fastball almost exclusively until Garrett Atkins led off the third with a single off Alex Rodriguez’s glove. Burnett’s command briefly evaporated while pitching from the stretch, leading to a five-pitch walk of Rhyne Hughes. Ninth-place hitter Cesar Izturis followed with a bunt to the third-base side of the mound, but Burnett’s throw sailed into the basepath and tipped off Robinson Cano’s glove at first just before Izturis crossed the bag, forcing Cano to pull his glove back to avoid injury.

That error put Burnett in a serious jam with one run in, men on second and third, and no outs, but with the lineup turning over, A.J. turned to his curveball and struck out Adam Jones, Nick Markakis, and Matt Wieters in order, getting all three swinging over curveballs and going to the curve for three consecutive pitches at the end of both the Markakis and Wieters at-bats.

The man who called those pitches, our pal Cervelli, hit the first pitch Baltimore starter Brian Matusz threw in the bottom of that inning into the right-center-field gap. Center fielder Adam Jones dove for Cervelli’s sinking liner but came up several inches short, and Cervelli legged out a stand-up triple, his first three-base hit since he was with High-A Tampa in 2007 and just the third of his professional career. Four pitches later, Ramiro Peña drove him home with a groundout and the game was tied.

In the top of the fourth, with two out and Miguel Tejada on second via a leadoff ground-rule double into the right-field corner, Atkins hit a foul pop toward the Yankee dugout. Cervelli raced back toward the camera pit, adjusted slightly, then made a lunging catch over the protective screen in front of the dugout. His momentum then tipped his center of gravity a bit too far, and he began to slide, on his belly, down the railing along the stairs only to be caught by his manager and hitting coach.

In the bottom of the fifth, with the game still tied 1-1, Brett Gardner led off by battling back from 0-2 to work a seven-pitch walk. Cervelli followed by also falling behind 0-2 on a pair of called strikes, then singled into right field to put runners at first and second. Peña followed with a sacrifice bunt to the third-base side of the mound only to have an exact replay of Burnett’s error on Izturis’s bunt unfold with Matusz’s throw tailing into the basepath and beyond second baseman Ty Wigginton’s reach allowing Gardner to come around with the go-ahead run. After a pair of outs, Matusz walked Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez (the latter after a nine-pitch battle) to force in Cervelli and give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.

An inning later, Cervelli came up with Marcus Thames on first via a single and one out and, after taking strike one, dropped down a perfect surprise bunt up the third-base line and beat it out for a hit. The Yankees failed to score in that inning, but when they did add an insurance run in the eighth, there was Cervelli again, bunting Gardner, who had beaten out a slow-roller up the third base line and stolen second, to third to set up a sacrifice fly from Peña.

Burnett, meanwhile, was excellent again, allowing just the one unearned run on his own throwing error while striking out eight in 7 1/3 innings against just two walks and five hits. Damaso Marte, who struck out switch-hitter Matt Wieters, and Alfredo Aceves, who needed every inch of the ballpark to retire Miguel Tejada on a fly that backed defensive replacement Greg Golson up against the Yankee bullpen, finished the eighth. Joba Chamberlain pitched around a harmless single in the ninth, striking out two (one of them on a curve) to earn his second save in as many days.

As for how the other half lives, Brian Matusz can’t catch a break. The rookie’s last two appearances were both quality starts against the defending champions, but he got a total of one unearned run of support in the two games and took the loss both times. The Yankees, meanwhile, have a backup catcher who is 12-for-31 on the season and leads the league in enthusiasm.

The off-season acquisition of Randy Winn evoked much consternation amongst Banterites and associated Yankee fans. It wasn’t like Winn was a lifetime fourth outfielder. Through 2008, he had compiled a .288/.347/.425 line (102 OPS), with 104 homers and 193 stolen bases.

But here was a player who couldn’t add much punch to an impotent Giants lineup in 2009, posting a .262/.318/.353 line in 597 PAs, with a mere two homers and twice as many strikeouts as walks.

His range in the outfield, as he turned 35, was diminishing a bit from above average towards slightly above league-average. And now the Yanks wanted to add him as a 4th/5th outfielder . . . asking him to come off the bench for the first time in his career.

This season, he had started three games, and appeared in nine others, with one single and five strikeouts in 13 ABs. This was Winn’s first start since Curtis Granderson’s groin strain and DL stint Saturday.

Starter CC Sabathia endured very little trouble with the Orioles line-up, save for an opposite field line drive homer to Matt Wieters to lead off the 2nd. He struck out only two through his first four innings, but kept the ball on the ground, to the tune of nine groundball outs.

Orioles’ starter Jeremy Guthrie, who had faced Sabathia only last Wednesday, was also locked in early in the game, allowing only two walks and a single in the first three innings.

Alex Rodriguez led off the bottom of the 4th with a single to left. Robinson Cano flied out to left and Posada grounded out to second (A-Rod moving to second on the out). Nick Swisher, who owns Guthrie (now 13-24 lifetime) laced a long single off the right field wall, scoring Rodriguez to tie the game.  Brett Gardner was fooled on a change-up, but managed to punch a single up the middle.

Winn then stepped to the plate. With an 0-1 count on him, he plastered a 91 mph fastball deep into the Yankee bullpen . . . his first homer in 491 at-bats.  That would be all Sabathia needed in a 4-1 win in a tidy 2:29.

CC sailed through eight innings (106 pitches), assisted by two double plays.  There were only two flyball outs against him all night. He didn’t have his best stuff, striking out only two despite throwing 69 strikes out of those 106 pitches.

The only drama after the fourth inning took the form of Yankee injuries.  Jorge Posada took himself out of the game after the fifth inning, citing tightness in his right calf. This was the same leg he got plunked in last week, so the possibility of a cascade injury may be there.  [Late news from Mark Feinsand: MRI reveals mild calf strain.]

With a three-run lead heading to the ninth, the (heretofore unknown) other injury came into play, as it turned out NOT to be Mariano Rivera time. Joba Chamberlain came on to finish it out. Joe Girardi later revealed that Mo had awoken Saturday to stiffness in his left side (after pitching Friday night). Rivera threw a bit during pre-game, and said he felt better, but not 100%. Girardi stated he would like to hold him out at least one more day.

Otherwise, the big news from the game was the red-hot Robinson Cano Nick Swisher. Prior to this game, Swisher had gone 16-45 (.356) with three homers and 11 RBI in his last 11 games, raising his average from .200 to .282. Michael Kay mentioned during the broadcast that Swisher had been working with hitting coach Kevin Long on “quieting” his stance, allowing the bat to rest on his shoulder with less wiggling prior to the pitch. It seems to be paying off, and facing Guthrie didn’t hurt either, as Nick added two singles and a double.

With the win, the Yanks moved to within one game of the idle Rays, with AJ Burnett set to face Brian Matusz Tuesday night.

There are hot summer days when a ballgame is a familiar companion, an occasion for a cool drink, a light snack, and an excuse to get off your feet and out of the heat for a while and do a whole lot of nothing. There are other days when the game slowly turns into a blackhole, adding to the oppressiveness of the temperature, ticking by minutes like hours, and leaving you exhausted and bitter about having failed to pull yourself away and done something constructive or even enjoyable with your day.

Saturday’s afternoon tilt between the White Sox and Yankees was the latter. On one of the first genuinely hot days of the year, the Yanks and Sox milled about on the field for nearly four hours, working the opposition for a total of 374 pitches, drawing 11 walks, stranding 15 runners on base, and ultimately leaving the home crowd deeply unsatisfied by the entire experience.

Javy Vazquez was again ineffective. The damage was slight early on. In the second, the Sox loaded the bases with no outs on an infield single and a pair of walks, but Vazquez escaped with just one run scoring thanks in part to being able to face Juan Pierre (who popped out on the first pitch) and Omar Vizquel (who plated the one run via a sac fly) and in part to A.J. Pierzynski getting caught off second when Mark Teixeira cut Curtis Granderson’s throw home on Vizquel’s sac fly. The White Sox also scored a lone run in the first and third innings, both times on a solo homer by Andruw Jones, who owns Vazquez (.392/.446/.824 with five homers in 56 plate appearances entering the game). The Yanks scratched out a run against Jon Danks in the third following a leadoff single by Brett Gardner to close the gap to 3-1, but Vazquez failed to get an out in the fourth.

After an infield single by A.J. Pierzynski, Vazquez gave up a long home run to Mark Kotsay, of all people, then walked the scuffling and typically impatient Pierre on four pitches before giving up a single on an 0-2 count to Vizquel. That single, with none out in the fourth, came on Vazquez’s 83rd pitch. Just 55 percent of those pitches were strikes, the walk to Pierre was the fourth he had issued, and the homer by Kotsay was the third he had allowed. YES didn’t put up it’s radar gun readings until the third inning, and then recorded Vazquez striking out Gordon Beckham on a 91 mile-per-hour fastball, but most of Vazquez’s fastballs were in the high 80s, and there was no bite on his breaking stuff. In other words, he was no better and probably a bit worse than he had been in his first four starts.

If Vazquez’s struggles weren’t mental to begin with, they likely are now. Despite his poor performance, the entire infield came to the mound to reassure him when Joe Girardi came to take him out of the game with two runs in, two men on, and none out in the fourth. Girardi seemed like he was trying to say something positive to Vazquez as well when he got to the mound, but Javy just handed him the ball and pushed past him (though he didn’t display any obvious anger and did stay in the dugout to watch Sergio Mitre strand both inherited runners).

Attempting to make lemonade out of the lemons Vazquez handed them, the Yankees scratched out another run against Danks in the fifth, albeit barely as Alex Rodriguez beat out a would-be double play with one out and bases loaded by mere inches, thanks in part to a hard, clean slide by Mark Teixeira at second. Though they didn’t cash in a big inning there, the Yankees did work Danks over thoroughly, sending him to the showers after that inning having thrown 118 pitches. They then jumped all over righty reliever Scott Linebrink in the sixth with one-out singles by Marcus Thames, Granderson, and Gardner, and RBI groundout by Derek Jeter, and a two-run home run by Nick Swisher, who seemed elated to get a big hit in his home park.

Swisher’s hit gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead, erasing Vazquez’s poor start, but even amid that rally there were more lemons, as Curtis Granderson pulled up lame rounding second on Gardner’s single and left the game with a Grade 2 strain of his left groin that has since landed him on the 15-day disabled list. Damaso Marte then came in and knocked over the glass of lemonade, relieving David Robertson to face the lefty Pierzynski with two out and men on first and second. Pierzynski launched Marte’s 1-0 offering deep into the left field gap, scoring both runners and giving the Sox a 7-6 lead that Linebrink, lefty Randy Williams, J.J. Putz, and Bobby Jenks cashed in for the win.

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A night after opening their series in Baltimore with a bumbling loss, the Yankees won a comparatively clean, crisp game 8-3, making life easy for ace CC Sabathia, who wasn’t in top form, but still gave the Yankees 7 2/3 quality innings. The Yankees got to Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie early, putting up two runs in the first, three and the second, and holding a 6-1 lead after the third. The rest was just killing time.

Nick Swisher had the big day at the plate, going 3-for-5 with a two-RBI triple in the second on a ball off the base of the wall in center that O’s center fielder Adam Jones failed to field cleanly. The only Yankee who failed to reach base in the game was Alex Rodriguez, who still contributed with a sac fly in the first.

The only negative for the Yankees came when Guthrie hit Jorge Posada on the side of his right knee with his first pitch of the second inning. Posada stayed in to “run” the bases, jogging gingerly to second on Curtis Granderson’s single, then sauntering home just barely ahead of Granderson on Swisher’s triple. Francisco Cervelli went into the game in the bottom of the second and went 2-for-4 with an RBI the rest of the way.

The early diagnosis on Posada was that he just has a bruise and is day-to-day. Joe Girardi suggested that he won’t start the series finale, though Posada will be further evaluated on Thursday. For the short term, the Yankees should do just fine with the defensively superior Cervelli, who is 8-for-18 with a double and three walks in the early going, though there’s some concern about the fact that, with Posada out, Ramiro Peña is the backup catcher.