The Yanks got a scare last night when an Adam Jones line drive caught Joba Chamberlain on the outside of his right knee in the top of the first inning. Chamberlain picked up the ball and retired Jones at first base for the second out of the game, but was in obvious pain. He initially convinced his manager and trainer to leave him in the game, but after giving up singles to the next two batters and hobbling a bit on his way to back up third base after the latter, he was pulled.

Fortunately, X-rays on the knee were negative. Chamberlain was diagnosed with nothing more than a bruise and, while Joe Girardi labeled him day-to-day, Joba is confident that he’ll be able to make his next start on Tuesday.

Alfredo Aceves relieved Chamberlain, stranding both runners in the first. The Yankees then jumped all over Adam Eaton, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first on doubles by Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano (hitting second in place of an achy Johnny Damon), Mark Teixeira, and Melky Cabrera (who was then caught between second and third for the final out of the inning). After Aceves worked a scoreless second, the Yanks added two more on a two-run homer by Cano.

Aceves, who had pitched two scoreless innings on Wednesday night, pitched two more scoreless frames before yielding to Jonathan Albaladejo. Albaladejo gave up a solo homer to Brian Roberts on his very first pitch in the fifth inning, but Hideki Matsui got that run right back with a solo homer off Eaton in the bottom of the inning.

That made it 7-1 Yankees after five. The Orioles chipped away a bit, putting up two more runs on Albaladejo in the sixth and driving him from the game with a Nick Markakis solo homer in the seventh, but Jose Veras pitched out of a two-out jam of his own making in the eighth, and Mariano Rivera sealed the deal in the ninth, giving the Yankees a 7-4 win and extending their winning streak to nine games. Alfredo Aceves, who extended his scoreless streak to 9 1/3 innings, picked up his third, and most deserved, win of the current winning streak. Meanwhile, the Red Sox completed a sweep of the Blue Jays, putting the Yankees just 1.5 games out in the AL East with what is now the fourth-best record in the league.

As for Damon, he tweaked his neck leaping for Adam Jones’ homer on Wednesday night but isn’t expected to miss more than last night’s game. Meanwhile, Girardi did the right thing by pulling Joba last night. Even if all he had was a bruise, had Chamberlain altered his delivery to compensate for the pain in his knee, even unconsciously, he could have caused a more serious injury to his arm. As it was, the Yankees won the game anyway, and should now have a fully healthy Joba ready to take his next turn. Special bonus: the early exit saved him six innings or so toward his allotted regular season total.

Finally, the Yankees announced before the game that Chien-Ming Wang will start for Scranton today and Phil Hughes will make his next scheduled start in the majors on Monday. Said Girardi of Wang, “We just want him to have the stuff [in a game] that he had in the bullpen.” Remember, when Wang was struggling in early April, he would look good in the pen, then have nothing on the mound. Given Hughes’ continued improvement, this is very much the right decision, as well.

Phil Hughes announced his presence with authority last night, working a 1-2-3 first inning that concluded with strikeouts of Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, both swinging through fastballs. He then stranded two runners in the second and got out of a runners-on-the-corners, no-out jam in the third by striking out Jones and Markakis again, the latter in conjunction with Kevin Cash throwing out Brian Roberts stealing.

Meanwhile, the Yankees built a 5-0 lead against Jeremy Guthrie on a Johnny Damon walk and a Mark Teixeira double in the first, consecutive solo homers by Nick Swisher (his first at the new stadium), Robinson Cano, and Melky Cabrera leading off the second, and a pair of walks and an RBI single by Cano in the third.

Hughes gave two of those runs back in the fourth on a Melvin Mora single and a Ty Wigginton homer and another in the fifth on a solo shot by Jones, but while he didn’t cure his recent gopheritis, he did set a career high with nine strikeouts—eight of them swinging, most of them on fastballs, but three on curveballs—while walking just one.

Hughes threw 89 pitches through five innings and Joe Girardi decided to hand the 5-3 lead to Alfrede Aceves at that point. Ace pitched around a pair of singles for two scoreless frames and Phil Coke and Mariano Rivera combined for a scoreless eighth. Then the Yankees dropped a six-spot on Danys Baez and Jamie Walker, blowing the game open late just as they had the night before. Since he was warm and had thrown just three pitches in the eighth, Girardi left Rivera in to mop up in the ninth, which he did, but not before giving up a solo homer to dead center by rookie Nolan Reimold. Final score: 11-4 Yankees.

That’s eight straight wins by the Yanks, who are now just 2.5 games behind the Blue Jays (who lost another to the Red Sox) in the East.
Girardi said the team would likely make a decision on Wang (and thus Hughes) tomorrow, but the skipper was pleased with the progess Hughes has made in his last two starts, which at least bodes well for Hughes chances at a return engagement should he find himself starting for Scranton in five days.

Your turn, Joba . . .

It weren’t pretty, but the Yanks took a broom to the Twins last night, capping off their thrilling “Walkoff Weekend” (TM) with a 7-6 win to complete a four-game sweep of Minnesota and extend their winning streak to six games.

Unlike the previous three games, most of the action in last night’s contest took place in the first inning. The Twins pushed across a pair of first-inning runs against Andy Pettitte, with Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau each delivering an RBI single, the second enabled by Melky Cabrera missing the cutoff man on the first allowing Mauer to go to second.

Unfazed, the Yanks scored four against lefty Glen Perkins before making their first out as Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon singled then Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez each homered to left field. After Nick Swisher flied out to the warning track, a shot that looked like a third-straight homer off the bat, Robinson Cano sliced a ground-rule double into the stands along-side left field and Melky Cabrera singled him home. After a passed ball and a Ramiro Peña fly out, Francisco Cervelli hit a chopper up the middle that somehow missed Perkins’ glove, then hit the side of second base, avoiding both diving middle infielder. On the YES broadcast, Ken Singleton remarked that, “if there ever was a seeing-eye base hit, that was it.” Cervelli’s hit plated Cabrera with the sixth Yankee run and drove Perkins from the game with just two outs in the first.

Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey held things down from there with 4 1/3 scoreless innings, while the Twins tried to chip away. Michael Cuddyer led off the fourth with a solo homer to make it 6-3. Carlos Gomez singled, stole second, and scored on a Denard Span single in the sixth to make it 6-4. Span later hit a solo homer off Edwar Ramirez in the eighth, but that came after Teixeira added a solo shot of his own in the bottom of the seventh, this one from the left side of the plate, the second time he’s switch-hit homers in a game this season.

That extra run proved to be the winning margin. With Mariano Rivera having thrown 44 pitches over three innings the previous two days, Joe Girardi gave his closer the night off. Lefty Phil Coke, who relieved Ramirez and struck out Morneau for the last out of the eighth, was given the ninth in Rivera’s place. It wasn’t pretty. Coke’s first two pitches to leadoff man Joe Crede, who entered the game with a .296 on-base percentage, were balls. He recovered to go 2-2, but Crede fouled off four full-count offerings and ultimately drew a ten-pitch walk. Matt Tolbert then ran for Crede and moved to second on a wild pitch, to third on a groundout that required Teixeira to range far to his right, and home on another groundout. With two outs, Carlos Gomez, who entered the game with a .286 on-base percentage, nearly replicated Crede’s at-bat, getting ahead 2-0, then even at 2-2 and ultimately working a seven-pitch walk. Mike Redmond seemed to be doing the same thing (2-0, then 3-1, then a pair of full-count fouls), but mercifully grounded to Cano for the final out of the game. Coke’s performance made the news of Brian Bruney’s impending activation (expected tonight) all the more welcome, though to the always forthcoming Coke’s credit, he humorously confessed to having been unnerved by the situation.

As for Teixeira, he was hitting .182/.354/.338  with three home runs and 10 RBIs on May 3, but has hit .351/.397/.789 with seven home runs and 18 RBIs in his last 14 games. Though his average will take a while to rebound (he’s still at just .239), he’s on pace for 45 homers and 127 RBIs, even with that slow start factored in. On-pace numbers can be very misleading, and Teixeira’s current single-season best for home runs is “just” 43, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Tex comes very close to those numbers come late September. Teixeira’s career month-by-month splits show steady improvement with each flip of the calendar, and his defense was an important part of the Yankees’ sweep of the Twins. He’s going to be a lot of fun to watch the rest of the way as, by extension, are the Yankees.

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Last night’s contest between the Twins and Yankees felt like a loss for the home nine for most of it’s three hours and 37 minutes. Phil Hughes kept his team in the game by working out of jams in the second and fourth innings, but he used up a lot of pitches in doing so. The Twins took an early lead when Justin Morneau led off the second inning by golfing a curveball that dove well below his knees into the box seats in right. They got another run in the fourth on a sac fly, though that was all they got out of a bases-loaded, one-out situation. Morneau then went deep again in the fifth, on a cutter up in the zone that didn’t cut, to give the Twins a 3-0 lead.

Meanwhile, home plate umpire Wally Bell’s strikezone was ridiculous. He called Johnny Damon out on a pitch that traced the front line of the right-handed batters box in the first inning, then called him out on a pitch that traced the front line of the left-handed batters box in the third. That was too much for Damon to handle. After the second called third strike, Damon wheeled around and told Bell that was twice he had done that to him, holding up two fingers for emphasis. He then pointed to the location of the two pitches with his bat, immediately earning an ejection. As soon as Damon began to gesture with his bat, Joe Girardi sprinted to the plate to try to protect his hottest hitter, but he got there too late. As it turned out, what seemed like a bad break for the Yankees turned out to be one of their keys to victory.

The Yankees got on the board with a Derek Jeter solo homer in the bottom of the fifth, but Hughes had thrown 93 pitches over five innings, and Joe Girardi decided he’d rather take his chances in trying to get four innings out of his bullpen than to run Hughes back out there again. Jonathan Albaladejo pitched a scoreless sixth, but Joe Mauer greeted Phil Coke in the seventh with a lead-off homer into Monument Park. That made it 4-1 Twins with Joe Nathan lurking just a couple of innings away.

Francisco Liriano wasn’t sharp in his six innings of work, but he was effective. He walked six Yankees, but only gave up four hits and stranded two men in the second, three in the third, and two in the sixth. Jesse Crain relieved Liriano and got two quick outs to start the second, then Brett Gardner, who had replaced Damon after the latter’s ejection, came to the plate and shot a would-be double down the left field line. I say would be because in the fourth inning, Nick Swisher hit a ball to the exact same place, down the left field line toward where the stands turn to run parallel withe foul line. On Swisher’s hit, left fielder Denard Span hustled over, scooped up the ball with his back to the infield, and fired a strike to nail Swisher at second base. This time, Span looked ready to try the same trick, but rather than ricocheting off the wall, the ball took a sideways bounce off the grass and rolled past him toward the outfield wall. As soon as the ball got past Span it was clear Gardner had a triple, but third-base coach Rob Thomson kept his windmill going and Gardner came all the way around for an inside-the-park home run, flopping head-first onto the plate easily ahead of Span’s throw.

As exciting as Gardner’s inside-the-parker was, however, it only counted for one run, and the Yankees proceeded to load the bases and strand all three runners after it, then strand another man in the eight. So it was 4-2 Twins heading into the ninth with Joe Nathan coming in to shut the door. The one ray of hope for the Yanks was that they had the heart of the order due up and Nathan was pitching for the fourth night in a row.

Gardner, in Damon’s spot, led off by taking four pitches to run the count even at 2-2. He then fouled off a fifth. Took ball three to run the count full, then laced the seventh pitch of the at-bat deep into the right-center-field gap. Carlos Gomez botched the carom briefly and though Gardner slipped on first base, he was still able to scramble to his feet and pull into third with an easy triple. Mark Teixeira followed by grounding a single just to the center field side of second baseman Matt Tolbert, who playing Teixeira to pull. That plated Gardner to make the score 4-3 and brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate as the winning run. Nathan threw six balls to Rodriguez, who took all six though Bell called two of them, pitches which again traced the front line of the right-handed batters box, strikes. That put the winning run on base for Hideki Matsui. Matsui battled Nathan for six pitches, but ultimately struck out swinging on a full-count slider inside that bounced in front of the plate. Nick Swisher followed with what looked like a game-tying single to right, but Justin Morneau was playing far enough off the bag to make what seemed like a game-saving play, backhanding the ball and flipping to Nathan for the second out.

The runners moved up on Swisher’s out and with two out and the winning run in scoring position, Girardi sent Ramiro Peña in to run for Rodriguez. With first base open, Ron Gardenhire had Nathan walk Robinson Cano to load the bases and bring up Melky Cabrera. Nathan threw one pitch to Cabrera, a fastball right down the middle, and Cabrera served it into the gap in left-center for a single that plated Teixeira and Peña and gave the Yankees both the win and their only lead of the game.

Jose Veras got the win for retiring one batter in the ninth, though Edwar Ramirez pitched a scoreless inning and a third before him, but the win had many authors, not the least of which was Gardner, who didn’t start the game, but went 3-for-3 with eight total bases and two runs scored. You know things are going well when your best hitter gets ejected and the guy who comes in off the bench to replace him winds up as the star of the game. The Yankees have now won three straight and have pulled within 2.5 games of the Red Sox, who lost to the Mariners last night. Joba Chamberlain pitches today hoping to help the Yanks match their season-long win streak of four games.

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In his previous start, Blue Jays’ starter Scott Richmond gave up five runs in the second inning in Oakland, but stayed in the game and pitched six subsequent scoreless innings. Wednesday night, Richmond gave up five runs in the second inning again, but didn’t survive that inning.

The Jays got an early unearned run against Andy Pettitte in the first inning of last night’s game, but that lead didn’t last long. The first three Yankee batters in the second—Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner, and Ramiro Peña, the last two starting in place of Hideki Matsui (hamstring) and Derek Jeter (oblique)—doubled, homered, and tripled. After a Francisco Cervelli groundout, Johnny Damon tripled, driving in Peña. After a Nick Swisher groundout later, Mark Teixeira doubled, driving in Damon. Richmond then walked Alex Rodriguez on five pitches and battled Robinson Cano for ten more before Cano singled in Teixeira with the fifth run and drove Richmond from the game. The Yankees batted around in the inning, connected for five extra-base hits worth a total of 14 bases, and spent a half an hour at the plate.

That was all the Yankees needed, though they tacked on a run in the fourth (Damon double, Swisher groundout, Teixeira sac fly) off reliever Brian Wolfe and two in the fifth off lefty Bill Murphy (Cano double, Gardner triple, Cervelli RBI infield single). Altogether the fifth-through-eighth men in the Yankee order (Cano, Cabrera, Gardner, and Peña) went 6-for-17 with a walk, five runs scored, four RBIs, and 15 total bases (two doubles, two triples, and a homer). The home run was Brett Gardner’s first in the major leagues, a 330-foot wall scraper that tucked just inside the right-field foul pole. With that homer, a triple, and a walk, Gardner was the hitting star of the game, going 2-for-3 with three RBIs, two runs scored, and seven total bases.

Pettitte gave up a second run in the fourth on two singles, one of which didn’t leave the infield, and a walk. Pettitte wasn’t especially sharp; he walked four men and used up 106 pitches in six innings, but he didn’t need to be and kept the Jays’ league-best offense at bay. Alfredo Aceves pitched around a Vernon Wells double for two innings of scoreless relief, and Jonathan Albaladejo pitched into and out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to secure the 8-2 win, smacking himself upside the head after inducing a game-ending double play for walking two men with a six-run lead.

Tomorrow night, the Yankees send CC Sabathia to the mound looking for the series win against the Jays and their second straight series win of their current road trip.

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It didn’t really matter what A.J. Burnett did last night given how well Roy Halladay pitched. Halladay faced the minimum through 6 1/3 thanks to a questionable call by second-base umpire Chuck Meriwether who called Johnny Damon out trying to stretch a single into a double in the first inning. Fittingly, it was a Damon double that broke Halladay’s streak with one out in the seventh. After Mark Teixeira struck out, Alex Rodriguez delivered a two-out RBI single to plate Damon, but that was all the Yankees would get. Halladay erased a Melky Cabrera single in the eighth with a double play and stranded a lead-off Ramiro Peña double in the ninth. He threw 72 of 103 pitches for strikes, got 17 of his 27 outs on the ground, five more by strikeout, and two more on pop-ups, and picked up his first complete game of the year, pushing his record to 7-1. The game took just two hours and 22 minutes to play.

Fun stat: Since 2003, Halladay leads all major league pitchers in shutouts with 36. CC Sabathia is second with 26. Since 2006, however, Sabathia leads Halladay 22 to 21.

As for Burnett, he gave up three runs in the fourth after loading the bases on an Alex Rios double and two walks. Scott Rolen doubled down the left field line to plate two, and after Lyle Overbay struck out, Rod Barajas brought the third run home with a sac fly. Still, it seemed we were getting the pitching duel we had hoped for when Burnett held the Jays there and took the mound in the bottom of the eight trailing Halladay 3-1. Then Aaron Hill homered to make it 4-1 and Rios and Rolen teamed up again to plate a fifth run (via a walk, groundout, and RBI Rolen single) to bounce Burnett from the game and set the final score at 5-1.

A.J. was booed lustily throughout the game by the betrayed Blue Jays fans. Chants of “A.J. Sucks” echoed throughout the Rogers Centre (as did “Steroids” chants during Alex Rodriguez’s at-bats). One fan held up a sign that said “Roy > A.J.” Well, yeah. I think even he’d admit that.

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Pitching with a burst blood vessel in his right thumb, Joba Chamberlain looked shaky in the first inning of yesterday afternoon’s rubber game in Baltimore. Five of the seven batters he faced in that frame got a hit, and Aubrey Huff gave the Orioles an early lead with a three-run homer to right center. However, Huff’s was the only extra-base hit of the inning, Melvin Mora, who followed Huff with a bunt single, got picked off (2-3-6-2-4-3), and the Orioles failed to add to that early tally. Just as he did in his previous start, Chamberlain shut the door after the first, holding the O’s scoreless for his remaining five innings.

Koji Uehara’s line was similar, with a solo home run by Mark Teixeira in the top of the first being the only run he allowed in six innings. Uehara threw just 94 pitches in those six innings, but Dave Trembley decided to go to his bullpen in the seventh, calling on lefty Jamie Walker to face the bottom of the Yankee order. Walker struck out switch-hitter Nick Swisher (though it took him nine pitches), but gave up a solo home run to actual lefty Robinson Cano, who just happens to be crushing lefties this year (now .371/.405/.657 vs. LHP on the season). After Walker got switch-hitter Melky Cabrera to fly out for the second out, Trembley called on righty Jim Johnson to pitch to rookie catcher Francisco Cervelli. On 2-1, Cervelli hit a very slow ground ball into the second-base hole that he just beat out for an infield single. Derek Jeter followed with another infield single, a squib to the left side that Mora was unable to get to in time to make a throw. Despite playing matchups with the bases empty against Cervelli, who had two major league hits coming into the inning, Trembley left the righty Johnson in with the tying runs on base to face lefty Johnny Damon, who had hit .462 with four home runs over his previous six games. Damon took Johnson’s first five pitches to run the count full, then launched a three-run homer to right-center that gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead.

With Joba at 104 pitches, Phil Coke pitched a perfect seventh and worked around a one-out single in the eight to get the ball to Mariano Rivera in the ninth. Coming off his surprising loss in Thursday’s game, Rivera issued his first walk of the year, to Felix Pie with one out, but struck out ninth-place hitter Robert Andino and got Brian Roberts to ground back to the mound to end the game and give the Yankees the 5-3 win and a much-needed series victory.

This is how I concluded my pregame post last night:

The Yankees have scored 2.38 runs per game in the seventh, eight, and ninth innigs alone. The major league average is just 1.47 R/G in the seventh, eighth, and ninth. Meanwhile, the April 15 game mentioned above was the only save the Rays bullpen has blown all season.

With that in mind, let’s skip straight to the eighth inning of last night’s game. A.J. Burnett had been sharp, striking out eight against just two walks in his six innings of work, but the Rays manufactured a run against him in the third and pushed across two more in the sixth on a walk, a single, a bunt, a sac fly, and another single. The Yankees, meanwhile, had been completely stymied by Andy Sonnanstine, who enjoyed his best start of the young season.

Entering the bottom of the eighth, Sonnanstine had held the Yanks scoreless on four hits and no walks. He had gotten 11 of his 21 outs on the ground, and had thrown just 85 pitches. With one out, Ramiro Peña worked an eight-pitch at-bat, eventually singling to right field. Jose Molina followed Peña with a double on Sonnanstine’s 99th pitch that drove the Rays’ starter from the game. After Dan Wheeler struck out Derek Jeter for the second out, Joe Maddon called on lefty J.P. Howell, who proceeded to walk Johnny Damon on five pitches, putting the tying run on base for Mark Teixeira.

As all of this happened, the skies suddenly opened up, and what had been a relatively dry ballgame became drenched in a blinding downpour. Straining to see trough the rain, Teixeira, batting right-handed, swung through Howell’s first pitch then took two more for balls. He swung again at the 2-1 pitch and snapped his bat in half, but in doing so sent the ball down into the left field corner for a bases-clearing, game-tying double.

Then the tarp came out. After a half-hour rain delay, lefty Brian Shouse struck out Hideki Matsui to keep the game tied. After Mariano Rivera worked a scoreless top of the ninth, the Yankees threatened again. Robinson Cano led off with a single to center. That would have brought Nick Swisher to the plate, but Swisher had been ejected by home plate umpire James Hoye in the seventh following an inning-ending called third strike on a pitch that was pretty clearly outside. Instead, Brett Gardner stepped to the plate and bunted Cano to second. After the game, Swisher was asked if he felt guilty about not being able to hit in his spot there. Swisher, who was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before getting tossed, shrugged and replied that Gardner was at least able to get the ball into play.

After Gardner’s sacrifice, righty Joe Nelson came on and walked Melky Cabrera. Peña then hit a slow grounder to third that had the potential to be an infield single. Evan Longoria charged the ball and fired to first and umpire Dale Scott punched out Peña, but the replay showed that Peña had beaten the throw by a fraction of a step. Jose Molina followed with would otherwise have been a game-winning sac fly to right, but was instead the third out.

With the game heading into the tenth and Rivera having already worked his inning, Joe Girardi turned to Phil Coke, who hadn’t allowed a run in nine appearances dating back to mid-April. Coke’s first pitch to Carlos Peña was a ball. His second was on the outside third of the plate at the knee, headed right toward Jose Molina’s glove until the major league home run leader reached out and deposited it in the right field box seats. Coke then retired the next three men in order.

The Yankees’ last hope came against Troy Percival in the ninth. After a Jeter groundout, Johnny Damon hit a ground rule double over B.J. Upton’s head and into monument park. That brought up reigning Yankee hero Mark Teixeira, who had driven in all three Yankee runs with that double in his previous at-bat. Percival’s first pitch to Teixeira sailed high and past Dioner Navarro, allowing the alert Damon to scramble to third base. All Teixeira had to do to tie the game was lift a sac fly to the outfield. Teixeira took ball two, then got a pitch up in the zone he could lift, but he got under it too much and popped up to shallow right, freezing Damon at third. Hideki Matsui followed by flying out to left to end the game and give the Rays a 4-3 victory.

Teixeira was furious at himself for failing to get Damon home and appeared to be trying to break his batting helmet on the way back to the bat rack. Teixeira had a similar sort of game on Monday, another game that featured a rain delay. In that game, which the Yankees lost 6-4 to the Red Sox, Teixeira hit a solo home runs from opposite sides of the plate in consecutive at-bats, but struck out against Jonathan Papelbon with the tying runs on base in the ninth. Reverse the order of those at-bats and he’s a clutch performer, even if the Yankees still lose 6-4. Same deal last night. That rain-soaked double was a huge clutch hit, but because he got under that pitch from Percival with the tying run 90 feet from home, he gets the goat horns for the night despite the fact that he was the only Yankee to drive in a run all game. So goes baseball. As Coke said in reference to losing the game on what he felt was a good pitch “it’s a game of failure, you know.”

Yeah, Phil, we do.

The Yankees waited through a two-hour-fifteen-minute rain delay last night to lose their fourth straight game to the Red Sox. Phil Hughes lacked the command of his pitches he had in his previous start and was out after using up 94 pitches and walking four in just four innings. The Sox built a picket fence against Hughes, scoring once in each of his frames. Alfredo Aceves, who was called up earlier in the day, appeared to lock things down from there, and the Yankees pulled within one by scoring three quick runs in the fifth after Joe Girardi got himself ejected for arguing a called third strike on Derek Jeter. Johnny Damon followed Girardi’s ejection with a two-run homer down the right-field line, and Mark Teixeira followed with a slump-busting solo homer into the visiting bullpen, but Jason Bay got two of those runs back with a two-run jack off Aceves in the seventh. Teixeira answered with a solo shot on the first pitch from Ramon Ramirez in the eighth, giving Tex switch-hit homers in consecutive at-bats, but both the ensuing rally in that inning and another in the ninth were quelled by Jonathan Papelbon and the Yanks fell 6-4.

Home plate umpire Jerry Meals wasn’t helping Hughes, which is one reason Girardi got himself tossed, but Jon Lester wasn’t bothered by the rain delay, the steady mist falling throughout the game, or the strikezone (which did appear to be a bit more accomidating when he was on the mound). He worked seven strong innings and tied a career high with 10 Ks. His only mistakes were the home runs by Damon and Teixeira, which suggests that Girardi’s stunt, prompted by his disapproval of Meals’ strikezone throughout the game to that point, temporarily unnerved the Boston lefty.

Adding injury to insult, Jorge Posada felt his right hamstring grab while running the bases in the sixth inning. He’ll have an MRI today and will not be in the lineup tonight as the Yankees try to save some face by sending Joba Chamberlain to the mound against Josh Beckett in the finale of this short, rain-threatened series.

It often seems like the Yankees just can’t hit rookie pitchers they’ve never faced before (a phenomenon I once dubbed getting “URPed” by an Unfamiliar Rookie Pitcher). That’s more perception than reality. As recently as Tuesday night, they touched up 20-year-old Tigers rookie Rick Porcello for six runs in 3 2/3 innings. At the conclusion of their last homestand, they scored five runs in 5 1/3 innings against 21-year-old A’s prospect Brett Anderson. They also scored four runs in five innings against Orioles rookie Alfredo Simon in the last game of their season-opening series in Baltimore. Such performances tend not to stick in our memories because they conform to our expectations; we expect the Yankees to beat up on the fresh-faced kids straight out of the minors, which is exactly why it really eats us up when they don’t.

Angels starter Matt Palmer is no fresh-faced kid at 30-years-old, nor is he a highly-touted prospect like Porcello or Anderson, but he is a rookie, and one the Yankees had never faced before this afternoon’s game. He’s also one the Yankees didn’t hit.

Palmer doesn’t have great stuff, but he was able to mix up his speeds and locations enough this afternoon to keep the hot Yankee bats off balance. He snapped Robinson Cano’s 18-game hitting streak and held the Yanks to one run on three hits and two walks over 6 1/3 innings, compensating for his dearth of strikeouts (two) with a fair number of groundballs (10).

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“Maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight. I haven’t been doing that much lately.” —Dave Eiland

Welcome back, Phil Hughes.

You wouldn’t know it by the 11-0 final, but last night’s game between the Yankees and Tigers was a pitchers’ duel. Phil Hughes and Edwin Jackson locked horns for six scoreless innings before the Yankees dropped a ten-spot on the Detroit bullpen in the seventh.

Credit the Yankee offense, particularly Robinson Cano, for running deep counts on Jackson all game. Jackson finished the sixth inning having thrown 117 pitches despite having allowed just five men to reach base. With Jackson spent and the game still scoreless entering the seventh, Jim Leyland called on rookie Ryan Perry, a second-year professional who topped out in High-A last year. Perry faced five batters and retired just one, that being Jose Molina, who bunted Nick Swisher (single) and Melky Cabrera (walk) up to set up another key pinch-hitting appearance for Jorge Posada. Posada, who didn’t start for the second straight day due to a sore hamstring, lifted a low fly to left field that Josh Anderson appeared to lose in the Comerica Park lights. The ball skipped past Anderson allowing the gimpy Posada to reach second and both runners to score. After another walk by Perry, Nate Robertson and Brandon Lyon combined to allow seven more Yankees to score. The final blow was a grand slam by Molina that made him the rare player to have a sac bunt and a grand slam in the same inning (it was last done by Sal Bando in 1975, coincidentally also in the seventh inning). The inning went on so long that Angel Berroa, who pinch-ran for Posada, came to bat and singled off Lyon after Molina’s salami. Nick Swisher, who scored twice in that inning and broke out of his slump with two hits and two walks, added the eleventh run with a solo homer off Juan Rincon in the top of the ninth.

The real story of the night, however, was Hughes, who worked six scoreless innings allowing just two hits and two walks while striking out six. Spotting his fastball, which was coming in around 93 miles per hour, and mixing in a deadly, low-70s curve, and his new high-80s cutter, Hughes picked up right where he left off from the eight strong innings he threw against A.J. Burnett and the Blue Jays late last September. With his hair a bit bushier, faint sideburns, and what appeared to be a generally fuller build, Hughes looked and pitched like a more mature pitcher than the one we saw last year despite his still-tender age of 22.

Hughes received no favors from home plate umpire Derryl Cousins, who called several curves that dropped into the strike zone and a couple of fastballs right on the lower right-hand corner balls (included in the latter was ball four of one of Hughes’ two walks), yet he didn’t lose his cool or his confidence. He got into one jam, that coming in the fourth inning. With one out, he hit Miguel Cabrera in the hand. Carlos Guillen then singled and both runners moved up on a groundout. Hughes pitched around the hot-hitting Brandon Inge and got the light-hitting Josh Anderson to ground out to end the threat. He then set the side down in order in the fifth and sixth before his 99-pitch count (inflated by Cousins’ strike zone) and the Yankees’ long top of the seventh ended his night.

Hughes best pitch of the night came on a 0-1 count to Placido Polanco with two out in the bottom of the fifth. It was a curveball that Polanco was convinced was coming right at his head. A look of total fear came over Polanco’s face as he began to bail. The pitch then dropped over the plate for a called strike on the inside corner, knee-high. Sick.

Hughes was followed by Mark Melancon, whom Joe Girardi had warming up before the game became a laugher. Melancon worked a 1-2-3 seventh, striking out Inge in the process. I can’t wait to see Hughes and Melancon team up again.

“It’s my fault. That’s all it is.” —Mariano Rivera

The Yankees lost more than a ballgame last night. They also lost their replacement starting third baseman to a quad injury and may have lost their primary set-up man to an ailing elbow. It wasn’t a good night.

Until the bottom of the ninth, it looked as though the Yankees were going to steal a win. Joba Chamberlain wasn’t sharp. Jon Lester was. Nonetheless, Joba managed to keep his team in the game.

The Red Sox got the leadoff man on in each of the first five innings and got a man to third in all but one inning against Chamberlain, yet they scored just two runs off the Yankee starter. Chamberlain worked out of trouble with the help of double plays, most of them coming off two-seam fastballs, in the first, second, fourth, and fifth innings. In the third he had runners on the corners and one out, but struck out David Ortiz, pitched around Kevin Youkilis (ultimately throwing him an intentional ball four to load the bases), and got J.D. Drew to fly out to the warning track in left to end the threat.

The Red Sox scored in the first when Jacoby Ellsbury led off with a single, moved to second on a balk when Chamberlain failed to come to a discernible stop in his delivery, and scored when Jose Molina came out of his crouch too fast on Ellsbury’s attempted steal of third and let Chamberlain’s pitch sail between his legs.

Surprisingly it was the bottom third of the Yankee order that did the damage against Lester. Melky Cabrera delivered a one-out single in the fourth, Jose Molina followed with a walk, and Cody Ransom shot a game-tying double down the third base line scoring Melky and pushing Molina to third. Molina then scored on a groundout by Derek Jeter to put the Yankees up 2-1.

The Red Sox tied it up against Chamberlain in the sixth, ironically the only inning in which Joba didn’t allow the leadoff man to reach base. With one out, Mike Lowell doubled off the Green Monster, Jason Varitek singled him to third, and Nick Green singled him home, driving Chamberlain from the game.

Phil Coke and Jonathan Albaladejo locked things down from there while the Yankees scored a pair of runs off Hideki Okajima and Manny Delcarmen in the seventh. Okajima entered the seventh with a 5.40 career ERA against the Yankees and failed to get an out. Derek Jeter led off with a double just past the Pesky Pole and off the tip of J.D. Drew’s glove near the right-field wall. Johnny Damon then moved Jeter to third on a drag bunt base hit, and Mark Teixeira scored the captain with a single. After Jorge Posada singled to load the bases, Terry Francona called on Delcarmen, who got Nick Swisher to fly out to shallow left, holding the runners, but then gave up a sac fly to Robinson Cano that pushed the Yankee lead to 4-2.

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For all the sturm und drang over Chien-Ming Wang’s mechanics and the dimensions and dynamics of the new Yankee Stadium, the Yankees just went 4-2 on their first home stand in their new ballpark. Like the rest of the series, yesterday’s game wasn’t pretty, but it ultimately worked out in the Yankees’ favor.

It was cool and rainy in the Bronx yesterday afternoon, and CC Sabathia wasn’t sharp. He opened the second inning by putting the first two men on base via a walk and a single, then giving up just the fourth Oakland home run of the season to Kurt Suzuki. Suzuki’s shot would have been a wall-scraper had a fan in left field not reached over the wall to snare it. Johnny Damon was there to attempt a catch, but the ball was too high for his reach and would have reached the seats had the fan not been there, as the umpires correctly ruled after reviewing the replay.

The Yankees got two of those runs back against A’s rookie left-hander Brett Anderson in the bottom of the second on solo homers by Hideki Matsui (a no-doubter into the right-field bleachers), and Melky Cabrera (a right-handed poke into the visiting bullpen), but the Yankee defense gave one back in the top of the third. With one out, Damon dropped an easy pop up behind third base allowing Jason Giambi to reach second base. Holliday then singled Giambi to third. Cust followed with a chopper back to Sabathia. CC checked Giambi at third, then threw to second to get Holliday. Because Sabathia checked Giambi, Derek Jeter didn’t have time to relay to first for the double play, but Giambi broke for home after Sabathia threw to second, so Jeter fired home only to realize after he made the throw that Giambi was running because no one was covering the plate. Jorge Posada was backing up first base, Cody Ransom had been holding Giambi at third, and Sabathia had to field the ball off the bat. The ball sailed to the backstop, but Cust held at first and Suzuki flied out to end the inning. Nonetheless, the Yankees were down 4-2.

But not for long. Mark Teixeira and Posada led off the bottom of the third with a single and a double to put runners on the corners. Robinson Cano got Teixeira home on a groundout to second and Swisher singled home Posada to tie the game at four. Sabathia then worked a 1-2-3 top of the fourth and Derek Jeter came through with a two-out solo homer into Monument Park that gave the Yankees their first lead of the game at 5-4.

At that point the Yankees appeared to have taken control of the ballgame. Sabathia retired eight straight from the last out of the third to the first out of the sixth, but then things began to fall apart again. Jack Cust walked, moved to second on a ground out, then scored on a Mark Ellis single up the middle that nearly undressed Sabathia. That tied the game at 5-5, but once again the Yankees answered back.

Melky Cabrera drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the sixth to drive Anderson from the game at 97 pitches, but was then thrown out trying to steal second. Undeterred, the Yankees put together two-out rally ignited by a Cody Ransom double. Jeter again came through with a key two-out hit, doubling home Ransom to again put the Yankees ahead 6-5. Damon and Teixeira then added singles, the latter of which plated Jeter to give the Yankees an insurance run and a 7-5 lead.

Again Sabathia couldn’t hold it. The top of the seventh started with a Bobby Crosby single, a Ryan Sweeney walk, and an Orlando Cabrera sac bunt to move both runners into scoring position for the heart of the order. With Sabathia at 110 pitches, Giambi scored Crosby with a groundout to second, that brought righty Matt Holliday, who had singled and walked in three trips to that point, to the plate with the tying run on third base and two outs. Joe Girardi had Jonathan Albaladejo warming in the bullpen, but after visiting the mound, decided to leave Sabathia in the game. It was one batter too many as Holliday singled Sweeney home to tie the game at 7-7.

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Joba Chamberlain’s second start of the season didn’t go quite as well as the first. He gave up a solo home run to the second batter he faced (Mark DeRosa), walked five men including two in the fourth inning leading to a second Cleveland run (on a Ben Francisco two-out RBI single), and coughed up three more runs in the fifth before being pulled with two outs in that inning. Chamberlain still managed to strike out four in his 4 2/3 innings, but he lacked control throughout, throwing fewer than half of his 93 pitches for strikes and mixing in a wild pitch in the top of the fifth.

The Yankee offense, meanwhile, drew six walks, but didn’t get a single hit with a runner on base in the entire game. Instead they took advantage of the jet stream heading out to right field in their new park and peppered the right-field stands with solo home runs. Johnny Damon and Mark Teixeira went back-to-back off Tribe starter Anthony Reyes in the third to give the Yankees their first lead at their new ballpark. After Chamberlain allowed the Indians to tie the score in the top of the fourth, Melky Cabrera answered back with a solo shot in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-2 Yanks.

Chamberlain gave that lead right back as well, but the Yankee bullpen locked it down from there with Phil Coke, Jonathan Albaladejo, and the suddenly unhittable Brian Bruney combining to face the minimum over 3 2/3 scoreless innings. In the meantime, Robinson Cano brought the Yankees to within one with a solo shot of lefty Zach Jackson leading off the sixth, and Cleveland reliever Vinnie Chulk handed the Yankees the tying run in the seventh by walking Damon to start the inning, then throwing away a comebacker from Mark Teixeira for a two-base error that let Damon come all the way around to score.

After Bruney’s dominant eighth inning (11 pitches, 8 strikes, two Ks), pinch-hitter Hideki Matsui and Brett Gardner struck out against Jensen Lewis to start the bottom of the ninth, but Derek Jeter connected for a two-out solo shot (a Captain Solo, if you will) that proved to be the game winner as Mariano Rivera  pitched around a pair of singles and struck out DeRosa to earn his first save and seal the Yankees’ first win in the new stadium. Final score: 6-5 Yankees.

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Disregard that 7-2 final score; last night’s game at Tropicana Field was a tense pitchers’ duel that saw both teams execute late-game rallies, leaving the result in doubt until the ninth inning.

The Yankees got off to a good start by loading the bases against Matt Garza without recording an out in the top of the first. Singles by Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter and a walk to Mark Teixeira brought up the team’s hottest hitter in Nick Swisher. Swisher worked a seven-pitch full count, but Garza struck out Swisher on a nasty curveball. Jorge Posada got one run home with a sacrifice fly to deep left, but Robinson Cano hit a looping liner to strand the remaning runners.

For a while it seemed that one run was all the Yankees would need as A.J. Burnett burned through the Rays order, issuing only a walk to Pat Burrell the first time through.

When Swisher led of the fourth, Garza sent a 1-1 fastball right at Nick’s noggin, likely retribution for Swisher’s jovial mound appearance (and souvenir strikeout ball) from the night before. Swisher ducked out of the way, took a close strike on the outside corner, then dumped Garza’s next pitch in the right-centerfield stands to make the Yankee lead 2-0.

Burnett, set the Rays down in order the second time through the Tampa lineup to bring a no-hitter into the seventh inning. Burnett wound up allowing just three hits in his eight innings of work, unfortunately, they all came in a row to start the seventh as Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria, and Carlos Peña singled to make it 2-1 and Burrell lifted a sac fly to right to tie the game at 2-2.

Undeterred, the Yankees took the lead right back in the eight. With Garza’s night having ended after seven frames, nine Ks, and 112 pitches, Joe Maddon brought in lefty J.P. Howell to face Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, and Mark Teixeira, whose aching wrist is most bothersome when he hits right-handed. Gardner led off by lifting a fly-ball double over a drawn-in Crawford in left field. Jeter then singled to put runners on the corners, and the aching Teixeira, who had gone 0-for-2 with a walk from the left side, worked a full count, then lifted a sac fly to the warning track to plate Gardner with the go-ahead run.

After one last perfect inning from Burnett in the eight, the Yankees added some insurance against Dan Wheeler in the ninth. Robinson Cano led off with a first-pitch single. Melky Cabrera, who had entered as a defensive replacement for Xavier Nady in the eighth, hit a ground-ball single through the right side. Then, after Ramiro Peña, who started for Cody Ransom and went 0-for-3 with a walk) failed to get down a bunt and Jose Molina (0-for-4) struck out, Gardner bounced a ground-rule double off the warning track in straight-away center and Jeter completed the scoring with a three-run homer to right center. Brian Bruney the capped the night off by striking out the top three men in the Rays’ order on ten pitches, five of them, including all three pitches to Evan Longoria, swinging strikes.

Burnett did exactly what the Yankees needed him to do, and exactly what he set out to do, not only delivering a win, but eating up eight innings in the process. He needed just 103 pitches, struck out nine, and allowed just four baserunners (the Burrell walk and the three straight singles in the seventh).

The Yankees can now wrap up a winning road trip with a win behind Andy Pettitte this afternoon.

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The Yankees scored two in the top of the first against Sidney Ponson yesterday afternoon, and Andy Pettitte made those runs hold up with seven stellar innings in which he allowed just one run on three hits and a walk as the Yankees beat the Royals 4-1 in Kansas City’s home opener.

Pettitte’s was the best performance by a Yankee starting pitcher this season and underlined the strength of this year’s team: starting pitching depth. There’s not a man in the Yankees’ rotation that you wouldn’t want to have on the mound on any given day (yes, even A.J. Burnett, my complaints about him stem largely from his injury history and his contract, in other words the possibility of having him not on the mound but still on the books). The Yankees opened the season by having their top two starters, CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang, get lit up, but Burnett and Pettitte brought them right back to even in the blink of an eye. Sabathia takes his second turn tomorrow, then Joba Chamberlain gets his first on Sunday, then back around again. If those five starters can stay healthy (admittedly a huge “if”), the Yankees will have a very realistic expectation of winning every game they play. They’ll still lose about 60 of them, but it won’t be because they were outmatched on the mound. That’s a tremendous advantage for a ballclub, in terms of strength and strategy as well as confidence.

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CC Sabathia couldn’t command his fastball in yesterday’s season opener, and though the Yankee offense made a valiant attempt to dig out of the early hole their new ace put them in, they fell just short. Then the bullpen allowed things to unravel.

Sabathia struggled from the very beginning, opening his Yankee career by allowing a single to Brian Roberts, bouncing a wild pitch to move Roberts to second, and issuing a four-pitch walk to Adam Jones. Another wild pitch moved the runners to second and third with just one out, but Sabathia got out of that jam with a couple of ground ball outs.

Sabathia worked a 1-2-3 second, but started the third by giving up a leadoff single to Cesar Izturis on a 3-1 pitch and walking Roberts. Adam Jones tried to bunt the runners up on the first pitch he saw from Sabathia, but after bunting the first pitch foul, swung away and crushed a second-pitch fastball to the right-field gap for a triple, plating both runners. Jones then scored himself on a sac fly.

A slick 4-6-3 double play got Sabathia out of another jam in the fourth after he put runners on the corners with one out, but he wasn’t so lucky in the fifth. Roberts led off that inning with a soaring ground-rule double just beyond Brett Gardner’s reach in the right-field gap. After that, the Orioles bled him, scoring three more runs without getting another ball out of the infield.

Jones followed Roberts’ double with a single that tipped off the glove of a diving Cody Ransom, who had been playing in to guard against the bunt. With runners on the corners, Nick Markakis hit a tapper on a hit-and-run to the vacated shortstop position. Derek Jeter was able to get to the ball, but not in time to get an out. That scored Roberts. Melvin Mora followed with a well-hit ball down the left-field line that Ransom was able stop, but didn’t field cleanly, allowing Mora to reach with a bases-loading single. Aubrey Huff then plated Jones and advanced the other runners with a groundout to Cano. With first base open, Joe Girardi had Sabathia intentionally walk righty Ty Wigginton to pitch to lefty Luke Scott with two outs and a force at every base. Sabathia walked Scott, ending his Yankee debut with this line: 4 1/3 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 5 BB, 0 K.

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The Blue Jays beat the Yankees 8-2 last night as Roy Halladay picked up his 20th win with his ninth complete game of the season. By doing so, Halladay tied CC Sabathia for the major league lead in complete games, though Sabathia could break the tie in his final start. Only one team other than the Blue Jays and Brewers has more than nine complete games.

Halladay needed just 96 pitches to finish off the Yankees’ B-squad. Of the six hits he allowed, three were by Brett Gardner (one of them a double, one of them in infield hit on which Gardner beat out a nice play by Jays second baseman Joe Inglett on a hard grounder in the hole). Melky Cabrera (1 for 3) got one of the others, and Cody Ransom drew the only Yankee walk of the night.

It might have been a bit unfair for Joe Girardi to give catching prospect Francisco Cervelli (0-for-3) his first major league start against Halladay, but then Girardi didn’t make Cervelli swing at the first pitch he saw in his first two at bats (both groundouts, the second a double play). Cervelli took two pitches in his final at-bat, but still struck out swinging on just four tosses. That said, Cervelli showed great form on the one stolen base attempt against him, firing a strike that would have nailed Alex Rios in the third had Rios not gotten a huge jump on Carl Pavano.

Speaking of Pavano, in his final act as a Yankee, he gave up five runs in just 3 2/3 innings. Don’t let the door bruise your buttocks on the way out, Chuckles.

At least Pavano’s short outing allowed Girardi to audition some relievers. Dan Giese stranded the two runners he inherited from Pavano in the fourth, but couldn’t get the second out of the fifth inning, allowing two runs on three consecutive hits before David Robertson tidied up his mess. Edwar Ramirez struck out Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay in a scoreless sixth. Humberto Sanchez gave up a run in the seventh after walking two men on nine pitches, but got a double play to get out of his own mess. Finally, in the eighth Darrell Rasner retired the Jay’s 4-5-6 hitters 1-2-3, getting ahead of each hitter before inducing each into a groundout.

Speaking of the bullpen, Mariano Rivera had an MRI on his shoulder yesterday and could need some minor arthroscopic surgery this winter. Meanwhile, Joe Girardi continues to display either a dangerous ignorance or an inexplicable need to snowball the media regarding his players’ physical health. After listening to his post-game press conference, I think it’s the former, which means he needs to work on his communication with his players and his training staff. A manager’s primary job is distributing playing time to his players. If the manager is ill informed about his players’ health for whatever reason, his ability to perform that essential task in the manner most beneficial to the team is compromised. That may not be an issue in Rivera’s case, but may have been with regard to Jorge Posada’s shoulder, Alex Rodriguez’s quad, or any of a number of other early-season aches and pains that got worse before they got better.

Last night’s pitching matchup of Phil Hughes and likely free agent A.J. Burnett almost felt like an open audition for a spot in the Yankees 2009 rotation. I’m happy to report, Phil Hughes passed the audition. Hughes had a nasty curve working last night and used it to great effect, neutralizing yet another dominant outing against the Yankees by Burnett. After lasting just four inefficient innings in his return to the majors his last time out, Hughes stretched 100 pitches (71 of them strikes) across eight full innings, striking out six (all on curveballs), walking none, and allowing just two runs on five hits. Hughes was actually beating Burnett 2-1 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, but Scott Rolen shot a 1-1 curve over the wall in left center to knot it up at 2-2. Hughes, who was hoping to pick up his only major league win of the season, was furious at himself for allowing Toronto to tie the game, but settled down to retire the next four batters and pass the game to the bullpen.

After Jesse Carlson and Jose Veras swapped zeros in the ninth, Juan Miranda, who started at first and picked up his first major league hit in the fourth, led off the tenth with a double. Chad Moeller failed to bunt Miranda to third, but wound up working an eight-pitch walk, passing the buck to Brett Gardner, who bunted the runners up on the first try. Carlson hit Robinson Cano with his next offering to load the bases, and Bobby Abreu cashed it all in with a grand slam that handed the Yankees a 6-2 win. Sidney Ponson, of all people, pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the tenth to seal the deal.

“One good outing isn’t going to erase an awful season with injuries and being in the minor leagues,” said Hughes, “but it’s good to end on a positive note and carry that over into next year.” Hughes didn’t get the win, but he shaved 1.3 runs off his season ERA. He finishes the year having thrown just 69 2/3 innings between the majors and minors and will go on to pitch in the Arizona Fall League in order to get his innings total up to a higher baseline for next season, though he’s unlikely to get past 100 innings all together, even with the AFL work.

Still, Hughes looked great last night. Joe Girardi said, “he did everything right tonight.” His curveball, which is his put-away pitch, was monstrous, and the cutter he developed this summer is already rivaling his four-seamer. When Hughes is able to locate the latter, he should be able to dominate the way we’ve all expected him to, which was exactly the case last night. Phil Hughes needed that start, and the Yankees needed that start. True, one good outing won’t erase the lost season that preceded it, but it served an important reminder that Hughes is still one of the top pitching prospects in the game.

With one out in the bottom of the third inning of last night’s game against the Blue Jays, Toronto’s rookie left fielder Travis Snider hit a comebacker that ricocheted off Mike Mussina’s pitching elbow and shot into foul territory, allowing Snider to reach base with an infield single. The ball hit Mussina flush on the head of his radius, and when trainer Gene Monahan and manager Joe Girardi ran out to attend to their veteran ace, the conclusion to Mussina’s terrific comeback season was clearly hanging in the balance. The Yankees had a 1-0 lead at the time, but Mussina needed to finish the third and pitch two more innings without giving it up in order to qualify for his nineteenth win and keep his hopes for his first twenty-win season alive.

Mussina asked the assembled group to let him throw a few pitches, and after tossing a fastball and a sharp curveball, he declared himself fit to pitch. He was right. Despite a large red welt on the outside of his elbow the size of a golf ball, Mussina allowed just one more hit before being pulled after going the minimum five innings required for the win. By then his lead had doubled to 2-0 thanks to Jason Giambi’s 32nd home run of the season.

The Yankees added a third run in the seventh when Robinson Cano doubled off Blue Jays starter Jesse Litsch, moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a passed ball. Never mind that Cano was actually out at home as the ball bounced right back to catcher Gregg Zaun, who tossed to Litsch, who made a great play sliding across the opposite side of the plate and tagging the sole of Cano’s foot as it came down to touch home. Home plate ump Larry Vanover blew the call and spent the rest of the game calling strikes in a manner that found the middle ground between a sea lion and the Swedish Chef (strike one: “BORK!” strike two: “BORK!” strike three: “ARF! ARF!”).

The Jays got that run back in the bottom of the seventh when lefties Adam Lind and Lyle Overbay singled and walked against Damaso Marte and Scott Rolen greeted Joba Chamberlain with a single that scored Lind. With two out and none on in the eighth, the Jays loaded the bases against Chamberlain thanks to some sloppy defense by Cody Ransom, who replaced Derek Jeter and his sore left hand at shortstop just before game time (Jeter said after the game that he couldn’t swing), and an intentional walk, but Chamberlain won a seven-pitch battle with Lyle Overbay on a slider breaking down and away for a called strike three (ARF! ARF!). Otherwise Phil Coke, Brian Bruney, and Mariano Rivera were perfect in relief, nailing down the 3-1 win and giving Mussina his nineteenth win.

Hard Times Befallen The Soul Survivors

Unfortunately, the Red Sox also won, putting up a five-spot against likely Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee at Fenway to squeek out a 5-4 win behind Tim Wakefield and a quintet of relievers. The decisive run was scored by Dustin Pedroia on a two-out single by Jason Bay in the fifth (“sweet things from Boston, so young and willing”). With that, the Yankees have been eliminated from the postseason for the first time since 1993, the last year before the Wild Card was introduced.

That year it was Toronto that won the AL East, though the Yankees avoided being eliminated head-to-head by beating Todd Stottlemyre and the Jays behind Jim Abbott in their final game at SkyDome that season. The Yankees won again the next day, beating Rick Sutcliffe and the Orioles 9-1 behind Scott Kamieniecki (playing right field in place of an injured Paul O’Neill, Jim Leyritz homered in both games), but the Jays clinched anyway by beating the Brewers 2-0 behind Pat Hentgen and a trio of relievers that included Mike Timlin. The Jays would go on to win their second consecutive World Championship that October with Joe Carter delivering the Series-ending home run off Phillies closer Mitch Williams.

Please take me along when you slide on down.