It was a near perfect afternoon in the Bronx yesterday as the Yankees and Orioles played the final day game at Yankee Stadium. Amid sharp shadows and under a cloudless sky, the Stadium gleamed, the cool early autumn air adding a crispness to the day. The Yankees and Orioles played scoreless baseball for eight-plus innings, but the lack of action on the field mattered little as most everyone on hand and watching at home was more concerned about drinking in the doomed ballpark, which has rarely looked more welcoming or more vibrant.

Afredo Aceves got things started off in style in the first inning. Following a Brian Roberts lead-off double, Adam Jones popped up a bunt in front of the mound. Aceves, who has shown himself to be a solid infielder, caught the ball on a lunge before tumbling forward to his knees. He then spun to double Roberts off of second, but Roberts had been running on the pitch and had actually rounded third base slightly, so rather than throw to Cody Ransom covering second base, Aceves, with a big grin on his face, jogged the ball over to second for an unassisted double play, a play rarely turned by a pitcher (paging Bob Timmermann).

Aceves wouldn’t allow a runner past second base all day, and after six innings and 92 pitches, he was replaced by Brian Bruney, Damaso Marte, and Mariano Rivera, who kept that streak intact. The Yankees didn’t do much better against lefty spot-starter Brian Burres. With two outs in the first, Bobby Abreu doubled and moved to third on a wild pitch, but Alex Rodriguez popped out to strand him, and the Yankees didn’t get another man past second until the bottom of the ninth.

Though it would ultimately prove a fitting conclusion to a beautiful day, the bottom of the ninth started off ominously when a 1-1 pitch got away from rookie reliever Jim Miller and hit Derek Jeter on the back of his left hand. Jeter spun to avoid the pitch, but it caught him flush and sent him skipping toward the visiting batting circle in obvious pain. Joe Girardi and trainer Gene Monahan quickly attended to Jeter, who was the DH yesterday to give him a breather before today’s final game at the Stadium, and almost immediately pulled Jeter from the game. Jeter didn’t make a fist with the hand when Monahan was checking him out on the field, and as he headed into the tunnel toward the clubhouse, Jeter slammed his batting helmet on the dugout floor. Fortunately, post-game x-rays were negative and Jeter is expected to be in the lineup for the Stadium’s finale . . . of course.

Brett Gardner ran for Jeter at first base and stole second base easily on Miller’s first pitch to Abreu. After Miller fell behind Abreu 3-0, Orioles manager Dave Trembley decided to make use of that empty base and pass the buck to Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez took two strikes then hit into a near double play, but managed to beat out the relay to put runners on the corners with one out for Jason Giambi. Trembley called on veteran lefty reliever Jamie Walker to pitch to Giambi, and Walker responded by striking Giambi out on six pitches. Rodriguez stole second on strike three, so Trembley had Walker put Xavier Nady on base and pitch to fellow lefty Robinson Cano. Cano, who still holds the distinction of having hit the last home run at Yankee Stadium, jumped on Walker’s first pitch, delivering a line-drive single just to the right of second base, plating Gardner with the winning run.

So in the final day game at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees beat the Orioles 1-0 on a walk-off single by Robison Cano. Mariano Rivera got the win, and the Yankees staved off elimination for at least one more day. The day was so close to perfect that, in some peverse way, I almost wish yesterday’s game was the last ever at the Stadium. The only way tonight’s game could be better would be for a Yankee to hit a home run and for Jeter to be somewhere other than the trainers’ room when the game ends.

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Last night, Andy Pettitte had one bad inning, the bullpen couldn’t hold the line, the offense couldn’t break through, and the Yankees lost 6-2. Sing me a new song.

Over the last 14 years, Jeter has helped fill those empty seats behind him.

As early as tomorrow this game will be remembered for just one reason. In the bottom of the first inning, Derek Jeter hit a hard grounder to third base on the first pitch he saw from White Sox starter Gavin Floyd. Sox third baseman Juan Uribe was playing in and dropped to one knee in an attempt to backhand the ball. Instead it shot through his legs. Jeter was awarded a hit, which pushed him past Lou Gehrig as the man with the most hits in the history of Yankee Stadium. It looked like an error to me, but Jeter made that irrelevant with a single in the fifth.

I mocked the attention lavished on Jeter for passing Babe Ruth for second on the Yankees’ all-time hit list, and YES’s coverage of last night’s hit and the hits leading up to it–particularly Michael Kay’s call of the hit (“Hit or error? Error or history?”)–was every bit as over-the-top if not moreso, but I actually think this record is pretty nifty. For one thing, it’s an actual record. For another, as Kay histrionically pointed out on the broadcast, it’s a record that can’t be broken. Sure, Gehrig had far fewer at-bats at the old Yankee Stadium than Jeter has had in the remodeled one, but there’s a purity and an absoluteness to “the most ever” that even applies to Barry Bonds.

Best of all, this is a record that honors not just the man who broke it, but the Stadium in which it was achieved. Yankee Stadium will go dark for good six days from now, but though there will never again be a meaningful game played in the old yard, and the Yankees as an organization have completely punted the opportunity to do something special for the final season of baseball’s most significant ballpark, Jeter was able to give us one last piece of history, and a private kind of history at that. For all of the great performances, accomplishments, and players who have graced the field on the southwest corner of 161st and River Ave over the past 86 years, the player who got more hits on that piece of real estate than anyone else ever has or ever will is Derek Jeter. I think that’s pretty cool.

Alfredo Aceves matched Mark Buehrle for six innings last night. Xavier Nady put the Yankees on top with a two run jack to dead center in the second. Aceves uncharacteristically started the fourth by walking leadoff hitter Orlando Cabrera, his only walk of the night, then was made to pay for it when Dewayne Wise turned on an inside cutter and kept it fair into the left field box seats to tie the game. Otherwise, both pitchers kept the game moving (official time: 2:39) and the opposition at bay.

Aceves was inexplicably pulled after just 87 pitches (69 percent strikes and just two three-pitch counts), but Phil Coke worked a 1-2-3 seventh to set up the Yankees breakthrough after the stretch. With Buehrle out after 101 pitches, Xavier Nady led of the bottom of the seventh by coming back from 0-2 to work a walk off sidearming righty Erin Wasserman. Cody Ransom, starting at second base for the still-benched Robinson Cano, then bunted Nady to second, and Joe Girardi sent Wilson Betemit in to pinch-hit for Chad Moeller. Ozzie Guillen called on Horatio Ramirez to turn Betemit around to the right side. Betemit took ball one from Ramirez, fouled a fastball straight back, swung through another, fouled an outside pitch down the right field line, took ball two, then laced ground-rule double over the wall in the left-center field gap to plate Nady with the go-ahead run. Brett Gardner followed with deep fly that moved Betemit to third, and Johnny Damon drove Wilson in with a single through the right side.

Girardi handed that 4-2 lead to Joba Chamberlain, who pitched around an infield single in the eighth striking out two, and Mariano Rivera, who passed Lee Smith for second on the all-time saves list with a 1-2-3 ninth. Rivera’s reaction to passing Smith: “S’arright.” Pete Abe says, “The closer is furious the team isn’t going to the playoffs. Furious.”

As with Aceves’ first start, it was a nice, quick, clean Yankee win. It also moved the Yankees into a tie for third place with the Blue Jays, for what it matters. Elsewhere, the Red Sox pulled into a technical tie for first place by stomping the Rays 13-5, though Tampa Bay still holds a one-game lead in the loss column.

Yesterday afternooon, for the third game in a row, the Yankees got out to a quick start and emerged with little to show for it. Sure they wound up blowing out the Angels on Tuesday night, but only after Alfredo Aceves had made a 1-0 score hold up for five innings. Yesterday, the Yankees got two runs in the top of the first on a pair of walks, a Jason Giambi RBI single and a balk by Angels spot-starter Dustin Moseley, but Andy Pettitte gave one back in the bottom of the inning on a Garret Anderson double, a wild pitch, and an RBI groundout by Juan Rivera.

Johnny Damon led off the third with a walk, but got picked off ahead of a single by Derek Jeter, who was subsequently stranded at first base. A one-out single by Xavier Nady in the fourth was erased by a 3-6-3 double play off Hideki Matsui’s bat. Then in the fifth, Pettitte fell apart. Singles by Gary Matthews Jr., Anderson, and Guerrero loaded the bases with none out. Pettitte then rallied to strike out Rivera and Kendry Morales, and got ahead of Robb Quinlan 1-2, but Quinlan battled back to a full count before delivering a two-RBI single that gave the Angels the lead which was inflated to 4-2 when Guerrero scored on Nady’s subsequent throwing error.

And that was that. Pettite walked the next batter and got the hook. Jose Veras, Phil Coke, and Joba Chamberlain stopped the scoring there, but so did Moseley and relievers Jose Arredondo and Scot Shields, passing the game to Francisco Rodriguez. Down to their last out, The Yankees mounted a threat with a walk by Giambi and a single by Xavier Nady that put pinch runners on the corners, but Rodriguez got Hideki Matsui looking to earn his 56th save of the year and move into second place on the single-season saves list. He’ll pass Bobby Thigpen soon enough.

At that point attention turned to the Rangers-Mariners game, which was broadcast for the remaining fans on the Angel Stadium scoreboard. The M’s had an early 4-0 lead, but the Rangers tied it up with a pair of two-run homers off M’s starter Jared Wells in the fifth. Seattle got back out ahead with two runs off Kevin Millwood in the fifth, but another two-run homer tied the game back up at 6-6 in the sixth. The M’s took the lead again with a run in the bottom of the sixth and added another in the bottom of the seventh. That was enough to survive a Chris Davis solo homer off Miguel Batista in the eighth and when J.J. Putz struck out Michael Young to wrap up Seattle’s 8-7 win, the Angels clinched the AL West for the fourth time in five years.

As things stand now, the Angels will face the Wild Card team in the ALDS. As of this writing, the Rays had a 1.5 game lead on the Red Sox and the two teams were tied 1-1 in the 12th inning at Fenway. The Angels have faced the Red Sox in the postseason three times, but have lost all three series. In recent years, they’ve been swept twice in the ALDS by Boston and haven’t won a postseason game against the Sox since they held a 3-1 in the 1986 ALCS. The fifth game of that series was the game in which Dave Henderson homered off Donnie Moore in the ninth inning to prevent the Angels from reaching their first World Series. So, you think the Halos are hoping they wind up facing the Rays?

Last night’s game started off a lot like Monday night’s 12-1 humiliation. Bobby Abreu erased a Derek Jeter single* with an inning-ending double play in the first. In the second, the first three hitters reached on a single, a hit-by-pitch, and a double resulting in a run and putting men on second and third with none out, but Ervin Santana struck out Hideki Matsui and Robinson Cano before getting Chad Moeller to line out to end the threat. In the third, Abreu delivered a two-out single, but was promptly thrown out stealing second with Alex Rodriguez, who had singled to lead off the previous inning, at the plate. The Yankees stranded another two-out single in the fourth and went down in order in the fifth.

What was different was Alfredo Aceves. Making his first big league start in front of 31 friends and family members and 43,011 strangers, Aceves worked quickly, mixed his pitches, threw strikes, and made quick work of the Angels. Pitching to contact, Aceves got into just two three-ball counts all night, both of them full counts, one of which ended in a strikeout of rookie Brandon Wood, and didn’t walk a batter. He consistently got ahead early, throwing first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 26 batters he faced, and after three of his first four outs traveled a fair distance in the air, he got ten of his last 17 outs on the ground and two more by strikeout.

To be sure, the defense behind Aceves’ helped out. The first out Aceves recorded came when Robinson Cano made a great sliding stop to his right, then spun to his feet to throw out the speedy Reggie Willits. Alex Rodriguez made several nice plays at third base including eating up a hard hopper in the second and making a nice backhanded play on a shot down the line in the third.

Robinson Cano made another nice play in the fourth with a diving stop to his left that he tried to turn into a 4-6-3 double play, but Derek Jeter let Cano’s throw clank off his glove as both runners reached safely. That came after the runner on first had reached by lining a ball off the right wrist of a diving Jason Giambi. Though both plays would have been exceptional, they should have been made. Undeterred, Aceves took matters into his own hands by reaching across his body to stab a comebacker and start an inning-ending 1-6-3 DP. Aceves has a face of stone on the mound, but after escaping that jam he pumped his fist and shouted a few words in Spanish.

With the score still 1-0 entering the sixth, the Yankees finally gave Aceves some insurance. Derek Jeter led off with a deep fly into the gap in right center. Gary Matthews, who had just been put into the game in place of Torii Hunter, whose back was acting up, got to the ball, but had it clank off his glove for what was initially ruled a triple (later changed to a three-base error). Bobby Abreu followed with a five-pitch walk, and Alex Rodriguez cashed it all in with a three-run jack that made it 4-0.

Those runs came just in time as Aceves appeared to be fatiguing a bit in the bottom of the sixth. Though he had thrown just 60 pitches through the first five frames, allowing just a trio of scattered singles, his pace slowed in the sixth. Reggie Willits took five pitches to ground out to Cano. Garret Anderson then worked a nine-pitch at-bat (just the second three-ball at-bat of Aceves’s night), eventually winning the battle with a groundball single in the gap past Cano. Mark Teixeira followed by lacing a high fastball into right center for a double, pushing old man Anderson to third. Aceves then got Guerrero and Matthews to groundout, but Anderson scored in the process.

Given two more insurance runs in the seventh thanks to a Chad Moeller single and a Johnny Damon dinger that drove Santana from the game, Joe Girardi sent Aceves out for the seventh. Six pitches later, Aceves was back in the dugout getting congratulated on seven strong innings of one-run baseball against the team with the best record in the majors.

Aceves didn’t blow anyone away last night, and he didn’t show any particularly overwhelming pitches, but, as advertised, he mixed his pitches to a dizzying degree. Aceves throws a fastball, a cutter, a changeup, and a curve, but seems to have a variety of breaks and speeds on each one. His fastball topped out at 93 miles per hour and tended to sit around 91, but he threw some 92 mile per hour pitches that dove like sinkers and some 88 mile per hour pitches that almost looked like splitters, as well as cutters in that same range that stayed level but moved side to side. His changeup sat in the mid-80s, but seemed to have a curve-like hop to it. Later in the game, he threw back-to-back straight changeups at 81 and 78 mph to get the final out of the sixth. His curve tended to be in the high 70s and have a moderate break, but in pursuit of the final out of the fifth, he threw Sean Rodriguez a 76 mph back-door yakker that was a called strike (a generous strike zone from home plate ump Ed Rapuano also worked in his favor), then got Rodriguez to groundout on a less-severe 78 mph curve.

All totalled he gave up one run on five hits (four of them singles) and no walks in seven innings while striking out two and throwing just 89 pitches, 71 percent of them strikes. Save for the lack of strikeouts, that’s a near repeat of his line from his two relief appearances. Dig:

RP: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K
SP: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 2 K

As for the rest of the game, Damon added a solo homer off Justin Speier in the ninth and Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte slammed the door without incident. So the day after taking a 12-1 whooping, the Yankees dropped a 7-1 score on the Halos, who came no closer to clinching as the Rangers beat up on Felix Hernandez to beat the M’s 7-3.

In the other notable out-of-town game, the Rays, leading Boston by just a half game, took a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the eighth at Fenway only to have Dan Wheeler give up a two-run homer to Jason Bay and hand Jonathan Papelbon a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth. Joe Maddon sent Dan Johnson, who had just been called up before the game, in to pinch hit, and Johnson greeted Papelbon with a game-tying homer over the Red Sox’s bullpen in right center. After a Willy Aybar lineout, rookie Fernando Perez, who had pinch-hit in the seventh, doubled to left and then Dioner Navarro doubled him home to make it 5-4. Troy Percival then walked the leadoff man in the bottom of the ninth, but struck out Jason Varitek, and got David Ortiz to fly out. With two outs, pinch-runner Jacoby Ellsbury stole second and went to third on Navarro’s throwing error only to have Coco Crisp pop out two pitches later to end the game and inflate the Rays’ lead to 1.5 games.

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The Yankees looked like they might have something going against Jon Garland early in last night’s game. Johnny Damon led off with a single up the middle. Derek Jeter followed with a walk. After Bobby Abreu ground into a fielder’s choice, Alex Rodriguez dropped an opposite-field flare in front of Vlad Guerrero to plate Damon. Jason Giambi got ahead of Garland 3-1, but the Angels starter came back to strike him out on a called strike down and in for the second out. Xavier Nady reached on a Baltimore chop to loaded the bases, but Garland got Hideki Matsui to ground out weakly to strand all three runners.

That was all the Yankees would get. After Robinson Cano led off the second with a single, Garland retired 12 men in a row, taking him through the fifth. Meanwhile, the Angels tied the game on a manufactured run in the bottom of the first when Chone Figgins singled, stole second, moved to third on a groundout, and scored on a sac fly. They then took the lead in the third when infield prospect Brandon Wood led off with a solo homer off Carl Pavano.

The Yankees finally got back on base against Garland in the sixth when Bobby Abreu led off with a four-pitch walk, but Alex Rodriguez erased Abreu with a 6-4-3 double play. Jason Giambi tried to reboot the inning with a ground-rule double, but Xavier Nady grounded out on the first pitch he saw to end the inning.

Then the roof fell in. Rookie second baseman Sean Rodriguez led off the bottom of the sixth with a solo homer off Pavano. A hit batsman, a single, and a groundout plated another run, ending Pavano’s night after 75 pitches. Dan Giese came on, fell behind Vlad Guerrero 3-0, got two strikes on foul balls, then gave up a monster two-run jack that ran the score to 6-1.

Torii Hunter followed that homer with a single then stole second and third around a walk to Juan Rivera. When Mike Napoli grounded to third, Hunter broke for home, but he was out by a good 20 feet. Hunter slowed his momentum as he approached Rodriguez, who tagged him out while standing in front of the batting circle, but Hunter still dipped his shoulder a bit and made solid contact with the Yankee catcher. As he proceeded behind Rodriguez, Hunter slipped on Napoli’s bat and bumped into Rodriguez’s back. Rodriguez, already a bit miffed that Hunter didn’t slow up even more than he did, answered back by elbowing the Angel center fielder out of his way as he walked the ball back toward the pitcher’s mound. Hunter took offense to Rodriguez’s elbow, ran up and shoved Rodriguez in the back igniting a bases-clearing scrum that saw little action, but got both players ejected.

Moments later back in the dugout, Yankee pitching coach Dave Eiland, who had been in the middle of the scrum, passed out and fell off the dugout bench. Eiland immediately regained consciousness and was able to walk back to the trainers room with the help of some of his players, but no one really knew why he had fainted. After Wood singled home two more runs to make it 8-1, Girardi went out to the mound to replace Giese with Edwar Ramirez and could be seen explaining to his players that Eiland just flopped over and that he had no idea why. Fortunately, after being examined by one of the Angels’ doctors, Eiland was given a clean bill of health.

Said Girardi after the game, “He’s been fighting a cold, and he worked out hard this morning, and I think last time he ate was 1:00, and he took some medicine during the game. He got lightheaded and dizzy and passed out, but he’s okay now.”

The Rodriguez/Hunter affair also had a happy ending, as the two apologized to one another and hugged it out after the game. Said Hunter of the incident, “The ghetto came out. I hate that.”

That just left the Yankees to wallow in what swelled to a 12-1 humiliation at the hands of the Angels, who could clinch the AL West tonight with a win and a Rangers’ loss. The Yankees are playing the role of jobber to the hilt.

The Yankees jumped out to an early lead on Edwin Jackson and the Rays last night. After four innings, the score stood at 6-3 Yankees, but the next four frames went by without another tally. With two outs in the top of the ninth, Bobby Abreu worked Troy Percival for a 12-pitch walk, fouling of six full-count offerings before taking ball four. Abreu then stole second on Percival’s 0-2 pitch to Alex Rodriguez, which was a ball. Rodriguez fouled off the 1-2 pitch, took ball two, then crushed a pitch down the left-field line that sailed over the foul pole.

The ball was ruled a home run, but Rays catcher Dioner Navarro animatedly disagreed, and his manager, Joe Maddon, convinced the umpires to use instant replay for the first time in major league history. Three of the four umpires, including crew chief Charlie Reliford retreated through the visitor’s dugout to the replay area and emerged two minutes and 15 seconds later to uphold their call. Reliford emerged first from the dugout and twirled his left index finger over his head to affirm third-base umpire Brian Runge’s original call on the field.

Watching the replays shown on YES, the ball appeared to sail over the left-field foul pole, then hook foul behind hit, clanging off a catwalk near the back wall of the stadium. Still, there remained some confusion due to the fact that there was a yellow foul pole extension attached to that catwalk, despite the fact that it was set significantly back beyond the outfield wall. The ball clearly hit the catwalk to the left (foul) of that yellow indicator, but only after sailing over the actual foul pole when leaving the field of play, which is exactly how all four umpires saw it both live and in the replays.

Said Reliford after the game, “We all believed it was a home run, but since the technology is in place we made the decision to use the technology and go look at the replays. . . . If there had been no argument, obviously we wouldn’t have because all four of us believed the call was correct on the field. Because [Maddon] disputed it, and it was very close, and now the technology is in place, we used it.”

Rodriguez’s double-checked homer gave the Yankees an 8-3 lead, bounced Percival from the game, and pushed Rodriguez past Mike Schmidt on the career home runs list. The Rays picked up run in the bottom of the inning off Jose Veras to set the final score at 8-4 Yanks.

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Xavier Nady hit a ball to the moon in the fourth inning of last night’s game. Well, it would have gone to the moon, but the catwalk suspended from the Tropicana Dome roof got in the way. That bomb gave the Yankees a 3-1 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The Bombers added two in the fifth, one in the sixth, and capped it off with Alex Rodriguez’s 30th homer of the year leading off the eighth. Meanwhile, Mike Mussina scattered ten hits, allowing just two runs over six-plus innings, struck out ten and picked up his 17th win of the season, leaving him with five chances to get the three more wins he needs to set a career-high in that category.

Joba Chamberlain and Dan Giese both made strong returns from shoulder tendonitis. Chamberlain needed one pitch to kill a Rays rally in the seventh and working around a walk and a single for a scoreless eighth. Giese worked a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out Carlos Peña to seal the 7-2 Yankee win. Chamberlian’s velocity was a bit down, but he said after the game that his mechanics were a bit out of whack from the time off and that he expected everything to fall into place in his subsequent outings. Most importantly, his shoulder felt just fine.

B.J. Upton made the play of the game on a drive by Rodriguez in the top of the second. Running full speed toward the wall in center, Upton snow-coned Rodriguez’s line drive in the webbing of his glove before taking one step up the wall to slow his momentum. In the bottom of the inning, Eric Hinske made the boner of the game (in a game that had its share) when he raced around the bases for a triple while watching Nady and Johnny Damon chase after the ball in left center. Hinske slid safely into third base head first. Only then did he discover that Willy Aybar, who had singled before him, had been held up at third. Forced to vacate the base, Aybar was throw out easily at home. Hinske then failed to score on a subsequent groundout by Jason Bartlett, leaving the game scoreless entering the third inning.

Rodriguez’s homer tied him with Mike Schmidt for 12th in major league history. Barring injury, he’ll be chasing 600 this time next year.

The Yankees took a 6-2 lead into the seventh inning yesterday afternoon. Robinson Cano and Ivan Rodriguez had delivered consecutive solo home runs in the fourth to break a 2-2 tie, and Hideki Matsui had delivered a two-run double with the bases loaded in the fifth, all four runs coming with two outs in their respective innings. Darrell Rasner was cruising, having thrown just 67 pitches through six innings, 52 of them strikes.

Adam Lind singled on Rasner’s first pitch of the seventh. Lyle Overbay then hit what looked like an easy double play ball to second base, but rather than side-arm the ball to Derek Jeter for the pivot, Robinson Cano tried a back-handed flip from a bit too far away. The ball dove and skipped past Jeter and both runners were safe. Jose Bautista, who was 0-for-August entering that inning, capitalized by singling Lind home. Rasner then walked Gregg Zaun to load the bases and got the hook in favor of Brian Bruney, a pitcher more capable of a much-needed strikeout. Bruney delivered exactly that, striking out rookie Travis Snider, but Joe Inglett followed with a single that plated Overbay and Bautista to bring the Jays within one run. After Brandon League struck out the heart of the Yankee order in the seventh, the Jays got back to work against Bruney, Damaso Marte, and Edwar Ramirez in the eighth, tying the game on singles by Vernon Wells (off Bruney) Adam Lind (off Marte), and Bautista (off Ramirez), and taking the lead when Gregg Zaun just barely beat out a double-play relay on a dribbler to the left side on which Alex Rodriguez made a nice play.

Facing Scott Downs in the eighth, the Yankees put a runner in scoring position with two outs on an Ivan Rodriguez infield single and a stolen base by pinch-runner Brett Gardner, but Johnny Damon grounded out to strand Gardner. Facing B.J. Ryan in the ninth, the Yankees mounted a bigger threat when Derek Jeter led off with a single and Bobby Abreu followed with a walk to bring Alex Rodriguez to the plate. Rodriguez, who had driven in the first run of the game in the first, worked the count full, then ripped the payoff pitch hard down the third base line, but that man Bautista made a slick play on the ball, raced to third to force out Jeter, and fired across the diamond to get Rodriguez by inches (the total distance by which Zaun was safe and Rodriguez was out couldn’t have added up to more than a foot). With that double play, the rally was reduced to Abreu on second with two outs and Cody Ransom, who had come in as a defensive replacement for Giambi in the eighth with the Yankees still leading by a run, at the plate. Ransom swung at the first pitch he saw and flew out to left to end the game and hand the Yankees a painful 7-6 loss.

Today they face Roy Halladay.

Oy.

Or maybe it’s just that even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again. Either way, the Yankees finally beat A.J. Burnett last night, and did it largely thanks to six strong innings from Carl Pavano, who has now won both of his starts since returning from his long injury-induced exile, thereby doubling his win total from the previous 38 months.

Pavano wasn’t great. Typically a slight groundball pitcher, he got 13 of his 18 outs in the air, many of them hard hit balls either right at infielders or to the deepest parts of the outfield. Still, he gave up just three hits in those six innings, walked just one, and held the Blue Jays to one sixth-inning run when Jays’ rookie Travis Snider bounced a ground-rule double over the fence in center for his first major league hit, and Marco Scutaro singled him home.

Pavano needed just 72 pitches to get through those first six innings, but Joe Girardi decided to count his blessings at that point as the Yankees held a slim 2-1 lead.

The Yankees got their runs in a wacky fourth inning. Johnny Damon led off by hitting a ball off the top of the right field wall, directly on the white stripe of the foul line. In the first Yankee game eligible for replay, first base umpire Jeff Nelson got the call right without argument and Damon pulled up with a 314-foot single. Two pitches later, Damon stole second. Catcher Rod Barajas’s throw beat Damon, as did second baseman Joe Inglett’s tag, but Inglett caught the ball high in the webbing of his glove and the force od Damon’s slide knocked it loose as he slid by. Burnett struck out Derek Jeter on three more pitches, one of Burnett’s eight strikeouts in his eight-inning complete-game loss, but Bobby Abreu served a 3-1 pitch into the gap in left-center for a double that plated Damon with the game’s first run. When Alex Rodriguez chopped Burnett’s next pitch in between third base and shortstop, Abreu, somewhat misguidedly, took off for third base, perhaps thinking that the ball would get through. Shortstop Scutaro made an awkward attempt to backhand the ball, bobbled it, then threw late to third base as Abreu made an even more awkward slide into the bag, deciding at the last second to slide and almost stopping his momentum before dropping into a bent-knee split and touching the bag with his back foot. It wasn’t pretty, but it put runners on the corners with out out. Jason Giambi then flared the next pitch foul down the left field line where left fielder Snider almost overran it and had to leap backwards to make the catch, allowing Abreu to tag and score what proved to be the winning run.

Buoyed by that extra run, Girardi had Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte split the seventh inning, then brought out Jose Veras for the eighth. Veras gave up a leadoff double to Barajas, then walked Scott Rolen on five pitches, so Girardi brought in Edwar Ramirez to face the lefty Snider, whom Ramirez struck out. Going for the throat, Girardi then called on Mariano Rivera, who got a groundball and a strikeout to strand both runners, then worked around a one-out single by Vernon Wells to nail down the win in the ninth.

The 2-1 win was particularly uplifting for the monkeys it brushed of the team’s back (specifically Burnett and Pavano), and because it lasted a mere two hours and 36 minutes. The Red Sox, Twins, and Rays all won as well, so it did little to revive the Yankees moribund postseason hopes, but small victories like this are what they have left to offer this season, and the last two games have done a lot to remind the spoiled Yankee fanbase that there’s joy to be had in small victories, too.

Yesterday’s game was the last the Red Sox will ever play at the first Yankee Stadium. It was also the last I’ll ever see from the seating bowl of the old ballpark. I have two games remaining in the bleachers this season, including the Stadium’s final game against the Orioles on September 21, but that final game will be overrun with hype, anxiety, and mixed emotions. In providing two other, more specific “last”s, yesterday’s game provided me with a sense of personal closure regarding the old park.

Twenty years ago almost exactly, I saw my first game at Yankee Stadium from a seat in the front row of the upper deck in right field. The Yankees won that night on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth by Claudell Washington. Yesterday afternoon, I was a few rows higher behind home plate and the Yankees won on a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth by Jason Giambi. I’ll save my reminiscences of the games in between for another time, but I wanted to share a few of the photographs I took of yesterday’s game.

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The Yankees needed to sweep their current series against the Red Sox, so their having lost the first game by the convincing score of 7-3 takes a lot of the excitement out of the remaining two games. Heading into last night’s game, the Yankees were counting on Andy Pettitte to come through in what may prove to have been the Yankees’ biggest game of the year. He didn’t:

“It’s extremely frustrating. I hate it. I didn’t get it done. I didn’t get it done tonight. I wish I could say I felt terrible, but I felt pretty decent. I got out of synch in the first inning and walked a couple of guys, but after that I felt that I was able to throw my all pitches pretty much where I wanted to. I couldn’t get anybody out, though.”

Johnny Damon staked Pettitte to an early 1-0 lead when he led off the bottom of the first by wrapping a solo homer around the foul pole in right field. Pettitte, who worked around those two two-out walks in the first, got two quick outs in the top of the second, but then the last two men in the Boston order reached on slow rollers up the third base line and Jacoby Ellsbury plated one of them with a single to left to tie the game.

The Yankees answered right back with a run in the bottom of the inning on two-out singles by Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano, and Jose Molina, but Pettitte gave that run and one more back in the top of the third on doubles by David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis and a single by Jason Bay. It was still 3-2 Sox in the top of the fifth when Jason Bay singled back up the middle off Pettitte to spark a two-out rally.

“I had two outs and was hoping to have a 1-2-3 inning and then the inning turned into a horrible inning. Just frustrating. I felt like it was a pretty good pitch on the outside corner to [Bay]. I think he got into a count [2-2] where I had to throw a little bit more over the plate than I wanted to out there. I thought I threw a good back-door curveball to the next kid [Jed Lowrie] and he hit it, ground ball [single] in between second and third, and then, again, I thought I threw a good changeup in a good count [1-2] to [Jeff] Bailey, and he just rolled it right down the line on the bag. It’s frustrating. I gave up those three runs early. I broke out my changeup in the fourth, and I was throwing it for strikes when I wanted to. It was a game where I thought that as soon as I started throwing that for strikes the way I was, the way I was locating my fastball, it was a game I could carry into the seventh inning or so and hold them to three right there, but obviously it didn’t work out like that. I just, I didn’t get the job done.”

In between Lowrie’s single and Bailey’s infield hit, Coco Crisp singled Bay home to make it 4-3. Bailey’s hit would have been a two-run double, but it ricocheted off the third base bag to Alex Rodriguez, who quickly fired it across the diamond to Jason Giambi, but Bailey beat the throw and Crisp, who had stolen second, never hesitated and scored anyway to make it a two-run infield hit aided by Giambi mistakenly thinking Bailey had been ruled out and thus not throwing home.

That sequence of events made it 6-2 Sox and bounced Pettitte with two out in the fifth. Damon added a second solo homer off Wakefield in the bottom of the inning, but Brian Bruney gave that run back in the top of the sixth on a Jason Bay sac fly after walkking the bases loaded.

From there things got ugly, though the 7-3 score would remain unchanged. The Yankees loaded the bases with one out in the seventh against Manny Delcarmen, bringing Alex Rodriguez to the plate as the tying run against Justin Masterson. Rodriguez took a fastball down the middle at the knees, then took and ill-advised hack at a slider down and in and ground into an inning-ending double play, bringing out the boos for the first time this season.

The Yankees got the first two men on in the eighth against Masterson, but Hideki Okajima came on for an eight-pitch battle with Matsui that ended in curveball that dove across the zone for called strike three. Okajima then got Cano to pop out on a full-count, and Jonathan Papelbon came on to retire Ivan Rodriguez on one pitch. An error by Lowrie in the bottom of the ninth simply allowed Rodriguez to come to the plate to make the last out with a runner on base.

On the night, Rodriguez went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts, two double plays, and an error in the field, and left seven runners on base. He fell on his sword after the game:

“It was an awful night. For me personally, it was a long night, pretty much screwed it up anyway you can screw it up. . . . My team expects me to get big hits and make plays, and tonight I didn’t do that. Johnny, Jeet, and Bobby worked great at-bats all night [combined 6 for 11 with two walks] and I just killed the rally . . . . No one’s more frustrated than me. Everyone’s desperate for wins. A night like tonight, I was booing myself. . . . We’ve always said you want to get a good pitch to hit and put an A swing. On that double play [in the seventh], it wasn’t a good pitch to hit, and it wasn’t an A swing. . . . Today we sucked. I sucked. I played terrible, and they hit balls all over the place down at the corner at third base, and I left men all over the field. . . . tonight you can put it on me.”

I’d actually put it on Pettitte, if I had to point a finger, but Rodriguez was his accomplice. With that in mind, I found this post-game comment from Johnny Damon interesting:

“[Alex is] out there busting his butt. He still works harder than all of us in here. He had that off night and that’s unfortunate. This was a night when we needed to get something and unfortunately, we couldn’t get anything from him. He expects to be the greatest player ever, and unfortunately on a day-by-day basis that doesn’t really translate at times. It’s tough to be the best player on the field every single day. He expects to be, and unfortunately tonight he wasn’t.”

The Yankees weren’t a playoff team last night, either.

The Yankees jumped out to a 7-2 lead in Baltimore this afternoon, bouncing Daniel Cabrera in the fourth after he’d thrown 95 pitches. The problem was that Darrell Rasner wasn’t much better, using up 98 pitches in 3 1/3 innings and leaving men on first and second for David Robertson, who needed just two pitches to allow both to score. In the fifth, Robertson left a man on for Edwar Ramirez, who needed just two pitches to allow a game-tying home run to Brian Roberts.

Robinson Cano broke the tie with a 425-foot homer to dead center off lefty Jamie Walker in the seventh and Jose Veras, Damaso Marte, and Mariano Rivera made it hold up as the Yankees won an 8-7 game that lasted a minute more than four hours.

Confusion follows Marte wherever he goes

After Brian Roberts singled of Veras to put the tying run on base in the eighth, Damaso Marte got two crucial outs by striking out Nick Markakis and Melvin Mora, then got the first two outs of the eighth, one of them a strikeout of Kevin Millar, before walking Luke Scott and giving way to Rivera. After the game, Marte revealed that he’s been dealing with some inflammation in his elbow, but that after some rest (he’d pitched to just one batter since August 12, giving him nearly 11 days off) he’s feeling much better. The elbow trouble supposedly dated back to his 42-pitch outing against the Rangers, which ended in Marlon Byrd’s walk-off grand slam and was Marte’s longest outing in terms of total pitches since August 2006. Of course, when questioned by Peter Abraham before the game Joe Girardi denied that Marte had any health issues. If Marte can build on today’s “comeback” performance, he could have a huge impact on the remainder of the Yankees’ season.

As for Rasner, he said he was disgusted with his performance and that it felt like he had never pitched before, while all concerned (Rasner, Girardi, and catcher Ivan Rodriguez) said he was simply leaving his pitches up in the zone.

Up in Toronto, the Red Sox won a 11-inning game that took just three hours and 42 minutes, while the White Sox beat the Rays at home in a tenth-inning walk-off set up by an interference call on a rundown and took over the lead in the Central with the Twins losing to the Angels. As a result, your Wild Card standings look like this heading into this week’s showdown in the Bronx:

Team W-L GB
BOS 75-55 –
MIN 74-56 1
NYY 70-60 5

The Yankees beat the Orioles 9-4 last night, but the game wasn’t nearly that close, and Mike Mussina did not pick up his 17th win of the season. As late as two outs into the top of the ninth inning, the Yankees’ lead was just one run, and they had taken that lead just the inning before.

The Yankees got on the board right away in the top of the first when Bobby Abreu singled home Johnny Damon, who had doubled to start the game (in between, Derek Jeter picked up the 2,500th hit of his career, a flare that dropped in behind second baseman Brian Roberts). The Orioles got that run right back in the bottom of the first when Roberts singled, stole second, and scored on a two-out Aubrey Huff single. Huff singled home another run in the third, and Ramon Hernandez homered off Mussina in the fourth to give the O’s a 3-1 lead, but the Yanks tied it back up in the top of the fifth when Robinson Cano and Jose Molina (!) led off with back-to-back home runs off O’s starter Radhames Liz.

With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Kevin Millar hit a ground rule double and Luke Scott singled to put runners on the corners. With Mussina at 99 pitches and the score still tied, Joe Girardi came out to the mound for a quick gut check with his starter. Mussina stayed in the game, but Hernandez hit a sac fly to deep left to give the O’s a 4-3 lead before Jose Molina threw out Scott stealing to end the inning. After 110 pitches, that was it for Mussina, who would leave the game without pushing his win total past 16. If he stays healthy, Mussina could make seven more starts this season.

Steve Gibralter (1-for-5 in his major league career), had nothing to do with last night’s game.

Jose Veras pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, and the Yankees rallied in the eighth against lefty reliever Jamie Walker. Bobby Abreu–who bused the just-defeated Venezuelan little league team to the game and gave them the royal treatment then went 5-for-5 in their presence–led off the inning with a single and moved to third on a double by Alex Rodriguez. After Walker got Jason Giambi to pop out, O’s manager Dave Trembley called on rookie righty Kam Mickolio, one of the pitchers acquired in the Erik Bedard deal, to face Xavier Nady. Mickolio’s first pitch was way outside and sailed clean past Ramon Hernandez, bringing in Abreu with the tying run. Nady then singled Rodriguez home to give the Yankees the slim 5-4 lead they brought into the top of the ninth.

With two outs and no one out in the ninth, Abreu picked up his fifth hit when a grounder to second base skipped past Roberts. Alex Rodriguez then hit a ground rule double to left that, like his double the previous inning, held Abreu at third base. That brought up Jason Giambi’s spot, but in protecting his slim one-run lead in the bottom of the eighth, Joe Girardi had put Cody Ramsom in as a defensive replacement at first base. Facing righty reliever Francisco Cabrera, who had come in to face Rodriguez, Ransom worked the count to 2-1, then blasted a hanging breaking ball into the seats in left for his second home run in as many at-bats as a Yankee, giving the Bombers an 8-4 lead. Xavier Nady then hit Cabrera’s next pitch to dead center for a solo shot that made it 9-4 and Mariano Rivera, who had come on in relief of Damaso Marte with two outs in the eighth, worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning on ten pitches to nail down the win.

In other news, Phil Hughes had another rough outing last night as the SWB Yanks clinched a playoff spot in a wild 13-12 walkoff win. Hughes’ line in his last two starts: 7 IP, 18 H, 13 R, 1 BB, 10 K. Regardless of what Carl Pavano does tomorrow, he was the right choice.

With last night’s win, the Blue Jays improved to 5-1 this season in games against the Yankees started by their top two pitchers, A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay. It was Burnett’s turn last night, as he struck out 13 Yankees while allowing just one run on five hits and a walk over eight innings.

The one run came right away in the first inning as Johnny Damon took the first five pitches of the game to draw a walk and Bobby Abreu doubled him home. Abreu has faced Burnett more than any other hitter in Burnett’s career and seemed to be the only Yankee not overmatched by him last night, cracking another double in his second at-bat leading off the fourth (Burnett then struckout Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi and got Xavier Nady to ground out) and a sinking liner nabbed by a sliding Adam Lind in the sixth. After Abreu’s second double, which was also the Yankees’ second hit of the game, the Bombers managed just three singles off Burnett, one of which didn’t leave the infield.

Remarkably, Darrell Rasner nearly made that first-inning run stand up. Though he struck out ten fewer men than Burnett, Rasner limited the Blue Jays to just three hits and a walk over 6 2/3 innings. Unfortunately, the last hit was a seventh-inning solo homer by Lind that tied the game. Jose Veras replaced Rasner a batter later, finished the seventh and struck out the first two men in the eighth. Toronto leadoff man Joe Inglett picked up a single with two outs in the eighth, but it seemed an insignificant hit until Marco Scutaro blasted Veras’s next pitch to the wall in dead center.

Here’s where things went from tense to traumatic. Back in the first inning, following the only walk Rasner issued in the game (to Scutaro), Alex Rios hit a deep fly to the gap in left center. Damon and Nady converged at the ball, but Damon called off Nady and camped under the ball only to have it hit off the outside of his glove and roll away for a two-base error. Fortunately, Scutaro was held at third base and Rasner picked up his center fielder by striking out Vernon Wells and getting Lind to ground out to end the inning. Now, with the game knotted at 1-1 in the bottom of the eighth and Jays closer B.J. Ryan warming up for the ninth, Damon drifted back on Scutaro’s blast, turned toward his left to catch the ball a foot shy of the wall, then suddenly turned back to his right stretched and had the ball tip off his glove again, this time for what was ruled a double, but a game-winning RBI double.

Damon was in disbelief. After the game, he remained, to use his word, “baffled.” “I just dropped two balls,” he said almost to himself, shaking his head and laughing at the absurdity of that fact as if he had to remind himself it actually happened. “Just . . . just . . . awful.”

Damon also scored the Yankees’ only run of the game, but it was particularly striking to see Damon make two such plays on the day he’d been essentially named the Yankees regular starting center fielder due to the return of Hideki Matsui (who went 0-for-3 with a fly out, a pop out, and a strikeout).

Adding insult to injury, Alex Rodriguez led off the ninth against Ryan by lifting a flare over Lyle Overbay’s head at first base. The ball dropped in fair and rolled toward the retaining wall in foul territory with Overbay losing ground in pursuit. Seeing that, Rodriguez sped up and headed for second base, but Overbay made a great play, sliding past the ball to stop it and, in one motion, rising to his feet and firing a one-hop strike to second base to nail Rodriguez by several feet. Jason Giambi then struck out for the fourth time on the night and Xavier Nady hit the first pitch he saw to left field for the final out. 2-1 Blue Jays, as the Yankees continue to find new ways to lose.

Mike Mussina pitched well enough to earn his 16th win of the season last night, leaving the game after seven strong innings and 104 pitches with a 5-3 lead. The Yankees got to Twins starter Nick Blackburn early when Johnny Damon homered on the second pitch of the game, and though the lead changed hands four times in the early innings, the Yanks began to pull away as Mussina settled down to end his night with three scoreless frames.

An insurance run in the top of the eighth made it 6-3 Yanks, but three batters into the bottom of the inning, Damaso Marte had put runners on the corners, forcing Joe Girardi to go straight to his closer in a game the Yankees really needed to win. Delmon Young fouled off Mariano Rivera’s first two pitches, but when the third drifted over the plate, Young smacked it off the opposite-field foul pole for a game-tying home run.

Rivera got the next two outs, then spent the top of the ninth steaming in the dugout, cursing to himself, throwing his gum, staring at the ceiling, and constantly shifting in his seat, unable to keep his blood from boiling.

After the Yankees failed to do anything with a one-out Derek Jeter single in the top of the ninth, Rivera returned to the mound and pitched around a bad call on a two-out infield single by Nick Punto to push the game into extra innings.

Joe Nathan set the Yanks down in order in the top tenth, but Jose Veras returned serve in the bottom of the inning, at which point the discrepancy between Mike Mussina’s and Nick Blackburn’s performances earlier in the game came back into play. Entering the 11th inning, Joe Girardi had used just three relievers–Marte, Rivera, and Veras, the last of whom came back out and pitched another 1-2-3 inning in the 11th–while Ron Gardenhire had just two left, Matt Guerrier and Brian Bass. Guerrier pitched around a two-out infield single by Johnny Damon in the 11th, but wasn’t so fortunate in the 12th.

Alex Rodriguez was 0 for 5 entering the twelfth inning. His previous at-bat came with two outs in the top of the ninth. Derek Jeter had singled earlier in the inning, but the Captain fouled a ball of his left instep earlier in the game and his mobility was limited. After Bobby Abreu made the second out, Girardi sent Melky Cabrera in to run for Jeter so that the Yankees would be able to take the lead on a double. Instead, Rodriguez swung at the first pitch he saw and hit into an inning-ending fielder’s choice.

Facing Guerrier in the 12th, Rodriguez took the first pitch for a ball, then crushed the next one over the 408 sign in dead center to give the Yankees their fourth and final lead of the game. Ivan Rodriguez followed with a double, and Xavier Nady, who drove in four of the Yankees’ nine runs on the night, topped things off with another homer into the vampire seats off Guerrier.

With Rivera having blown his first save of the year, Edwar Ramirez earned his first save of the season with a 1-2-3 bottom of the twelfth to nail down the much-needed 9-5 Yankee win.

Alex Rodriguez got the key hit, but Nady, Mussina, and the combination of Veras and Ramirez, who pitched three perfect innings, deserve at least as much credit. Now the Yankees have a chance to pull out a series win against Kevin Slowey this afternoon to salvage a 4-6 record on the road trip.

Alex had it right with his Ray Milland pic on Saturday. The Yankees went on one heck of a bender in La La Land this past weekend, getting swept by the Angels and losing in just about every way possible. On Friday night, Ian Kennedy couldn’t get an out in the third inning. Darrell Rasner and the Yankee bats tried valiantly to climb out of the hole Kennedy had dug, but just as they neared the top, they fell back in. On Saturday, Dan Giese was great for six innings, but Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and David Robertson coughed up ten runs in the final two innings to put the game far out of reach.

Yesterday, Andy Pettitte and Joe Saunders matched each other pitch-for-pitch for seven innings, handing their bullpens a 3-3 tie. Jose Arredondo and Damaso Marte matched zeros in the eighth, sending the tie into the ninth. Home team manager Mike Scioscia went straight to his closer, Francisco Rodriguez, who struck out the side in the ninth. Visiting manager Joe Girardi, having used Rasner for 4 1/3 innings on Friday and having watched each all four of his remaining set-up men stink up the joint over the previous two games (Brian Bruney put Friday’s game out of reach for good after relieving Rasner in the eighth), tried to get another inning out of Marte.

After retiring all three men he faced in the eighth, Marte gave up a single to the leadoff man in the ninth; that hitter being second baseman Howie Kendrick, who entered the game hitting .480 in his young career against the Yankees, but had gone hitless in his three at-bats against Pettitte. Marte rallied to strike out Gary Matthews Jr., but fell behind ninth-place hitter Mike Napoli 2-0 before walking him on a full count to push Kendrick in to scoring position. Having watched Marte blow a game by alternating walks and outs during the previous series in Texas, Girardi broke down and called on his closer, Mariano Rivera. Rivera threw one pitch to Chone Figgins. It caught a bit too much of the plate, and Figgins pulled a perfectly place bounder through the first-base hole to score Kendrick and complete the Angels sweep.

Long-time readers will know that I’ve often argued that a manager should use his closer in a tie game on the road once the game enters sudden death for the home team. Unlike his predecessor, Joe Girardi has done a decent job of employing Rivera that way, but even before Figgins’ game-winning single, opposing hitters were hitting .361/.410/.583 against Rivera this year when the game is tied. In all other situations, they are hitting less than .190 against him. Sometimes you just can’t win.

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Last night, Ian Kennedy’s third stint in the Yankee rotation this year started off much like the previous two. Unable to record an out in the third inning, Kennedy was pulled after allowing five runs on nine hits and a walk and getting just six outs. Kennedy only walked one man and did a decent job of throwing first-pitch strikes (doing so to 12 of 16 batters, including all five men he faced in his scoreless second inning), but he simply wasn’t getting people out. Ten of the 16 men he faced reached base safely. What’s more, he wasn’t fooling anyone. Three of his 12 first-pitch strikes were put in play as hits. In total, the Angels swung at 22 of Kennedy’s 61 pitches. Only three swings failed to make contact, while 14 of them put the ball in play.

The first four batters Kennedy faced in the first inning hit ground balls, two of which got through for singles, and a third would have had it not hit the mound and ricocheted to Robinson Cano for a fielder’s choice at second. With men on first and second, Kennedy grooved an 86-mile-per-hour fastball right down Broadway to Torii Hunter, who crushed it to the 387-foot sign in the left-center-field gap. Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera converged on the ball, with Melky appearing to call for it, but Damon lept in front of Cabrera, slamming his already tender left shoulder into the wall and missing the ball, which fell for a two-RBI double (Damon’s fine and Melky didn’t really appear to have a play).

Kennedy then got Garret Anderson to pop out on a full count to end the inning, but Howie Kendrick led off the second with another booming double to the same spot on a hanging curve. Juan Rivera flied out to the wall in dead center to move Kendrick to third, and Kennedy responded by walking the Angels’ ninth-place hitter, Jeff Mathis, but then managed to strand both runners by striking out Chone Figgins swinging on a perfectly placed cutter just under the hands (Kennedy’s only K of the game) and getting Erick Aybar to ground out.

That was the only positive sequence in Kennedy’s brief outing. In the third, he was again greeted by a double, this one a hard shot down the right field line off the bat of Mark Teixeira. Four singles followed, the first a well-placed grounder through the first-base hole by Vlad Guerrero, the next a slow hopper to shortstop that Derek Jeter booted, and the last two flares that dropped in just fair behind first and third base. Still, Kennedy had given up his share of hard-hit balls before that sequence, wasn’t fooling anyone, and was five batters and three runs deep in the inning and still hadn’t gotten an out.

Darrell Rasner came on and got two outs on three pitches without another run scoring, then struck out Figgins to end the inning. Rasner allowed just one run over the next three innings, and the Yankees snuck back into the game with two runs in the sixth on an Xavier Nady solo homer and a Robinson Cano triple that was cashed in by a Melky Cabrera groundout to first base.

That brought the Yankees within one run of the Angels, but Rasner couldn’t hold it any longer. Torii Hunter, who was 4 for 5 on the night with 4 RBIs and a great first-inning catch on a dead run toward the wall in center, led off the seventh with a home run. After a groundout, a Howie Kendrick single drove Rasner from the game in favor of Brian Bruney, who proceeded to allow Hendrick and two of his teammates to score, inflating the Angels’ lead to 10-5, which is how it ended.

After the game, Kennedy seemed disturbingly undisturbed by his poor outing. Flashing his “What Me Worry?” grin, this is what he had to say for himself:

“It’s the first bad outing I’ve had in a long time. I’m not going to look much into it. I felt like I made some good pitches. Yeah, I got the leadoff hitter on quite a bit [twice in three innings], but got out of it in the second inning. I’m not too upset about it. . . . Even on their singles, like, what, ground balls? [shrugs] So, that’s not a big deal. Gave up a couple doubles [three], but I felt like I made some good pitches and competed, which is all that really matters. . . What was it? A bunch of singles and three doubles, or so. I’m just not real upset about it. I’m just gonna move on. I’ve already done that.” [big grin]

All that really matters, aye, Ike? I was high on Kennedy coming into this season, but he’s had three chances this year and nothing has changed. After watching him grin his way through his post-game comments, I’m not sure he thinks anything needs to, which could be his biggest problem.

Asked what he’d been doing right in triple-A over the last month that differentiated his success there from his poor outing last night, Kennedy replied, “Honestly, it’s quite a bit the same. I just got ahead of guys. I felt like I made good pitches when I tried to get them out. I jammed some guys, got some bloop hits at the end. That second inning, which I told you earlier, I got that leadoff double, and he didn’t score. I’ve been working on throwing that cutter inside and it got me out of that jam. . . . I don’t know, I felt like I got ahead of guys fine.”

It’s one thing to be able to put a bad outing out of your head and accentuate the positive. It’s another to be in total denial. Joe Girardi’s evaluation of Kennedy’s performance was that he got in bad counts with runners on base, forcing him to throw gimme strikes, and that he was leaving his pitches up in the zone. Said Girardi, “You have to make quality pitches on a consistent basis if you want to pitch deep into games and win ballgames,” implying that Kennedy did not do that last night. In the YES booth, Ken Singleton and David Cone commented on Kennedy’s failure to mix up location or make much of any use of his curveball. Apparently, Kennedy’s not going to worry about any of that, though.

So, is Phil Hughes ready yet?

Apparently the recipe for a pitchers duel is to have Mike Mussina face Scott Feldman. Feldman beat Moose 2-1 in the Bronx at the end of June. Last night, Mussina returned the favor, tossing seven shutout innings as the Yankees pulled out a 3-0 win and a series split in Arlington. It was the first time the Rangers had been shutout at home all year. The last game at the Ballpark in Arlington to end with three or fewer runs scored was a May Day duel between Sidney Ponson and Zack Greinke, which the Rangers won 2-1. The only game since that was close saw Feldman beat Greg Smith and the A’s 4-0 on May 9.

Derek Jeter gave Mussina all the runs he’d need with a solo homer in the first of Feldman. Johnny Damon singled home Wilson Betemit in the fifth to double the Yankee lead, and Jeter singled Betemit home in the ninth to set the final score. Both times Betemit scored after replacing Robinson Cano on base via a fielder’s choice on a comebacker to the mound.

Betemit’s trip around the bases in the ninth was particularly interesting. Cano doubled off Jamey Wright to start the inning. Betemit then grounded back to Wright, who caught Cano off second and got him in a rundown as Betemit reached first safely on the fielder’s choice. Jose Molina then hit a sinking liner to second base. Betemit thought the ball was going to be caught, so he retreated to first, but Ian Kinsler took a step back and let the ball drop before fielding and flipping to rookie first baseman Chris Davis. Davis instinctualy stepped on the bag only to be surprised to see Betemit already standing there. Unfortunately for the Rangers, by stepping on the bag, Davis retired Molina and removed the force on Betemit, who was then called safe when Davis attempted to tag him out. Singles by Damon and Jeter then plated Betemit with the final Yankee run.

Said Mussina after the game, “You get some breaks sometimes. I’ve never seen a ground ball that the guy doesn’t run from first and he’s safe, stays there and is safe, and then we end up getting two hits and scoring a run. I’ve never seen that.”

Mussina also got a break in the sixth when Marlon Byrd, who had doubled with one out, strayed too far off second on a comebacker to the mound. Mussina whirled and ran right at Byrd forcing him toward Alex Rodriguez, who took the throw from Mussina and caught Byrd retreating for the second out. Brandon Boggs, who had hit the comebacker, likely expected a longer rundown and was on his way to second as Byrd was tagged out. Rodriguez then flipped to Cano, who tagged Boggs for the final out of the inning (making it all the more surprising that Cano was similarly caught off second base on that ninth-inning comebacker).

By his own admission, Mussina didn’t have his best stuff, but he got the outs he needed to keep the Rangers from scoring. The sixth was one of three innings that ended in a double play as Mussina scattered eight hits and walked one. In fact, each of Mussina’s first six innings ended in either a double play or a strikeout with a runner in scoring position. His only 1-2-3 inning was his last. After Byrd and Boggs were doubled up in the sixth, however, the Rangers didn’t get another men on base, as the Yankee bullpen was perfect in relief of Mussina, with Brian Bruney and Damaso Marte splitting the eighth inning, and Mariano Rivera picking up his 28th save in as many chances.

The win was the 265th of Mussina’s career and the 15th of his season, marking the eleventh season in his 18-year career that he’s reached that total, and the fifth time in his eight seasons with the Yankees. If he stays healthy, Mussina will make nine more starts this year.

A lot happened in last night’s game between the Yankees and Rangers in Arlington, but the most significant came in the fifth inning. Joba Chamberlain entered the fifth with a 4-2 lead having thrown 67 pitches, struck out four, and walked just one. The two runs he allowed came in the previous inning, when David Murphy homered on a hanging slider following a walk to Marlon Byrd. The home run was one of six in the game, all of which went to right field or right-center on a hot Texas night on which the wind was blowing in over left field and out over right. Murphy’s home run was also the first Chamberlain had allowed in four starts, and just the second he’d allowed in ten turns.

Rangers third baseman Ramon Vazquez singled on Chamberlain’s first pitch of the fifth inning. Ian Kinsler then worked the count full. Chamberlain’s 3-2 pitch was a slider low and away. Kinsler checked his swing and drilled the pitch straight down into the dirt in front of home plate. The ball bounced once, then rolled forward just enough to enter fair territory. Ivan Rodriguez pounced on the ball and fired it to second base, where Robinson Cano turned an apparent double play.

Kinsler didn’t run the ball out, but he had a good reason. On it’s once bounce, the ball had hit him in the left thigh while he still had part of his left foot in the batters box. Thus, instead of a double play, the ball was ruled foul. Chamberlain’s next pitch was a fastball in the dirt that walked Kinsler and, after Gerald Laird lined out into the wind in left, Michael Young hit a three-run homer to right give the Rangers a 5-4 lead and make them the first major league team ever to score more than three runs off Joba Chamberlain in a single game, and the first team ever to hit multiple home runs off Chamberlain in his major league career.

That wasn’t the most significant event of the fifth inning, however. Rather, after a subsequent strikeout of Josh Hamilton and a single by Marlon Byrd, Chamberlain was removed from the game with what has thus far only been identified as a stiff right shoulder.

The sight of the Yankees’ young ace rubbing his shoulder during a mound conference with his manager and team trainer Steve Donahue likely sent many Yankee fans into a panic. Thus far all we know is what Chamberlain and Girardi said after the game.

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