Notice a pattern here? The Yanks lost another well-pitich, one-run game last night, this time 2-1. It’s their third straight loss in Oakland.

Okay, so that’s the frustrating part. Three losses. But good starting pitching, man. Really good. Sometimes, these things happen. Bartolo Colon goes for the A’s today–against the local boy, C.C. Sabathia–so we won’t dwell on what happened last night cause the Yanks will win today.

[Photo Credit: Kevin Cooley]

Two game losing streak? Nothing to worry about. But enough. Time for a win, ya hoid?

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez DH
Russell Martin C
Dewayne Wise RF

Never mind the late night–and the game starts at 9 eastern, so it won’t run too late: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

One streak died on Friday night in Oakland, another survived, but more important to the overall picture, a losing streak was born.

When last the Yankees visited Oakland, they thumped the A’s in three straight games, and I spent a lot of time making fun of them in the one recap I wrote, comparing them to a minor league team as I shamelessly listed Oakland batting averages from one to nine, laughing all the way.

Things are different now. (For one thing, Yoenis Cespedes was on the disabled list during that series back in May. He’s been healthy and punishing Yankee pitching during this series, but more on him later.)

Early in the game a preposterous graphic popped up beneath Yankee starter Iván Nova. According to said graphic, not only did Nova lead the league in extra base hits allowed, he apparently led by a wide margin — 61 extras compared to the second place hurler who had only surrendered 49.

I was so baffled by this, that I spoke aloud to the television. “That can’t possibly be true.”

And here’s where things got a bit strange. Nova paused during his warm-ups, waited for the camera to zoom tight, then, as if he were Woody Allen or Ferris Bueller, he turned and looked directly into the camera… and answered me. Surely you noticed it, too.

“You don’t think I can give up extra base hits?” he asked. “Just watch me.”

With two outs in the first, he gave up a double to Josh Reddick, but recovered to escape the inning without allowing a run. In the third, there was a leadoff triple yielded to Coco Crisp, who scored the game’s first run on a Jemile Weeks sacrifice fly. The fourth inning opened with a Brandon Moss double, followed by a Brandon Inge double (Double Brandon doubles?) to double the lead to two.

Guess what happened in the fifth? Another leadoff double, this time to Reddick, but Nova survived that inning without allowing a run. He wouldn’t, however, survive the seventh, leaving after two outs with a deceptive line: only two runs allowed, but nine hits — five for extra bases.

Even so, Nova’s night would’ve been good enough for a win in any of the previous forty-three games, but on Friday night the fearsome Tommy “May Day” Milone was on the hill for the A’s, and the Yanks never got a sniff against him. He cruised through the first three innings, allowing just a harmless single to Curtis Granderson in the first.

Only twice in Milone’s seven innings were the Yankees able to put two runners on in an inning. The first instance was in the fourth, but it lasted only about ten seconds. Mark Teixeira singled with one out, and when Alex Rodríguez followed immediately with a soft single to right, third base coach Robby Thompson inexplicably started windmilling Teixeira around second and into third. To everyone in the stadium, aside from Thompson, I suppose, the outcome was never in doubt. The ball arrived two strides before Teixeira did, and the rally was dead.

Milone struck out the side in the fifth, then found a bit of trouble in the sixth. Derek Jeter reached on an infield single with one out, and one out later Teixeira moved him to second on a single of his own. A-Rod came up with an opportunity to change this recap, but instead he bounced into a fielder’s choice to third.

Millone did yield a somewhat questionable single to Robinson Canó leading off the seventh, but he set down the next three hitters — the last two on strikes — to finish off his night.

How good was Milone? He had been pitching well over his previous five starts, but nothing like this. Seven innings, six hits, ten strikeouts, and nothing else. I’m sure you remember the last time an Athletics pitcher struck out ten or more Yankees without allowing a run. It was ninety-nine years ago when Eddie Plank turned the trick.

And so it all came down to the ninth inning with the Yankees trailing 2-1. (Russell Martin had homered in the eighth.) When Canó validated his twenty-three-game hitting streak by leading off with a line drive that barely cleared the wall in left field to tie the score at two, everything seemed possible. There was life in the dugout, and suddenly it looked like the Yankees might steal a win in Oakland… I’ll give you a second to recover after reading that last phrase… and in doing so they’d extend that other quirky streak.

As the game rolled over to the bottom of the ninth, I convinced myself that it would happen. I should’ve known better, and the YES producers quickly reminded me by sliding one cold-water graphic after another up on the screen. First there was this: The Yankees are 0-30 and the only major league team without a win after trailing in the ninth inning or later. Next: The Oakland A’s have 9 walk-off wins, most in the major leagues.

Josh Reddick struck out swinging, but the rest of the night went like this: single, single, single, dog pile. (Cespedes, Jonny Gomes, and Brandon Moss, if you must know.) A’s 3, Yankees 2.

A new streak starts tomorrow.

[Photo Credit: Ben Margot/AP Photo]

Ivan Nova looks to rebound from a cruddy outing last Sunday against the Angels.

Late night action with the welcome announcing team of Ken Singleton and David Cone.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano DH
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Jayson Nix 2B
Russell Martin C

Never mind the west coast weirdness: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Joel Zimmer]

Such a drag about Brett Gardner. Not a surprise but a bummer for sure.

If you’re out there on the East Coast and you decided not to stay up late for this one… Well, you made the right decision, as very little of note took place on Thursday night in Oakland.

One thing I love about baseball is that franchises have identities, and as odd as it might be, teams cling to those identities from one decade to the next, for better or for worse. How much have the Chicago Cubs changed over the past century? Aren’t the Dodgers always developing young talent, whether that kid is named Rick Sutcliffe or Mike Piazza or Matt Kemp? And the Yankees? Goes without saying.

On Thursday night the Oakland A’s reached back to their roots and made Charlie O. Finley proud, reminding us all that even through the division titles and league pennants and World Series rings they’ve won over the years, they’ve really just been a minor league team at heart. In an attempt to set a world record, the A’s invited fans to bring their dogs to the game; before the first pitch all 718 dogs and their owners paraded around the warning track, some in costume, others au naturel (the dogs, not the fans), and then retired to the stands to watch the rest of the game. There was no word on whether or not they actually set the record, but since neither Kevin Millar nor Pedro Martínez were involved in the attempt, it might actually have worked.

If you only watched that opening before going to bed, at least you saw the best part.

The Yankees started out as it seems like they’ve been starting all their games recently. Derek Jeter singled to right, and two batters later Alex Rodríguez hit a laser to left, putting runners on first and second with one out and the game’s hottest hitter coming to the plate in Robinson Canó. Business as usual.

The A’s had young A.J. Griffin on the mound, a big dorky-looking kid with glasses and four major league starts to his name. He had been good in those four starts, throwing six innings in each and allowing just seven runs for an ERA of 2.63. We know the Yankees tend to wilt in the presence of new pitchers, but surely this night — with this promising start — would be different.

It wouldn’t.

Canó sliced a line drive towards left, but Yoenis Cespedes raced in and made the grab for the first out. Or did he? After catching the ball on the run, he fumbled the ball on the transfer and it trickled to the turf behind him. Chaos ensued. Jeter assumed it was an out, so he went back to second, and A-Rod danced around a bit, shuffling back and forth at least five times between first and second. Cespedes stood stock-still for a few seconds in left, as if not even he knew what the hell was going on.

Third base umpire Brian Knight finally singled safe, but not everyone was convinced (probably because they knew he was wrong.) Cespedes picked up the ball and fired to Brandon Inge at third, nipping Jeter by about eighty-nine feet, then Inge flipped it to second, just missing A-Rod for what would’ve been the strangest 7-5-4 double play you’ve ever seen.

Replays confirmed that Knight and the rest of the umpiring crew had botched it, but the end result was the same as it would’ve been — two outs and runners on first and second. It just kind of set the wrong tone. Mark Teixeira grounded out to first and the inning was over.

Freddy García drew the start for the Yanks, and he was decent enough, allowing nine hits over almost six innings, but usually able to wriggle out of the trouble he started, just not here in the first inning. With two outs and Jemile Weeks on third, Cespedes pounded a monstrous home run to left for a 2-0 Oakland lead.

And then the Yankee hitters went to sleep for a while, lulled into submission by Griffin’s assortment of fastballs, changeups, sliders, and seventy-mile-an-hour curveballs. Raúl Ibáñez singled with one out in the second, but the next eleven Yankees went down like dogs, a string that stretched until Jeter opened the sixth with a blooped single to right.

By this point the A’s had added two more runs to double their lead to four, but it looked like the Yankees might make at least some of that back in the sixth. Following Jeter’s single and a Curtis Granderson strike out, A-Rod and Canó singled to load the bases, Canó’s hit extending his hitting streak to a worth-talking-about twenty-two games.

With Teixeira coming up, the only hitter in the lineup who’s been as hot as Canó, it was impossible not to dream about a game-tying grand slam, and when Tex launched a fly ball to deep center, there was a brief second when it looked like he might’ve done it… but alas, it was just a warning track sacrifice fly to score the Yankees’ first run. Swisher backed that up with a hard single to right to plate A-Rod and bring the Bombers to within shouting distance at 4-2.

Nothing of interest happened until the top of the ninth, as two questions remained. Could the Yankees pull out the win? (A graphic of cold water immediately told us that they were 0-30 this year when trailing after eight innings.) And if they couldn’t win, could they at least scratch out a run to keep their quirky but potentially historic streak alive, as they had scored three or more runs in forty-two straight games. Swisher rocked a homer to right to keep the streak going, but it wasn’t enough. A’s 4, Yankees 3.

The Yanks are hot, they’ve got the best record in baseball, but…there’s always a but, right? But, no time to get complacent. And there’s always trouble lurking out west. They’ll play four in Oakland starting tonight. Nothing is easy. Keep in rollin’, fellas.

Never mind the late games: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Brad Mangin]

Before the storm hit town and cut today’s game short–called after seven–Hiroki Kuroda didn’t allow a run and that was good enough to give the Yanks a three-game sweep over the Blue Jays.

6-0 was the final and the Bombers will enjoy their flight out west.

[Photo Credit: Dhani Jones]

Still summer, still Johnny Blazin’ hot out there. Thunderstorms expected this afternoon on getaway day for the Yanks and Jays. The Bombers head out to the west coast after the game.

1. Jeter DH
2. Swisher RF
3. Teixeira 1B
4. Rodriguez 3B
5. Cano 2B
6. Jones LF
7. Nix SS
8. Martin C
9. Wise CF

Never mind coasting: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Image by Zach McCaffree via This Isn’t Happiness]

Sure is nice to have C.C. back, isn’t it?

Yanks 6, Jays 1.

Andruw Jones had the big hit, a three-run homer. He’s got 12 dingers on the year, 432 for his career. Let me ask you this? Is Jones a Hall of Famer? I know that voters don’t tend to like players who have a long fade to black but Jones was a brilliant defensive player for what, ten years, right? I don’t think he’ll get in but I think he’s probably got a case.

Another question. Rank the following players as Hall of Fame candidates: Jones, Jim Edmonds, Johnny Damon and Bernie Williams.

[Photo Credit: Excess]

The return of the Big Fella.

1. Jeter SS
2. Granderson CF
3. Teixeira 1B
4. A-Rod DH
5. Cano 2B
6. Swisher RF
7. Jones LF
8. Nix 3B
9. Stewart C

Give it up for C.C. y’all and…Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via SI.com]

This was finally the night when Joe DiMaggio’s streak would end. The Yankees topped the Indians 4-3, but all eyes were on DiMaggio, as usual. Luck is a huge part of baseball, perhaps larger than any other sport, so it’s no surprise that Joe D. benefitted from more than a few lucky breaks throughout the streak. What’s interesting about DiMaggio’s four at bats on this night is how easily he could’ve extended the streak had he just gotten the slightest bit lucky.

The villains in what could’ve been Game 57, Al Smith, Jim Bagby, and Ken Keltner, have all become famous for their part in DiMaggio’s demise, but other powers seemed to be at play here. In DiMaggio’s first at bat, he smashed a hard hopper down the line towards third. Cleveland third baseman Keltner was playing incredibly deep. DiMaggio remembers that he was actually on the outfield grass. He knew DiMaggio would never bunt (in fact, DiMaggio never bunted during the streak), and he had one of the stronger throwing arms in the league, allowing him to play deeper than most third baseman. As the ball bounded down the line, ticketed for the leftfield corner and a certain double, Keltner somehow was able to backhand the ball behind the bag. His momentum carried him into foul territory, but he turned quickly and unleashed a bullet to first base, denying DiMaggio. (Below that’s DiMaggio and Keltner clowning for the cameras years later.)

Cleveland starter Al Smith then walked DiMaggio in his next at bat, much to the dismay of the Cleveland crowd, which was approaching 70,000. In his third at bat DiMaggio again tested Keltner with another two-hop smash down the line, and the result was the same. Keltner was able to glove the ball and fire to first, getting DiMaggio by a step. In what would be his final plate appearance of the streak, DiMaggio came up in the top of the eighth inning and promptly smashed a grounder to shortstop Lou Boudreau. The ball took a wicked hop, and if luck had been with DiMaggio that night the ball might’ve bounded into left field for a single. Instead, Boudreau fielded the ball easily and started a 6-4-3 double play. The streak was over.

Or was it? Down 4-1, Cleveland mounted a ninth-inning rally to bring the score to 4-3. If they could tie the score and send the game into extra innings, DiMaggio would have another shot, as he was scheduled to hit in the top of the tenth inning. That tying run stood at third base in the person of Larry Rosenthal. There were no outs, so extra innings seemed an almost certainty. Unfortunately for our hero, the Indians weren’t able to cash in that run, and DiMaggio never got that extra at bat. The streak really was over.

The Yankees would continue their hot pace in the games to come, and they would eventually win the pennant easily, leaving Cleveland far out of first place. And what of DiMaggio? Failing to hit in Game 57 apparently cost him a $10,000 deal to endorse Heinz 57, but DiMaggio promptly started another streak the next game. This second streak lasted seventeen games, which means that had DiMaggio managed a hit on the fateful night in Cleveland, he might have put together an seventy-four game streak. With his base on balls in this game, DiMaggio did reach base in seventy-four straight, the second-longest such streak in history, trailing only the 84-game string put together by Ted Williams in 1949.

The 1941 campaign, of course, is memorable not only for DiMaggio’s streak, which lasted a bit more than a third of the season, but also for Williams’s season-long feat of hitting .406, the last time a hitter has topped the .400 barrier. From a numbers point of view, the Splendid Splinter’s .406 is generally felt to be more impressive than the Clipper’s fifty-six, but it wasn’t seen that way at the time. The need for DiMaggio to get a hit in each game captivated the nation in a way that Williams could not, and the simplicity of the Streak surely played a role as well. You didn’t need a calculator to track DiMaggio; either he got a hit or he didn’t.

Also, no one had seen a streak like DiMaggio’s, but older fans certainly remembered other players hitting .400. Even though it had been eleven years since Bill Terry hit .401 in 1930, the barrier had been breeched five other times in the decade before that. People probably felt like DiMaggio’s streak would never be touched, but they never would’ve guessed that seventy-one years later we still wouldn’t have seen another .400 hitter.

Williams finished second to DiMaggio in the MVP voting that year. Even though Williams often spoke about wishing he could hit like DiMaggio, that clearly wasn’t the problem. He was a far better hitter than his Yankee counterpart — in fact, better than any hitter in history aside from Babe Ruth. What Williams needed was some love.

Consider this. Williams hit .406 in 1941, and won the Triple Crown in 1942 and 1947, but finished second in the MVP balloting all three years. DiMaggio’s win in ’41 can be excused because of the Streak, but the other two years are indefensible.

But this is about Joe DiMaggio and his transcendent hitting streak. Certainly he was one of the two or three best players of his era and one of greatest players in baseball history, but the Streak elevates him. Though some have dismissed it as a quirky accomplishment that’s more about defying probability than hitting curve balls, it permanently positioned DiMaggio on center stage. Statistically he wasn’t as good as Mickey Mantle, and not even in the same conversation as Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, but thanks to these two months in the spring and summer of 1941, he sits alongside them in baseball lore.

Man, sure doesn’t feel like we’ll see Brett Gardner anytime soon.

Will the Yanks make a trade? Hmmm…

[Photo Credit: Newsday]

The Blue Jays are in town for three. Man, I don’t like those dudes. I’ve been bracing myself to hate them all season. Yanks will play them a lot in the second half so we shall see…

Hughes is on the hill. As per Katie Sharp over at ESPN New York:

Hughes hasn’t allowed a home run in his past three starts. Only twice before in his career has he had a longer homerless streak as a starter: a five-game streak in 2008 and another one in 2010.

That means he’ll give up three tonight, right?

1. Jeter SS
2. Granderson CF
3. A-Rod 3B
4. Cano 2B
5. Teixeira 1B
6. Swisher RF
7. Ibanez LF
8. Chavez DH
9. Martin C

Never mind the rumor mill: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via Nature Notes]

In time, of course, this fifty-sixth game would become known as the final game of Joe DiMaggio’s record hitting streak, but at the time it was just another game in a string that might go on forever. Newspapers and radio stations still carried news bulletins on DiMaggio’s at bats, but there was no longer a record to shoot for; the only question was how long he could continue the streak. On this day, the answer was the same as it had been for the previous fifty-five games: one more day.

As the Yankees were hammering Cleveland 10-3 and pushing the Indians five games back of first place, DiMaggio collected the final three hits of his streak. He singled to center in the first inning, reached again on a blooper that fell in front of the center fielder in the third, and stroked a hard double to left in his final at bat of the day.

In an interview after the game, DiMaggio spoke of how the pressure had changed. While chasing Keeler’s record he had felt the importance of each at bat, knowing that any missed opportunity might spell the end of the streak. At this point, however, he still felt pressure to get a hit, but not with every at bat. DiMaggio also had two goals that kept him focused this deep into the streak. First, he spoke of wanting to match the sixty-one game streak he authored while playing for the minor league San Francisco Seals, and second, he wanted to catch Ted Williams for the league batting title. His 3 for 4 afternoon pushed his season average up to .375, twenty points short of Williams at .395.

Our man William gives us more Donnie Baseball Goodness.

[Painting by Dave Pucciarelli]

The Yankees bounced back against the Sox, winning 5-4 while DiMaggio collected two more hits to reach fifty-five straight. He reached on an error in the first, then shot a ground ball over second base for a single in the third. He would double later in the game as well.

At the start of the broadcast today Paul O’Neill reminded viewers that Ivan Nova “knows how to win.” Then Erick Aybar hit a home run. Albert Pujols followed with a home run. So started an afternoon of frustration with Nova, and more pointedly (if irrationally), with O’Neill.

Alex Rodriguez tied the score with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first and the Yanks took the lead in the second on an RBI single by Derek Jeter. Jered Weaver wasn’t fooling the Yankee hitters much and Rodriguez and Robinson Cano had back-to-back hits in the third with one man out putting runners on the corners. Weaver stepped off the rubber and did the ol fake-to-third-throw-to-first play. He caught Cano who was tagged out in a short rundown and then Rodriguez was thrown out at home.

In the fifth, Eric Chavez singled and was doubled up when Russell Martin popped a bunt in the air back to Weaver.

Nova didn’t pitch poorly but he got into trouble in the sixth and couldn’t get out of it. Maicer Izturis–don’t ask because “Nova knows how to win,” right Paulie?–had the big two-run homer and the Angels were ahead, 5-3.

They added another run in the seventh but the Yanks hung around. Curtis Granderson, who made two fine, running catches, hit a solo homer in sixth, and Chavez hit a solo homer in the seventh. Then Chad Qualls shit the bed in the eighth as the Angels hit a few bloopers, ran, squeezed, one in the gap, and by the time Yanks came to bat, the game was 9-5.

Mark Trumbo hit a solo homer in the ninth and it seemed like that was that. But these Yanks don’t go quietly and against the Angels’ closer Ernesto Frieri they stagged a rally. Cano walked and then Mark Teixeria hit a two-run homer into the right field seats. Nick Swisher worked a 3-2 walk and after throwing ball one to Raul Ibanez, Frieri was replaced by Scott Downs. Ibanez took a breaking ball for a strike and then hit a ground ball up the middle. Looked like a sure double play, but it knocked off Downs glove and everyone was safe.

Meaning that Andruw Jones, pinch-hitting for Chavez, represented the tying run. Downs stayed away from Jones, keeping the ball low, keeping it slow. And he got him swinging on a tough, 2-2 slider. Russell Martin grounded into a fielder’s choice for the second out but then Jeter walked and Granderson walked, bringing home a run. 10-8.

Jepsen vs Rodriguez. Fastball, fouled back. Argh. It was smoke and Rodriguez put a good swing on it but he was just late. Slider, up, 1-1. Fastball, up and in, 97, swung on and missed. Another fastball, even higher, 2-2. Slider? No, another fastball, good pitch, 98 mph and Rodriguez was late. Popped it up to Pujols.

Fuck and shit is what you could see Rodriguez say as he ran to first and then walked to the dugout. And he wasn’t alone.

Final Score: Angels 10, Yankees 8.

Credit the Angels for taking this one. But it was a game the Yanks should have won.

[Photo Credit: Retro New York; Al Bello/Getty Images; Kathy Willens/AP]