On Monday, as I was continuing to gather research for the column I thought I’d be writing this week, Alex Belth sent me an e-mail with a topic idea that I found so intriguing, I had to put my other one on the back burner.

Why has Mark Teixeira received a free pass from the NYY fans and the NY media?

Interesting question, no? He hasn’t really gotten a free pass from the Bronx Banter community. We don’t apologize for anybody. Hell, I was still killing Brett Gardner when he was catalyzing the offense. But the question is warranted. It got me thinking.

Naturally, on my way home from work that night, I threw on WFAN and Steve Sommers had the recently engaged Sweeny Murti on to schmooze, and Sommers immediately asked him about, among other things, when Teixeira would start hitting. I wondered if Alex’s question had merit. When the Yankees arrived in Minny, Tex’s line was .209/.327/.378. Thanks to his efforts of the last couple of games, Teixeira is over the .215 mark and a little further away from the Mendoza Line. But the consistency hasn’t been there; he has gone hitless in exactly half of the Yankees’ 46 games. He had the big three-home-run game in Boston and has only four dingers in the other 45. We know Tex a slow starter, but April’s supposed to be the only bad month. We’re nearing Memorial Day, and Mark Teixeira’s numbers look like they should be on the back of Steve Balboni’s baseball card, not his.

(Speaking of the “baseball card” theory, can we put a moratorium on that whole thing? The premise that players off to bad starts will ultimately rise to the stats that appear on their baseball card is just tired. It’s not a real answer to the short term, even if that ultimately will be the case.)

And yet the majority of the local scribes, while maybe not letting him slide, haven’t heaped criticism upon him like the Boston writers have done with David Ortiz both last year and this year. Last season, when Teixeira got off to the slow start, the “he’s a slow starter” refrain was common, and he was still taking a lot of walks and getting on base, which helped deflect some of the criticism that could have come his way.

In all my years of Yankee fandom and in the time I covered the team, the only person I can recall who got similar treatment during this bout of adversity was Bernie Williams. Bernie would routinely hover near .200, .225 or .250 for the first six weeks of the season (in 2002, he was a .236 at the end of April and ended up hitting .333), and then when Memorial Day came around, find his stroke, usually from the right side of the plate, and go through long stretches when he’d carry the offense.

Alex offered up a list of reasons why he thought Tex was getting off easy:

1. The Yankees are winning.
2. He’s a good fielder.
3. He’s good with the media.
4. The Yankees are winning.
5. He plays with A-Rod.
6. The Yankees are winning.

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Yanks go for the quick sweep of the Twins. Minnie won the last game in the New York series and now try to save face at home. Nice-looking new ball park out there, too. There were some gorgeous shots of the sunset and the moon against the city skyline on the YES broadcast last night.

We’ll see if Javy’s finger is a problem. Or anything else for that matter. But he’s had a couple of decent starts. Hope he builds on it.

Be nice to have have the Score Truck show up and take ’em back home to the BX in style.

Whadda ya say, boys?

[Picture by Bags]

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

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

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

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

Here’s a Game Thread for the conclusion of last night’s game and then for Liriano and Pettitte in the regularly-scheduled game. Red Sox are surging–time for the Yanks to get it in gear.

Let’s Go Score-Truck!

[Picture by Bags]

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

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

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

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

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

If the regular season ended today, the Yankees and Twins would meet in the Division Series for the second year in a row and fourth time in the last eight years. This week’s three game set in Minneapolis, the Yankees’ first visit to the new Target Field, will conclude the season series between the two teams, but there’s a very good chance that they will meet again come October.

The Yankees took two of three from the Twins in the Bronx the weekend before last, but have gone 2-5 against the Red Sox, Rays, and Mets since. The Twins have gone 3-4, splitting a two-game set with the Blue Jays, dropping two games in Boston, then returning home to take two of three from the Brewers. The Twins scored 31 runs in the three wins, but just nine runs in the four losses.

Target Field has been a happy home for the Twinks thus far as they are 14-7 (.667) at home against just 12-11 on the road. Here are the runs-scored splits for the Twins and their opponents at and away from Target Field:

@MIN: Twins 5.43 R/G; Opp 3.67 R/G; total: 9.10 R/G
Road: Twins 4.60 R/G; Opp 4.39 R/G; total: 8.99 R/G

Baseball-Reference’s park factors list Target Field as a slight hitter’s park (103/102). The total runs per game numbers above, which lack any adjustment for strength of opposition or road park factors, seem to agree with that.

The only change the Twins have made since the Yankees last saw them is that they called up Trevor Plouffe and installed him at shortstop. Plouffe was the Twins’ first round pick in 2004, but he isn’t a great defender and has hit just .259/.321/.391 in the minors. He’s simply a place-holder for the injured J.J. Hardy (wrist), who could return during this series.

Tonight A.J. Burnett, who has pitched poorly in two of his last three starts, the exception being a quality start against the Twins in which he walked four and got a no-decision, goes up against Scott Baker. Baker was the losing pitcher in that game against Burnett despite striking out nine Yankees in six innings against just one walk.

Baker actually left that game with a 4-3 lead in the seventh, but he bequeathed a couple of runners to his bullpen, both of whom scored on Alex Rodriguez’s grand slam off Matt Guerrier later that inning. That game, with those two runners added to Baker’s tally, was the only one of his four starts in May in which he allowed more than three runs. On the month, he has averaged more than 6 2/3 innings per starts and has struck out 27 men in 27 innings against just four walks.

With Baker starting tonight, Francisco Liriano starting Wednesday, and Javy Vazquez testing out his bruised finger on Thursday, all in a ballpark that has been very friendly to its new tenants, the Yankees will be hard pressed to pull out of their current skid this week.

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

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

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

Bingo.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When this series started, I wrote that the Yankees’ problem was pitching. Since then, they’ve scored just five total runs in two games despite the successful return of Nick Swisher to the lineup and are faced with a Sunday night rubber game with Johan Santana taking the hill for the Mets. Santana’s 3.72 ERA may not look all that impressive relative to his 3.14 career mark, but it was inflated by an ugly outing in Philadelphia on May 2. Santana gave up ten runs in 3 2/3 innings in that start, but if you factor it out, his ERA in his other eight starts is a stellar 2.25. Uh-oh. In his last two starts, Santana has combined for this line: 14 IP, 11 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 9 K. Amazingly, the Mets lost both games by scores of 2-1 and 3-2.

We could be in for another gem like that tonight with CC Sabathia on the bump to face Santana. It’s a matchup of two of the top lefties in the game and has a nifty backstory. The Yankees, specifically Brian Cashman, refused to trade a package built around Phil Hughes for Santana prior to the 2008 season with an eye toward signing Sabathia as a free agent the following winter. Cashman’s plan worked perfectly, as Sabathia wound up pitching the Yankees to their 27th championship in 2009 with Hughes making a key contribution to that team as a reliever, then emerging as a rotation stalwart in early 2010.

As for CC, he recovered from a rocky outing in Detroit with seven strong innings against the Red Sox his last time out in a game the Yankees nonetheless lost due to the unexpected struggles of Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera. The Yankees, meanwhile, are 5-1 in rubber games this season, but haven’t played one since May 2, when they convincingly took a three-game set from the White Sox via a 12-3 rubber-game victory. Kevin Russo gets the start in left against the lefty Santana tonight, the rest of the lineup is the same as in the previous two games, save for Sabathia, of course.

The Yankees haven’t been playing great baseball of late, but a nationally televised, Sunday night rubber game against the cross-town Mets with Sabathia and Santana facing off is still must-see TV.

I’ll be at the ballpark and in the clubhouse tonight, but Alex reports that the swollen press corps for this series have jammed the CitiField bandwith, rendering our intended liveblogs of this series impossible. If I can break through, I’ll try to have some in-game updates on this post, but more likely I’ll have to save everything for my post-game recap. Stay tuned . . .

Update: Alex Cora is a last-minute replacement for Luis Castillo at second for the Mets.

Update, 6:51pm: Just back from Joe Girardi’s pre-game press conference and batting practice. I have a bunch of photos from BP to upload for you guys, meanwhile, some notes:

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Ah, the Mets. You know, they’re not really that bad of a franchise. They’ve won four pennants while no other expansion team has won more than two. They were the first expansion team to win the World Series, and also the first to win a second (no expansion team has won more). They’ve followed every stretch of losing with a period of winning of similar length, having made four complete cycles in their 48-year history. Their new ballpark, in which they’ll host the Yankees for three games this weekend, is a gem.

Still, they just never seem to get things quite right. They’re baseball’s equivalent of Jerry on Parks & Recreation, a decent, well-meaning, hard-working city employee, who nonetheless botches everything he does and is the subject of merciless ridicule and scorn from his fellow employees.

The Mets have been in full-blown Jerry mode since September 2007, when they suffered a momentous collapse and lost the division to the Phillies on the final day of the season. In 2008 they suffered a similar, though less extreme September collapse, again coughing up the division to the rival Phillies. Then last year everything fell apart. Despite debuting their handsome new ballpark (which bizarrely celebrated the legacy of the Brooklyn Dodgers rather than the Mets’ own history and prompted the creation of the worst sleeve patch in Major League Baseball history), the Mets were a disaster. Everyone got hurt except David Wright, who inexplicably stopped hitting for power, the owners spent the season fending off rumors of Bernie Madoff-induced poverty, and everyone in the front office lost their damn minds.

The Mets 2009 season was such an overwhelming disaster that the team is still feeling shockwaves in 2010. In mid January, Carlos Beltran, who missed half of the 2009 season due to a knee injury opted to have knee surgery against the team’s wishes. The surgery was considered ill-timed because it was going to keep him out of action until May, but it’s almost June and he not only hasn’t returned, but has no timetable to do so and has not yet been cleared to resume working out. Wright, meanwhile, seemed to put 2009 behind him with an Opening Day home run at CitiField and a solid April overall, but when the calendar flipped to May, he started striking out at an alarming rate (29 Ks in 18 games, or once every 2.7 plate appearances) and enters this weekend series on a 4-for-29 (.138) skid.

The Mets season has followed a similar pattern. An eight-game winning streak in April put them in first place in the National League East for five days, but since that streak was snapped, they’ve gone just 6-13 and have fallen all the way to the bottom of the NL East standings, six games behind those blasted Phils.

Buoyed by a strong start from 26-year-old Mike Pelfry, who will face Phil Hughes Saturday night, and good work from their bullpen, the Mets are doing a decent job of keeping their opponents from scoring, but their offense isn’t holding up its end of the bargain. Installing rookie Ike Davis, son of former Yankee set-up man Ron, at first base has helped, but the rest of the lineup is riddled with issues.

Catcher Rod Barajas leads the team with ten homers and a .586 slugging percentage, but he’s only drawn two unintentional walks all season and has a .306 OBP that is over .300 only because he’s been twice hit with a pitch and twice intentionally passed. Big free agent addition Jason Bay is getting on base, but has hit just one home run. Angel Pagan has done a solid job filling in for Beltran in center, but is a league-average bat in place of a superstar. The rest of the lineup, meanwhile, has been a disaster. Jose Reyes is healthy but hitting like Carlos Gomez (.216/.264/.284). Jeff Francoeur continues to prove that his 2008 collapse was not a fluke. Luis Castillo is getting on base but isn’t even slugging .300 having connected for just three extra base hits in 140 plate appearances. All of that places more pressure on Wright, which likely is part of the reason for all of those strikeouts, and thus another Mets cycle of despair begins. Ah, the Mets.

Facing this team could be just what the Yankees need this weekend having gone 3-8 since their two blowout wins in Boston, 1-4 since taking the first two from the Twins last weekend, and having dropped their last three. Despite injuries to half of their lineup, the Yankees problem has been pitching, particularly relief pitching. In the last five games (the ones in which they’ve gone 1-4), the Yankees have allowed an average of eight runs per game.

I don’t imagine Mariano Rivera and Joba Chamberlain will continue to suck, and David Robertson had an encouraging outing Thursday night, striking out four in two perfect innings, so there’s reason to expect improvement. Facing a National League lineup without the designated hitter (particularly this NL lineup, which is backed up by a similarly ineffective bench) should help as well.

It will be up to Javy Vazquez to get things off on the right foot. That’s not an encouraging statement, but Vazquez’s last start was sharp (7 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K against the Tigers) and he had an extra confidence builder by coming out of the bullpen on Monday to strikeout the only batter he faced (Kevin Youkilis, no less) and pick up an easy win. Besides which, if it really is true that Vazquez is a much better pitcher in the NL, he’s effectively pitching in the NL tonight. Personally, I think he’s better than that, though I am a bit concerned about rust and a potential lack of endurance given that his last start was nine days ago.

Facing Vazquez will be Japanese lefty Hisanori Takahashi, who is coming out of the bullpen to make his first major league start in place of injured rookie Jonathon Niese (strained left hamstring). Takahashi has struck out 11.4 men per nine innings thus far this year, albeit against too many walks (4.8 BB/9). As a starter in Japan, his rates were lower in both categories. In his last appearance, he threw 60 pitches in three innings against the Marlins giving up a pair of runs on four walks and four hits (including the only homer he’s allowed this season).

Kevin Russo gets his first major league start tonight playing left against the lefty Takahashi in place of Marcus Thames and his sprained ankle. Randy Winn is 0-for-11 with four strikeouts against lefties on the season after hitting .158/.184/.200 against them last year, so a good night from Russo could lead to more starts against southpaws given Thames struggles in the field. The lineup above Russo contains all the usual suspects, leaving the Yankees with a bench of lefty Juan Miranda, switch-hitters Winn and Ramiro Peña, and a pair of righties whom Girardi may be reluctant to use in backup catcher Chad Moeller and the day-to-day Thames.

As Alex mentioned, thanks to SNY we’ll be part of the media horde for this series and will be liveblogging all three games, so be on the lookout for Alex’s liveblog/gamethread closer to first pitch tonight. Mets roster below the jump, as always.

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The good folks at SNY have been kind enough to hook the Banter up with press credentials for the Subway Serious this weekend. I’ll be there tonight and tomorrow and Cliff will be there on Sunday. We’ll be live-blogging all three games. Should be a B-A-Double L.

Y’all swing by now, ya hear?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball and a three-game lead on the second-best Yankees in the American League East. At 28-11, the Rays are on a 116-win pace, and their run differential suggest they’ve been even better than that.

This trick is that, though the Rays have indeed been scoring a lot of runs, they’ve not been hitting much. Tampa Bay is second in the AL and third in the majors (behind the two defending pennant winners) in runs scored per game with 5.31, but they rank 17th in slugging, 18th in on-base percentage, 20th in batting average, and 19th in VORP. According to Baseball Prospectus’s Third-Order Winning Percentage, which figures a team’s expected record from run differential but takes the extra step of figuring their runs from their component parts (hits, walks, outs, etc.), the Rays should be “just” 23-16. That .590 winning percentage still puts them on a 96-win pace, but flips the standings with the Yankees three-games ahead at 26-13, a game better than the Bombers actual record and on a 108-win pace. That’s something to chew on the next two nights as the Yankees, even with a two-game sweep can’t catch the Rays in this series.

Looking at the roster, the only Rays who are hitting are Evan Longoria (raking at .318/.386/.596) and Carl Crawford (putting up a solid walk year at .313/.372/.510 with ten steals, though he’s been caught four times). Many expected a strong walk-year performance from Carlos Peña, but the man the Yankees let go has turned back into a pumpkin, hitting a mere .191/.310/.344. Ben Zobrist and Jason Bartlett are proving their 2009 power surges to be flukes. After combining for 41 homers a year ago, the don’t have a single long ball between them and are hitting a combined .257/.327/.346 on the season. Similarly, bounce-back candidates B.J. Upton and Pat Burrell haven’t bounced back. Upton is doing a fair job of replicating his miserable 2009 performance minus about 20 points of batting average, and the fork sticking out of Burrell’s back was causing so many issues with airport metal detectors that the Rays just up and released him last week, replacing him with former Ranger Hank Blalock. Job shares at second base and catcher haven’t produced much either (.243/.310/.400 and .231/.336/.300, respectively).

Despite all that, the Rays have scored nearly 20 percent more runs than they should have thanks to some team speed and clutch hitting (.301/.378/.485 as a team with runners in scoring position compared to .221/.302/.351 with the bases empty). Don’t expect that to continue (in fact, it has already begun to tail off a bit as the Rays were leading the majors in runs scored not that long ago). That puts the onus on the pitching and defense.

Despite all that, the Rays are on a record win pace. Why? Pitching and defense, of course. Buoyed by the most efficient defense in the American League (in turning balls in play into outs, that is), the Rays have allowed a major league low 2.97 runs per game. To put that in perspective, no team in either league has allowed fewer than three runs per game over an entire season since 1972, when the Orioles and A’s both did it the year before the implementation of the designated hitter. Last year, the Dodgers and Giants were the stingiest teams in baseball in 2009 and both allowed 3.77 runs per game, as did the Blue Jays, who were the stingiest in 2008.

Rookie Wade Davis, who faces A.J. Burnett tonight, has the highest ERA of any of the Rays five starters. That inflated number is 3.38. As a group, the Rays’s starters, and they’ve only used five of them, have gone 21-6 with a 2.58 ERA while averaging nearly 6 2/3 innings per start. Three of those losses have been charged to Davis, and the Rays scored a total of five runs in those three loses. The Rays’ bullpen, meanwhile, has been merely the fifth best in baseball (by both ERA and WXRL).

The Rays can’t keep up that pace of run prevention, and they can’t keep scoring runs via clutch hitting alone, so it seems clear they won’t continue on their record winning pace. The only question is how much will they fall off their current pace, and can the Yankees take advantage. The two games this week will tell us a little, but not enough.

Jorge Posada is going for an MRI on his foot. Nick Swisher is still out with his sore biceps problem. Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera both threw about 30 pitches last night. Sergio Mitre is also unavailable having started on Sunday. So, Mark Melancon remains in the Yankees’ eight-man bullpen and the bench consists of Ramiro Peña. If the Yanks can split these two games, they should be pleased. Get ’em next time, boys. Let the rest of the league (the Rays have yet to face the Twins, Tigers, or Rangers) and the law of averages soften them up a bit first.

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

Bad idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When the Yankees arrived in Boston a little more than a week ago, I wrote about how the Red Sox didn’t suck and were getting their season back on track. Then the Yankees went out and beat them 24-6 in the first two games of that series. Thing is, I still believe what I wrote. Even with those two games included, the Sox arrive in the Bronx tonight having won eight of their last 13 and 15 of their last 25. That’s not a breakneck pace, but it is a .600 winning percentage, which translates to 97 wins and, typically, a postseason berth.

The big news in Boston is that Big Papi is back, hitting .387/.412/.710 over his last eight games and having launched five home runs already in May with the month just half over. The big news in the Bronx is that Phil Hughes is the best pitcher in the American League right now. Hughes takes on Daisuke Matsuzaka tonight, which sounds like a mismatch except Matsuzaka just twirled a gem against the Blue Jays in his last start (7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 9 K). CC Sabathia takes on an achy Josh Beckett tomorrow. The Yankees should sweep this quick two-game set, but even if the do, the Red Sox still don’t suck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can’t win ’em all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nice way to kick off a homestand.

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In each of the last two seasons, the American League Central was decided by one run in the 163rd game of the year. I don’t expect things will be quite so close this year. The Twins, who lost 1-0 to the White Sox in a one-game playoff in 2008 then beat the Tigers 6-5 in the 12th inning of Game 163 last year, are the clear class of the division, as much because of the backward steps taken by Chicago and Detroit (the Yankees’ just-completed series loss to the Tigers notwithstanding), as because of the slight improvements to the Minnesota squad.

In conjunction with their move into their new outdoor ballpark, Target Field, the Twins finally healed some of the wounds from the horribly-botched Johan Santana trade by ridding themselves of out-machine Carlos Gomez (who came over from the Mets in that deal and posted a .293 OBP in 963 plate appearances over the last two seasons) just in time for Santana’s supposed successor, lefty Francisco Liriano, to finally return to something resembling his his 2006 All-Star form three years after Tommy John surgery.

Liriano’s reemergence as the staff ace has been a key to Twins early success this year as the Twins have been the second stingiest team in the AL (albeit well behind the Rays and only slightly ahead of the Yankees[!]). While you’re still in a good mood from the mention of the Yankees right there I’ll add that another reason for that success has been Carl Pavano, who (brace yourself) leads the Twins in innings and K/BB (thanks to just seven walks in as many starts) and is second to Liriano with a 3.30 ERA.

The Twins also rival the Tigers for the junior circuit’s best bullpen. No Joe Nathan? No problem. Jon Rauch thrived as a closer for the Nationals in 2008 before being traded to Arizona, and he’s thriving in the role again for the Twins, posting a 1.93 ERA making like Pavano by posting a stellar K/BB largely due to a dearth of walks (just two in 13 appearances). That on top of typically fine work from Matt Guerrier and strong early showings from sophomore lefty Brian Duensing and veteran LOOGY Ron Mahay give the Twins an excellent end game.

At the plate, the Twins trail only the Yankees in all of baseball in on-base percentage with a team mark of .358. Credit defending AL MVP Joe Mauer (.413), major league OBP leader Justin Morneau (.486), center fielder Denard Span (.379), free agent second baseman Orlando Hudson (.369), and the man who eliminated the Twins with a solo homer in 2008 and has recently eliminated a struggling Jason Kubel from the lineup, 39-year-old Jim Thome (.384).

Unfortunately, despite finally going out and getting a qualified middle infield duo this winter, the Twins still have Nick Punto and Brendan Harris in the lineup. Harris because J.J. Hardy, the shortstop acquired from the Brewers for Gomez, was hit in the write with a pitch and is on the DL. Punto, because while they got Hudson and Hardy to fill the middle infield, they forgot to get a third baseman. Punto is now in his sixth (sixth!) season as a starter or replacement starter for the Twins. In that time, he has hit .250/.323/.328 yet the Twins still haven’t figured out that they win despite him, not because of him.

Nonetheless, with their pitchers keeping runs off the board and the bulk of their lineup keeping outs off the board, the Twins are on pace to post the second best record in franchise history and best since the original Senators went to the World Series in 1933. I don’t expect the Twins to keep up their 105-win pace (they haven’t faced the Yankees, Rays, or Rangers yet), but I do expect them to win the AL Central with ease.

Scott Baker starts tonight for the Twinks. The team’s best pitcher a year ago, he’s third in line this year despite little change in his own performance save some BABIP correction (from .277 to .311). In his last two starts, against the Tigers and Orioles, Baker has put up this line: 15 IP, 10 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 14 K. He faced the Yankees once last year and gave up five runs on eight singles, a double, and two walks in just three innings. He faces A.J. Burnett, who looks to get back on the ball after his failure at Fenway.

Francisco Cervelli starts for Jorge Posada, who gets a routine day off after two days on, which might be a pattern going forward. Brett Gardner continues to bat second (though I’m waiting for the Yankees to swap him and Jeter in the order). The lineup behind Robinson Cano is Nick Swisher, back from biceps tightness, Marcus Thames, in left against a righty, Juan Miranda at DH, and Cervelli.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This has been an odd series.

The Yankees arrived in Detroit on Ernie Harwell night with Sergio Mitre set to make a spot start for Andy Pettitte, who didn’t think he needed to be spotted for, then found out that the Tigers also had to use a replacement starter because Dontrelle Willis came down with the flu earlier that day. Mitre actually out-pitched the Tigers’ Brad Thomas, but because Jim Leyland took Thomas out after three innings and has one of the league’s best bullpens, and because A.J. Burnett burned the Yankees’ long-reliever on Sunday, Alfredo Aceves was out with a herniated disc (he’s since landed on the disabled list), and Javy Vazquez was set to pitch on Tuesday, potentially requiring long relief himself, Joe Girardi stuck with Mitre as long as he could (which turned out to be 4 1/3 innings), and the Yankees were unable to close the small deficit that resulted.

Then Tuesday got rained out, making all that bullpen-saving on Monday pointless. Then Vazquez pitched very well in the day half of Wednesday’s double-header, but New Jersey native Rick Porcello, who has been awful all year, combined with that bullpen to shut the Yankees out for the first time this season. Suddenly the Yankees had a three-game losing streak and had to scramble to split the series.

After the Tigers all gave each other mohawks during the down time between games, Phil Hughes dominated in the night-cap, handing a slim 2-0 lead to the Yankees end-game relievers, but with Mariano Rivera ready to pitch for the first time in nearly two weeks, the Yanks threw up a six-spot in the top of the ninth (Mo worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the 9th anyway).

Mix in some end-of-the-roster transactions (hello Ivan Nova and Greg Golson, not so fast Jonathan Albaladejo, and now, finally, Juan Miranda, albeit at the expense of Kevin Russo), yet another minor injury (Nick Swisher left the late game on Wednesday with tightness in his left bicep and is day-to-day, Golson will start in his place today), and the chance of another rain out today, and this had been a very odd series.

If the rain holds off, we’ll be treated to the exciting pitching matchup of Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia, who finished third and fourth, respectively, in last year’s Cy Young voting and had a pair of compelling duels against one another last year (which, fittingly,  they split).

Of course, even if they get it in, it’s a mid-week day game which most folks will miss while at work.

Odd series.

Every so often, you run into a kindred spirit, a guy you aren’t envious of, just proud to know. Todd Drew was like that, and so is Josh Wilker (pictured above on the left with his brother Ian). When I first read Josh’s work at Cardboard Gods, I was thrilled. He had a strong voice, wonderful sensitivity, an unassuming sense of humor, and the courage to dig deep, way below the surface. I’d want to belong to the kind of club that would have a misfit like that as a member. And I’m not alone. Josh’s long-awaited memoir, The Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards, has generated some great buzz and strong reviews. Josh hits the Big Apple tonight–he’ll be at the Nike Store in Soho from 7:30 to 9:30. He’s here through early next week and we’re happy to have him.

I got a chance to chat with Josh recently and here is our conversation. Enjoy.

Bronx Banter: Dude, first thing, what were your favorite kinds of packs to get when you were a kid? The single pack? Remember those triple packs that would be clear packaging with three little sets side-by-side?

Josh Wilker: I’m a single wax pack guy. The clear packaging ruined some essential part of the fun for me, since you could see the top and the bottom card in the stack. It was better that it was a total mystery.

BB: Bro, how deep does your nerdiness run? Do you carry a card around with you in your wallet?

JW: I don’t, but I usually have a card that I’m working up an essay on in the pocket of the nap sack that I lug to and from work. And a couple summers ago when I came to New York to–among other things–go to Shea Stadium for the last time, I made a point of carrying an Ed Kranepool in my pocket every day of the trip.

BB: Nice. Do you ever feel any attraction to modern baseball cards?

JW: I just wrote a piece for GQ.com, of all places, considering my unstudliness, on the 2010 Topps cards. I bought a couple packs for the piece, and got a charge out of it, and though the cards mostly left me cold for being too slick, I admired the high quality of them. The photos and the back of the card text is light years advanced beyond the rudimentary nature of the 1970s cards, which may be why the new cards leave me cold. There’s no homely humanity in them.

BB: Can you at all relate to the generation of kids who bought cards for what they might be worth one day, instead of being important for more personal reasons, or just cause they were the things to have, trade and flip?

JW: I can relate, I guess. I mean, when I was a kid, I fantasized that one day my Butch Hobson and Frank Tanana cards would be worth millions, so it’s not like the idea of the cards being “investments” was completely foreign to me. I was just too lazy to actually pursue that angle. I did feel like things were taking a wrong turn when I noticed, in the late 1980s, that the cards my younger cousin was collecting were going immediately into protective plastic. You have to be able to touch the cards, otherwise what’s the point?

BB: When you started the Cardboard Gods blog did you have it in your mind to write a book? Or did that develop later?

JW: My first intention was to play around and to keep writing and to maybe connect with some readers. I’d been working on a novel for several years previous to starting the blog, and I wasn’t able to sell it, and I was wary of signing on for another several years of solitary toil only to have the end product of the work end up at the bottom of a drawer. But I also thought it could be a book, too, from very early on. It was not unlike the first time I saw my future wife: a feeling like, “Hm, I think there might be something here.” I held off for quite awhile on trying to start shaping the material into a book, a tendency that has in the past had a way of crushing the life out things before they have a chance to grow. Instead I just tried to keep having fun and churning out material. After a while, I knew I had enough stuff for a book, if I could ever pull it all together into something coherent.

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