With Roy Halladay pitching tomorrow, one suspects it’s today’s game, which pits Darrell Rasner against John Parrish, that will decide which team wins this series.

Since he was briefly removed from the rotation, Rasner has posted a 4.19 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP in four appearances (three starts). The best of those was his 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball against the Blue Jays in Toronto two starts ago. The worst was his last, when he failed to get out of the fourth inning against the Orioles.

Parrish, who spent most of his major league career as a lefty reliever for the Orioles, was recently recalled from triple-A Syracuse. He’s making his fifth major league start of the season and his first in more than a month. He posted a 4.71 ERA and a 1.33 WHIP in the first four. His only other start against the Yankees was his major league debut in July 2000.

Joe Girardi’s lineup makes no concessions to the opposing lefty.

For those who missed it, the Yankees swapped David Robertson out for Alfredo Aceves before Thursday’s game. The 25-year-old Aceves, who pitched well in his final two starts for Scranton (12 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 16 K) and posted a 2.62 ERA in 140 2/3 innings across three minor league levels in this his first professional season, will work out of the bullpen. He’s also the first Yankee to wear number 91 during the regular season.

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.

The Yankees are 1-6 in games started by A.J. Burnett and Roy Halladay this season. Burnett (3-0, 1.61 ERA vs. NYY this season) starts again tonight against former rotation-mate Carl Pavano. Halladay (3-1, 2.48 ERA vs. NYY this season) starts Sunday against Andy Pettitte. That is a major reason why the Yankees’ failure to sweep the Red Sox this week all but officially eliminated them from the playoff hunt.

No Excuses

The Jays lost Dustin McGowan for the season in early July, Shaun Marcum hit the DL a few weeks later and is currently back in the minors trying to straighten himself out. Second baseman Aaron Hill suffered a season-ending concussion on May 30. Vernon Wells broke his wrist in May and strained his hamstring in July, missing a month with each injury. Scott Rolen broke a finger at the end of spring training, which cost him most of April, and he just got back from a second stint on the DL earlier this week. B.J. Ryan made a quick and successful return from Tommy John surgery, but within weeks of his return, last year’s closer, Jeremy Accardo, was lost for the season. Set-up man Casey Janssen has missed the entire season. Several les- significant relievers have also missed less-significant time due to injury. Shortstops David Eckstein and John McDonald landed on the DL on the same day in early May, and Gregg Zaunn, Shannon Stewart, and now Brad Wilkerson have also spent time on the DL. Rolen has been barely league average when healthy, and Stewart and Matt Stairs slumped their way off the team entirely.

Despite all of that, the Blue Jays could pull even with the Yankees by sweeping this weekend’s series, which given the fact that both Burnett and Halladay are due to pitch, isn’t as unlikely as it might sound. Meanwhile, the Jays’ Pythagorean record is already four games better than the Yankees’.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

In recent years, as the Yankees have found themselves fighting an uphill battle toward the postseason in the final weeks and months of the regular season, I’ve often stressed the importance of the team controlling it’s own destiny. Any time a team either holds a potential playoff position, or has more games remaining against the team they’re trailing than the number of games by which they trail that team in the standings, they control their own destiny. In those cases, all the team in question needs do to make the playoffs is match their rival’s record against third-party opponents and take care of business in their head-to-head matchups.

Right now, the Yankees do not control their own destiny.

Despite having six games left against the Yankees, the Rays have put the AL East out of reach. Meanwhile, it would behoove Yankee fans to root strongly for the second-place Twins to overtake the division-leading White Sox in the Central, as there’s some chance of the Yankees gaining control over their Wild Card destiny before the Chisox visit the Bronx in three weeks provided it’s Chicago and not Minnesota that they’re chasing. As it stands, however, the only opposing team over which the Yankees have any meaningful control is the Boston Red Sox, who come to the Bronx tonight for a three-game series that will be the last meeting between the two rivals at Yankee Stadium.

The Red Sox are limping into town. Josh Beckett was supposed to start tonight, but has been scratched due to numbness in his pitching arm. J.D. Drew hasn’t played in more than a week due to back pain and is likely headed to the DL. Already on the disabled list is third baseman Mike Lowell, and replacing Beckett tonight is Tim Wakefield, who will be activated from the DL to make the start. Despite these set-backs, the Sox have played well in August, posting a .667 winning percentage, their best single-month mark of the season. Still, they remain vulnerable. The Yankees took two of three from the Sox at Fenway at the end of July. This week, the Bombers really need to sweep.

Consider that idea of controlling one’s own destiny. If the Yankees sweep the Sox, they’ll wake up Friday morning two games behind Boston with three games remaining at Fenway and right in the thick of the Wild Card race (the White Sox are off Thursday, so a sweep would also move them within four games of Chicago with those four head-to-head games remaining). However, if the Yankees lose just one game in this series, they’ll wake up on Friday four games behind Boston with those three left to play. With a single loss in this three-game series, the Yankees will forfeit their control over their rivals, leaving them completely at the mercy of the teams ahead of them in the standings.

No Excuses

It’s been a rough season for the New York Yankees, but if they think the Red Sox have had it any easier, they’re wrong. It all started with Curt Schilling’s season-ending biceps injury at the outset of spring training. Since then, Beckett, Wakefield, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Clay Buchholz, and Bartolo Colon have all spent time on the DL. Lowell is currently on the DL for the second time this season, he’s joined there by Julio Logo, who has missed more than a month with a quad tear. Drew has avoided the DL thus far but could land there any day, and David Ortiz missed two months due to a wrist injury. In the bullpen, Mike Timlin and David Aardsma have made repeat visits to the DL. Both Alex Cora and Sean Casey hit the DL for several weeks as April turned in to May, and Casey has sat out the last week with a stiff neck.

That’s just the injuries. Buchholz, the Red Sox’s answer to Joba Chamberlain, struggled upon his return from injury and has since been demoted due to poor performance. Julian Tavarez pitched his way off the team entirely. Though he enters this series coming off a solid week and a half, Jason Varitek was hitting just .212/.304/.338 for the season on Aug 15. David Ortiz came off the DL to face the Yankees on July 25 and hit well in his first week, but without Manny Ramirez hitting behind him, he’s batted .237/.376/.421 in August with just three home runs.

Of course, Ortiz’s struggles likely have more to do with his wrist than who’s hitting behind him. To begin with, it’s not Jason Bay, Ramirez’s replacement in left field, but Kevin Youkilis who is now hitting behind Ortiz, and Youkilis has hit .333/.397/.621 since moving to that spot in the order. Bay bats behind Youkilis and has thus far done an excellent job of matching Ramirez’s production for the Sox this season:

Manny w/ BOS: .299/.398/.529
J. Bay w/ BOS: .333/.385/.529

The Sox have turned over their four, five, and six-place hitters since last facing the Yankees in late July–replacing Ramirez, Drew, and Lowell with Youkilis, Bay, and Jed Lowrie–but their offense has only improved over that span, with Lowrie chipping in with a .343/.425/.600 line since taking over for Lowell two weeks ago.

Still, the Red Sox are vulnerable. With Lowrie and company moved into the middle third of the order, the bottom third looks like what the Yankees had been running out there much of the season. Also, with Beckett out of this series, the pitching matchups give the Yankees hope.

Wakefield and Pettitte debuted with their current teams in 1995. They first faced each other in May 1997.

Wakefield comes off the DL tonight to face Andy Pettitte. The Yanks touched up Wakefield for six runs in 5 1/3 innings on July 26. In that same game, Pettitte struck out seven Sox in six innings and surrendered just one earned run. Over his last three starts, Pettitte has posted a 3.00 ERA and struck out 14 in 21 innings against six walks and no homers. Tomorrow, Sidney Ponson faces Paul Byrd. Ponson’s two worst outings as a Yankee were his last and his last against the Red Sox, but the Yankees scored nine runs in 12 innings against Byrd over two starts earlier in the year, when Byrd was with Cleveland.

Those two games set up a potential pitching duel on Thursday as Jon Lester, who was rocked by the Blue Jays in his last start but has dominated the Yankees in two starts this year (17 IP, 14 H , 2 R, 3 BB, 16 K), takes on Mike Mussina, who has a 3.00 ERA, and 24 Ks against 4 walks and a homer in 33 innings over his last five starts and threw six shutout innings at the Sox in early July, the last time he faced them at the Stadium.

This is easily the most important series the Yankees have played all season, which is exactly as it should be. Whatever happens, the Red Sox’s final visit to Yankee Stadium will be one worth watching.

(more…)

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 are 5-3 since returning from their miserable cross-country road trip, 5-2 since Mariano Rivera lost a game with a wild pitch, and 3-1 since Johnny Damon dropped two fly balls in Toronto. Most of those wins have come against the last place Royals and Orioles, but at this point in the season, wins are wins, and the Yankees need ’em whenever they can get ’em.

Trailing the Red Sox by five games heading into today’s action, the Yankees could enter their upcoming three-game set against the Bosox in decent shape if they can pull out a sweep of the O’s this afternoon. While Darrell Rasner and Daniel Cabrera face off in Baltimore, the Sox will have to contend with A.J. Burnett, who twirled 7 2/3 shoutout innings against them when he last faced Boston on May 1.

Unlikely inspiration (right)

That’s not to say that things will be easier for the Yankees, who are three-time losers against Cabrera this season. The good news is that Cabrera’s been shaky since the All-Star break, turning in just two quality starts in seven tries and posting a 7.15 ERA. More good news: Alex Rodriguez, who has three doubles in eight at-bats in this series, owns Cabrera (1.246 OPS and four homers in 34 ABs), and Hideki Matsui, Bobby Abreu, Jason Giambi (12 walks in 29 PA), and Ivan Rodriguez all have good numbers against the big Dominican. That’s five of the nine Yankees’ in today’s starting lineup, and Xavier Nady (who is hitting .360/.385/.600 with an active six-game hit streak entering today’s game) has never faced Cabrera.

More good news, Rasner has a 3.38 ERA with 11 Ks and just 14 baserunners in 16 innings in his last three games (including one relief appearance). Most recently, he matched Burnett for 6 2/3 innings in Toronto, allowing just three hits over that span and no runs until a solo homer in the seventh.

Heck, if Carl Pavano can come off the DL and deliver a win, which he did yesterday, anything’s possible. That just might be the Yankees’ rallying cry the rest of this season.

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.

The last time the Yankees and Orioles played, the Yankees suffered a let-down coming off a series win in Boston and their 8-1 start to the second half. Going into this weekend’s three game series in Baltimore, I can’t help but look ahead to the Yankees’ three-game set against the Red Sox at the Stadium next week. Here’s hoping the Yankees are able to stay focused on the task at hand and build up some momentum heading in to that Boston series which, if it doesn’t go well, could seal the Yankees fate this season. The Yankees enter tonight’s action trailing both the Red Sox and Twins by six games for the Wild Card lead. They have six games left against the Sox, none left against the Twins, and six left against the Blue Jays, who are just a game behind the Yanks after last night’s win.

The Yankees are an alarming 5-7 against the last-place Orioles this season, and a mere 2-4 at Camden Yards on the year, though they’ve not been to Baltimore since the end of May. Since losing two of three to the O’s in the Bronx at the end of July, the Yankees are 8-12. The Orioles, meanwhile, are 10-9 since leaving the Bronx, their only two series losses over that span coming against the Angels and Red Sox.

Moose serving up that knucklecurve you ordered.

None of this is encouraging. One would think the pitching matchup would be. Mike Mussina takes the hill looking for win number 17 against just-recalled Radhames Liz, who sports a 7.28 career ERA in the majors. Mussina is 3-0 with a 2.33 ERA and no home runs allowed in his last four starts. Liz was demoted on the eve of the Yankees last series against the O’s after posting a 7.47 ERA in ten starts in June and July.

Not so fast. Five starts ago, Mussina gave up two dingers and six total runs in five innings against . . . the Orioles. In two starts against his former team this season, Moose has allowed 13 runs in 5 2/3 innings. His last start at Camden Yards was also his final start of the 2007 seaon. He gave up six runs in five innings. As for Liz, the 25-year-old Dominican righty posted a 2.67 ERA with a 1.04 WHIP while striking out 27 in as many innings in triple-A this month, and in two relief appearances against the Yankees last year totaling 4 1/3 innings, he allowed just one run while striking out five and allowing as many baserunners. Though most of those innings game in mop-up duty against the Yankees’ subs, the Yankees in tonight’s starting lineup who have faced him are a combined 1-for-10 with four strikeouts against Liz.

Are there any encouraging signs heading into this series? Hideki Matsui has just two hits in 11 plate appearances since returning, but they’ve been good for six total bases (.545 slugging) and three RBIs. He’s also struck out only once and grounded out only twice, which suggests his swing is in good shape. Derek Jeter has hit .317/.382/.440 since June 1, .392/.434/.486 in August, and is 17-for-32 on his current seven-game hitting streak. Bobby Abreu is hitting .328/.407/.531 since the All-Star break. Uhm . . . that’s about it.

(more…)

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.

For the second time in as many series, the Yankees open a three-game set with a significant roster change. On Friday, they promoted Brett Gardner and Cody Ransom at the expense of Melky Cabrera and Richie Sexson. Today, they’ve activated Hideki Matsui from the disabled list and optioned Justin Christian back to triple-A.

Matsui has been on the shelf since late June due to inflammation in his left knee, but was one of the Yankees best hitters over the first three months of the season, going .323/.404/.458 and failing to reach base in just eight of his 69 games before succumbing to his injury. Matsui has slowly and steadily rehabilitated his knee since then, concluding his work over the weekend by playing in three rehab games with high-A Tampa in which he went 2 for 8 with a solo homer and two walks.

With Matsui back in the fold, two big questions need to be answered. The first is, obviously, “will he hit.” The second is, “if he hits, who sits?”

There’s no question that Matsui will DH and DH only, that’s been stated explicitly by the team, but with Gardner having just been installed in center field and having picked up five hits (including a double, a triple, and a game winner) in the final two games against the Royals, the big question is whose at-bats will Matsui might be taking.

Tonight the answer is Gardner, as Johnny Damon starts in center flanked by Xavier Nady and Bobby Abreu with Jason Giambi at first. To his credit, Joe Girardi has put his best offense on the field (including Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate) against A.J. Burnett, turf be damned. Still, one suspects that if that lineup was intended to be permanent, Gardner, who’s being groomed to start, would have been sent down in stead of Christian, who has emerged as a viable bench player. Instead, Gardner’s continued presence suggests an intended rotation that will see Girardi continue to rest his stars, be it by giving Damon or Matsui days off, or giving Nady some work at first base in place of Giambi.

No one really knows what to expect from Matsui any more than they know what to expect from Gardner 2.0. If Matsui picks up where he left off and Gardner continues to hit .400 with runners in scoring position, resting Damon and Giambi won’t hurt. If Matsui struggles and Gardner’s weekend proves to be a fluke, resting Damon and Giambi could undermine what little fight this team seems to have left in it.

Still, replacing Cabrera and Christian with Matsui and Gardner sure feels like a hefty upgrade, even if the offense’s biggest problems remain the catchers, Robinson Cano, and Jason Giambi’s poor performance with runners in scoring position (which has allowed teams to pitch around Alex Rodriguez in such situations).

The Yanks will need all the pop they can get in Toronto as they have to face not only Burnett tonight, but Roy Halladay on Thursday. The last series between these two teams was also played in Toronto with Burnett and Halladay pitching the bookend games. The Jays won both of those games, while the Yankees pounded Jesse Litsch in the middle match. On the season, the Jays, who are just two games behind the Yankees in the standings, have won four of the nine games between the two teams, with either Halladay or Burnett getting the win in all four victories. The Yankees have won just one game started by either of the Jays’ top two starters all year, that coming on Opening Night, when Chien-Ming Wang out-dueled Halladay, 3-2.

The Jays are a better team than they seem. Since Cito Gaston returned to the site of his past glories by replacing John Gibbons as manager at the end of a miserable June for the Jays, Toronto has won at a .580 clip. Had they done that over the rest of the season, they’d be leading the Red Sox in the Wild Card race (only one team in the NL has a winning percentage higher than .580). Over the same stretch, the Yankees have played .520 ball, which is actually worse than their overall winning percentage of .532.

Halladay and Burnett have obviously been key to that run under Gaston (Burnett is 9-2 under Gaston, Halladay has a 2.24 ERA since Cito’s return), as has the Jays’ dominant bullpen (a MLB-best 3.02 ERA). As for the offense, Vernon Wells spent most of Gaston’s first 50 games back at the helm on the DL and has only recently returned. Scott Rolen hit .229/.338/.382 under Gaston before landing on the DL himself. Instead it’s been left fielder Adam Lind who has been sparking the lineup, hitting .329/.363/.587 since being recalled two days after Gaston’s return. Gaston’s other big lineup change was to bench David Eckstein in favor of starting first Marco Scutaro and, with Scutaro now needed in Rolen’s place at third base, John McDonald at shortstop. Neither player provides much offense, but Scutaro has out-hit Rolen under Gaston, and McDonald’s defense makes Halladay all the more dominant.

Every little bit helps, which brings us back to Matsui. The last time he returned from a long DL stay he went 4 for 4 on his first night back. Of course, that was in mid-September 2006, when the Yankees had a double-digit lead in the AL East. Things are a bit different this year.

(more…)

Let’s get right into it. The Yankees just made three roster moves. The first was obvious: Dan Giese, who left Wednesday’s game with shoulder tendonitis, has been placed on the DL and replaced with Chris Britton, who will reprise his role as roster filler until the Yankees are forced to call up a fifth starter, likely Phil Hughes, next weekend.

The second was somewhat overdue. Melky Cabrera, who has hit .226/.274/.293 since May 1, was optioned to triple-A and replaced by Brett Gardner. In fairness to the Yankees, they tried to motivate this exchange in early July by calling up Gardner and giving him 16 starts in an 18-game stretch (enabled by Johnny Damon’s shoulder injury), but Gardner made Melky look like Mickey Mantle by hitting .153/.227/.169. As I reported in my Farm Report this morning, Gardner got back in the grove after his late-July demotion, hitting .339/.429/.390* in his return engagement in Scranton. He also returns to the Bronx coming off a 3 for 4 day (with a triple) and on a seven-game hitting streak. After his July performance, it’s difficult to say Gardner couldn’t be worse than Melky, and there’s legitimate concern that his total lack of power will allow major league pitchers to challenge him and thus negate his ability to draw walks, which is a huge part of his game, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and this doesn’t even qualify as the latter.

Gardner will start in center tonight and bat eighth ahead of Andy Pettitte’s new personal catcher, Jose Molina. It remains to be seen if Joe Girardi will platoon the lefty-hitting Gardner with the right-handed Justin Christian, though one suspects he will. The way I see it, if they’re going to give Gardner a second chance, they might as well let him play full time, though certainly Gardner’s performance will play a large part in determining how much playing time he loses to Christian. As for Melky, he’ll be back when rosters expand in two weeks.

The third and final transaction saw the Yankees call up Cody Ransom, whom I also discussed in my Farm Report, and release Richie Sexson. I have to say, I’m confused about this one. Sexson was hitting .250/.371/.393 as a Yankee, which isn’t season-changing, but if nothing else, gave the Yankees a solid on-base performance from a bench player. Against lefties, Sexson hit .273/.393/.455 as a Yankee, which meant he was doing what the Yankees picked him up to do. Ransom, as I said in my Farm Report, is essentially a right-handed Wilson Betemit, but five years older and with a fraction of the big league experience. Originally a shortstop, Ransom can play all four infield positions and spot in the outfield. He transitioned to third base in 2006, but in the wake of the Alberto Gonzalez trade was moved back to short in Scranton a couple of weeks ago. He’s got some pop in his bat (22 homers in 116 games for Scranton this year, 49 in 257 games over his last two minor league seasons), but his plate discipline is ordinary at best and he strikes out a lot and hits for a low average.

Other than position flexibility, I’m not sure what Ransom offers that would be enough for the Yankees to pass on having Sexson on the bench earning the major league minimum. Derek Jeter’s in the lineup tonight at shortstop, so it doesn’t seem as though his bruised instep is enough of a problem to motivate a roster move that costs the team a productive player. The only thing I can think of is that having the extra infielder on hand will allow Joe Girardi to apply some pressure to Robinson Cano, whose play over the past two weeks has become downright problematic as he’s made numerous mental mistakes on the bases and in the field, enough so that his effort and concentration have been called into question (Cano’s also hitting .210/.279/.323 since the end of the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak coming out of the All-Star break). Still, I’m not sure it was necessary to release Sexson in order to give either Betemit or Ransom some starts at second base. Besides which, Cano’s in the lineup tonight in his usual spot.

Still, it seems to me that these last two moves are designed primarily to make the C + C Music Factory sweat, while giving Girardi some viable alternatives in the meantime. Sexson’s departure doesn’t represent a huge loss, particularly with Jason Giambi having heated back up (.288/.447/.515 since the day before the All-Star break, .364/.533/.773 on the just-completed road trip), but Cody Ransom, a career .236/.331/.364 hitter in 140 major league bats at age 31, is still a downgrade, no matter what positions he can play.

*the stats in my Farm Report don’t include Thursday’s games; these do

(more…)

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.

The Yankees’ last victory was Mike Mussina’s 15th of the season. Now, after a four-game losing streak, Mikey Moose is back to try to make it sweet sixteen and save the sad sack Yanks from slipping into the cellar (or shake them from their slumber, so to speak). To break this bummer, he’ll have to beat Nick Blackburn who takes the ball for the bad guys.

The Yanks have faced Blackburn twice this year, once they beat him badly, touching him up for six runs on seven hits (including an Alex Rodriguez homer) in just 1 2/3 innings. The other time, they just broke his nose. Blackburn has a 2.25 ERA in three starts since last facing the Yanks, and I can’t imagine he’s thrilled to see them again, no matter how poorly they’ve been playing.

Speaking of which, what’s the deal with Robinson Cano? Over the past week or so I’ve noticed a number of ground balls to both his left and right scoot past him when I was convinced he was at least going to knock them down. As recently as a month or so ago, Cano was one of the best defensive second baseman in the game, and it’s quite possible that his fine play has created unrealistic expectations on my part (certainly most if not all of the grounders of which I speak would have required above average to great plays to turn them into outs, but it seems Cano had been making those plays until recently), but what appeared to be one or two well-placed hits “past a lunging Cano” (note: he’s not diving) a week or so ago now seem to be regular occurrences. Perhaps not coincidentally, Cano has hit just .222/.276/.352 since the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak was snapped in Boston. This team has a lot of problems right now, and that has allowed what seems to be a lackluster effort on Cano’s part to go largely unnoticed, but it’s worth keeping and eye on and, if real, needs to be addressed by Joe Girardi and his coaching staff.

Johnny Damon is back in the lineup and in center field tonight. Jason Giambi is back in the lineup and at DH. Wilson Betemit plays first base. Melky Cabrera rides pine. As always, Jose Molina catches Mussina.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox picked up Paul Byrd from the Indians for a player to be named later. The roughly league-average, contact-pitching Byrd will replace struggling rookie Clay Buchholz (0-5, 7.42 ERA in six starts since being recalled in early July) in the rotation. Over that same stretch, Byrd, who is a free agent after the season, has gone 4-0 with a 1.80 ERA in five starts, but the Yankees didn’t bother to put a waiver claim on him, allowing him to slip through to the Red Sox. Bri-Bri, you got some splain’ to do.

Three weeks ago, the Twins arrived in the Bronx holding a two-game lead over the Yankees for second place in the Wild Card race. The Yanks swept past Minnesota in that week’s three game series, but have since fallen back into the back. As a result, the Yankees head into Minneapolis tonight once again trailing the Twins by two games for second place in the Wild Card race.

While the Yankees have been struggling to remain relevant to the Wild Card picture, the Twins have had bigger fish to fry. Three days after leaving New York, the Twins hosted the AL Central-leading White Sox and took three of four games to close the gap atop the central to a half a game. Since then, the Twins have twice slipped past the Pale Hose, only to slip back behind them the next day. They enter tonight’s action trailing the Chisox by just a half game and the two teams have been within 1.5 games of one another for the past week.

The Twins have been hanging tight in the Central all year, and a week ago they finally brought rehabilitated lefty ace Francisco Liriano up to replace aged innings eater Livan Hernandez in the rotation. The Yankees are fortunate not to have to face Liriano (2-0, 2.31 since being recalled) this week, but given the Twins’ spectacular record at home (.650 winning percentage), and the fact that Minnesota actually has something to fight for, they’ve got their work cut out for them anyway.

The Yanks split a four-game series in the Homer Dome as May turned into June, and will kick this week’s three-game set off tonight by sending Sidney Ponson to the mound against Glen Perkins. Ponson has faced the Twins thrice already this year. He pitched 5 2/3 innings in the opening game of the Yankees’ July sweep and picked up a win thanks to 12 runs of support. His first start of the season saw him pitch 5 1/3 innings against the Twins in Texas, give up four unearned runs, and take a no-decision. His one start at the Metrodome, however, was one to dream on, a 110-pitch complete game in which Sir Sidney allowed just one run on six hits and a walk while the Rangers cruised to a 10-1 victory. Perkins, meanwhile, has faced the Yankees twice, once in each location, both times coughing up five runs, which is exactly what he did against the Mariners in his last start as well.

The lefty Perkins won’t have to deal with Jason Giambi or the hot-hitting Johnny Damon tonight, as Richie Sexson gets the start at first base and Justin Christian starts over Damon in left field with Xavier Nady DHing. Damon DHed in both weekend games after slamming his sore left shoulder into the wall on Friday night in pursuit of a rocket hit off Ian Kennedy, so it seems likely that Joe Girardi is simply using the opposting lefty as an excuse to give Damon a needed day off. Still, starting both Christian and Melky Cabrera over Damon hurts, as Damon has had two singles in each of the last five games, is hitting .370 over his active 11-game hitting streak, has hit .333/.413/.420 with five steals in as many tries since being activated from the DL after nursing that same sore shoulder back to relative health, and, if you hadn’t noticed, is actually leading the league in batting average. Similarly, while Sexson has quietly hit .292/.400/.458 as a part-timer since joining the Yankees, the clean-shaven Giambi is hitting .313/.500/.875 with three home runs on the current road trip.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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?

The Yankees are 5-7 since opening the second half with an eight-game winning streak and have lost the first two games of each of their last three series, including last weekend’s four-game set against the Angels at the Stadium. Then again, they rallied to earn four-game splits in their last two series, and given the Angels’ .644 winning percentage on the road, splitting four against them in the Bronx was perfectly acceptable.

Facing a three-game set in Anaheim this weekend, the Yankees don’t have the option of a split. For all of the Angels’ success on the road, the Halos still have a .600 winning percentage at home and are 11-3 in Anaheim since July 1. The Yankees righted their ship against the Angels last weekend by dropping a six-spot on Jered Weaver, who starts again tonight, but Weaver’s home ERA is more than a run lower than his road mark and his home run and walk rates are way down in his home park.

This series will be a real test for the Yankees, but the biggest test will be for tonight’s starter, Ian Kennedy. Kennedy’s already been tested quite a bit this season, by his manager, who challenged the young righty to throw strikes during his early season struggles, by the organization, which farmed him out to triple-A in early May when he failed to meet Girardi’s challenge (7.61 BB/9 in his first six games), and by the team doctors after he left his third start following his recall with what proved to be an oblique strain.

Kennedy returned to action at the end of June with a pair of dominant rehab outings in the low minors and has since made seven appearances (six starts) for triple-A Scranton, posting a 2.60 ERA and walking just 3.08 men per nine innings, an exact match of his minor league walk rate last year. In his last four starts for Scranton he has compiled this line: 27 IP, 14 H, 4 R, 5 BB, 20 K, 3-0, 1.33 ERA, 0.70 WHIP.

Given his struggles in the majors at the start of the year and his 0-3 record on the season, it’s easy to forget that Kennedy did turn in two quality starts in his seven opportunities, both games the Yankees went on to win after his departure. Still, the gap between Kennedy’s minor league dominance (career: 17-5, 1.90 ERA, 214 K in 203 1/3 IP) and his pitching in the majors earlier this year was wide and more than a little bothersome.

After straining his oblique at the end of May, Kennedy was replaced in the rotation by Joba Chamberlain. With Chamberlain on the DL due to rotator cuff tendonitis, Kennedy is being given his third chance to establish himself in the Yankee rotation. Beating Weaver and the Angels tonight while keeping his walks down would be a huge victory, not only for the team, but for Kennedy, who needs to stand atop major league mounds with the same confidence and command he’s shown throughout his brief minor league career.

(more…)

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.