When Mariano Rivera blew the game Thursday night, my foot slipped. When the 8-3 sure-fire-win on Friday night became another loss, my shoulder dipped. And when Mariano blew Sunday’s game, my ass flipped right over my head and I was lost in the Negative Zone. Not even winning Sunday could draw me out; I was adrift and doomed.

And I’m not coming back. Not this year.

CC Sabathia gave a decent effort when nothing short of his best would do. The Yankees didn’t hit Chris Tillman, who’s been good this year, but hardly Tom Seaver and the 4-2 loss is the latest nail in the coffin.

In the first inning Alex Rodriguez smacked a home run and things looked up for about a minute. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but CC Sabathia couldn’t hold the lead. Not even for an inning. Nick Markakis hit a lead-off double and scored two batters later.

The game stayed knotted at one, but the Yankees were never going to be the team that loosened the knot. Sabathia kept the ball in the park, but off-the-wall can still hurt you. A handful of doubles, productive outs and timely hits put the Yankees in a 4-1 hole after seven.

Tillman retired 13 in row at one point. He struck out three straight to napalm the seventh and then Lyle Overbay scraped the sky with solo homer to start the eighth, so Showalter brought in Tommy Hunter to strike out the next three. The Orioles struck out 12 Yankees in all.

Alex hit a blue dart to center to lead off the ninth. After two ground outs, Curtis Granderson hit a full-count fastball to the middle of the warning track in center. I can’t say what it looked like from your seats, but nobody here in the Negative Zone thought it had a chance.

Okay, so we might not have much faith in the Yanks making the playoffs but they have a chance and that makes these games accordingly tense or watchable or something like that.

C.C. goes tonight. He’s the Ace and they need him to come through with a big performance.

Brett Gardner CF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Curtis Granderson DH
Eduardo Nunez SS
Lyle Overbay 1B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Austin Romine C

Never mind the scoreboard-watching: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Robert Herman via This Isn’t Happiness]

Thirty-five years ago to the day, as the Yankees were busy reeling in the Boston Red Sox, they stopped in Fenway Park and thrashed the Sox so  soundly that the series will be forever known as the Boston Massacre. The Yankees were four games behind the Red Sox when they arrived in town, but after sweeping the series (and outscoring the Sox 49-26) they left in a flat-footed tie. We all know how that season ended up.

The Yankees would rip out Boston’s heart again in August of 2006, taking the field in Fenway with a slim game and a half lead over the Sox but leaving four days later with commanding 6 1/2 game advantage after an unprecedented five-game sweep in which they outscored Boston by an identical 49-26 margin.

On Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, the Yankees looked to avoid being on the other side of one of those season-ending, soul-crushing, series sweeps. After inexplicable losses on Thursday and Friday, followed by an old-fashioned beating on Saturday, the Yankees took the field on Sunday as a desperate team.

Hiroki Kuroda was on the mound for the Yanks, and he was probably just as desperate as the Yankees were. He had been excellent through the first three months and dominant in July (3-0, 0.55 ERA, 0.88 WHIP), but he was a completely different pitcher in August as he finished the month 1-4 with a 5.12 ERA and 1.42 WHIP. He was a man in need of redemption, and Sunday looked like a good place to start.

He seemed to struggle a bit early on, as consecutive doubles in the second inning (David Ortíz and Mike Carp) produced a run, but he was lights out after that as he cruised through the next three innings before coughing up another run in the sixth.

Mark Reynolds doubled in a run for the good guys in the fourth, and Robinson Canó plated two more with a double of his own in the following frame, but it wasn’t until the eighth inning that the game really started to get interesting.

Did I mention that the Yankees were desperate? Clinging to a 3-2 lead, Joe Girardi brought in Mariano Rivera and hoped for a six-out save. Rivera worked around a harmless single in the eighth, but anyone who had watched the first three games knew that nothing — not even a Mariano save — would come easily in this series. In fact, the save wouldn’t come at all.

Rivera’s third pitch to Will Middlebrooks leading off the top of the ninth looked like it produced a lazy fly ball to right and what would be the first out of the inning. Ichiro slowly floated back on the ball, and no one seemed overly concerned — until it landed in the stands. The camera caught the normally placid Rivera in utter disbelief.

The game was tied, and — with Phil Hughes warming in the bullpen — all appeared lost. But Rivera recovered to finish out the ninth. The bottom half wasn’t exciting, except for the end result. Ichiro singled with one out, stole second, advanced to third on a sacrifice fly from Vernon Wells, then scored when the next pitch from Brandon Workman got past Jarrod Saltalamacchia for a walk-off wild pitch. Yankees 4, Red Sox 3.

Sure, it was an ugly weekend, but the bottom line is this. Even after three straight heart-breaking losses (who’d have thought they could score 25 runs and still lose all three games?) and a litany of injuries (Jeter’s ankle is injured yet again; David Robertson and Boone Logan are also out) the Yankees are still — still — just 2.5 games behind Tampa Bay for the wild card spot.

There’s hope, people. There’s hope.

[Photo Credit: Seth Wenig/AP Photo]

Hiroki and a Prayer (and no Jeter):

Ichiro Suzuki RF
Vernon Wells DH
Alfonso Soriano LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Reynolds 1B
Curtis Granderson CF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the beards:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Joe Martz]

Yeah, I don’t know, man. The Sox ain’t all that. Sure they scored 2 touchdowns today in the Bronx but they missed an extra point. Fuggin’ pussies.

David Huff got torched and so did the Yanks, dropping another game to the Sox, this one to the tune of 13-9. It was over early. The Yanks actually battled their way back into it but well, you get the way this weekend is going: Doom.

Derek Jeter left the game early, had a CT scan on his ankle and–good news!–it came back negative.

[Deiorama by Abigail Goldman]

No use steering now:

Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Curtis Granderson DH
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Lyle Overbay 1B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Austin Romine C

Never mind the hangover:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by Bags]

Remember how we figured that last night was the worst loss of the year? Well, we were wrong. Tonight was worse.

The Yanks had an 8-3 going into the 7th and then the bullpen shit the bed, walls, and carpet as they gave up 9 runs over the next two innings. Hughes, Boone, Preston, and Jobber, oh my.

The burly bastards from Boston kicked the Yanks square in the nuts. Repeatedly. Yup, it was an old fashioned Bronx mugging.

12-8 was the final.

As one Banterite succinctly put it: Fuck this.

Another stinging loss. Anger and despair. But there’s no giving up round here. Tomorrow gives another game, after all.

We’ll be here and we’ll be rooting. Fuggin’ A right we’ll be.

It’s Old Man Andy vs. Boston’s Civil War Reenactment Squad.

Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter DH
Alfonso Soriano LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Vernon Wells RF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Mark Reynolds 1B
Chris Stewart C

Never mind last night:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Via: Think Different]

Lousy start for Ivan Nova? Check. Ass-whuppin’ for Preston Clairborne? Check. Good start by Jake Peavy? Check. A 7-2 lead as Kate Smith belted “God Bless America” en route to an easy-breezy win for the Red Sox?

Negative.

Because the bottom of the seventh went something like this:

Against Jake Peavy...

I Suzuki walked.
V Wells hit for C Stewart.
V Wells singled to center, I Suzuki to third

M Thornton relieved J Peavy.

B Gardner singled to left center, I Suzuki scored, V Wells to second.
V Wells stole third. (Is he knuts? Maybe. Gardner didn’t budge off first and the replays showed that Wells was out.)
D Jeter walked, B Gardner to second.
R Cano grounded into fielder’s choice to second, V Wells scored, D Jeter out at second, B Gardner to third.

J Tazawa relieved M Thornton.

A Soriano singled to right center, B Gardner scored, R Cano to second.
C Granderson doubled to deep right, R Cano scored, A Soriano to third.
A Rodriguez struck out swinging. (Tough sinking fastball, a splitter perhaps. Sitting on my couch, I tapped my foot and my heart raced.  Rodriguez heard some boos but not as many as I expected.)
L Overbay singled to right, A Soriano and C Granderson scored, L Overbay to second advancing on throw.
I Suzuki struck out swinging.

And just like that, a couple of walks and a string of base hits gave the Yanks an 8-7 lead.

The question then, how would they finish? David Robertson didn’t pitch well last night and Mariano Rivera, having pitched two days in row, well, hell, he wasn’t going to pitch again, right?

Robertson struck Jacoby Ellsbury out looking on a 3-2 pitch to start the 8th. He got Shane Victorino to swing through a fastball for the second out and retired Dustin Pedrioa on a ground ball to Derek Jeter to end the inning.

The Yanks went down in order in the bottom of the inning and then wouldn’t you know it but: Enter Sandman.

And who should he face to start the inning but Papi Ortiz.

Went something like this:

First pitch, inside–almost too much of the plate–ball 1. Cutter inside, Ortiz hits it hard but the line drive goes straight at Lyle Overbay. Ortiz doesn’t have time to move out of the box. He glares and walks back to the dugout.

One out.

Daniel Nava. Cutter inside, 1-0. Fastball, right over the plate, 1-1. Hard to believe Nava took it. Now, cutter inside, ties him up, swing and a miss, 1-2. Now, backdoor? Upstairs? It’s upstairs but Nava holds up, 2-2. Then he goes outside but the pitch is low, 3-2. Goes back outside, or tries to, but the pitch is over the plate. Nava swings and hits a Mookie Wilson-to-Bill Buckner dribbler to Overbay. He fields it and steps on the bag for the second out.

Mike Napoli takes a fastball on the inside corner, 92 mph, for a strike. Fastball away, 1-1. Fastball low, 2-1. Heater, right down Broadway, good swing, but fouls it off, 2-2. Cutter, inside, but too far inside, 3-2. Fastball over the plate and Napoli slaps it into right center field for a base hit. The pitch was fat, juicy, and thank goodness it didnt go over the fence. Quintin Berry pinch runs for Napoli.

Stephen Drew. Takes a ball high. Berry takes off, Romine’s throw bounces in front of Jeter and into the outfield, Berry takes third (ah, shades of Dave Roberts). Next pitch, a cutter with no bite is hit into right for a base hit.

Tie game.

Jonny Gomes, pinch-hitting. Two-seamer comes up and in and almost hits Gomes, 1-0. Fastball, high, fouled back, 1-1. Another high fastball, popped foul behind the plate and caught by Romine for the third out.

Rivera’s 6th blown save of the year. 8-8. Yankees-Red Sox. On a school night. What else would you expect?

Alfonso Soriano walked with 1 out in the bottom of the ninth, got picked off first but Nava dropped the pick off throw and Soriano made it safely to second. And then the dumbass got picked off of second. I’d try to explain it but I can’t.

Needless the say, Curtis Granderson whiffed to send the game into extra innings.

And who should greet us to begin “free baseball” but Joba Chamberlain. And with Joba it’s not a question of “if” but “when”? Ellsbury singles and swipes second. Joba got 2 strikes on Vitorino, had him struck out on a check swing but first base ump Joe West ruled that Victorino did not swing. Even though he clearly swung. So of course the next pitch, a high fastball, is punched into right field for a base hit. Ellsbury scores and the Sox are back on top.

Boone Logan replaced Joba and Chamberlain got himself kicked out of the game by West. Ortiz is walked intentionally and then Nava is pinch-hit for by a righty,Brandon Snyder, who flies out to Gardner in center.

The Yanks went down like lambs in the bottom of the tenth (that’s not entirely right, Lyle Overbay had a valiant at bat before striking out) and the Sox, playing with house money, avenged that Sunday Night loss with one that hurt the Yanks were it counts.

Final Score: Red Sox 9, Yanks 8.

Nova gets the ball in the first game against the Red Sox. Yanks’ll need him to give them a good performance. Got to figure Mariano ain’t pitching tonight.

Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Curtis Granderson DH
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Lyle Overbay 1B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Chris Stewart C

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

[Photo Credit: Gustavo Jononovich via MPD]

It looked like a cruise-control win for the Yanks, 6-1 lead going into the 8th inning. Robinson Cano had 3 hits, and Brett Gardner had a couple including a 2-run triple. The 4 runs the Yankees scored in the 4th inning gave C.C. Sabathia all the cushion he’d need and while he wasn’t dominate, he looked good. But after a few batters reached base he was replaced by David Robertson who had nothing and before you knew it, it was 6-5, tying run on second and here comes Mo.

Rivera was one pitch from loading the bases when he got a generous called strike 3 to get out of trouble. Hey, sometimes being a Legend helps. He retired the side in the 9th–flyout, groundout to the pitcher, and line drive to Alex Rodriguez–without breaking a sweat and the rest of us, who were, by that time, sweaty, felt great relief.

Yanks 6, White Sox 5.

[Featured Image: Bolenowe Moor; Photo Credit: Rich Schultz/Getty Images]

It’s C.C. against a rookie. 

Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano DH
Curtis Granderson LF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Austin Romine C

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

[Picture by Bags]

Sure the White Sox are a lousy team but with their ace Chris Sale in good form tonight this has to go down as one of the most satisfying wins of the year for the Yankees. Hiroki Kuroda was better than he’s been recently but it was still a struggle for him. An error by Eduardo Nunez in the first help lead to a run and Kuroda had to get two outs with the bases loaded. He left a pair of runners on in the second but then got through the next two innings without incident. Another mistake, this one from Robinson Cano when he botched the tag on a stolen base attempt with no out in the fifth, set things up the White Sox who broke a 1-1 tie with two runs. They added another in the seventh and that looked to be that.

Chris Sale, a true sidewinder if there ever was one, had his way with the Yankee lineup (his bending breaking ball to the lefties, Gardner and Cano, was unfair). But Cano got a fastball he could handle with one out and Jeter on first in the eighth, and lined a double to left.

That knocked Sale out of the game and then the Yankees went to work, chipping away, nickel-and-dime style–memories of the late ’90s! A single by Lil’ Sori drew the Yanks to within a run, a 3-2 base hit by Alex Rodriguez, and then a pinch-hit single by Curtis Granderson tied the game. All three hits came with two strikes. Mark Reynolds whiffed on a full count pitch, another tough at-bat, and then Nunez dropped the hammer on an inside pitch, inside and low, and pinged it to left for a double. It was the kind of hit that you never thought would stay fair. But it did, skipping down the left field line.

That gave Mr. Rivera a two-run lead. He struck out the first batter on a back-door cutter. Struck him out looking. Went out there on the 2-2 pitch, missed, and came right back to the same spot, made a better pitch, and got his man. A weak ground ball to second counted for the second out and then another strike out, again freezing the batter on a back-door cut fastball, ended the game. That’s the 9th time he’s recorded 40 saves in a season, tying a big league record.

We may only have a month left of Mariano, folks. No time like the present to savor it.

And this one here is a win to savor, ain’t it?

Final Score: Yanks 6, White Sox 4.

p.s. Girardi announced after the game that Hughes is headed to the pen; Huff will start in his place.

Our man Hiroki looks to stop his slump.

Brett Gardner CF
Derek Jeter DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Alfonso Soriano LF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Vernon Wells RF
Mark Reynolds 1B
Eduardo Nunez SS
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the two previous beatings, Hiroki, go git ’em and:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture via This Isn’t Happiness]

Over at River Ave Blues, Mike Axisa offers three options of what to do with Phil Hughes and David Huff.

So The Wife and I were in South Carolina visiting friends over the weekend and I had little access to the Internet. Thanks to Jon D for holding down the fort so beautifully here at the Banter.

We came home today–puddle-jumper from South Carolina to ATL, 757 from ATL back home. Everything went smoothly until we were in the air and the rain in New York shut down the local airports for a few hours. Meanwhile, after circling and circling our flight landed in Allentown, P.A. And, yes, that earned me the right to sing the song, cept I wasn’t in any mood for singing.

As we refueled there was also a mechanical problem to contend with. So we sat some more. Some folks left the plane and scrambled to find rental cars. But considering the Labor Day traffic that seemed foolish so we waited it out.

Meanwhile, after a rain delay of close to 2 hours, the Yankee game resumed while we were in Allentown so The Wife and I listened to the critical 4th inning where the White Sox played like our trip home–a mess. They kicked the ball around, some poor shnook named Dylan Axelrod could not throw strikes and when the inning was over the Yanks had scored 8 times.

Soon enough our plane was back in the air and when we were treated a glorious ride over Manhattan on our way to LaGuardia.

And wouldn’t you know it but there was zero traffic on the way home. We were exhausted but that made us smile. The game was long over by then–9-1 Yanks was the final–and a long day had a happy ending.

We came home, showered, and walked across the street for a slice.

That’s a picture of Phil Hughes from 2007. That’s his second start, in Texas – the near-no-hitter and the leg injury. I think that was the last disappointment-free moment of his career for Yankee fans. Not all Phil’s fault of course.

He contributed to a World Series championship. He submitted a few decent seasons. But we expected an ace. Scouting reports prepared us for Tom Seaver and Roger Clemens and we got, well, not them. We got a guy whose best years are league average and whose worst season, which we are in the midst of right now, is replacement level.

But the Yankees don’t have any healthy pitchers, Phelps, Nuno and Pineda being 6-8 on the depth chart and unlikely to pitch again this season. So Phil Hughes gets the ball and the Yankees must win. They must sweep. And that means we root for Phil, for 2007’s sake.

Everything was lined up for the Yankees with six innings in the books and a 3-o lead. Andy Pettitte couldn’t get an out to start the seventh, then Shwan Kelley couldn’t get an out behind him and then this happened.

Boone Logan relieved Kelley and he also couldn’t record a single out. Then Joba Chamberlain plopped to the mound and the Orioles felt so bad about how things were going that they gave the Yankees an out just to be nice. But not that nice because then this happened.

Two three-run homers and seven total runs made the seventh inning stretch a cruel exercise for Yankee fans. The Yankees put a couple of guys on in the eighth, but didn’t get them in and lost 7-3.

The B-team bullpen, which has been good this year, blew the game, but had Curtis Granderson pulled back J.J. Hardy’s home run in the seventh, it might have been a much different outcome. The ball was catchable, but Granderson’s timing was off and he crashed into wall before he could extend his arm.

It would be too much to call it another nail in the coffin, but with Tampa losing again, missing the chance to cut the lead to 2.5 games feels like a nail in something.

Photos by Rich Schultz / Getty Images

Andy Pettitte has been quite good lately, even considering that shellacking by Chicago. The right teams keep losing and the Yankees have leapfrogged both Cleveland and Baltimore and only trail Tampa for the last Wild Card spot. This is going up before the lineup is announced, but it wasn’t correct yesterday and we survived, so hopefully we’ll manage without one today.

Chris Davis breathes on the ball these days and it’s a ground rule double. I’ve seen highlight reels of wrong-footed homers he’s hit on half-swings. So, with one out and one on in the ninth, when he sand-wedged a 2-2 breaking ball high into the afternoon sky, it looked like a pop-out, but I feared it would be a game-tying home run.

The ball flew so high that Ichiro Suzuki had time to order sunglasses from Amazon and have them delivered to the right field warning track before settling under it. And he didn’t exactly settle as much as he sidled. Ichiro moved sideways and slantways and longways and backways, taking up a position under the ball that suggested either the easiest can or corn on the shelf or utter catastrophe. Perhaps the earth turned while the ball was in flight just enough so that it nestled into Ichiro’s waiting glove instead of one-row deep.

The Stadium crowd was still exhaling as Adam Jones lined out to Derek Jeter and Ivan Nova dusted off his complete game shutout. The Yankees won 2-0 and moved ahead of the Orioles for third place in the East and it was all Nova, all the way.

Well, Nova and Cano, who drove in both runs and continues to play so well that it makes it impossible for me to imagine the Yankees without him. Robinson Cano bookended a light day of hitting for the Yankees as he doubled into the right field corner to drive in Gardner in the first and homered to deep right to drive in himself in the eighth. Another terrific game as he enters what could be his final month in pinstripes.

Nova might actually have words for Cano in the locker room, wasting that late homer on a day when he clearly only needed the one run to win. Nova was simply brilliant. The umpire seemed to favor the low strike, which played right into his game plan. The worms weren’t exactly in danger of extinction, but when the Orioles did hit grounders, they continually drove the top eighth of the ball into the dirt and the Yankee fielders scooped up the easy pickings. Nova fielded three himself and should have had a fourth in the ninth.

Six Orioles reached base (three hits, a walk and 2 HBP) but two of them were erased on double plays. The DP Jeter started in the top of the eighth fired up the whole team and gave Nova more than enough gas to get through the ninth. Good thing too, because Jeter killed two rallies by grounding into double plays himself.

Nova was so good I don’t think anybody in Yankeedom wanted to see Mariano Rivera. That’s pretty damn good.

We’ve got two wins down in the front, do I have a third from the gray haired gentleman in the back? The one with the dimple in his chin? Does pulling your cap down to shield your eyes signify a bid? I need a ruling here.