Are the Yanks buyers or sellers? Over at River Ave, Mike Axisa takes a look.

[Photo Via: Shawn O’Donnell]

Our pal Emma on last night’s game.

Here’s more.

[Photo Via: CBS; USA Today]

Over at SI.com, our man Cliff gives us 99 cool facts about the Babe.

Nice piece by Daniel Barbarisi in the Wall Street Journal about a bat boy and the pine-tar incident.

Unrelated, I found this photograph at Royals Then, Now & Forever. See the way Nettles is sliding his right foot? He did that before every pitch. When I played as a kid, up through high school, I copied that move too. If I stood on an infield today, without thinking, I’m sure I’d do it again.

C.C. Sabathia has toughed-out a lot of starts in the first half of this season. He’s been admirable, but it’s been a disappointing time of it for the Yankees Ace and he was horseshit today. His record is 9-8, ERA is over 4.00. A tough time.

The final score was 10-4 as the Yanks go into the All-Star break on a down note.

[Image Via: It’s a Long Season]

First half of the season ends with ol’ C.C. on the hill.

Ichiro Suzuki CF
Zoilo Almonte LF
Robinson Cano 2B
Travis Hafner DH
Vernon Wells RF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Eduardo Nunez SS
Luis Cruz 3B
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the HEAT:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: An Extension of Me]

Phil Hughes pitched a nice game but he’s Phil Hughes so it wasn’t enough, not with a team that has a tendency not to score runs. Two solo home runs and the Yanks were down 2-1 and then in the 8th inning Hughes gave up a 2-run homer. It was just too much as the Twins finally beat the Yanks. This one went 4-1.

[Photo Credit: Balakov]

It’s Phil “Trade Bait” Hughes on a muggy afternoon in the Bronx.

Brett Gardner CF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells DH
Lyle Overbay 1B
Zoilo Almonte LF
Luis Cruz SS
Alberto Gonzalez 3B
Austin Romine C

Never mind the humidity:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Camil Tulcan]

The rain never really did cease last night. Game started, it was raining, they called it during the fourth inning, and over an hour later when the tarp was removed it continued to rain. Hiroki Kuroda waited out the delay and then pitched one inning. And his team rewarded him by scoring a couple of runs in the bottom of the 5th to put him in line for the victory.

Turns out they were the only runs either team would score. Five Yankee pitchers combined for the shutout with Boone Logan getting extra credit for striking out the side in the 7th when two men were on base. Our man Mo put the Twins to bed in the 9th. Sweet dreams.

Final Score: Yanks 2, Twins 0.

[Photo Credit: Howard Simmons, New York Daily News]

Here’s the word on Jeter.

Tonight gives our man Hiroki. It’s supposed to rain.

Brett Gardner CF
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells DH
Zoilo Almonte LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Eduardo Nunez SS
Luis Cruz 3B
Chris Stewart C

Never mind the setbacks:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Painting by Elizabeth Patterson]

..To hear what the MRI on Jeter’s quad tells us.

When Derek Jeter came to bat for the first time this season the Yanks were behind 3-0. He reached first by beating out an infield hit. Not exactly a Willis Reed moment, this being July and all. But what the hell? Hyperbole comes easy round these parts, especially when talking about Derek Jeter. He didn’t get another hit but drove in a run and was robbed of a single, too.

The Yanks caught up and then went ahead of the Royals, pounding out 8 runs. Kansas City didn’t score after the 2nd inning and the Yanks earned a series split.

Final Score: Yanks 8, Royals 4.

Smile…except it wasn’t all pretty. Jeter left the game early and will have an MRI on his quad.

Oy.

[Photo Credit: Rachel Bellinsky via MPD]

Andy’s on the hill this afternoon.

Ichiro Suzuki CF
Derek Jeter DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells RF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Zoilo Almonte LF
Eduardo Nunez SS
Luis Cruz 3B
Austin Romine C

Never mind the formalities, Cappy’s Back:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Corey Sipkin, N.Y. Daily News]

The Return of The Captain.

Dan Barry takes the mickey out of John Sterling in the New York Times:

J.S. Thuuuh pitch. And Gardner hits a fly ball deep to right-center field, Victorino back, back — home run! A Yardy! For Gardy!

S.W. Brett certainly got all of tha —

J.S. A Yardy! For Gardy! And the Yankees take a 1-0 lead.

Now Robbie Cano, the second baseman, settles into the batter’s box. A .294 batting average, with 20 home runs and 59 runs batted in. Robbie’s been struggling a little at the plate, but Suzyn, I ask you: how do you predict baseball?

S.W. You can’t really, it’s —

J.S. Exactly. You can throw the numbers out the window.

S.W. What?

J.S. Thuuuh pitch. High and outside, a hanging curve that never broke. That hanging curve brought to you by the State of Texas. We don’t hang ’em anymore, but we do the next best thing. Texas.

S.W. Actually, Jawn, I think that was a changeup that —

J.S. And Cano rockets one to right field. It is high, it is far, it is — gone! Home run! Robbie Cano, doncha know! It’s a back to back! And a belly to belly!

S.W. You know, Jawn, I’ve always wondered what that phrase means.

[Illustration by Chris Morris]

You remember what your algebra teacher told you about coin flips, don’t you? The coin has no memory. The probability of each result is always the same, regardless of what has come before. If a certain coin comes up heads, say, six times in a row, the odds on the seventh flip do not change. Only a fool would bet on heads thinking the coin was hot, and you’d be equally foolish if you bet on tails because it was due. A coin, after all, is just a coin.

More and more, these Yankees are starting to look like that coin. Remember when they won six straight and looked to be turing the corner as Mariano Rivera jogged in from the bullpen in the ninth inning of what would’ve been their seventh-straight win? And what about when they forgot how to win and lost three straight, the last two to the lowly Kansas City Royals? Recently it just seems like the Yankees are a .500 team, and the record bears that out. Since emerging from that soul-crushing four-game sweep at the hands of the Mets, the Yanks have come up heads just as often as tails — 19-19. At this point, perhaps they are who they are.

As depressing as that idea is, Wednesday’s game with the Royals was just the opposite. The other side of the coin, if you will. The Yankees scratched out a run in the first without benefit of an RBI as Brett Gardner made a daring dash home on a wild pitch that bounced only two or three yards away from Kansas City catcher George Kottaras. (Ichiro also tried to score on the same play when Kottaras’s throw skipped into the infield, but he was thrown out.) At the time the whole thing reeked of desperation. Gardner had no faith that anyone would drive him in, so he took a chance. Ichiro was thinking the same thing, so he took a bigger one. Heads you score, tails you’re out. 1-0 Yanks after one.

Iván Nova was on the mound for the Yankees, and after yielding two harmless singles in the top of the first, he mowed through the next twelve Royals hitters without allowing a base runner, allowing the Yankee offense to put a few things together. The first big moment arrived in the bottom of the third when Robinson Canó came to the plate with two outs and runners on first and second. Canó’s season has been up and down, but considering that he’s really the only frightening hitter in the lineup, it’s quite amazing what he’s been able to do — or what opposing pitchers have allowed him to do. Why he ever gets anything to hit, I’ll never know.

He got something to hit when Kansas City’s Wade Davis left a pitch out over the plate. Canó stayed with the pitch and drove it out towards the deepest part of the ballpark for a 419-foot home run to left center. It was the first home run by a Yankee starter in eight days, and the Yankees were up 4-0.

(That was probably the most important Canó moment of the night, since it essentially sealed the win, but there was a moment an inning earlier that will stick with me longer. With one out in the top of the second David Lough popped up a ball in the infield. Eduardo Núñez immediately began calling for it, as it looked to be heading towards the shortstop side of second base. But as the ball drifted across the bag into Canó’s territory, Núñez kept tracking it. As Canó realized Núñez wasn’t going to be called off the play, he brought his glove down and crossed his arms in mock indignation. After the out was made, he made a show of pointing out where the play had been made and playfully chided the youngster for overstepping his boundaries. It was the type of thing that of all sports happens only in baseball, and it was the type of thing that we used to see routinely from Derek Jeter — the stone-faced response to every single Hideki Matsui home run or the barely-controlled laughter each time Alex Rodríguez struggled with a pop-up. I can’t imagine Canó would’ve put on such a show had Jeter been the shortstop to wander into his domain, and perhaps Jeter’s absence thus far has allowed Canó to test his leadership skills a bit. Then again, it might simply have been two friends having a little fun. Either way, I enjoyed it.)

But back to our game. Those four runs exceeded the total production of the previous three games, but the bats weren’t done. They doubled that output in the sixth inning, and it only took four batters: Canó single, Vernon Wells pinch single, Zoilo Almonte walk, and a grand slam for Lyle Overbay.

But better than all that was Nova. He wasn’t just getting the Royals out, he was dominating them. He gave up a run in the eighth after walking Alcides Escobar with two outs and then giving up a double to Eric Hosmer, but that was it. Aside from those two mistakes, the last nine batters he faced went down like this: seven groundouts, a strikeout, and a fly out. He was great all night long.

Two years ago I wrote a piece in this space making several predictions about the future of the Yankees, and one of those was the development of Nova into the ace of this staff. I was recapping a game between the Yankees and the Reds that day, and after watching last night’s game with the Royals, I was immediately reminded of that night back in Cincinnati. Please note the similarities in Nova’s stat lines:

6/20/2011: 8.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K
7/10/2013: 8.0 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

Last night’s performance, of course, comes on the heels of what he did his last time out, that complete-game gem against the Orioles. Even more important than that, it stopped a Yankee losing streak and gave them a much-needed 8-1 win. We can only hope that the coin won’t remember any of this tomorrow afternoon, and that the Yanks will come up with another win.

[Photo Credit: Kathy Willens/AP Photo]

Six straight wins, now three straight losses.

Here’s hoping Ivan Nova can–well, hell, here’s hoping the Yanks score some runs.

1. Gardner CF
2. Suzuki RF
3. Cano 2B
4. Hafner DH
5. Almonte LF
6. Overbay 1B
7. Nunez SS
8. Cruz 3B
9. Stewart C

Never mind the heat:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Over at River Ave Blues, Mike Axisa rounds up the latest Yankee-trade gossip.

I went to the game last night with a longtime Banter reader. I’d never met him before but he was in town, had tickets, and was kind enough to invite me. We were joined by a childhood friend of his who was also in town.

We sat in the sky down the left field line. It was the kind of muggy that you just have to give yourself over to, which in some ways is what it’s like following this year’s Yankees. (Resistance is futile.) By the second inning, my pants were clinging to my legs and I was already dreaming of the shower I’d take when I got home.

The Yankees loaded the bases against James Shields in the first inning but only scored one run, the only one they’d score all night. They managed just two more hits so it was another one of those nights, an admirable loss for C.C. Sabathia who went the distance, gave up two solo homers and another run late as the Royals won it, 3-1.

My favorite part of the night came as an unspoken moment of recognition between fans. So we’re watching the game and talking and our we’re involved in our conversation when Luis Cruz, playing third base, took a step to his left and dove for a ground ball. He snagged it and our conversation was interrupted by all three of us spontaneously shouting, “Ooooooh!” We exchanged high-fives, our only such celebration of the night, and then went back to talking.

Those shared instincts were enough to make me feel close to two guys I’d just met.

The loss seemed inevitable but a surprising number of fans stayed at the game til the end. It was a weeknight, broiling hot, but I got the sense that people wanted to linger, they didn’t want to leave the ballpark yet.

When it was over we parted ways and I was pleased to have made two new pals. Outside, on the street, people cluttered together and you could here shouts of “Water, one dollar, one dollar, one dollar, water.”

I took a few pictures.

Across the street from the new Stadium is a ball field where the old stadium used to stand. There was a fast pitch softball game going on and fans stopped to watch.

The good news: C.C. The bad news: James Shields and the gluten-free Yankee offense.

1. Gardner CF
2. Suzuki RF
3. Cano 2B
4. Hafner DH
5. Almonte LF
6. Overbay 1B
7. Nunez SS
8. Cruz 3B
9. Stewart C

Never mind the carbs:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

“The Artist’s Studio in the Afternoon Fog” By Winslow Homer (1894)