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Who? Janice. What? New die hard, no scars. Evidence of Delusion? She looked like she was 12, but she was running a burger joint.

The Yanks have had a wonderful two weeks. Ten wins and three losses, under normal circumstances, might have spring boarded them into first place with a few games to spare. But these are not normal circumstances, and the Red Sox have only ceded a small part of their lead during the Yanks hot streak. Nevertheless, Boston fans get sense New York is for real.

Janice was the first person that was offended by my hat. “I’d wish you a nice day, but you wore a Yankee hat into my store,” she said without a trace of ribbing. I gave her a hard stare for a second to make sure I wasn’t misreading her anger. “If I had seen you order, I would have had them spit in it.”

This was the mother load of anti-Yankee sentiment. All rolled up in a cute little college student wearing a paper hat. She wasn’t even alive to see the ball roll through Buckner’s legs. The only would she’s ever taken was fully healed the following year.

With the standings tight and the Yanks coming to Fenway, I thought there would be a lot more of Janice. But most everyone here is just fantastic. Great baseball fans who don’t give a hoot about the Yanks anymore than any first place team should worry about the second place team.

Yankee Snark: “Good luck this weekend, Janice. And by the way, you burgers are lousy.”

Who? Jack. What? A Golden Retriever out for his morning walk. Evidence of Delusion? None, he’s a dog.

After walking past my boys playing in the yard and receiving a gentle pat on the back and big smiles, Jack sidestepped to the nearest tree and lifted his leg. He looked back over his shoulder to make sure we were watching.

His owner, trailing the scene, stopped next to me. “I think it was your hat.”

Yankee Snark: “Joke’s on Jack. The guy who owns that tree is a Sox fan.”

Who?

Evidence of delusion? On the heels of the 2003 ALCS (not to mention 86 years of futility) how better to celebrate reaching the promised land than with a t-shirt that doesn’t even mention your team?

Yankee snark? None, since Yankee fans sprinted to wallow in the mud of the lame t-shirt wars. “Got Rings?” is by far the lamest of all entries on either side. When the Red Sox win next, maybe as soon as this year, will “Got Rings?” wearers rush out to buy an updated version to keep track of Boston’s progress?

Who? Guy at the grocery store. What? First time caller, long time listener. Gist? Who brought the Yankee fan? Evidence of delusion? “We’ll be happy to take those rings from you.”

Yankee Snark? “They make new rings every year, and the Giants won last year, but otherwise, good luck.”

I’ve been involved in this type of conversation a lot, but usually it’s my father-in-law that instigates it as means to a friendly introduction. This time, the guy at the grocery store started things off and seemed genuinely a little bit hurt that a New Englander would marry outside the Red Sox family.

I felt a little sad for him, until I realized my in-laws were not disagreeing with him. Hey, I’m standing right here guys.

Overall? Mostly good-natured, slightly delusional, hugely confident. Not too bad, but let’s see what happens at the beach.

I’m a frequent traveler to New England, got in-laws stretching from Worcester, through Boston, up Cape Ann and into Maine. I lived in Boston one summer. And now I take long vacations there to visit family and friends.

I have never had a bad experience regarding my Yankee hat. Some light-hearted ribbing here or there. Most just ignore it completely. But there’s one caveat to this track record. Every time I’ve been up there for an extended period, the Yanks have been on top.

That summer I lived in Boston? 1998. I think they made it a Federal crime to pick on Yankee fans that year.

So I now I trek up for week’s vacation into the heart of Red Sox country wearing the lessor team’s hat. I wonder if they’ll treat me differently? I’ll let you know next week as I relay the choicest encounters leading up to the Yanks visit next weekend.

Could the Yanks figure out a way to take that series and get back in the Division race for reals? It would certainly make my return to New York all the sweeter.

A woman squeezed into the seat next to me this morning on downtown A train. It’s a tight space and tough to maintain personal borders, but we were both trying our best.

About a hundred blocks after she sat down, I finally glanced in her direction. She was reading the same book as me. Down to the same chapter. I smiled and thought to say something, but I had a Kindle and she was hauling the paperback, so I don’t think she could make the same connection.

An unanticipated loss for the urban eReaders out there.

I was never a brave child. I faked a groin injury at a roller-skating party because the other kids were stronger skaters than me. I refused an invitation to try out for an all-star team that would represent America in a Canadian tournament because I didn’t make the cut the year before and couldn’t face another rejection.

More than anything, I don’t want my sons to be paralyzed by that same kind of fear in their childhoods. But at the first sign of trouble, I want to run in there and pull them out of the fire.

Searching for something to occupy our oldest son during his first summer vacation from pre-school, my wife and I stumbled upon a day camp at a local yoga studio. It advertised a full week of art, music, dance, cooking, field trips and, of course, yoga, all appropriate for three-to-nine-year olds. Since our potential camper was three going on four, this seemed to be a viable option to kill off a week of inactivity.

When my wife dropped him off on the first day, he was shy, but also excited. He’s timid in new situations but always loosens up. As my wife looked around, she noticed that though the camp was appropriate for younger kids, only kids seven and older had signed up for this week.

Out of a dozen children, he was the youngest by several years. For some of you who were tough kids or who have tough kids or just don’t think about kids that much, this might not seem like a big deal. But imagine walking out of pre-school one day and walking into second or third grade the next. It has the potential to be scary.

“Im trying not to cry.” She texted me from the bus on her way to work.  “He’s too little, what have we done?”

Should I go get him? No, he’s not an egg, I reminded myself. The instructors will look out for him. He can make it through one day. But I was terrified that he would be terrified and I was angry with myself for screwing up something as simple as summer camp.

We could have researched the camp more. We could have made sure he was signed up with a buddy. We should have been better prepared than we were. I was afraid we looked liked neglectful parents. Sitting at my desk, I could feel I was blushing.

When I got home that night I braced for bad news, but he immediately began to show me some of the yoga positions he had learned that day. He especially loved the pose with his feet up on the wall and his hands down on the floor. And he showed me a pretty decent warrior pose as well.

I was so relieved. I thought everything was OK, that he must have enjoyed the experience. Maybe even he would be excited to go back?

My first clue that this was not the case came when I put him to bed that night. He said, “Today was my last day at camp.” I corrected him , “No, today was your first day at camp. You have four more days.” I put four fingers in the air. He was messing with me and he smiled as he said, “No, it was my last day.” He went to sleep.

The camp posted some pictures of their activities and my wife and I scrolled through the set. Our faces sagged together. All the pictures in the beginning were of the older kids. They were doing a complex art project. They were playing poker for crissakes. My son has never even seen a deck of cards. Even in the wide shots, there was no trace of him. We imagined him curled up in a corner by himself.

And then there he was playing with Lego. And then doing yoga. And then in the music circle. The other kids dwarfed him. He looked like their batboy. It was hard to tell if he was having fun, but he wasn’t visibly upset. We reassured ourselves that he was OK and that we should try another day. Our unspoken doubts hung there in the negative space of our agreement.

When I went to work in the morning, he seemed set to go back. But when he had to walk out the door, he was a mess. And it wasn’t the meltdown of the tired, or of the hungry, or of the bratty. I’ve experienced all of those. This was the last resort of the powerless. Please don’t make me do this.

Clinging to the door frame of the yoga studio, in between sobs, he said, “It’s too hard. I’m not good enough. I can’t do it.” I wish I was there for that moment to help him and I’m glad I wasn’t because I don’t know what I would have done. I might have let him off the hook. He’s too young to worry about all that stuff.

I also remembered the shame I still feel for all the times I shrank away from challenges like this. But whose fear am I accomodating, his or mine? There’s a line somewhere here but I can’t see it.

At the end of the second day, he had survived. There were more tears to come, but smiles too. The next morning was easier. The week passed and maybe he won’t even remember the particulars. But my wife and I will.

After that second day, before he went to sleep, he made it clear that he understood he was going back three more times. But he had also come to another conclusion:

“After camp is over, I’m never doing yoga again.”  Ah, well. Good thing it wasn’t baseball camp.

With one out in the seventh inning Brendan Ryan stepped up to the plate to face CC Sabathia. CC had dispatched the first 19 Mariners in order. When Ichiro buckled and flailed at a high slider before Ryan, that was the 12th Mariner to strike out. In the booth John Flaherty noticed that CC had missed a few spots in the Ichiro at-bat. He said it was the first time all night that Sabathia didn’t put the ball exactly where he wanted it.

The first pitch to Ryan was a fastball that spilled out of CC’s hand low and away. The second was a breaking ball, and like the one to Ichiro, it wasn’t tight and Ryan took it outside for ball two. CC came at the two-hole hitter with a decent challenge fastball, low, 94 MPH, and out over the plate. Ryan was sitting dead red, as he should be with a 2-0 count, and stroked it into center field for a clean single.

The groan could be heard across my neighborhood. CC Sabathia has lost a perfect game on a night he had perfect stuff.

CC applied the special secret sauce against the Mariners. Hardly fair, as just about any kind of sauce probably would have choked ’em. He may have been too unhittable to record the perfect game that seemed possible, even likely, as Mariner after Mariner drowned on his slider. CC struck out 14 in seven innings, with seven in a row at one stretch.

But maybe all those strikeouts take a toll on a pitcher? I know his pitch count was not in the danger zone when he let up the only hit of the night, but I wonder if he mixed in a few ground outs and pop outs he would have been able to close it out.

And oh yeah, it rained. The two rain delays surely threw off his rhythm, but maybe it also messed up the Mariners as well. I don’t want to complain, but it sure would be nice if this one had played out straight through and then let the hits fall where they may.

Let also not forget the opponent here. How much of CC’s performance was due the Mariners playing the worst baseball in the league for the last few weeks, we don’t know. But CC hasn’t had any trouble with anybody else lately, so I’m inclined to give most of the credit to the big man and his slider from hell.

CC’s two-plus years with the Yankees have been an absolute pleasure. The last time I wrote about him, I wondered if we’d seen a better three-year span since Guidry. We haven’t. Looking at their performance relative to the American League, in bWAR, CC has finished in the top 10 twice and is firmly entrenched a third time. Before him only a handful of Yankee greats managed that feat: Guidry, Ford twice, Reynolds, Ruffing twice, Gomez and Pennock. (Thanks to my brother Chris for crunching those numbers with me.) We know the big man is great, but it’s this constant, dependable greatness that distinguishes him.

After the hit, both of the teams realized they still had to play the rest of the game, and I think they were as disappointed as the rest of us. CC was gassed, and walked three in a row to start the eighth. With the Yankees only leading 3-0 at this point, the win was in some small peril. But the home plate umpire put his “two-rain-delay strike zone” in effect and helped David Robertson wiggle out of the jam with only one run scoring. Mariano had the benefit of the same zone in the the ninth, and that’s like widening the highway lanes for Jimmie Johnson. The Yankees won 4-1.

Fourteen strike outs for CC. Fifteen wins for the big guy. Sixteen games back in the AL West for Seattle. Seventeen losses in a row. Eighteen strike outs for the Yankees as a team. Nineteen straight Mariners sent down to start the game.

One lousy hit.

Photo by Danielle Kwateng

Where is the chatter about the approaching trade deadline? No discussions in the lunch room, no frantic refreshing at MLB Trade Rumors. The Yankees have one of the best teams in baseball and look like a great bet to make the Postseason without major roster modification, but that’s the case almost every year and there’s usually more buzz than this.

There is a lack of big names with expiring contracts for sale. The Red Sox and Yankees, usually two of the biggest dealers during this time, have better options in their farm systems than usual. The combination of top prospects and a shallow market might make these two clubs shy away from any blockbusters. Their relative security in the standings factors as well.

The Yankees hold a big lead in the Wild Card standings, but as currently constituted, are they a viable threat to the Red Sox in either the American League East or in a short series? Which target should Yankees aim at, the Red Sox or the Wild Card?

If the Yankees want to win the Wild Card, they shouldn’t do anything crazy. They have Rafael Soriano coming off the DL to enhance the bullpen and Jesús Montero and Iván Nova in the minors to bolster the lineup and rotation. It’s doubtful they could get much better than that on the trade market that would justify the expense in both dollars and players.

But is winning the Wild Card enough? The Yankees would probably have to win a road series in Texas (which they failed to do last year) to earn the right to face Boston in their park, for a best of seven ALCS (I’m giving Boston an easy win versus the AL Central champ. Prove me wrong, AL Central champ, prove me wrong.).

The Red Sox have trashed the Yanks thus far, but as 2009 showed, that early success can be irrelevant in October. And on paper, the Yanks and Red Sox don’t appear that far apart. The Yanks currently hold the better run differential and the better Pythagorean record. The Red Sox surge back ahead in both second and third order wins, though, so if you want to find the gap, you can.

Running the risk of oversimplifying a multi-faceted calculation, the quick-and-dirty in me sees two aces on Boston’s side and only one in New York. I also see Boston’s DH making a difference while New York’s sputters and fails. The Red Sox have the better top of the rotation, the better lineup, and the better bench. I don’t think the Yankees are winning a best-of-seven series against the Red Sox without the kind of good fortune that makes myths.

So what would it take to put that series in play? The Yankees want to pair another ace with CC Sabathia and they need to get something out of DH and/or catcher. For the Yankees to stand on even ground with Boston in October, they’d need to acquire the best hitter and pitcher available.

Right now, those seem to be Ubaldo Jiménez and Carlos Beltrán. To accommodate Beltrán, the Yankees could rotate men through the DH slot and demote Jorge Posada to back-up catcher and pinch hitter. Or they could cut him. And other than CC Sabathia, I think only Bartolo Colón has proven worthy for an October start, so plenty of room for Ubaldo.

Perhaps there are other big players hovering beneath the radar, but two major acquisitions would devastate Scranton, Trenton and probably Charleston as well. They’d certainly wave goodbye to their two best prospects, Montero and Manny Banuelos. And they’d probably lose Nova and a few like him who are ready for the Majors or close to it.

Even then, the Yanks would be underdogs in Fenway, where the Red Sox are their toughest. So the return for this huge expenditure is to move from severe underdogs to close underdogs. Is that enough to justify the cost?

I don’t think it does. If the top end talent in the Yankee system can help the Yankees in the very near future, they should hold onto them. The Yankees should know these kids better than anybody else and their job at the deadline is to not only make the team better for the upcoming Postseason, but to put them in the best shape possible for years to come.

What happens at this trade deadline will be a signal of the organization’s true feelings for their big prospects. If they are dumped for something less than stellar, we’ll have to conclude the Yankees didn’t believe in them. And if they hold onto them even though it concedes a clear edge to Boston from this point forward, that should mean they expect them to graduate to beating Boston as soon as next year.

The Seattle Mariners dragged their two-country, four-state, 3000-mile, 15-game losing streak into Yankee Stadium last night in desperate need of a rainout. The rain came and the forecast was not good for the rest of the night. Amateur meteorologists looked at the radar on the Internet and figured there was no chance to play. But the clouds passed and the game happened after all. The Mariners can’t even win a rainout.

Freddy “The Chief” García got first crack at the spiraling Seattle lineup, which at least scored some runs while getting swept in Boston. He let up a few hard hit balls and was beneficiary to a couple of bad calls, but for almost eight innings, he limited the Mariners to three runs. And two of the came when this game was in the books. He allowed eight hits, but only walked one and struck out five.

The longer Freddy García keeps this up, the more secure the Wild Card and the less the Yankees need to make a big trade to lock in October baseball. If they want to win in October, however, well, maybe that’s a different story.

In the Yankees’ first inning, Mark Teixeira smashed a homerun into the second deck in left. It landed hard and bounced back onto the field. I love it when that happens. Derek Jeter found that short, flat stretch of the right field wall that he used so well in 2009 and dunked one over for a solo shot in the third.

The game blew up in the fourth. The Mariners made two errors and the first base umpire blew a second call in favor of the home team to stack the blocks. Run-scoring hits by Nuñez, Gardner, and Teixeira knocked them down. The score stood at 8-1 after the fourth and if any members of the Mariners thought they were coming back, god bless ’em.

They went down on eight pitches in the fifth and the sixth and inbetween probably called hotel room service from the dugout to request extra-fluffy pillows for a well-deserved rest.

The Yankees tacked on and the Mariners played out the string. It was nice surprise to see Derek Jeter added a triple to the homer after I went to sleep. The Yanks won 10-3, and it wasn’t that close.

***

I can’t think of the Mariners without thinking of Dave Cameron and USS Mariner. We send our best wishes and support to him as he starts his battle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. My wife is a pediatric oncology RN and she’s running the marathon to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. There are numerous other ways to contribute to their research and treatment of these diseases, so if you’re thinking of making a charitable contribution any time soon, this is a great place to do it.

The other day, I hopped on a 1 Train for one stop. I wanted to slide next to the door to make a quick exit because I was running late, but a guy was blocking my path. He was more than a head taller than me and twice as wide. He had a gut, but he wasn’t fat so much as extra-large. I thought of Andre the Giant. If aliens find our skeletons next to each other in a million years, they’ll probably classify us as different species.

I turned towards the other door and standing right behind me was a shaggy college kid with dark facial hair leaning on a fencing sword. He was standing stone straight, both hands folded over the hilt and the point of his epee wedged between his toes in his sandal.

I noticed a lot of eyes drifting between the sword, the kid and the giant. Were we all thinking the same thing?

I got off at my stop, but I kind of wanted to linger and see if a man in black was going to board…

James Shields must have liked what he saw when handed the Yankee lineup card this evening. No Arod. No Granderson. Two guys with slugging percentages over .416. A couple of tough outs for sure, but after spending his whole career in the AL East, this had to be the weakest Yankee lineup he ever faced. He had come up a loser in the last game before the All-Star break falling one to nothing in an exquisite pitcher’s duel with CC Sabathia. Tonight he turned the tables and hung the tough loss on Sabathia 2-1.

CC had to keep a clean sheet or close to it to give the weakened Yankees a chance, but Evan Longoria hammered a hanger into the left field seats in the bottom of the first. It was a slow breaking ball high in the hitting zone and might well have been screaming “hit me” as it tumbled into Longoria swing arc. I don’t know, I can’t hear my TV over the AC.

CC made a go of it over at Grover Cleveland, keeping the game in reach. But with two outs and nobody on in the fifth, he got sloppy and walked the eighth hitter Elliot Johnson. The walk looked harmless enough, but with two strikes on the ninth hitter, he tried to put him down with a slider low and away. It stayed up and in the middle and Sam Fuld smoked it into the right-field corner for a run-scoring triple.

Two bad breaking balls, two runs on the board.

The score seemed to go from 1-0 to 20-0 with that run as the Yankees couldn’t even get a man to second base from the second through the seventh. Shields put some guys on base, but squashed any hopes with his off speed stuff. A well-disguised change-up was my number one fear as a hitter, and, anecdotally anyway, the pitch I feel that gives the Yanks the most problems.

In the eighth, Derek Jeter and Robinson Canó rapped doubles to pull one of the runs back. All of a sudden those two little runs CC allowed didn’t seem so formidable. Canó’s double chased Shields and Swisher got to face Brandon Gomes with the game on the line.

One of my best coaches advised me to be ready to hit the first pitch from any relief pitcher because he’s expecting you to take and might groove a heater. That must be especially true with a patient hitter like Nick Swisher. But Gomes out-guessed the guesser and threw an 82 MPH change-up on the first pitch. Swisher thought he was all over it, but after contact he knew he was out in front. Nurtz.

Kyle Farnsworth struck out three in the ninth, though I didn’t give up hope until Granderson was retired (he pinch hit in the seventh). I thought he could handle Farnsworth’s heat, but he just fouled it back. Professor Farns eventually got him to chase a slider in the dirt.

CC Sabathia was the loser, throwing a complete game and striking out eight. He was a notch below his recent ridiculousness walking three unintentionally, but good enough to win on most nights. Hate to lose with him on the mound, but with this powerless lineup, he needed to better than he was.

The Yankees are now two full games back of Boston in the AL East and would be wise to fatten up on the upcoming home stand versus Oakland, Seattle and Baltimore. It would be nice to make up a game or two, though with the way the Sox have been going, they might have to win all ten to make up any ground.

Congratulations to Hideki Matsui on his 500th career professional home run.

Ichiro combined for well over 3000 hits in both leagues. And now Matsui has done the same with 500 homers.

It seems clear now that Ichiro, because his batting average, speed and defense did not diminish when he came over to America will be the more revered player by historians and fans in both countries. Though for a large part of their careers, the opposite was true.

[Photo from the Merced Sun Star]

Freddy Garcia had seven innings of shut out ball in his arm tonight, but in his last inning of work, a foul bunt nicked a pebble and grazed the outside of the bag to become a base hit. Later in the inning, Eduardo Nunez booted a tough-ish chance. So with two out and two on in the seventh, Girardi called on lefty Boone Logan to face Casey “The Eagle” Kotchman, who was three for three against Garcia and represented the go-ahead run. (In the game thread Alex Belth wondered when he turned into George Brett.)

Logan ran into terrible luck last night when Curtis Granderson lost the ball in roof. Then he knifed himself by rushing an easy double play into an error. I was worried he’d still be reeling. Logan started out ahead, but Kotchman refused to bite on an excellent 2-2 pitch and the count ran full. Logan dug deep and fired. The Eagle hacked away, but Logan blew it past him for strike three. He was pumped and so was I watching at home.

Great call by Girardi to get Logan back out there, that type of confidence-building outing can go a long way in the hot summer. That was the most important out of the game and the Rays last real chance at a comeback.

The game started off with a bang as Derek Jeter met his new business partner David Price. As Jeter singled, I wondered if maybe Price should have stuck one in his ribs instead. It would be smart business, they don’t want to appear too chummy. Granderson, batting second as usual, jumped on a low fastball and yanked it deep into the right field seats. I love when the Yanks score runs before making any outs.

Later in the first, Russell Martin made a bid for a two-run homer of his own, but it was caught just a few feet short of the centerfield wall. With Price on the mound, I had a feeling that might be it for scoring chances for awhile.

Freddy Garcia was good, but he courted danger fairly often. It was thickest in the fifth when Evan Longoria hit what I feared was a two-out, three-run homer to center. But Granderson tracked it down at breakneck speed and speared it just before crashing into the wall. Nice play.

David Robertson picked up for Logan in the eighth and retired the Rays in order with two whiffs, just as he did on Monday night. The Rays might actually be relieved to see Mariano enter the game just so they can wave goodbye to Robertson. We haven’t seen that since Joba in 2007, and really no other time that I can remember.

The Yankees tacked on two runs on two walks and a two-out bloop clutch knock by Eduardo Nunez. That made Mariano’s appearance pleasure without anxiety. Mariano had an excellent year in 2010. He had an excellent first half in 2011. But damn, if he doesn’t look dialed in for these last few outings. Watching him and Robertson lately, you understand how a manager develops crutches in the bullpen.

The final score was 4-0, and the bullpen was sublime, striking out five of the seven batters they faced and retiring them all in order.

A pessimist bails at the first sign of trouble. When three-fifths of the rotation started the second half with clunkers, I was worried their luck had run out. It didn’t help that it was the three guys we had the most questions about. But as is often the case, the actual results don’t fit the clean trajectory we trace for them. Freddy Garcia followed Bartolo Colon with a good start reminding us that their first-half effectiveness probably won’t evaporate instantaneously.

(Note: this story was edited on 7/20)

Derek Jeter got his 3000th hit recently, had you heard? Not only did he notch his safety, he owned the game in which he reached the cherished milestone. I thought that was as remarkable as the career achievement – with so much promised, he still managed to over-deliver on the contract.

The fans didn’t have to wait around for it. He needed two hits and and got them his first two trips to the plate. It was homer to boot. And then he stuck around, got three more hits and won a dramatic game versus a division rival with a tie-breaking hit in the bottom of the eighth. He turned his 3000th hit into an unforgettable event. That’s Jeter’s gift; that’s his style.

I had to wonder if any other member of the 3000 hit club ever rose to the occasion in such a fashion. I remember Pete Rose pursuing 4000 and Ty Cobb’s record. And at that time Rod Carew was piling up hits and sealing his place in rap lyrics. But honestly, how they got there was lost to me.

I wonder if that is an unconscious reason behind the rampant Jeter bashing surrounding the hit and All-Star pass? His performance and Yankee fans’ constant retelling of his performance will make his 3000th hit indelible. But other Hall of Famers are not so lucky. Is it because they didn’t do it with as much style as Derek? Or is it another example of the New York Yankees and their fans blocking out the sun?

Turns out, I think, to be both. I checked out each milestone hit from Pete Rose’s 4000th all the way through Derek Jeter’s 3000th to see what I missed, what I should have seen, along the way. Look, there’s no way around it, Jeter’s milestone game was the best. The homer and the five hits would have given him a solid argument, the game winning RBI in the eighth ends the discussion.

But I had no idea how many other great Hall of Famers just dominated their games like Jeter did. As recently as 2007, Craig Biggio also had five hits on his big day. I confess, until a few mentions in the media after Jeter’s five hits, I had no idea that happened.

Tony Gwynn and Geroge Brett had four hits a piece. Wade Boggs had three hits and was the first to celebrate 3000 with a home run trot (that I remembered). Paul Molitor, who also had three hits, is the only guy to do it with a triple.

I was paying attention as 15 players passed huge hit totals, and ten of them did it with multi-hit games. Seven had three or more. Their cumulative average in these 15 games is .594. It’s too small a sample from which to draw a conclusion, but it does make you wonder if elite players, pumped up for this kind of moment, might benifit from the extra adrenaline or something.

As bad as it was to take shots at Jeter as he approached 3000 (of these 15 players, eight had OPS+ below 100 during their chase and only two or three of them could be considered to have had “good” seasons), it is equally terrible to celebrate his triumph as if it has never been done before.

It’s like the Red Sox fans celebrating the 2004 World Series as if it was the first title ever won by anybody in the history of anything. When you lose context, you piss off everyone but your core constituents. And as much as Derek Jeter deserves to celebrate, the celebration is about putting his name directly underneath and alongside Carl Yastrzemski, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron and all the other all-time greats in this club.

He didn’t jump to the top of the list just because he went five for five.

That was his gift to Yankee fans.

***

When I revisited this story in my head last night I realized a mistake. It’s not Boston’s fans or Jeter’s fans who are to blame for over-reacting to the 2004 World Series or to the 3000th hit. They’re not the ones who are required to interject perspective during their uninhibited expressions of joy. It’s the national media who are responsible. But instead of playing that role and providing context for the rest of the sporting world, now they pander to the local fan base to make a buck.

And of course, being a good winner about such things and not rubbing it in goes a very long way to dispelling the blowback. So that’s where the fans come in, and as we all knows fans of all stripes, every faction has their guilty parties.

AJ Burnett was one of four Yankee pitchers who exceeded expectations in the first half. I covered many of his starts and found most of them to be well pitched, even though they were almost all losses. He sped out of the second half gate and straight into the gutter with Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia tonight prompting every Yankee fan to look up Ubaldo Jimenez’s velocity charts on Fangraphs. Even though they already scoffed at the asking price yesterday. For the record, while it would be a lot to trade Montero, Nova, Banuelos and Betances for Ubaldo, I admire the heck out the Rockies for having the restraint to not ask for Lou Gehrig’s bones in the deal.

Whether or not the Yankees pull off a trade this summer, and whether or not they get a nice surprise from one of the young arms in the minors, I think we’ve just seen the beginning of winter. If you’re a fan of A Game of Thrones, you’ll know the Stark family is fond of reminding everybody that “winter is coming.” In terms of the Yankees, I’m not at all saying their season is over or that they can’t rally past Boston for some kind of title this year, just that winter is coming as sure as the calendar says so and when it gets here, CC Sabathia is going to rule the Seven Kingdoms and beyond.

I have followed the Yankees for so long and in all that time, they’ve never had a guy as good, as healthy and as consistent as CC Sabathia. Has any Yankee had three years in a row this good since Guidry from 1977-1979? Moose had three good years to start his tenure in New York, but I don’t think his best was as good as CC’s best. In two and half years he has made himself utterly indispensable. I can’t imagine the Yankees going forward without him. Luckily, I can’t imagine the Yankees letting him go either. But with every stinker from AJ and the rest, CC’s payday grows.

Tonight AJ revealed the stink with a quickness. After being staked to an early run, he allowed the first four men to reach. It looked like he would escape with only two runs when he caught a two-out chopper behind the mound, but instead of taking a half-step to set himself for an easy toss, he hurried a “throw” past Teixeira while wheeling and whirling. A third run scored. A T-Rex could have made a better throw, and I’m talking about the fossils on Central Park West.

The score was 4-1 when the Yankees rallied off Tampa starter Alex Cobb in the fifth. Teixeira singled to cash in Gardner’s lead off walk and Robbie Cano looked dangerous representing the go-ahead run. Then the power went out at that crappy stadium and ruined the at-bat. When he finally got back in the box fifteen minutes later, the rookie regrouped from his only real jam of the night and retired Cano to end the threat.

Just at that time, Baltimore took a lead on Boston for thirty seconds, hell froze half-over and dogs and cats considered mutual respect before the natural order sped to reassert itself. Boston tied the game before Baltimore could record an out.

Burnett continued to be hot garbage into the sixth. He ended up allowing eight hits and six walks and looked every bit as bad as that line suggests. But thanks to a bail-out from Hector Noesi, the score was somehow stuck at 4-2 when he hit the shower. Shower as long as you want AJ, some odors are stubborn. (Apparently he got into it with a fan behind the dugout. I think the fan was mad that AJ didn’t invite him out to run the bases; everybody else in the stadium had had a chance.)

The Yankees brought the go-ahead run to the plate again in the seventh, but Mark Teixeira struck out looking on a close pitch. The replay showed the pitch clearly outside, but with the game on the line, if you leave it up to the umpire on a close pitch, you have to live with some bad calls.

Around this time, dogs and cats rekindled their age-old feud in earnest and the Red Sox blew the game open in Baltimore. Pedroia has raised his slugging percentage 100 points in about 15 games and somewhere along the way lapped Cano in bWAR (4.9 to 2.7).

The Yankees rallied again in the eighth, this time they meant it. Brett Gardner singled off Kyle Farnsworth to make it 4-3, but there was no chance to score Russell Martin from second. The bases were still loaded for Eduardo Nunez and he went up hacking under the pressure. It looked like a bad idea as he grounded a potential double play ball to short. But there was Brett Gardner, all over the second baseman with wonderfully tough slide to destroy the pivot. The game was tied. Derek Jeter swung at balls four and five and whiffed to end the inning, but it was sweet to get to Farnsworth for the first time this year.

While the Yankees assaulted the lead, the bullpen held the line admirably. David Robertson backed up Hector Noesi and both were excellent. Robertson especially so, as he set down the top of the Tampa order in the blink of an eye. The Rays sent out Alexander Torres to make his Major League debut. He was called up because they used nine pitchers the night before in the 16-inning loss to the Red Sox.

The rookie allowed a lead off single to Granderson, but recorded the next two outs. With Granderson on third, Joe Maddon had Torres walk Swisher. I noticed the intentional balls were fluttering to home plate – he was not comfortable. The last one bounced. David Cone and Ken Singleton were all over it as well and they wondered if the nerves might be getting to Torres. Whatever the reason, he ended up walking the next two men as well, and forced in the go-ahead run. Give credit to Jones and Martin for beautiful at-bats, but I can’t support a manager asking a guy making his Major League debut to intentionally put a base runner on in the ninth inning of a tie game. Brett Gardner did his best to draw another walk, but Torres finally found the zone and escaped the jam without further damage.

Mariano Rivera came in to face the heart of the Rays order in the ninth. And, well, you know how that story goes. It was over before I had a chance to get nervous. I was amused and offended by BJ Upton’s angry reaction to getting punched out. The pitch was placed so perfectly, broke so late and so hard, that he just should have been proud to be part of that moment. Like being photgraphed by Richard Avedon or something.

The teams combined for 16 walks and 17 hits, so it was quite a slog, and maybe it wasn’t a good game, but it was a great win for the Yanks, 5-4. And hey, if you consider the Rays’ bullpen was shot from the night before, the Yanks owe this victory to the Red Sox.

Phil Hughes was not great Sunday. There were liners that found gaps, but more that found gloves. He did not dominate. But he was good. And we haven’t seen good since last October in the first round clincher versus Minnesota. So welcome back, Phil, please stick around for the rest of the season.

Brett Gardner led off the game with a hit while Derek Jeter got the day off. I think Jeter has looked fine since he came off the DL, but watching Gardner perform so well up there sure was easy on the eyes. I have friends who are offended that Jeter is still leading off. I’m not at that point, but the Yankee machine might run a little better by flipping the two. At least against righties. Gardner was on base four times and even his out was ripped to short.

Behind Gardner and his three hits, the Yankees rapped out eight more and built four rallies. Each time they rallied, they scored. Whether it was Russell Martin, Robbie Cano, Curtis Granderson or Nick Swisher, there was a key hit or sacrifice fly at the right time to keep the scoreboard flashing. They never broke the game open, but they kept pushing the lead until it was safe.

And with Phil Hughes on the mound, there was really no way to be sure exactly how big the lead needed to be. But Hughes was right and seven runs were more than enough as the Yanks won 7-2. He looked like a big leaguer again. The pitches weren’t blowing people away, but they didn’t look like they were on a tee either. And I was especially encouraged by the break on his curve ball. A baby-step, sure, but aren’t a baby’s steps the hardest to come by?

Two games ago I wrote about the gloomy dome. But when the roof is open on a sunny day after an easy Yankee win, it’s not so bad.

Now head over to the women’s World Cup final. The USA squandered several first half chances and Japan will punish them on the counter attack eventually. The US deserves a goal, and if they score first, they should win.

The best argument for me against an unbalanced schedule is 19 games versus the Blue Jays. I find the dome gloomy and ugly. The team bores the heck out of me, and they beat the Yankees too often for my tastes. At least they have Jose Bautista and his improbable career arc is fun to watch and to try to make sense of. Except he’s injured. So when the Yanks lost to the Jays tonight 7-1, there were no redeeming features whatsoever.

The really bad news is that to start the second half, the Blue Jays have roughed up two of the bright spots of the first half. And since we have had our doubts about both of those guys, let’s hope this isn’t the beginning of a turbulent course correction.

Freddy Garcia appeared to have good stuff. The fork ball was tumbling out of his hand and his off-speed stuff looked to have good downward action. Lots of swings and misses. Watching the Jays break the tie in the fourth on two beautiful doubles by Snider and Encarnacion, it would be hard to pin the runs on the pitcher. He made his pitch, got the location, speed and break he wanted, but both hitters managed to sweep the barrels of the bats down and out of the zone and right into the pitches’ paths.

Crack, crack. That was all the Jays needed, though Garcia surrendered four more runs. The Jays plated three in the fifth on one hit as Garcia backed up a lead-off double with three walks. If the Yankees had not emptied the bullpen in the previous game, would Girardi have made a move there? I think he would have. The Yankees weren’t hitting thanks to a good outing from flame thrower Brandon Morrow, but at 3-1 or 4-1, they had the puncher’s chance. Whatever – the punch never came.

Thursday’s loss wasn’t hard to take because those freakish early runs were so strange. It was clearly an “inning from Hell” and the bats showed up and scored seven runs, and even made it interesting for half an inning. Tonight was just a drubbing in every aspect. The Blue Jays were chewing sweeter gum and sucking on saltier sunflower seeds. Their water was wetter.

In the bottom of the seventh Russell Martin took a foul ball off the face mask really hard. Yankee fans tuning in for these last two games thought, “Right there with you Russell.”

CC Sabathia and Phil Hughes for a series spilt? Stranger things have happened, but I won’t be able to visualize Hughes having a good game until he has one.

Photo by John Frisch

The first half of the Yankee season has been overshadowed by Derek Jeter and his boatload of hits. Rightly so. As much fun as it is to watch the Yanks play well and win 60% of their games, that happens almost every year. Celebrating 3000 is not only appropriate, it’s necessary. For me, anyway. It helps realign my fandom to the primal things that sustain the relationship.

However, apart from Jeter’s heroic game on Saturday, he’s had little to do with the wins and losses thus far. For that, we have to thank a host of usual contributors including CC Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira. But their production was banked on from the day Texas ended their 2010 season. The door to such lofty success hinged on Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon and Ivan Nova.

And therefore, the first half hinged on Brian Cashman. The moment the Cliff Lee trade  fell through last July, I openly fretted about the 2011 starting rotation. But the rotation did not implode; it thrived. I don’t think Cashman expected anywhere near this level of performance, but he was smart enough to know that there was little difference between what these guys could do and what was available for big money after Cliff Lee chose Philadelphia. I’d still love to have Dan Haren in the rotation, but he now represents a pleasant upgrade rather than a savior.

And though he gets little attention in the press and is often the first to go when things turn sour, I think the pitching coach must have something to do with a success on this scale. Whether it’s creating a comfortable environment where pitchers can harness confidence and learn from mistakes or isolating successful pitches and honing them into weapons, I bet Larry Rothschild has been an asset.

But since their work is mostly behind the scenes, let’s focus on the guys holding the the ball.

Colon’s restructured arm and waves of flesh propel a lively fastball with impeccable accuracy. He’s got the best strikeout-to-walk ratio on the team outside of Mariano Rivera. And when he’s on, he can churn through innings like platters of ribs. Just give him a bib and don’t put your hands near his mouth.

It defies all expectations considering where he was before this season. And looking at him just makes it harder to believe. But watching him throw, all doubt is squashed by the harsh reality of the four-seamer and the horizontal shenanigans of the two-seamer.

Freddy Garcia has a different story. Cashman also found him on the scrap heap, but he doesn’t have the new arm, the big belly, nor the gaudy stats. He’s just kept the ball in the park and the runs off the board. His fastball might make him a number two starter on a high-school team with aspirations, but his change-up and breaking stuff float in at those tricky hitting speeds. Like Mike Mussina in his final year.

While Colon throws his heaters over 80% of the time, Garcia only shows his every fourth pitch or so. The other three are dipping, darting and diving as they inch towards the plate. Perhaps Rothschild deserves credit for refining their pitch selection, but these guys are veterans and I’m sure they can feel what’s working for them.

There are serious doubts about both of these guys as we look ahead. Colon has already had a trip to the DL and doesn’t look like he’s skipping any second breakfasts. Despite Garcia’s trickery, he’s not striking out enough guys to keep that ERA looking so spiffy. But they’ve earned a very long leash in the second half. And should either of them falter badly, well there’s a good young arm in AAA named Ivan Nova.

Ivan Nova looked excellent almost every time he pitched in 2010. But he also looked awful almost every time he pitched in 2010. The second time through the order, he could no longer get anybody out. The first few games of 2011 held the same pattern. But Cashman, Girardi and Rothschild were very patient. Where a pessimist would see disaster waiting to happen, they believed in his stuff and start by start, the results improved.

He resembles Chien-Ming Wang to me, and they have their sinkers and their ERAs in common. There are differences between the two, but like Van Gogh and Gauguin, their work shares the same foundation. They paint with hard sinkers, sometimes touching the mid-90s, grazing bat-barrel-bottoms and inducing grounders. Nova throws a curve often enough to be the stand out difference between the two. He strikes out and walks one more hitter per nine than Wang did, and considering the amount of balls in play, that extra base-runner is probably not a tradeoff that benefits Nova.

Chien-Ming Wang was the Yankee ace for two playoff years. I’m comparing him to the sixth starter on the current squad.

The Yankees are 27-16 in the 43 games started by these three pitchers. That edge has them neck and neck with an excellent Boston squad and securely ahead of the game Rays. And if you tried to tell me this might happen in the winter on an adjacent barstool, I would have laughed in your face or cried in my beer.

Pitch FX data from FanGraphs

Living at the end of the line alters your relationship with the subway. You rely on it’s presence and emptiness in ways that would not be appropriate in the middle of the city. There is also a level of accumulated filth at the end of the line that probably does not apply there either.

On weekday mornings, after the train empties out, somebody takes to the train with a mop and bucket and slathers chlorine on the floors. The odor is stiff and intense and often, but not always, worse than the filth. At rush hour, the trains are moving in and out too quickly for all of the cars to receive this treatment. So you can weave through the waiting train searching for a car that doesn’t overwhelm you one way or the other.