The Yankees lost 1-0 to the Indians, and I’m blaming Derek Jeter.

After loading the bases in the first inning with nobody out, the Yankees failed to score. Cashing in those runs would have really put the reeling Indians on the ropes and likely led to victory. Why didn’t they score? Alex Rodriguez hit a medium length fly ball, but Derek Jeter hesitated and did not run. I can’t figure out why he didn’t score, and I’m kind of obsessed to find out why. And since they lost 1-0, and this was their best chance to score, what the hell, let’s figure it out.

Alex skied the ball to center, so Derek had plenty of time to find the ball, find Brantley, the center fielder, and get back to the bag to tag up. Replays show his foot on the bag in plenty of time to run. He broke hard for a few steps and pulled up, so his intention was to bluff and draw a throw. A terrible play for sure, but why? Brantley never had any intention of throwing home; he was going to let Jeter score and throw to third base. He was as surprised as I was when Derek pulled up short. Derek would have scored standing up.

Did he think Brantley had an amazing arm? Brantley certainly didn’t think Brantley had an amazing arm, since he wasn’t even going to throw the ball. Perhaps a bad scouting report? Probably not, since this is the fourth game of this series and they’ve seen the guy throw. Did he think the ball wasn’t deep enough? The ball was in the air forever. Its path was clear, and it was obviously deep enough. This wasn’t a tough read. Was he injured? He did leave later in the game with a calf injury, but if he was injured, I doubt he would have bluffed as he did. Was he being uber-conservative because there were no outs and Cano was on deck? That sounds a little more likely, but stupid nonetheless. You take the sure run every time.

Or maybe he’s an old player, easing his way into the early part of the game, not yet fully engaged and not ready to wrap his arms around the play as used to be his custom? Maybe he wasn’t ready to sprint. Maybe he hadn’t checked the outfielder’s depth. Maybe he wasn’t mentally prepared to make all the quick calculations that he needs to make to execute the seemingly simple play.

I still don’t know why he didn’t run. But I do know this: if winning is all you give a shit about, and scoring a run is on your mind the moment you get on base, there’s no way you don’t score there. There’s no way rookie Derek Jeter doesn’t score there. There’s no way 2009 Derek Jeter doesn’t score there. In 2011 though, he didn’t score and they didn’t win. He did share a laugh with the third base coach after he failed to score. I’d rip Cano for the same thing, so I formally announce a ripping here for Jeter. The baseball gods agree; they struck him down with that calf injury later.

Ah hell, OK, I made too much of that one stupid play, but it’s another agonizing game and this ended up being the deciding inning. I’m at a loss with this team and their inability to take what’s given to them. And to see it from Jeter is just so surprising. I thought his skills were gone, but that his mind was still there, still attacking the game the same way, but it’s probably not.

Losing like this just sucks the air out of the room.

If you want, we can do a similar breakdown of Brett Gardner’s bunt-out in the seventh. … On second thought, let’s just forget about that one.

A.J. Burnett was great in the loss. I’ve had AJ in two 1-0 losses and a 2-0 loss, and in a whole bunch of other losses too. I wouldn’t mind a Nova game. Or even an A.J. win. Teixeira hit it to the warning track in the eighth, but it never looked like a homer to me. It was a long out all the way. And then I think Bob Feller crawled out of his grave and struck out the side in the ninth.

***

Derek Jeter might miss some time. He already had no chance to get his 3000th hit on this homestand. If he sits out at least six of the next nine games, he will get it on the next homestand. So those of you who are trying to see it live in Yankee Stadium, there is some hope. I think if he plays straight through, he’ll get it next Monday in Cincinnati. And if he takes a week off, he’ll get it Wednesday June 29th at home versus Milwaukee.

Picture By The Daily News

Yanks look to keep putting on the hits tonight as they go for the sweep.

1. Jeter SS
2. Granderson CF
3. Teixeira 1B
4. Rodriguez 3B
5. Cano 2B
6. Swisher RF
7. Posada DH
8. Martin C
9. Gardner LF

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

[Picture by Joel Zimmer]

The book is “New York City at Night,” by Evan Joseph.

Peep, don’t sleep.

The Evening Sun Also Rises

By John Schulian

I’m always surprised and more than a little disappointed in myself when I tote up how many people helped me along the way and how easily I’ve forgotten some of them. The one I’m thinking of at the moment is Bill Tanton, who opened the door for me at the Baltimore Evening Sun. He was the sports editor there when I was using Army time to write letters in my campaign for a job at every paper that caught my fancy–the L.A. Times because of Jim Murray, the pre-Murdoch New York Post because of Larry Merchant and Vic Ziegel, the Washington Daily News because of Jack Mann. Tanton’s response was like most of the others in that he said he didn’t have any openings, but he didn’t let it go at that. He passed my letter and clips on to the Evening Sun’s city editor because he thought I had the makings of a good feature writer. It turned out that Tanton recruited a lot of the first-rate talent that passed through the paper –Tom Callahan, Mike Janofsky, Phil Hersh, Dan Shaugnessy–but I wouldn’t realize I was part of the parade until after I had rejoined the civilian world in August 1970 and chosen between job offers at the Evening Sun and the Miami Herald, which, by the way, didn’t want me as a sports writer, either.

Unfailingly, every editor I met yearned to save me from life in what serious newspaper people considered the toy department. It was, I suppose, the curse of being a relatively bright young man. They talked about transforming me into a cityside reporter who might one day cover the state house or the White House or even become a foreign correspondent. I could tell I was going to have to get to sports by my own devices. The important thing at the time, however, was to work, to get some experience, and to develop as a writer. I’m sure I could have done that in Miami — working there certainly hasn’t hurt Carl Hiassen. But what I remember best about my visit was sitting in an editor’s office and looking out at Biscayne Bay sparkling in the sunshine. I worried that if I said yes to the Herald I’d always feel like I was on vacation.

I didn’t have that problem when I visited Baltimore. The city looked the way I imagine Dresden must have after World War II-–burned-out, desiccated, hopeless. On the ride in from the airport, I saw a sign for Shilinksi’s Lithuanian sausage and, a short distance away, the landmark Bromo-Seltzer Tower. For me, a great first impression. The clincher, though was my interview with the city editor, a live wire named Ernie Imhoff who called everybody “babe.” We had a cup of coffee in the Sunpapers’ cafeteria, a setting about as joyless as Death Row, and then we went back upstairs to the city room, where I was treated to a view of the city jail. All this and the Evening Sun had to play second fiddle to the Morning Sun, which had overseas bureaus and a Washington bureau and, obviously, a far bigger budget than the A.S. Abell Company’s p.m. stepchild. Hell, the Evening Sun had yet to assign a single reporter to cover Washington, which was all of 30 minutes away by car. And it didn’t have enough money to send reporters around the block, much less around the globe. But it had been H.L. Mencken’s paper, and it put a premium on tough reporting and lively writing. Add all that to the view of the city jail and there was no way I could say no to Baltimore.

I knew I’d made the right choice when my first assignment was to go to what is called the Block to find out what the strippers and lowlifes there were doing to get ready for the World Series between the Orioles and the Cincinnati Reds. The Block was a stretch of East Baltimore Street downtown devoted to strip joints, dirty-book stores, the city’s only tattoo parlor, and Polock Johnny’s Polish sausage emporium, all in the shadow of police headquarters. The strippers, especially one who called herself Fanta Blu, turned out to be raunchy and wonderful, particularly when talking about big-name baseball and football players who occasionally stopped by. I could only quote them up to a point–the Evening Sun was a family newspaper, after all-–but the story I wrote still got me the right kind of attention.

Just the same, I spent my first year in Baltimore covering suburban Harford County. I shared an office with the Morning Sun’s reporter, Edna Goldberg, a middle-aged dynamo who doted on her two sons, had a husband named Sol, invited me to dinner with her family, taught me Yiddish curse words, and was as competitive as anybody I ever bumped heads with in the newspaper business. My salvation was that she loved doing stories about budgets and zoning, subjects I would write about only under threat of death. Mostly I wrote features and slipped back into the city to see if there was something there I might do. The one good political story I wrote was about Joseph Tydings, a liberal Democrat from Harford County who was driven out of the U.S. Senate by the pro-gun crowd. Years later, in Hollywood, when I was the head writer on “Hercules,” we hired Tydings’ daughter Alexandra as a guest star. She played Aphrodite as if the goddess of love were a surfer girl, and she was dynamite. Small world.

Once I moved onto the city desk full-time, I was in high clover. Baltimore embraced weirdness and lionized eccentrics, and the Evening Sun basically let me run amok. I wrote features about pool hustlers and singing newsboys; vice cops on the Block and a saloonkeeper who put up a billboard supporting Nixon and Agnew; Edith Massey (the egg lady from “Pink Flamingoes”) and a vastly overweight Depression-era bicycle racer who watched me make the most of his neighborhood bar’s 10-cent beers and get hammered on the job for the first and only time in my career. One day I waltzed off to write about the Block’s last surviving tattoo artist and came back with a story about a hooker named Rosie who was just out of jail and wanted a rose tattoo. Our education reporter, a sweet little lady named Sue Miller, accused me of making the whole thing up. But the beauty of Baltimore was that you didn’t need to write fiction. The truth had it beat every which way.

And yet no matter how woolly the people I wrote about were, I was still who I was, and there was no getting away from it. I remember one of the pool hustlers I was always pestering for stories looking at me one day and saying, “John, you’re the straightest guy we ever met.”

Click here for the complete “From Ali to Xena” archives.

Our thoughts are with The Big Fella.

I talked to Bill Lee a few weeks ago for an article I’m working on and before I got off the phone we got around to the Yankees. I mentioned Graig Nettles. Lee still hates him.

“I carry his baseball card in my wallet so he’s pressed up against my right ass cheek forever,” he said. “He’s like the last dog in sled. The smell and the view haven’t improved as time goes on.”

I don’t know from hockey but I thoroughly enjoyed this recent bonus piece by Leigh Montville on the Boston Bruins:

The standing ovation was a return to the past. No, not the standing ovation at TD Garden last Friday night, the 10-minute communal fret-celebration at the end of that 1–0, stomach-churning win over the Lightning in the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals that sent the Bruins into their best-of-seven transcontinental arm wrestle with the Canucks for the Stanley Cup. No, that was frenzied normality, a universal sports staple, excited people in an exciting moment.

The standing ovation the next afternoon at Pizzeria Regina in the North End was different. That was the way life once was in Boston hockey.

“Milan Lucic came in….” Richie Zapata, manager of the restaurant, reported.

Yes, Milan Lucic. Bruins winger. Still only 22 years old. Fourth year with the team. Six-feet-three, 228 pounds. A fan favorite since he arrived as a 19-year-old, straight from the Vancouver Giants, his junior team. Banger, scrapper, thumper. Yes.

“Johnny Boychuk was with him….”

Yes. Johnny Boychuk. Defenseman. Twenty-seven. Six-feet-two, 225 pounds. Third year with the Bruins. Big-time slap shot from the point. Cannon.

“They were with their girlfriends…. ”

Yes.

“I gave them a booth in the back. They ordered a large pepperoni with peppers and mushrooms. I gave them some extra slices. Took care of it. They were nice. Signed some metal pizza plates for the waitresses. Just nice. Nobody bothered them.”

So when the two Bruins and their girlfriends finished their meal at the original Pizzeria Regina—not one of the other Pizzeria Regina locations around the area, the original, with the familiar red-and-white-checked tablecloths, with the smart-mouth waitresses, with the waiting line that goes out the door most of the time and down the stairs straight onto Thacher Street, when they stood up, well, everyone else in the restaurant also stood up. And started clapping. Just like that.

Game Six of the Stanley Cup Finals are tonight in Boston, with the Bruins trailing 3-2.

Pat Riley wasn’t angry at John Starks for the shooting guard’s poor performance in Game 7 of the 1994-95 Finals. He was disappointed in Starks for the decision he made at the end of Game 6. With only a few seconds left in the game and the Knicks trailing by a basket, Starks took an inbound pass. The play called for him to dump the ball down to Patrick Ewing who would then try and tie the game, sending it to overtime. Instead, Starks took a three-point shot, hoping to win it all. But it was blocked by Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets won the game.

That off-season, Riley wanted Starks to know how hard he would have to work in order to be trusted at such a critical moment again.

That moment never came.

The Mavericks beat the Heat last night to win the NBA Finals and there is a lot of talk about how the Heat will eventually have their day. It’s a safe bet that they will. However, Dan Marino never made it back to the Super Bowl after his second season, and there is no guarantee that LeBron James will make it back to the Finals either.

In the meantime, while I am one of many fans celebrating the Heat’s loss, I’m also pleased for Mark Cuban, Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs. Yup, this is just about the best way the season could have ended.

The Yanks handled the Indians with relative ease today. The hit parade , 18 in all, was impressive: four  for Curtis Granderson, three for Alex Rodriguez and Brett Gardner (two doubles and a triple), two a piece for Jeter, Swisher, Cano and Posada. Yeah, Freddy Garcia pitched well, but it was the bomb squad that took care of things, but good as the Yanks won their third straight.

Final score: Yanks 9, Indians 1.

[Photo Credit: Joseph Holmes]

Fab Five Freddy Garcia looks to regain his footing after one of the worst performances of his career. As expected, Bartolo Colon was placed on the DL.

Jeter SS
Granderson CF
Teixeira 1b
Rodriguez 3b
Cano 2b
Swisher RF
Posada DH
Martin C
Gardner LF

We’ll be rootin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[photo credit: S Petrenko]

Grand Master…Clifford Brown.

Alex Rodriguez was hit by a pitch for the second time this week. (Photo Credit: Getty Images)

Although it follows the practice of “an eye for an eye”, it does not allow for vigilante justice, but rather demands a trial by judges. It also glorifies acts of peace and justice done during Hammurabi’s rule.

What does this have to do with the Yankees? Alex Rodriguez got plunked in the sixth inning of today’s game after Curtis Granderson homered to make it 2-0. Much will be made of Alex Rodriguez getting plunked in the sixth inning after Curtis Granderson’s home run increased the Yankees’ lead to 2-0. There will be much ado because while Mitch Talbot was ejected immediately (wet mound conditions or not), yet again, the HBP went unanswered by a Yankees pitcher. The Yankees have had eight hit batsmen in the last five games. They’ve hit only one. The Boston Red Sox sent a message that teams can hit the Yankees’ batters without repercussion.

To date, despite Joe Girardi’s emphatic stance, the message has gained traction.

Columnists are clamoring for the Yankees to follow Girardi’s lead, to start showing some fight and “protect their own.” David Wells, who was patrolling the clubhouse on Saturday, told reporters the Yankees need to “grow some.”

Perhaps Talbot’s ejection led the Yankees to be more cautious in their retaliation strategy. But a passive-aggressive approach has been the Yankees’ stance for years. The recent beanball wars are reminiscent of 2003, when the Red Sox, more specifically Pedro Martinez, routinely hit Yankees batters, often without repercussion. On July 7 of that year, Pedro and Mike Mussina engaged in a classic pitchers’ duel. Martinez opened the game by hitting Derek Jeter and Alfonso Soriano on the hands, knocking them both out of the game. Mussina wouldn’t retaliate. Didn’t even buzz anyone. Fans were miffed. Writers were, too.

At the time, George Steinbrenner said of Martinez: “I don’t know what was going through his mind, but if it’s what it looked like, it’s not good. It’s not good for his team, not good for baseball.” Mussina’s response: “It was a situation that was pretty delicate. I think if I go inside to somebody, the umpire’s going to warn both benches. I didn’t want to lose half the plate. It’s a tough spot. You try to do what’s right. I’m not sure what anybody was thinking, but I felt I had to get guys out.” Not until Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, when Roger Clemens threw a fastball to the backstop with Manny Ramirez at the plate, igniting a bench-clearing brawl for the ages, did the Yankees exact revenge according to the common interpretation of Hammurabi’s Code.

If the code glorifies acts of peace and justice, then the Yankees are doing the right thing and should be applauded by being professional, acting above hitting Indians’ batters and winning the game. But do they have to hit someone to demonstrate protection? Pitch inside. Buzz someone. Make the batter uncomfortable. Move his feet. That could work.

Would the umpires allow the Yankees to pitch inside or buzz someone, or would they warn the benches immediately and put the pitchers in a bind, as Mussina feared? It’s a tough call. Joe Torre, who managed the Yankees in that 2003 game, now sits in the League Office and has jurisdiction over this exact issue. He also caught Bob Gibson, who you know full well would have given an opposing batter a shave by now if his teammates were getting hit at the rate the Yankees’ guys are. At what point will Torre get involved? Should he get involved?

It’s unlikely. The Yankees will do what they believe is right. But will they lose players as they consider the appropriate time to punch back?

OH YEAH, THE GAME …
Three solo home runs and a clutch RBI single by Jorge Posada in the seventh inning provided the scoring for the Yankees. The arms of Bartolo Colon, David Robertson and Boone Logan did the rest. The most important juncture of the game was the eighth inning. While it won’t go in the box score as a save, Robertson should get one for his yeoman effort. After allowing consecutive singles to start the inning, and then balking the runners over to second and third, respectively, his strikeouts of Asdrubal Cabrera and Grady Sizemore preserved the shutout and pretty much ensured the Yankees would emerge victorious.

Robertson and Logan combined to allow just two hits and struck out four. Contrast that to Friday night, where in a blowout, mop-up scenario, Kevin Whelan and Lance Pendleton yielded five runs on five hits, and walked five. Their performance led Girardi to pull an “I have no other recourse” move, bringing in Mariano Rivera to end the losing streak.

HAMSTRUNG
Big Bart pulled up lame covering first base in the seventh inning. He had thrown just 83 pitches and was working on a two-hit shutout at the time of his exit. Given his age, weight, and conditioning (or lack thereof), Colon could be looking at a long stint on the disabled list. The only good news from this: if and when Phil Hughes returns, there’s no doubt where he’ll be slotted in the rotation.

NEEDLESS COMPARISON
Granderson’s home run was his 20th. Mark Teixeira’s was his 19th. YES Network’s announcers got homer happy. Ken Singleton brought up 1961, and that the recent home run barrage reminded him of that seminal year in Yankees history. Michael Kay mentioned that Maris had 20 home runs and Mantle 18 on this date 50 years ago. Please stop. Granderson and Teixeira are not Mantle and Maris. Moreover, the 2004 Yankees hold the team record for home runs in a season (242). Granted, they didn’t have two guys going shot for shot the way Granderson and Teixeira seem to be right now, but it’s worth noting that the ’04 group, not the ’61 group, is the most prolific Yankees team in that category.

Cool, gray and rainy in the Bronx, like London in July. It’s a welcome change, really. A soup is good food day.

Yanks and Tribe back at it.

Go git ’em, boys.

[Picture by Olena]

[Painting by Tim Doyle]

This photo isn't from tonight, but it's basically what Girardi looked like.

The Yankees’ skeleton of a bullpen is showing, but still: after the embarassing Red Sox sweep, that was more like it for the Yankees. There was a benches-clearing near-brawl, and the offense woke up, and carried Ivan Nova and the team to an 11-7 win that wasn’t, for most of the game, actually all that close.

The Yankee scoring started in the first and didn’t really stop. Jeter, Teixeira, and Rodriguez all walked — it really was not Fausto Carmona’s night — and then Cano’s RBI single,Swisher’s sac fly, and Posada’s single gave the Yanks a quick 3-0 lead. it was Jorge Posada Figurine Night, which seemed like a cruel twist of fate a week ago, but Posada got 3 hits tonight and seems to be struggling back towards respectability, at least for the moment.

The second inning is where things got a bit exciting: Curtis Granderson homered, and immediately afterwards, Carmona plunked Teixeira square in the upper back, and too close for comfort to his head. You never know what someone’s thinking, of course, but it looked about as deliberate as these things ever do. Teixeira came up yelling at Carmona, Carmona yelled back, Joe Girardi rushed out and pushed Teixeira out of the way so he could scream at the Indians himself. The benches cleared, the bullpens emptied. No punches were thrown, and no one was ejected, but Girardi and Indians manager Manny Acta were screaming into each other’s faces, inches apart. No one’s veins pop more alarmingly than Girardi when he’s furious; it’s quite a sight.

The Yankees kept hitting after that, and the Indians couldn’t keep up — despite the best efforts of the Yanks’ depleted bullpen — but things didn’t escalate further. The other really noteworthy hit came in the bottom of the fourth. The Yanks were up 5-0 when Alex Rodriguez absolutely annihilated a pitch into the bleacher seats just left of dead center – if not the longest homer that’s been hit in the new Stadium, certainly up there. When A-Rod jogged by and high-fived Robbie Thomson, the coach looked downright frightened.

The game got closer than it should’ve; in his major league debut in the eighth inning, newly arrived reliever Kevin Whelan seemed to have a nasty case of nerves, walking four hitters batters and forcing in a run. That made it 11-3 – the Yankees had continued tacking on – but things deteriorated further in the ninth. Neither Amauri Sanit nor Lance Pendleton was any better than you might’ve expected, and finally Girardi called on Mariano Rivera to prevent disaster. It worked – but it also underscored just how much the Yanks need a good reliever or two.

Still: all in all, just the kind of night New York needed. If Ivan Nova figured something out, well, that would just be a bonus.

Sweet dreams, and may your weekend be devoid of popping neck-veins. (Unless that’s your thing, in which case, have a popping-neck-vein-palooza!).

She asked how come I don’t smile/I said “Everything’s fine, but I’m in a New York state of mind.”–Rakim

Yanks looks to stop sucking tonight against the Indians. Cliff does the preview, we do the rootin’:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Over at Grantland, there is a long, entertaining oral history piece compiled by Alex French and Howie Kahn on “The National,” Frank Deford’s influential, short-lived sports newspaper:

Peter Richmond (Main Event Writer): I had a Nieman fellowship at Harvard when I heard about The National. You’re obliged, if you get a Nieman, to go back to the newspaper you were working at. I worked at the Miami Herald as the national sports correspondent. I’d go to the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals. I’d go to prize fights. I had a column. Then I got a free ride at Harvard for a year. In the middle of it, I had heard in the New York Daily News that Frank Deford was rounding up this all-star team for The National. I thought, “Oh my god. I’ve got to get there.”

Charles P. Pierce (Main Event Writer): As soon as I heard about it, I basically hurled myself out a window.

Frank Deford: What was my sales pitch like? It wasn’t a reach, and I wasn’t blowing smoke. I’d say, “This paper is going to be the first of its kind. We’ve got this extraordinary staff and we’ve got a lot of money behind it. Go look up anything you want about Emilio Azcárraga. He’s into this, and these sorts of things have worked all over the world, so why can’t they work in the United States? Then I’d pause and say, “I understand it’s risky. We all know this is new territory. But you’re a sports guy. Don’t you want to be part of this?”

Rob Fleder (Main Event Editor): Here was this great adventure and chance to invent something new. It was clear even before it started, and certainly long before it failed, that you were going to get one chance to try this in your life. This was as close to a frontier as we had.

Pierce: Rob Fleder, who was one of the original founding members of Rotisserie baseball, literally in the Rotisserie restaurant, had seen some of my stuff in New England Monthly. He called and said, “Would you like to come down and talk about this thing we have?” So I went down to New York. They didn’t even have real offices yet. They were in some space with pieces of paper hanging on the door.

For all their fine work, somebody at Grantland should have known how to spell Glenn Stout’s name. Otherwise, this is a terrific read.

And while you are at it, dig Charles Pierce’s memories of “The National”:

Oh, money. Yeah, wait. I should tell this story about money, first. In the spring of 1991, the last spring of our newspaper’s life, I got a call from New York. Mike Lupica was leaving the paper to return to the New York Daily News, a development that surprised approximately nobody. He was taking with him his “Shooting From The Lip” column, the three-dot bullet template invented by the great Jimmy Cannon and subsequently appropriated by almost everyone else in the history of newspapers, including, most notably, in USA Today by Larry — “If it’s Wheatena, I’m all in!” — King. The column had been running in The National every Friday, and it had developed an audience. They wanted to keep the idea under a different name, and someone had mentioned that I’d done a similar kind of thing when I was writing a column at the Boston Herald. So they asked me if I’d do it.

Of course, I told them, but I’d need more money to do it.

How much, they asked.

I had no idea, so I quoted them a figure that I thought probably indicated I was on mushrooms at the time.

They didn’t even blink.

You start this week, they said.

Fun stuff.

The fashionable pitching rules of today couldn’t prevent injury to Phil Hughes and now they’ve failed to save Joba Chamberlain, who is lost for the season with a torn elbow ligament. I’ll spare you a diatribe about the Yankees’ counterproductive babying of their young pitchers and try to answer a more immediate question: who do the Yankees turn to beef up their bullpen?

David Robertson should be fine in the eighth inning, and Luis Ayala may be passable in the seventh, but the Yankees will need more help, at least until Rafael Soriano returns from the M*A*S*H unit. Jeff Marquez and Amaury Sanit are clearly not the answers, nothing more than stopgaps. I’d love to see the Yankees do something daring and try Tim Norton, the six-foot, five-inch, 230-pound right-hander who was just promoted to Scranton after dominating Eastern League hitters. At 28, Norton was clearly too old for Double-A ball, but scouts love his ability to throw a heavy fastball in the 94 to 95 mile-an-hour range. Now recovered from back problems that curtailed his 2010 season, he’s a more complete pitcher who throws strikes. At least one scout has already said that Norton is better than Chamberlain, so why not give him a look in the late innings?

If Norton is too much of a reach, the Yankees could give a look to righty Kevin Whelan, the last remnant of the ill-fated Gary Sheffield-to-the-Tigers trade. As Scranton’s closer, Whelan has struck out 30 batters in 27 innings while holding the International League to a 1.67 ERA. Once considered a real prospect, Whelan is now 27, but is worth a whirl…

***

It’s beyond me what Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman continue to see in Francisco Cervelli. He made two more errors the other night, bringing his season total to four, and actually putting himself near last year’s pace, when he committed 13 miscues as the backup to Jorge Posada. Cervelli’s throwing is even more atrocious. He’s thrown out a dreadful 11 per cent of runners, down from last year’s merely awful 14 per cent. These are simply not acceptable major league numbers. Cliff Johnson or Curt Blefary could have done better in their day.

As a hitter, Cervelli is mediocre at best, with little power and only a decent walk rate that is worth mentioning on the plus side. Frankly, he’s been living off that hot start to the 2010 season for more than a year now, and it’s high time for the brain trust to take note and a make a change. With Russell Martin ailing, the Yankees need to bring up Jesus Montero NOW–and not in July or August.

I know what the naysayers are saying: Montero is not hitting–he‘s down to a .336 on-base percentage and a .416 slugging percentage–so why bring him up now? Well, it’s possible that Montero is just frustrated over the Yankees’ decision not to promote him at the end of spring training. Sometimes, a call-up is just what a discouraged young player of enormous offensive talent needs. Given Cervelli’s ineptitude, the Yankees should be willing to take the chance on Montero. I don’t see how he could play significantly worse than Cervelli.

If you’re wondering about Austin Romine, he’s not a candidate because of health concerns. Although he’s having a very good season for Double-A Trenton, where he leads the Thunder in hitting and RBIs, he was just placed on the seven-day disabled list with concussion-like symptoms. So that makes him currently unavailable, putting the onus squarely on Montero…

***

Earlier this week, the baseball world lost two good ones from my childhood years, as Jose Pagan and Jim Northrup both lost battles with Alzheimer’s disease. I wrote about Pagan earlier this week at The Hardball Times, where I touted him as a deserving candidate to become the game’s first black manager ahead of Frank Robinson, but Northrup is certainly worth an extended mention, too.

Northrup was a very good and underrated player for the Tigers, a significant part of their 1968 world championship team and a versatile defender who could handle all three positions in the outfield. A left-handed hitter with power and a knack for hitting grand slams (he hit five in 1968), Northrup gave those Tigers teams of Mayo Smith and Billy Martin some much needed balance. The Tigers’ lineups of that era tended to run heavy to the right, with Al Kaline, Willie Horton, and Bill Freehan forming much of the offensive nucleus. Northrup and Norm Cash gave the Tigers a left-handed presence, discouraging American League opponents from loading up on right-handed pitching.

Noted author Tom Stanton, who has often written about the Tigers as subjects of his books, remembers the ex-Tiger outfielder fondly. “When I think of Northrup, I think of clutch hitting and grand slams and his triple in the 1968 Series [which provided the winning runs in Game Seven] . His name inevitably evokes our unusual outfield situation. We had four top outfielders — Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Mickey Stanley and Northrup — who played together for a decade, sharing duties. This glut of talent, of course, led to Mickey Stanley being shifted to shortstop in the 1968 Series.”

Off the field, Northrup provided the Tigers with one of their most memorable personalities. Nicknamed “The Gray Fox” because of his premature graying, Northrup loved to talk. All one had to do was say hi to him, and that would ignite a quick reply and a long-lasting conversation. A natural conversationalist, Northrup became a Tigers broadcaster in the eighties and nineties, giving him a forum to express his many opinions. When the Tigers changed owners, management decided to fire Northrup because they considered him too opinionated, fearful of his criticism of the new ownership.

Northrup could also lose his temper. He once fought with A’s relief pitcher Jack Aker after “The Chief” hit him with a pitch during the 1968 season. And, not surprisingly, Northrup clashed with Billy Martin, who didn’t play the outfielder as often as he would have liked. Northrup felt that Martin took credit for the team’s victories but often blamed the players when the Tigers fell short.

During the 1974 season, Northrup’s passionate personality led to his departure from Detroit. When the Tigers released Norm Cash late in 1974, they didn’t tell him directly; “Stormin’ Norman” heard it about it on his car radio while driving to the ballpark. Northrup was furious at the Tigers’ inconsiderate treatment of his longtime teammate and friend. He barged into the office of manager Ralph Houk (another ex-Yankee), loudly expressing his disapproval of the handling of Cash’s release. The next day, the Tigers sold Northrup to the Expos.

Jim Northrup, a man who cared, sounded like the kind of guy I would have liked to meet.

Bruce Markusen writes “Cooperstown Confidential” for The Hardball Times.

Let me get this straight, David Ortiz Cadillac’s a home run and tells Joe Girardi to “take it like a man” when the Yankee manager doesn’t care for the theatrics. Then, after getting drilled last night, Ortiz blames the press.

Reminds me of this:

CC Sabathia heads to the dugout after giving up a 2-0 lead in the seventh. (Photo Credit: Getty Images)

The start of Thursday’s game was delayed 3 hours and 27 minutes due to thunderstorms that ripped through the New York metropolitan area. The lone West Coast game in San Francisco started and finished before the Red Sox-Yankees series finale.

And if you thought a first-inning home run by Curtis Granderson, one that gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead, would be the start of a big night against Josh Beckett, you’d have thought wrong. Beckett, who entered the evening 2-0 against the Yankees this season, with 19 Ks and holding the Yankees to a .128 batting average against him through 14 innings, settled in and only allowed five more base runners (2 H, 2 HBP, 1 BB), and no one advanced beyond second base.

CC Sabathia, on the other hand, was an ace in his own right, but only through six innings. The turning point was a dumb-luck triple by Jed Lowrie to right field in the top of the seventh inning. The ball was scooting along the ground down the right field line, and Nick Swisher anticipated playing the carom. Instead, the ball stayed close to the ground and skidded, finding its way onto the metal below the padding of the wall and hydroplaned past Swisher and into the corner. Swisher fell down in the process. This mishap, all of which took about two seconds to develop, allowed David Ortiz, who led of the inning with a seemingly harmless single, to score.

At that point, you could sense the Red Sox’ attitude morph into a collective “We’ve got ’em now.” And they did. When the carnage of the inning was completed, 11 men were sent to the plate, eight got hits, and seven scored. Ortiz alone had two hits, scored a run, and drove in two. Ballgame over. The outs were louder than some of the hits. The singles by Jason Varitek, Jacoby Ellsbury, and the bases-loaded single by Adrian Gonzalez that eventually sent Sabathia to the showers were seeing-eye singles. Bleeders. But they were better than anything the Yankees could muster against Beckett.

The good tidings the Yankees brought home following a 6-3 West Coast trip have officially been erased. A one-game lead is now a two-game deficit. The Yankees are 0-6 against the Red Sox at home this season, and 1-8 against them overall. A quarter of the Red Sox’ wins and a third of the Yankees’ losses have come against each other.

We could say, “This is setting up for the typical second-half surge against the Red Sox,” but doing so could be a mistake. This Yankees team has not hit well with runners in scoring position. The Red Sox have. (Thursday’s split was 7-for-15 for the Red Sox, 0-for-5 for the Yankees). The Yankees’ bullpen is in shambles, with the recent news of Joba Chamberlain’s season ending and the high likelihood of his requiring Tommy John surgery. The starting lineup only carries one hitter with a batting average above .275.

To paraphrase former NFL coach Dennis Green from one of the all-time greatest post-game press conferences, the Red Sox are who we thought they would be. What are the Yankees?