This was supposed to be the year that the rebuilding Orioles began their long climb back up the AL East standings. They weren’t supposed to win, but they were definitely supposed to improve thanks to the young bats in the heart of their lineup and the first of a strong supply of pitching prospects breaking into their rotation. Mix in some solid veteran stop-gaps such as Miguel Tejada and Kevin Millwood and the Orioles were supposed to be, well, not terrible. That they started the season by going 1-11 and 2-16 was supposed to be a fluke, but in their last 15 games coming into this week’s three-game set in the Bronx the O’s have gone just 3-12. It’s just not happening. The Orioles not only aren’t better than last year’s last-place team, they have the worst record in baseball and a winning percentage below .300.

What happened? Well, to begin with, no one is hitting. Adam Jones, an All-Star in 2009, is hitting .251/.274/.382. Matt Wieters, the organization’s can’t-miss catching prospect is hitting .250/.323/.351 as a sophomore. Nolan Reimold a solid-hitting rookie left-fielder last year, hit just .205/.302/.337 and lost both his job and his roster spot to Corey Patterson of all people. Nick Markakis, the one established star in the Orioles’ youth movement, is hitting .307 with a solid .405 on-base percentage, but is slugging a mere .434 with just three home runs after slugging .476 and averaging more than 20 homers a year over the last three seasons. Tejada is slugging just .365.

Garrett Atkins, signed to be a stop-gap at first base, has been a total bust, hitting .214/.261/.294. Atkins first lost his starts against right-handed pitchers to rookie Rhyne Hughes, but once Hughes stopped hitting, the Orioles were forced to move Ty Wigginton to first base. Wigginton has been the lone bright spot in the Baltimore lineup, putting up MVP-quality numbers, but he only got to play because Brian Roberts has been out all season with a back injury and isn’t close to returning. So with Wigginton at first, the Orioles have turned to Julio Lugo at the keystone. Lugo is hitting .234 in 81 plate appearances with three walks and no extra-base hits.

That just leaves shortstop Cesar Izturis, who wasn’t supposed to hit and isn’t (.227/.295/.250) and Luke Scott, who is doing his modest best as the DH and occasional fill in at first base and in left field. The result isn’t the worst offense in baseball (thanks Pirates and Astros!), but it’s darn close. The Orioles are scoring just 3.43 runs per game. Apparently they heard about Ubaldo Jimenez and thought it was 1968.

As for the rotation, heralded rookie lefty Brian Matusz, who faces Javy Vazquez tonight, got off to a solid start, but perhaps frustrated by a lack of run support (he lost consecutive starts to the Yankees despite turning in quality starts both times because the O’s scored a total of one run in those two games), he’s been struggling of late, turning in disaster starts in three of his last four outings. The young pitcher who was supposed to join him in the rotation this year, 22-year-old righty Chris Tillman, only just got there, making his first major league start of the year on Saturday.

Millwood, who faces CC Sabathia on Thursday, has pitched well, but is 0-5 on the season thanks to a mere 2.75 runs of support on average. In Millwood’s 11 starts, the O’s have scored more than three runs just thrice. The O’s have won four of Millwoods starts, with the veteran righty taking a no-decision all four times, by a combined margin of five runs. One of those came against the Yankees. It was the only time in six games the O’s have beaten the Yankees this season and was a game I, among others, blamed on the Yankees having something of a hangover from a busy off-day in Washington, DC the day before.

Phil Hughes faces Brad Bergesen in the middle game of the series. Bergesen has a 5.96 ERA and has walked three more men than he has struck out, a stat that has more to do with Bergesen’s inability to strike anyone out (just 2.4 K/9) than anything else.

So, yeah, the Orioles are a terrible team right now. They still have the potential to suddenly click and have a solid second-half, but even with a pair of fair pitching matchups (the talented lefty Matusz against the struggling Vazquez tonight and the solid vet Millwood against a struggling Sabathia on Thursday), the Yankees should be embarrassed by anything less than a sweep this week.

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Hazy, too. Good day for a picnic or a baseball game…

[Picture by Bags]

The less said about yesterday’s game the better. I’m willing to forget the whole thing if you are.

New day, new game. Let’s get it right today, will ya, boys?

[Picture by Bags]

Saturday marked the 15th anniversary of Derek Jeter’s major league debut.  On May 29, 1995, he went 0-5 with two putouts and two assists in an 8-7 Yankee loss at the Kingdome.

He would go on to compile a .250/.294/.375 line in 15 games with the big club in ’95 . . . and got the starting shortstop nod in ’96.  The rest is much-repeated history.

Here are some stats to munch on . . .

Since his debut, Jeter leads in games played (2,185, 2 ahead of Alex Rodriguez), games started (2,176, 11 ahead of A-Rod), at-bats (8,868, 293 ahead of Johnny Damon), hits (2,807, 248 ahead of A-Rod). He’s second in runs (1,602), 3rd in batting average (.317), 10th in OBP (.387), 14th in doubles (448) and 14th in stolen bases (310).

Over his 15 seasons, he’s faced 1,089 different pitchers. His worst 0-fer is against Jorge Julio (14 ABs).  He’s gone yard the most against Sir Sidney Ponson (5 times in 88 ABs).  Of those pitchers he’s had at least 40 plate appearances against, his best batting average is against Rodrigo Lopez (.448).  Oh, and John Lackey has plunked him the most (5 times in 57 plate appearances).

Jeter has had 41 different hitting streaks of ten games or more in his career (12 of these were 15 or more games). On the flip side, he’s had only seven instances of going hitless in four or more consecutive games.  All this while amassing only one major stint on the disabled list.

Here’s to you, Captain!

(photo credit: Cardboard Icons)

“It’s a bad loss. There’s no doubt about it. It’s a bad loss. You know, you gotta believe if you’re up 10-5 going into the seventh inning that you have a good chance of winning. We didn’t do it today. And they never stopped fighting, and, uh, they scored more runs than we did.”

–Joe Girardi

“You’re not going to be up until 3am again, are you?”

–my wife

It took the Yankees nearly four and a half hours on Saturday afternoon to build up a huge lead over the Indians then, slowly, like a mighty mountain being eroded by the wind, give it all back plus some for a soul-crushing, mind-numbing, eye-gouging, 13-11 loss to the hapless, punchless Indians. Indians broadcaster Tom Hamilton had a flight to catch out of Newark International, the last flight of the night back to Cleveland where his daughter was having a graduation party later that night and her graduation on Sunday. Between innings late in the game, he told Yankee announcer Michael Kay, “I cover a team that never scores and today they score 12 runs.”

It was ugly in almost every way that a game could be ugly. In the middle of a third-inning rally, Alex Rodriguez lined a ball off the forehead of Indians starter David Huff, who fell face-first onto the mound and lay motionless for several minutes before being strapped to a board and carted off. His family was in town to see him pitch. They wound up spending the afternoon with him at New York-Presbyterian hospital where, thankfully, his CT scan came back negative (“they x-rayed my head and found nothing” goes the classic Dizzy Dean line). He was back at the ballpark soon after the last out.

What he missed was the Yankees adding a third run to his ledger in the bottom of the third, then a fourth inning in which the two teams combined for nine runs. CC Sabathia, who looked sharp in the first three innings, suddenly started to struggle again, perhaps due to the long delay from Huff’s injury. He couldn’t seem to get in sync with catcher Francisco Cervelli and threw 31 pitches in the inning in the process of allowing the Indians to tie the game at 3-3 on an infield single, a wild pitch, a walk, an RBI single, and a tw0-RBI double by Matt LaPorta, the key player the Indians received for Sabathia back in July 2008.

Facing Huff’s replacement, fellow lefty Aaron Laffey, the Yankees picked up their struggling ace with a six-spot in the bottom of the fourth, the key hit being a two-RBI double by Robinson Cano, but Sabathia let the Indians chip away at that 9-3 lead with a run in the fifth (which the Yankees got right back to go up 10-4) and a run in the sixth.

Out after 113 pitches in six innings, Sabathia yielded to  David Robertson, but after allowing a run on a hit-by-pitch, stolen base, and RBI single, Robertson, who had been hit in the back by a Joe Mauer comebacker in his previous appearances, came out of the game with a stiff lower back. That caused another long delay in the game as Sergio Mitre took some 30 pitches to get warm on the game mound only to complete a four-pitch walk to Jhonny Peralta and get pulled in favor of Damaso Marte as Joe Girardi began playing matchups with a four run lead in the seventh.

Marte got his man, but he was promptly replaced by Joba Chamberlain, who didn’t. Having entered the game with a four-run lead, runners on first and second, and two outs, Chamberlain proceeded to cough up the lead via a single, walk, back-to-back doubles by rookies Lou Marson and Jason Donald, the eighth and ninth men in the Cleveland batting order, and another single. By the time Chamberlain finally got the third out of the inning, the Yankees were down 12-10.

After Derek Jeter erased a leadoff walk to Brett Gardner by hitting into a double play in the seventh, Chad Gaudin, effectively the last available man in the Yankee bullpen save for Mariano Rivera, gave up a solo homer to Russell Branyan in the eighth, but the insurance run was unnecessary. After stranding a two-out Robinson Cano single in the bottom of the eighth, the Yankees did push a cross a run against closer Kerry Wood in the ninth when Curtis Granderson drew a pinch-hit walk, was balked to second, and scored on a Jeter double, but that was all the Yankees would get.

I don’t know if Hamilton made his flight or not, but the game, which I didn’t start watching until the evening due to a busy day with my daughter and some preparation work for her first birthday party on Sunday, did indeed keep me up until 3:00 am, even with the benefit of the fast-forward button on my DVR. All totaled, the game saw 402 pitches thrown, 159 of them balls, across the course of 92 different plate appearances resulting in 24 runs scored on 26 hits, 13 walks, and three hit batsmen.

I’m glad Huff is okay. I hope Robertson is (Girardi said he was day-to-day). I also hope Sabathia’s problems had more to do with the long delay fouling up his rhythm, as Girardi suggested, than with his poor outings against the Mets and Tigers. I also hope I don’t have to watch a game like this one again anytime soon, and that someone takes the time to read this recap before we all move on to Sunday’s 1:05 matchup between Justin Masterson and A.J. Burnett, a pitching pairing that doesn’t seem to suggest the clean, crisp game we all deserve after Saturday’s mess.

I also hope I don’t pass out in my daughter’s birthday cake. My wife would not be pleased.

Phil Hughes got back on track against the weak-hitting Indians Friday night. This afternoon it’s CC Sabathia’s turn. Two of CC’s last three starts have been duds (total line in those two games: 11 IP, 19 H, 12 R, 11 ER, 4 HR, 2 BB, 10 K), and in his last four starts, Sabathia has allowed six home runs, many of them on two-seamers up in the zone. CC has quite simply been off his game, and now’s the time for him to put it back together.

Sabathia has faced his old team just once since being traded to Milwaukee in July 2008. That came one day shy of a year ago, when he twirled a solid seven innings against them in a 10-5 Yankee win in Cleveland. Today, he faces fellow lefty David Huff, a 25-year-old with little to offer who has made just two quality starts in eight tries this season and has gotten just 2.57 runs of support on average on his way to leading the American League in losses. Huff, who faces the Yankees for the first time this afternoon, is a fly ball pitcher with poor velocity who doesn’t strike anyone out (he’s struggling to keep his strikeouts above his walks this season). The Yankees should eat him alive.

Should.

Alex Rodriguez and Francisco Cervelli return to the lineup, while Curtis Granderson sits against the lefty in favor of Kevin Russo, who will start in left. Nick Swisher bats second. Bottom four below Cano: Thames (DH), Cervelli, Russo, Gardner (CF). Girardi says he’s “easing” Granderson back in. Old pal Shelley Duncan draws the DH start for the Tribe against the lefty Sabathia.

As our man Hank Waddles pointed out in his recap of last night’s game, the Yankees on Friday night began a stretch in which they will play 13 of 16 games against the three worst teams in baseball: the Indians (four games in this current wrap-around Memorial Day weekend series), the Orioles (six games, three home, three away), and the Astros (three games at home to end the stretch). Of those 13 games, ten of them come at home, and the only winning team the Yankees will face during that 16-game stretch is the overachieving, third-place Blue Jays.

This is the time for the Yankees to fatten up, and they did exactly that Friday night.

Phil Hughes opened the game by striking out the first five men in the Indians order. In the bottom of the second, Nick Swisher launched a two-run home run off Tribe starter Fausto Carmona that hit the right-field foul pole maybe a foot from the top. Clinging to a 2-1 lead in the 6th, the Yankees added another couple of runs via a bases-loaded, no-out rally that was cut short by the feeble bottom of the order on a day that Joe Girardi opted to rest Alex Rodriguez and Francisco Cervelli, both of whom needed it. Then in the seventh, Robinson Cano, who went 3-for-4 with a walk while batting cleanup for the first time in his career, launched a grand slam off lefty reliever Tony Sipp that iced the game.

Hughes gave up a second run in the seventh on a Russell Branyan solo homer that got out so quickly that Michael Kay’s only description of the action as it was in progress was “there that went”, but that was the extent of the damage in Hughes’ seven innings of work as he struck out eight in total against just one walk. Sergio Mitre and Chan Ho Park wrapped things up without incident, and the Yankees won 8-2.

Heading into Friday night’s game, Hughes needed a good start, and the Yankee offense needed to put a big number on the board. Both ate well. Here’s hoping the Yankees continue to feast for the next couple of weeks.

There are four basic steps to rebuilding a ballclub. First, trade your marketable stars and veterans for prospects, retaining only the core, team-controlled players around which you plan to build. Second, evaluate your new assets to determine which will hit, which will miss, which might benefit from a position or role change or a particular mechanical or coaching fix, and identify what holes are likely to remain on your roster once those players have graduated to the majors. Third, once those players are established at the major league level, compliment them with one or two big free agent signings and perhaps another trade that target the remaining holes. Step four: win.

It’s not that easy (not that it sounds easy), but that’s the plan. The Indians are currently in Stage Two. Beginning with the trade that sent CC Sabathia to the Brewers in July 2008, Cleveland has traded CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, Casey Blake, Franklin Gutierrez, Rafael Betancourt, Ryan Garko, Kelly Shoppach, Ben Francisco, and Mark DeRosa. That’s a pair of Cy Young award winners, more than half of their 2008 starting lineup, an ace set-up man, a productive back-up catcher, and their 2009 Opening Day third baseman.

That has left them with a core of center fielder Grady Sizemore, 27, middle infielder Asdrubal Cabrera, 24, (both, cruelly, on the disabled list at the moment with injuries that could keep them out for a significant portion of the season), right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, 27 and the team’s best hitter for the last two seasons, and right-handed starter Fausto Carmona, 26. Travis Hafner, Jhonny Peralta, and Jake Westbrook are still around, but Hafner is tied down by a bad contract, the market for Peralta dried up last year when he moved to third base and stopped hitting, and Westbrook was frozen in place by his June 2008 Tommy John surgery.

To that core, the Indians have added these young players and prospects via trade:

2B – Luis Valbuena (from Seattle for Gutierrez)
SS – Jason Donald (from Philadelphia for Lee)
C – Lou Marson (also for Lee)
C – Carlos Santana (from the Dodgers for Blake)
OF/1B – Matt LaPorta (from Milwaukee for Sabathia)
OF – Michael Brantley (also for Sabathia)
RHP – Mitch Talbot (from Tampa Bay for Shoppach)
RHP – Justin Masterson (from Boston for Martinez)
RHP – Chris Perez (from St. Louis for DeRosa)
RHP – Jess Todd (also for DeRosa)
RHP – Carlos Carrasco (also for Lee)
LHP – Scott Barnes (from San Francisco for Garko)
RHP – Nick Hagadone (also for Martinez)
RHP – Bryan Price (also for Martinez)
RHP – Rob Bryson (also for Sabathia)
RHP – Jason Knapp (also for Lee)
RHP – Connor Graham (from Colorado for Betancourt)
RHP – Joe Smith (from the Mets in the Gutierrez deal)
LHP – Zach Jackson (also for Sabathia)
RHP – Jon Meloan (also for Blake)

Valbuena, Marson, LaPorta, and Brantley were in the Indians Opening Day lineup at second, catcher, first, and left, respectively. Talbot and Masterson are in their rotation. Perez was their closer while Kerry Wood was on the disabled list. Donald is now their starting shortstop with Cabrera on the DL. Santana is expected to be called up in June to push Marson into a backup role. Of those 20 players, only relievers Jackson and Meloan are no longer with the organization (both were throw-ins that yielded no lasting value for the team).

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Our man Hank Waddles has a good interview with Norman Ollestad. Nice job, once again, Hendree.

Dig.

[Photo Credit: Quicksilver]

With Bill Madden’s new book on George Steinbrenner topping many of the sports bestsellers lists, it’s an appropriate time to look back on the first year of “The Boss’” reign as the game‘s most recognizable owner. That would be 1973, when the Yankees were in the midst of a 12-year absence from postseason play. Still three years removed from ending their lengthy playoff drought, the Yankees embarked on a new era not fully aware of how life would change under the thumb of “Big George.”

Coming only weeks after he purchased the franchise for less than $10 million, Steinbrenner’s first spring would not pass without major controversy, though it had nothing to do with his ability to rant and rave. The flames were instead fanned by two unconventional left-handers, Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson, who decided the time was right to announce that they had swapped wives, children, and family pets. One could not have blamed Steinbrenner for questioning his new investment right then and there, what with 40 per cent of his projected starting rotation daring to do something that much of the civilian population would never even have considered.

The Yankees had other personnel problems, too. Their middle infielders, Horace Clarke and Gene “Stick” Michael, carried lightweight bats that would have made them utility players in today‘s game. The Yankees lacked a quality all-around right fielder, a position that featured the over-the-hill talents of Matty Alou and Johnny Callison. Their first baseman, the 38-year-old Felipe Alou (Matty’s older brother), had not been a premium player since the late sixties, when he played the outfield for the Atlanta Braves. The pitching staff, though featuring top-tier talents like Mel Stottlemyre and Sparky Lyle, lacked the depth of some of the other elite staffs in the American League and could not carry an offense that ranked tenth among 12 teams in runs scored.

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On Monday, as I was continuing to gather research for the column I thought I’d be writing this week, Alex Belth sent me an e-mail with a topic idea that I found so intriguing, I had to put my other one on the back burner.

Why has Mark Teixeira received a free pass from the NYY fans and the NY media?

Interesting question, no? He hasn’t really gotten a free pass from the Bronx Banter community. We don’t apologize for anybody. Hell, I was still killing Brett Gardner when he was catalyzing the offense. But the question is warranted. It got me thinking.

Naturally, on my way home from work that night, I threw on WFAN and Steve Sommers had the recently engaged Sweeny Murti on to schmooze, and Sommers immediately asked him about, among other things, when Teixeira would start hitting. I wondered if Alex’s question had merit. When the Yankees arrived in Minny, Tex’s line was .209/.327/.378. Thanks to his efforts of the last couple of games, Teixeira is over the .215 mark and a little further away from the Mendoza Line. But the consistency hasn’t been there; he has gone hitless in exactly half of the Yankees’ 46 games. He had the big three-home-run game in Boston and has only four dingers in the other 45. We know Tex a slow starter, but April’s supposed to be the only bad month. We’re nearing Memorial Day, and Mark Teixeira’s numbers look like they should be on the back of Steve Balboni’s baseball card, not his.

(Speaking of the “baseball card” theory, can we put a moratorium on that whole thing? The premise that players off to bad starts will ultimately rise to the stats that appear on their baseball card is just tired. It’s not a real answer to the short term, even if that ultimately will be the case.)

And yet the majority of the local scribes, while maybe not letting him slide, haven’t heaped criticism upon him like the Boston writers have done with David Ortiz both last year and this year. Last season, when Teixeira got off to the slow start, the “he’s a slow starter” refrain was common, and he was still taking a lot of walks and getting on base, which helped deflect some of the criticism that could have come his way.

In all my years of Yankee fandom and in the time I covered the team, the only person I can recall who got similar treatment during this bout of adversity was Bernie Williams. Bernie would routinely hover near .200, .225 or .250 for the first six weeks of the season (in 2002, he was a .236 at the end of April and ended up hitting .333), and then when Memorial Day came around, find his stroke, usually from the right side of the plate, and go through long stretches when he’d carry the offense.

Alex offered up a list of reasons why he thought Tex was getting off easy:

1. The Yankees are winning.
2. He’s a good fielder.
3. He’s good with the media.
4. The Yankees are winning.
5. He plays with A-Rod.
6. The Yankees are winning.

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Okay, let’s start with the good news.  At 28-19, the Yankees have the second-best record in all of baseball, tied with the San Diego Padres, if you can believe it.

Now for the bad news, which will take a bit more than one sentence to describe.  On Wednesday the Yankees made like bullies, calmly taking the Twins’ lunch money yet again as they swept a makeshift double header.  Just a day later, though, things don’t look quite as good.

Problem number one is that this team suddenly can’t score any runs.  Derek Jeter led off the game with a single, then dashed to third on Mark Teixeira’s single two batters later.  You could make the argument that even though we were only ten minutes into the action, this was the biggest moment of the game.  With Javier Vazquez on the mound, a pitcher who has been, shall we say, less than dominant this year, it was probably important to get off to a quick start.  It didn’t even need to be a big inning; just a 1-0 lead would have done wonders.  And with Alex Rodríguez coming up with runners at first and third and only one out, even a lazy sac fly would do.  Instead, A-Rod tapped weakly to short and produced a 6-3 double play to end the inning.

When presented with the exact same scenario in the bottom half of the inning — first and third and one out — Justin Morneau did his job and lofted a fly ball to centerfield, easily scoring Orlando Hudson to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.

The game was essentially over right then and there, but since they played eight more innings, I’ll give you the highlights — or lowlights, as the case may be.  The first thing you need to know is that Javy Vazquez was awful, as you might guess from this line: 5.2 IP, 8H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 2K.  The second thing you need to know is that he was actually worse than that.  Included in those eight hits were four doubles, a triple, and a home run, and there wasn’t a cheapie in the bunch.  It seemed like every ball the Twins hit off Vazquez was a rocket, even the outs.  As shaky as his confidence already seemed to be, it will be interesting to see how he bounces back from this.

Jason Kubel, who had already driven in a run with a second-inning double, led off the sixth inning with a monstrous home run to right, stretching the Minnesota lead to 5-2.  Vazquez lasted another two batters, but he was a dead man walking at that point.  Joe Girardi brought in Chan Ho Park with two outs, and was just as effective as you might think, giving up a harmless single before closing out the sixth but then starting the seventh by walking Joe Mauer and giving up a single to Morneau before Girardi lifted him for Damaso Marte.  Marte got his man (Jim Thome), and Girardi brought in our old friend Chad Gaudin with two on and one out, hoping to keep the game close.

It didn’t work.  After Michael Cuddyer struck out, That Man Kubel came up and rocked a home run into the Land of Pork Chops on Sticks.  8-2, Twins.

So now that it’s all said and done, I’m left with three burning questions, and I’d appreciate some answers.

1. Why is that when I watch televised games from Target Field, it still looks like the games are being played indoors?

2. When will the Yankees start scoring runs again?

3. Exactly how many beers does it take to convince someone that it would be a good idea to sneak up and take a bite out of a pork chop in Kim Jones’s hand while she is using it as a prop during a live shot?

As we wrap this up, let’s end with something positive.  Take a look at the next sixteen games:

4 games vs. Cleveland (17-28)
3 games vs. Baltimore (15-33)
3 games @ Toronto (27-22)
3 games @ Baltimore (15-33)
3 games vs. Houston (16-31)

Yanks go for the quick sweep of the Twins. Minnie won the last game in the New York series and now try to save face at home. Nice-looking new ball park out there, too. There were some gorgeous shots of the sunset and the moon against the city skyline on the YES broadcast last night.

We’ll see if Javy’s finger is a problem. Or anything else for that matter. But he’s had a couple of decent starts. Hope he builds on it.

Be nice to have have the Score Truck show up and take ’em back home to the BX in style.

Whadda ya say, boys?

[Picture by Bags]

The Yankees limped into this series, but it hasn’t mattered much; if the Twins didn’t have bad luck against the Yankees, they wouldn’t have no luck at all. Minnesota lost two one-run games in the space of an evening – the second half of last night’s suspended Scoreless Wonder, which ended up a 1-0 Yanks win thanks to Derek Jeter’s solo home run (and lead-preserving nifty defensive play), and then tonight’s 3-2 duel, which saw Andy Pettitte prevail over Francisco Liriano. Mariano Rivera saved both games, and if he didn’t quite radiate moonbeams and rose petals and ride off the field on a pegasus like he normally does, it was at least a step in the right direction.

I figured on the bullpen being a minefield today (as just getting through nine innings has proved plenty tough enough for those guys recently), but David Robertson, Joba Chamberlain, and Mo staggered through to the end of the first game unscathed, and Andy Pettitte gave everyone a break tonight by throwing 72 of his 94 pitches for strikes — “attack-tastic,” as my friend put it — powering through eight relatively smooth innings with a little help from his good friend the DP grounder. Safe to say he’s showing no ill effects from his recent elbow issue (…well, safe to say, but I’m knocking on wood anyway, just in case). He hit a few speed bumps: in the first inning, when my guy Denard Span doubled, stole third, and was delivered to home plate by Joe Mauer; and in the seventh, with Delmon Young’s RBI double. Beyond that, though Pettitte allowed eight hits, he walked no one, struck out four, and was generally able to keep his anguished, muttered self-criticism on the mound to a minimum. When he induced Joe Mauer to hit into the Twins’ third DP of the night and end the eighth inning, his fist pump was downright Joba-esque.

With the Yankees still staging their community theater adaptation of Waiting For Godot, starring Mark Teixeira’s offense (“We are all born mad. Some remain so”), they patched together a few runs from the bottom of the lineup. In the fourth Francisco Cervelli went all speed-demon on the Twins, beat out a potential double play throw, and scored from first on Kevin “Strong Island” Russo’s double; Russo himself scored in the seventh inning when Brett Gardner tripled. (“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!”).

Each team had two runs and eight hits when Nick Swisher came to the plate in the top of the ninth to face Jon Rauch and his neck tattoos. The third pitch of the at-bat was a ripe fastball, and we can only hope its violent death was quick and painless, as Swisher absolutely creamed it. It soared over the right field wall and gave them a 3-2 lead that they held onto, thanks to a much more Mariano-like Rivera appearance than we saw in the first game. Take a deep breath, the Yankees won another series.

Here’s a Game Thread for the conclusion of last night’s game and then for Liriano and Pettitte in the regularly-scheduled game. Red Sox are surging–time for the Yanks to get it in gear.

Let’s Go Score-Truck!

[Picture by Bags]

The opening game of the Yankees’ first series at the new outdoor stadium in Minneapolis was suspended after the fifth inning Tuesday night due to the increased intensity of a storm that brought steady rain beginning in the bottom of the second inning. The game, which remained scoreless when lightening strikes and heavier rains forced the umpires to call out the tarp after the bottom of the fifth, will be made up at 4:05 central time, 5:05 eastern on Wednesday afternoon with the regularly scheduled game between the two teams to follow thirty minutes after the last out, or at 6:10 central/7:10 eastern, whichever is later. The rain delay and eventual suspension of the game was the first weather-related delay of a Twins home game since September 26, 1981, the Twins’ fifth-to-last game at their previous outdoor home, Metropolitan Stadium.

There was very little action in the first five innings as both starters, A.J. Burnett for the Yankees and Scott Baker for the Twins, were sharp, allowing just three hits and no runs. Burnett walked two but struck out five, while Baker walked just one and struck out just two but needed only 50 pitches to get through five innings.

The only batter to reach third base for either team was Denard Span, who led off the bottom of the first with a walk, stole second, and moved to third when Joe Mauer grounded out for the second out. He was stranded when Michael Cuddyer ground out to short after Burnett pitched carefully to Justin Morneau and walked him.

The only Yankee to reach second was Derek Jeter who led off the fourth with a single to center, then moved up on a walk to Brett Gardner, who had singled in the first and thus showed signs of breaking out of his slump by reaching base in both of his plate appearances. Jeter was stranded when a still-struggling Mark Teixeira, who erased Gardner in the first via a double play, popped out, Alex Rodriguez struck out, and Robinson Cano flied out.

Thanks to that double play off the bat of Teixeira, Baker faced the minimum through the first three innings. Burnett countered by retiring eight straight from the third through the fifth, a streak broken when Span took advantage of the soft ground by dropping down a two-out bunt base hit that stopped dead a quarter of the way up the third base line. Span then stole second again, but Burnett struck out Orlando Hudson to strand him. After that, the game was delayed for about an hour and a half before being suspended. No word on who will pitch for either team in the sixth inning tomorrow.

If the regular season ended today, the Yankees and Twins would meet in the Division Series for the second year in a row and fourth time in the last eight years. This week’s three game set in Minneapolis, the Yankees’ first visit to the new Target Field, will conclude the season series between the two teams, but there’s a very good chance that they will meet again come October.

The Yankees took two of three from the Twins in the Bronx the weekend before last, but have gone 2-5 against the Red Sox, Rays, and Mets since. The Twins have gone 3-4, splitting a two-game set with the Blue Jays, dropping two games in Boston, then returning home to take two of three from the Brewers. The Twins scored 31 runs in the three wins, but just nine runs in the four losses.

Target Field has been a happy home for the Twinks thus far as they are 14-7 (.667) at home against just 12-11 on the road. Here are the runs-scored splits for the Twins and their opponents at and away from Target Field:

@MIN: Twins 5.43 R/G; Opp 3.67 R/G; total: 9.10 R/G
Road: Twins 4.60 R/G; Opp 4.39 R/G; total: 8.99 R/G

Baseball-Reference’s park factors list Target Field as a slight hitter’s park (103/102). The total runs per game numbers above, which lack any adjustment for strength of opposition or road park factors, seem to agree with that.

The only change the Twins have made since the Yankees last saw them is that they called up Trevor Plouffe and installed him at shortstop. Plouffe was the Twins’ first round pick in 2004, but he isn’t a great defender and has hit just .259/.321/.391 in the minors. He’s simply a place-holder for the injured J.J. Hardy (wrist), who could return during this series.

Tonight A.J. Burnett, who has pitched poorly in two of his last three starts, the exception being a quality start against the Twins in which he walked four and got a no-decision, goes up against Scott Baker. Baker was the losing pitcher in that game against Burnett despite striking out nine Yankees in six innings against just one walk.

Baker actually left that game with a 4-3 lead in the seventh, but he bequeathed a couple of runners to his bullpen, both of whom scored on Alex Rodriguez’s grand slam off Matt Guerrier later that inning. That game, with those two runners added to Baker’s tally, was the only one of his four starts in May in which he allowed more than three runs. On the month, he has averaged more than 6 2/3 innings per starts and has struck out 27 men in 27 innings against just four walks.

With Baker starting tonight, Francisco Liriano starting Wednesday, and Javy Vazquez testing out his bruised finger on Thursday, all in a ballpark that has been very friendly to its new tenants, the Yankees will be hard pressed to pull out of their current skid this week.

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When I last checked in with this feature, prior to the Yankees last visit to Fenway Park, the Yankees were 19-8, just one game out of first place, and had lost just one series on the season. Since then, they’ve gone 7-10, lost three more series and split a fourth, and fallen a full six games behind the Rays. The upside is that they’re still in second place in the American League East and are tied with the Twins for the second-best record in the AL.

The Yankees arrive in Minnesota tonight in the midst of their first full-blown slump of the season. Over their last 15 games they are 5-10, and they have won just one of their last six contests. Prior to Sunday’s game, Joe Girardi identified a “multitude of problems” that have contributed to the team’s woes, including starting pitching, the bullpen, and clutch hitting. To my eye, the last of those has been less damaging than the first two.

The Yankees’ one win in their last six games came in the game in which they scored the fewest runs, their 2-1 victory over the Mets on Friday. In the five losses over that stretch, the Yankees have scored an average of five runs per game, well above the league average of 4.52, but have allowed an average of 7.2. That’s on the pitching.

When I last checked in, the Yankees were 18-4 in games started by the top four men in their rotation (CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, and Phil Hughes). Since then, Sabathia has made just one quality start in four appearances, posting a 5.96 ERA, A.J. Burnett has posted an 8.15 ERA in three starts, Phil Hughes has given up nine runs in 10 2/3 innings over his last two starts, and Andy Pettitte had his first bad start of the season, giving up seven runs (six earned) in five innings against the Rays. In the ten games covered in that last sentence, the Yankees have gone 2-8. Six of those losses can be blamed entirely on the starting pitching, while both wins can be credited to the offense, with the bullpen sharing credit on one.

Meanwhile, Javy Vazquez has made two quality starts in as many attempts posting a 1.35 ERA and this line: 13 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 4 BB, 13 K. However, Javy was twice skipped over for Sergio Mitre, who pitched well for a spot-starter, but took the loss in his first start after giving up four runs (three earned) in 4 1/3 innings. That’s an seventh loss that can be blamed on starting pitching.

Of the remaining three losses from the Yankees’ 7-10 stretch, one was the fault of the offense, which failed to score a run for Javy Vazquez in Detroit as the Tigers won 2-0. The other two can be hung on the bullpen. Those two losses came in a three-game stretch a week ago during which Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera both got hit hard in back-t0-back outings.

Chamberlain has made one appearance since then, but it was a dominant one in which he struck out three men in 1 2/3 perfect innings, stranding two inherited runners to boot. Rivera has also made just one appearance since then, but he again gave up a run on a pair of hits, though he still escaped with the save in a 2-1 Yankee win over the Mets. Still, I’m not concerned about those two long-term.

Yes, the Yankees have some hitters who are struggling, specifically two- and three-spot hitters Brett Gardner (1-for-18 with just one walk), and Mark Teixeira (3-for-25), but Teixeira singled in his last two at-bats, and the lineup is slowly returning to health with Curtis Granderson looking good in his rehab assignment with Scranton and likely to be activated when the team returns home to face the Indians this weekend.

Granderson’s return, along with Nick Swisher’s return to action in the Mets series, will put the Yankee outfield back at full strength and allow Marcus Thames and Juan Miranda to settle into a platoon at designated hitter, and Randy Winn to return to his role as a speed-and-defense sub.

Despite being ravaged by injuries (Jorge Posada remains out with a broken foot and Nick Johnson could be lost for the season) and having several late-inning rallies have fall just short, the offense is not the problem. It is, after all, putting together those late-inning rallies in the first place. Rather it’s the need for those rallies, created by poor performances from the starting pitchers, that has been the problem.

I’m not terribly concerned about that either. Phil Hughes was due for some correction, but he has only had two bad starts, and the last against the Mets wasn’t that bad as he struck out seven men in 5 2/3 innings and allowed just four runs, one on the last pitch he threw. CC Sabathia had an unusually strong April, so his May struggles just feel like compensation for that. I have no doubts that he’ll dominate in the second half as he always does. Andy Pettitte has only had one bad outing, and he earned it with his best start to a season ever. Javy Vazquez and A.J. Burnett still have some proving to do, but Vazquez is well on his way and Burnett has always been inconsistent, so he’s not pitching out of character.

It’s not been a lot of fun to watch, but the Yankees recent skid hasn’t hurt them that much and doesn’t seem likely to continue much longer. But as for how it’s going . . . meh, it’s been better.

The below are a collection of photographs that I took from the dugout and the field prior to Sunday night’s game between the Yankees and Mets (roll over for captions, click image to enlarge).

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Give the Yankees this: they’re in a team-wide slump right now, but they’re still not boring. Even in a game in which they look listless, they’re almost a sure bet to put together a late-inning rally that falls just short of the necessary number of runs to qualify as an actual comeback.

They did it again Sunday night. For the third time in his last four starts, CC Sabathia was off his game, his pitches staying up in the zone, two of them leaving the park. Sunday night it was Jason Bay who turned around, in Joe Girardi’s words, “a changeup that cut” and a sinker that was up in the zone, tripling his home run output on the season. Those two blasts, one over the 384 sign in the left-field gap, one more than 400 feet to the opposite-field gap, plated three Mets runs. Prior to Bay’s first shot, in the second inning, a single by lefty Alex Cora, a last-minute sub for the aching Luis Castillo at second base, plated the Mets’ first two runs. After Bay’s second shot in the fifth, rookie lefty Ike Davis singled and was driven in by a David Wright double.

That made it 6-0 Mets and prompted me to comment in my liveblog from the pressbox, “I’m calling another just-short late-inning rally tonight.”

Bingo.

Johan Santana gave up three singles in the first three innings, but only CC Sabathia, who singled to lead off the third, got past first base. From the third through the seventh, Santana retired 13 straight Yankees. Then in the seventh, the Yankees finally broke through when Nick Swisher worked a two-out walk, and Francisco Cervelli hit a ball off the top of the left-field wall, inches below the foul pole for a long single.

Down, 6-1, the Yankees loaded the bases on a pair of walks and a Mark Teixeira slump-busting single in the eighth as Santana passed 100 pitches, but Jerry Manuel brought in side-arming lefty Pedro Feliciano, who got Robinson Cano to pop out to strand all three runners.

Finally, the Yankees put an honest-to-goodness rally together in the ninth against Ryota Igarashi, a first-year Japanese import fresh off the disabled list. Another Swisher walk was followed by a Cervelli single, Kevin Russo fielder’s choice, Juan Miranda pinch-hit RBI single. That forced Manuel to go to his closer, and Derek Jeter greeted old foe Francisco Rodriguez with a big RBI double to make it 6-3. Brett Gardner followed with an RBI groundout to third, failing to get a close call, though replays showed he was out by the tiniest of margins.

Teixeira followed with a flare that dropped in front of Cora for a hit, putting the tying run on and bringing up Alex Rodriguez for a big time confrontation with K-Rod. Rodriguez battled Rodriguez for eight pitches, getting ahead 2-0, then 3-1, fouling off four pitches in the at-bat, two of them with the count full, but once again the Yankees fell short. The third 3-2 pitch in the fourth full count of the inning was a changup in the zone that dipped just below Alex Rodriguez’s swing for strike three.

Mets win the game, 6-4, and the series.

The Yankees take a travel day and head to the new ballpark in Minneapolis. Here’s hoping they don’t run out of gas in St. Paul.