For the second time in as many series, the Yankees open a three-game set with a significant roster change. On Friday, they promoted Brett Gardner and Cody Ransom at the expense of Melky Cabrera and Richie Sexson. Today, they’ve activated Hideki Matsui from the disabled list and optioned Justin Christian back to triple-A.

Matsui has been on the shelf since late June due to inflammation in his left knee, but was one of the Yankees best hitters over the first three months of the season, going .323/.404/.458 and failing to reach base in just eight of his 69 games before succumbing to his injury. Matsui has slowly and steadily rehabilitated his knee since then, concluding his work over the weekend by playing in three rehab games with high-A Tampa in which he went 2 for 8 with a solo homer and two walks.

With Matsui back in the fold, two big questions need to be answered. The first is, obviously, “will he hit.” The second is, “if he hits, who sits?”

There’s no question that Matsui will DH and DH only, that’s been stated explicitly by the team, but with Gardner having just been installed in center field and having picked up five hits (including a double, a triple, and a game winner) in the final two games against the Royals, the big question is whose at-bats will Matsui might be taking.

Tonight the answer is Gardner, as Johnny Damon starts in center flanked by Xavier Nady and Bobby Abreu with Jason Giambi at first. To his credit, Joe Girardi has put his best offense on the field (including Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate) against A.J. Burnett, turf be damned. Still, one suspects that if that lineup was intended to be permanent, Gardner, who’s being groomed to start, would have been sent down in stead of Christian, who has emerged as a viable bench player. Instead, Gardner’s continued presence suggests an intended rotation that will see Girardi continue to rest his stars, be it by giving Damon or Matsui days off, or giving Nady some work at first base in place of Giambi.

No one really knows what to expect from Matsui any more than they know what to expect from Gardner 2.0. If Matsui picks up where he left off and Gardner continues to hit .400 with runners in scoring position, resting Damon and Giambi won’t hurt. If Matsui struggles and Gardner’s weekend proves to be a fluke, resting Damon and Giambi could undermine what little fight this team seems to have left in it.

Still, replacing Cabrera and Christian with Matsui and Gardner sure feels like a hefty upgrade, even if the offense’s biggest problems remain the catchers, Robinson Cano, and Jason Giambi’s poor performance with runners in scoring position (which has allowed teams to pitch around Alex Rodriguez in such situations).

The Yanks will need all the pop they can get in Toronto as they have to face not only Burnett tonight, but Roy Halladay on Thursday. The last series between these two teams was also played in Toronto with Burnett and Halladay pitching the bookend games. The Jays won both of those games, while the Yankees pounded Jesse Litsch in the middle match. On the season, the Jays, who are just two games behind the Yankees in the standings, have won four of the nine games between the two teams, with either Halladay or Burnett getting the win in all four victories. The Yankees have won just one game started by either of the Jays’ top two starters all year, that coming on Opening Night, when Chien-Ming Wang out-dueled Halladay, 3-2.

The Jays are a better team than they seem. Since Cito Gaston returned to the site of his past glories by replacing John Gibbons as manager at the end of a miserable June for the Jays, Toronto has won at a .580 clip. Had they done that over the rest of the season, they’d be leading the Red Sox in the Wild Card race (only one team in the NL has a winning percentage higher than .580). Over the same stretch, the Yankees have played .520 ball, which is actually worse than their overall winning percentage of .532.

Halladay and Burnett have obviously been key to that run under Gaston (Burnett is 9-2 under Gaston, Halladay has a 2.24 ERA since Cito’s return), as has the Jays’ dominant bullpen (a MLB-best 3.02 ERA). As for the offense, Vernon Wells spent most of Gaston’s first 50 games back at the helm on the DL and has only recently returned. Scott Rolen hit .229/.338/.382 under Gaston before landing on the DL himself. Instead it’s been left fielder Adam Lind who has been sparking the lineup, hitting .329/.363/.587 since being recalled two days after Gaston’s return. Gaston’s other big lineup change was to bench David Eckstein in favor of starting first Marco Scutaro and, with Scutaro now needed in Rolen’s place at third base, John McDonald at shortstop. Neither player provides much offense, but Scutaro has out-hit Rolen under Gaston, and McDonald’s defense makes Halladay all the more dominant.

Every little bit helps, which brings us back to Matsui. The last time he returned from a long DL stay he went 4 for 4 on his first night back. Of course, that was in mid-September 2006, when the Yankees had a double-digit lead in the AL East. Things are a bit different this year.

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Ponson, Pavano and, would you believe, Zambrano. Yup, Joel Sherman mentions Victor Zambrano today in the latest edition of his Hardball blog.

Remixed…

This book looks amazing…

The Return of Godzilla…

Andy Speaks:

“Do you feel like at some point they didn’t go out and try to get a pitcher this year because they didn’t want to lose some (young) pitchers? That’s what it seemed like. They’ve invested a ton in these guys and, to a certain extent, you can’t blame them for doing that.

“Hopefully it works out and hopefully these guys are all great and they come up here and have wonderful big-league careers. Also, the budget isn’t endless – you have to draw a line.

“At some point, you’ve got to go with the team you’ve got and players have to perform. The bottom line is, it comes down to us and we haven’t played well enough so far to say we’re a playoff team right now.”

(McCarron, N.Y. Daily News)

Tonight, our favorite nemesis, AJ Burnett.

How do the Red Sox, Yankees and other teams fare against good pitching?

Here’s an excellent look…

And just cause, here’s my favorite low budget music video of all time:

Rob Trucks has a good interview with my man Steinski over at the Voice today.

I don’t know about you guys but I find ESPN’s wall-to-wall coverage of the Little League World Series to be more than somewhat disturbing.  I’m generally not a moralist by nature but I’m just so turned off by watching kids televised as if they were professionals.  It doesn’t seem right to me, it feels like too much pressure is being placed on them too soon.  How can they just kick back and have fun?

This year, the coverage is more pronounced than ever as highlights make their make nightly onto Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight.  I simply turn the channel.  I just won’t watch it. 

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? 

According to Bryan Hoch at MLB.com, either Carl Pavano or Phil Hughes will be called up to start on Saturday.  Carl Pavano.  Jeez, imagine?

Caught this link over at Rob Neyer’s blog.  Has to do with Mariano Rivera and wild pitches.  Interesting stuff…

This is one of my favorite times of year in New York City, when half the town is out-of-town.  The weekend weather was a gift, low on humidity; the hot late-summer sun was cut nicely by a cool breeze.  Cliff and his mom’s must have had a b-a-double-l at in the bleachers today as it was Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, Xavier Nady, Jason Giambi and Cody Ransom leading the Yankees to a good old-fashioned Sunday roastin of the KC Royals.

Mike Mussina won his 16th. 

“To be to 16 in August, that’s a rarity for me,” Mussina said. “I’ve been doing some things right. I’ve been getting a few breaks. The bullpen has been really good behind me, the guys are scoring me runs, we’ve been playing solid defense. You need all those things to work for you.” (Borzi, New York Times)

Brett Gardner and Robinson Cano each had a couple of hits too. 

15-6 was the final.  Nothing but Peaches n Cream and a Sunday celebration with Ma.

Mmm’mmm Good. 

“Mothers are beautiful, they really are.” –Bill Cosby.

My mom took me to a bunch of games when I was a kid–mostly for birthday parties. I don’t remember much about them, though one year Mike Gittleson stepped on a pack of mustard outside the Stadium and it splattered on my mom’s leg. She didn’t skip a beat and rubbed her leg against Mike’s removing the mustard from her and putting it on him.

Years later, I was working on my first cutting room job when my mom called in the middle of the day. “I’ve got two tickets for tonight’s game, do you want them?” It was the first round of the 1995 playoffs, the first post-season game the Yankees were in since 1981. Ma lives and works in Westchester and she offered to drive to Manhattan and drop off the tickets. I said, “Ma, why don’t we just meet by the bat and go to the game together?”

So we did, and it was a memorable game of course, one the greatest experiences I’ve ever had watching the Yanks.

Cliff took his mom with him to the game today to celebrate her birthday. He’s only only a good son, but she’s a great Ma too. Here’s hoping they have a grand time and get to see Moose win his sixteenth game of the year. The Yankee offense has been so bad of late you gotta figure they are gunna unleash soon. C’mon you dummies, do it for Moose and do it for Cliff and his Ma.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

“What can I tell you?” Royals DH José Guillen said. “That was the kind of game you haven’t seen from us in a while. We didn’t do any of the little things. A lot of wasted opportunities. Both sides, too. They were the same.”

It was a gorgeous afternoon in New York, unseasonably reasonable. The sun dipped in and out of the clouds but it was a terrific day to be outside. The Yankees and Royals played a long game, close to five hours, that lasted thirteen innings. It was another Yankee game filled with aborted offensive rallies, strange managerial moves, good starting (Sir Sidney, once again) and relief pitching, and plenty of frustration. The crowd was mostly silent for the last hour or so; I was fighting off sleep watching from the comfort of my couch. In the end, Brett Gardner slapped the game-winning single to left giving the Yanks a 3-2 win.

According to the Times:

“To be quite honest with you, I don’t care who ended it,” said Derek Jeter, the Yankees’ captain. “We needed to win a game. This would have been a rough one to lose, with so many opportunities.”

“It doesn’t matter how we win as long as we win,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “This was a big win for us today because we’ve been scuffling, and scuffling to score. Maybe this is the game that gets us back on the winning track and we win a bunch in a row.”

The Yankees are going to have to start playing a better brand of baseball to generate any kind of winning streak. They were fortunate to win yesterday. Let’s hope the bats finally bust loose today.

The Bronx Bummers are at it again this afternoon. At this pernt, you’ve got to laugh to keep from cryin. Here’s hoping they give something, anything to cheer for today.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

It’s been a weird season; I’ve only recently begun to adjust to the fact that the Devil Rays are 10 games ahead of the Yankees in mid-August. But I thought if there was one thing we could count on in this life, it was Kansas City sucking worse than New York… they’re not trying to take that from us, too, are they?

The Royals beat the Yankees 4-3 Friday night in a game I would’ve called a heartbreaker if everyone’s heart hadn’t already been broken a week or two ago. I missed staring at Michael Phelps’ torso for this? Gil Meche pitched pretty well, but not so well that he would necessarily have won if the Yankee offense wasn’t still acting like RBIs cause gonorrhea.

Andy Pettitte wasn’t at his best but minimized the damage: seven innings, three runs, it could easily have been worse. Meanwhile the Yankees stranded 11 men and, during the game’s first three innings, went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Still, the game was tied at three in the ninth inning when… wait for it… Mariano Rivera threw a wild pitch that allowed the Royals to score what would prove to be the winning run. Rivera blowing games with wild pitches — I had to pause the Tivo and check to make sure the universe hadn’t just collapsed on itself. If that’s not a sign that this just ain’t their year, I don’t know what is.

Because we’re now at the point of the season where you have to take your entertainment where you can, I’m absolutely thrilled that Cody Ransom has been called up, one of my favorite names of the spring. I actually actively avoided reading about him in Cliff’s farm report and elsewhere, because I want him to remain, in my mind, just the fastest gun on the cattle ranch. I’m trying not to get too good a look at him on TV, either, since it’ll just spoil the image. Cody Ransom, if it isn’t already, needs to be the name of a tough, reluctantly violent man of few words with a mysterious past who brings harsh justice to a wild border town in an old school western. Or I can see "Cody Ransom" as a full-on John Wayne* in Rio Bravo type; Don Zimmer would be the old coot sidekick – the Walter Brenner role – and Sidney Ponson can play the once-great drunkard pal. "A game-legged old man and a drunk," the Kansas City pitcher will say, "That’s all you got?" And Cody Ransom will stare him down and reply, "That’s WHAT I got."

…What? We’ve gotta make our own fun these days.

—
*Wayne has played characters with names including, but not limited to, John T. Chance, Chance Buckman, Rooster Cogburn, Lon McQ, George Washington McClintock, Cord McNally, Taw Jackson, Cole Thornton, Matt Masters, Ranger Captain Jake Cutters, Nathan Cutting Brittles, Joe January, Quirt Evans, Rusty Thomas, Rusty Ryan, Wedge Donovan, Duke Fergus, Duke Hudkins, and Stony Brooke. Has any actor ever had a better body or character names? I don’t think so.

Let’s get right into it. The Yankees just made three roster moves. The first was obvious: Dan Giese, who left Wednesday’s game with shoulder tendonitis, has been placed on the DL and replaced with Chris Britton, who will reprise his role as roster filler until the Yankees are forced to call up a fifth starter, likely Phil Hughes, next weekend.

The second was somewhat overdue. Melky Cabrera, who has hit .226/.274/.293 since May 1, was optioned to triple-A and replaced by Brett Gardner. In fairness to the Yankees, they tried to motivate this exchange in early July by calling up Gardner and giving him 16 starts in an 18-game stretch (enabled by Johnny Damon’s shoulder injury), but Gardner made Melky look like Mickey Mantle by hitting .153/.227/.169. As I reported in my Farm Report this morning, Gardner got back in the grove after his late-July demotion, hitting .339/.429/.390* in his return engagement in Scranton. He also returns to the Bronx coming off a 3 for 4 day (with a triple) and on a seven-game hitting streak. After his July performance, it’s difficult to say Gardner couldn’t be worse than Melky, and there’s legitimate concern that his total lack of power will allow major league pitchers to challenge him and thus negate his ability to draw walks, which is a huge part of his game, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and this doesn’t even qualify as the latter.

Gardner will start in center tonight and bat eighth ahead of Andy Pettitte’s new personal catcher, Jose Molina. It remains to be seen if Joe Girardi will platoon the lefty-hitting Gardner with the right-handed Justin Christian, though one suspects he will. The way I see it, if they’re going to give Gardner a second chance, they might as well let him play full time, though certainly Gardner’s performance will play a large part in determining how much playing time he loses to Christian. As for Melky, he’ll be back when rosters expand in two weeks.

The third and final transaction saw the Yankees call up Cody Ransom, whom I also discussed in my Farm Report, and release Richie Sexson. I have to say, I’m confused about this one. Sexson was hitting .250/.371/.393 as a Yankee, which isn’t season-changing, but if nothing else, gave the Yankees a solid on-base performance from a bench player. Against lefties, Sexson hit .273/.393/.455 as a Yankee, which meant he was doing what the Yankees picked him up to do. Ransom, as I said in my Farm Report, is essentially a right-handed Wilson Betemit, but five years older and with a fraction of the big league experience. Originally a shortstop, Ransom can play all four infield positions and spot in the outfield. He transitioned to third base in 2006, but in the wake of the Alberto Gonzalez trade was moved back to short in Scranton a couple of weeks ago. He’s got some pop in his bat (22 homers in 116 games for Scranton this year, 49 in 257 games over his last two minor league seasons), but his plate discipline is ordinary at best and he strikes out a lot and hits for a low average.

Other than position flexibility, I’m not sure what Ransom offers that would be enough for the Yankees to pass on having Sexson on the bench earning the major league minimum. Derek Jeter’s in the lineup tonight at shortstop, so it doesn’t seem as though his bruised instep is enough of a problem to motivate a roster move that costs the team a productive player. The only thing I can think of is that having the extra infielder on hand will allow Joe Girardi to apply some pressure to Robinson Cano, whose play over the past two weeks has become downright problematic as he’s made numerous mental mistakes on the bases and in the field, enough so that his effort and concentration have been called into question (Cano’s also hitting .210/.279/.323 since the end of the Yankees’ eight-game winning streak coming out of the All-Star break). Still, I’m not sure it was necessary to release Sexson in order to give either Betemit or Ransom some starts at second base. Besides which, Cano’s in the lineup tonight in his usual spot.

Still, it seems to me that these last two moves are designed primarily to make the C + C Music Factory sweat, while giving Girardi some viable alternatives in the meantime. Sexson’s departure doesn’t represent a huge loss, particularly with Jason Giambi having heated back up (.288/.447/.515 since the day before the All-Star break, .364/.533/.773 on the just-completed road trip), but Cody Ransom, a career .236/.331/.364 hitter in 140 major league bats at age 31, is still a downgrade, no matter what positions he can play.

*the stats in my Farm Report don’t include Thursday’s games; these do

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Over at SI.com, John Rolfe revists a world without the Yankees in the post-season.  I consider the possibility of a silent October in the Bronx at The Hardball Times.

With the season on the brink of extinction and with one eye focused on next spring, there’s a lot of ground to cover in Yankeeland. What’s wrong with Robinson Cano? What’s right with Xavier Nady? And why do the Yankees have the most fragile young pitchers? Here’s a smattering of opinions coming from Cooperstown:

*Robinson Cano might not be the biggest individual disappointment in major league baseball this year, but he has to rank among the top five failures. On Wednesday afternoon, he hit rock bottom. Cano went hitless at the plate and committed three mental mistakes in the field as the Yankees fell to the Twins, 4-2, to close out a miserable 3-and-7 road trip. Without those mistakes, the outcome of the road trip finale could have been different.

The Yankees envisioned Cano having a breakout season in 2008, hitting .315-plus with power and playing Gold Glove defense at second base. Instead, they’ve watched Cano sink to his lowest major league levels, as he struggles to hit .265, shows no additional patience at the plate, and waltzes around the infield, playing the position without passion or hustle. The regression is so stunning that I have to believe Cano misses the influence of Larry Bowa, the Yankees’ former third base and infield coach. Bowa, with his relentlessly aggressive style, had a way of lighting a fuse under Cano; without Bowa, Cano plays too often as if he is sleepwalking.

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I got off work and headed downtown yesterday evening just as it started to pour.  By the time I reached Union Square, the stairwell leading the street was crammed with people.  Some were just waiting for the rain to let up, others were soaking wet.  At the top of the stairs an African woman chanted, "Umbrella, umbrella, umbrella."  I smiled at her and said, "How’s business?"  She titled her head at me, paused and then went back to her mantra. 

I braved the elements until I got to Fourth avenue and 12th street, where I stopped underneath an overhang, where several people were huddled.  I sat and watched the traffic pass.  It’s funny, the rain.  Some people are completely unfazed by it.  Others will wait it out cause they can’t stand getting wet.  A kid in his early twenties passed me, no umbrella, drenched, his t-shirt sticking to his long torso.  I remembered being in my early twenties seeing this kid and I smiled at his carefree manner as he strutted by.

Then a familiar face passed.  As I thought about who it was, I said, "J?"  The dude stopped and sure enough it was J-Live, the MC and record producer.  Back in the summer of ’01, the year before I started Bronx Banter, I conducted a long interview with J in the basement of The Sound Library, an upscale record shop, when it used to be on Avenue A.  This was just after J’s second full-length album, All of the Above was released.  Although it took some time to pin him down once we spoke, J was insightful and a thoroughly decent guy.

I’ve drifted from the music scene in recent years though I did hear that J put out a new record earlier this summer.  I congradulated him on the new joint (which I haven’t heard yet), told him what I’m up to, and then let him go.  If it hadn’t been raining, I would have never run into him.

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