The Yankees broke ground on their new Stadium this morning on a bright, sunny day in the Bronx. Politicians, The Boss, Yogi, and Billy Crystal were just some of those in attendence. In an unrelated piece of sad news, veteran New York character actor Bruno Kirby lost his fight against leukemia yesterday. Kirby, who played the young Clemenza in “The Godfather II,” and was featured in “This Is Spinal Tap,” and “Modern Romance,” as well as other notable flicks, was just 57. His raspy New York voice will be missed.

Oh yeah, “it ain’t over ’til it’s over.”

No doubt, as late as the middle of the sixth inning last night’s game looked like a replay of Mike Mussina’s last start against the Orioles, when the Yankees mustered just one hit against O’s starter Adam Loewen while Moose allowed just three runs and was saddled with a hard-luck loss.

Indeed, the score was 3-0 O’s after five and a half last night with the Yanks having managed just three singles and a walk through five and O’s starter Erik Bedard having set down eleven Yanks in a row between the first and fifth innings. The Orioles, meanwhile, scored their first run on a one-out solo homer by Kevin Millar in the fifth then got two more in the sixth due in part to yet another Alex Rodriguez error.

Brian Roberts led off the sixth with a double and moved to third when Melvin Mora followed with a single. Miguel Tejada then flied out to right, but Roberts hold at third out of respect for Bobby Abreu’s arm. Alas, Roberts would score anyway as Jay Gibbons followed with a single on an 0-2 pitch. Jeff Conine then hit Mussina’s next offering right at Rodriguez at third, but as Alex charged the ball he got caught on an in-between hop and rather than turning an inning-ending double play he booted the ball and fired wide and late to first as Mora scored with the third Oriole run. Fortunately, Mike Mussina kept it together and picked up his third baseman by retiring the next two batters to strand Gibbons and Conine.

Fortunately, Bedard proved no more durable than Mussina on this night as, after the Yanks made a bit of noise in the fifth when Jorge Posada reached on an slow dribbler to third and Craig Wilson followed him with just the third Yankee single of the night, they finally broke through in the sixth. Jeter lead-off the inning with an infield single and was pushed to third when a pair of seven-pitch walks to Abreu and the mustachioed Jason Giambi loaded the bases for Rodriguez, who promptly redeemed himself with an RBI single.

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I have to admit. I’m sick and tired of the Orioles. It’s not that they give the Yankees a hard time. The Yankees haven’t lost a season series to the O’s since 1997, when the O’s were the last non-Yankee team to win the AL East. This year, the Yanks are 6-3 against Baltimore, taking 2 of 3 in each of their three series, including a weekend set at Camden Yards just over a week ago. So it’s not that the O’s are troublesome. They’re just oppressively uninteresting.

By this point in the season, Miguel Tejada is typically phoning it in (something we saw in that last series in Baltimore), and without Tejada giving a full effort, who is there on this club that you’re excited to see play? The only guy I can muster much enthusiasm for is closer Chris Ray, but I don’t want to see him pitch because it generally means the Yanks are about to drop a game to a team that shouldn’t beat them. The three game series that starts tonight will be even worse because it’s already being overshadowed by this weekend’s five-game death match in Fenway Park. Still, you have to take it one day at a time and tonight, it’s those flat lining Orioles (who just got swept by the Red Sox) yet again.

The O’s look about the same as they did two weekends ago. They’ve activated Kris Benson and recalled Daniel Cabrera from triple-A, but the Yankees won’t see either in this series. Those two have bumped Bruce Chen and Russ Ortiz back into the bullpen and knocked Winston Abreu and Julio Manon off the roster. Thrilling, ain’t it?

Tonight Mike Mussina takes on Erik Bedard. Moose has had trouble pitching around defensive errors and questionable umpiring of late as he’s reverted to his 2004 and 2005 form, in which well pitched games would often be ruined by one bad inning in which he just couldn’t stop the bleeding. He was the hard-luck loser in the one loss in that last series in Baltimore, allowing three runs in five inefficient innings while Adam Loewen and company one-hit the Yanks. Bedard did not pitch in that series, but has been excellent since late June after a rough start to his season. Starting with eight dominant innings against the Marlins on June 21 (2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 12 K), he’s posted this line:

9 GS, 6-2, 1.73 ERA, 62 1/3 IP, 42 H, 3 HR, 15 BB, 63 K, 0.91 WHIP, 7 QS

The good news for the Yankees is that his two non-quality starts, and only two loses, over that stretch have been his last two. Then again, both were near-misses: 5 1/3 innings, two runs against the Mariners at home, and four runs in seven innings against the Blue Jays in Toronto. Still, the 27-year-old Bedard is another pitcher, like Chien-Ming Wang and Justin Verlander, who is entering uncharted innings territory. After losing most of his 2003 season to Tommy John surgery he threw 142 1/3 innings between the minors and majors in 2004 and 148 2/3 innings in 2005, both setting career highs. This year he’s already thrown 142 2/3 innings. The good news for Bedard and the Orioles is that they can baby him through the rest of the season and won’t lose anything by shutting him down early. The Yankees and Wang don’t have that luxury.

Tomorrow night at 7 p.m., I’m going to be part of a three-man panel, including Will Leitch and Matt Cerrone, discussing Baseball and Blogging at the 92nd Street Y. Actually, the program–moderated by Allen Barra–will be held on the West Side, in the Steinhardt Building, which is at 35 West 67th street. The admission is $12 if you pick up the tickets ahead of time, $15 at the door. For anyone who is in town and interested, we’d love to see you.

“We need to clean up some of the stuff that we do,” [Yankee manager, Joe] Torre said. “We’ve played better than this. And tonight we started to get into it at the end of the game, and I thought we played with a little more confidence. But I think we’ve been a little hesitant over the last few days.”
(Michael Morrissey, N.Y. Post)

“They have a great offense and you’re not going to go through a game without getting into a situation or two,” [Angels’ starter, John] Lackey said. “I was able to minimize the damage and give us a chance to win. If you want to be a playoff team you have to figure out how to win games like that.”
(Doug Padilla, L.A. Daily News)

The Yankees beat the Angels 7-2 on Monday night, led by their slumping stars, Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter. The Bombers pounded out 16 hits in all. The two most maligned Yankees, Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez, contributed as well, and the victory, combined with a Red Sox loss, puts New York two games ahead of Boston in the AL East (three ahead in the loss column).

After Jason Giambi ran through a stop-sign and was thrown out at the plate in the second inning, Jeter launched a two-run homer to dead center in the third. The score remained the same until the top of the seventh inning. Randy Johnson, who recorded the 4,500th strike out of his career in the fourth when he K’d Tim Salmon, was pitching well for the second-straight game. He allowed a one-out double to Jose Molina and then with two outs, the ever-pesky Chone Figgins slapped a slider that was low and out of the strike zone into center for an RBI single. Not a bad pitch by Johnson, who then left a fastball over the plate (it too was out-of-the-strike zone) to Howie Kendrick. The Angels’ impressive young second baseman lofted a fly ball to deep right center. It hit off the wall, missing a home run by a few feet, good for an RBI double and the game was tied. Orlando Cabrera followed and hit a ground ball to Robinson Cano’s backhand. The Yankee second basemen almost tripped over his feet on the lip of the outfield grass, but maintained his balanced and made the throw to first for the third out.

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According to Joel Sherman in today’s Post:

After a 5-3 loss that diminished the Yanks’ AL East lead to one game over Boston and diminished Rodriguez even further in the eyes of the fan base, A-Rod vowed the best of his 2006 season is coming.

For the first time, he revealed that during the first four months he was coping with injuries that, perhaps, should have sent him to the DL, but that he could not go due to the DL devastation already ensnaring the Yanks. He would not disclose what the injuries were. However, he said, that the problems caused both terrible throwing mechanics and a change in his swing that led him to constantly get beat with even tepid fastballs. He admits that on defense he still needs to regain his aggression, but that his swing is back and “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

He added, “This is the best I have felt all year” and explained that, because of that, it feels as if he “just finished spring training” and is ready to tackle the season.

Now, this being Alex Rodriguez, such statements will be dissected. Is this reality? An excuse? Both? With Rodriguez there are never easy answers. But for the purposes of this exercise, let’s take him at his words and, therefore, say a season within a season begins now and see if Rodriguez is a man of these words: “I think it is going to be a good ending.”

If Rodriguez has been hurt, it would behoove him not to be coy about it. In spite of another poor weekend with the leather, he looked good offensively until Sunday.

Tonight gives a match-up of two of the fugliest pitchers around: The Big Unit and John Lackey. Unfortunately, for the Yanks, Lackey is the ace of the Angels’ staff, while it is hard to know what to expect from Johnson on any given outing. But after a poor week, now is as good a time as any for the Yanks to get on the good foot and start playing up to their capabilities again.

In the dugout before Sunday’s game, Kim Jones, the beat reporter for the YES network, asked Yankee manager Joe Torre if Jared Weaver made him of think of Weaver’s older brother and former-Yankee, Jeff Weaver. “It’s hard not to,” said Torre. “He’s got the same look, the same willowy body. He looks like a clone [of his brother].” Torre said that he had not seen the young Weaver pitch—except for a few highlights on TV—but admitted, “He seems like the real thing.”

Weaver was the real thing on Sunday afternoon, mixing a nasty curve ball with a strong fastball. The Yankees made him work but Weaver showed resolve and poise. He was not afraid to pitch inside and even when he was behind in the count, he didn’t lose his cool. The only mistake he made in six innings of work was when he dipped-down and tried to sneak a fastball past Craig Wilson in the fifth. He had previously made Wilson look foolish with a breaking pitch away, and the drop-down was the kind of cutesy move that his brother has specialized in. Otherwise, there wasn’t any resemblance to Jeff, other than physically.

Like his brother, Jered is long and lean. But his motion is slightly different. Jered twists his back, with his number facing the batter, in a manner than is reminiscent of Hideo Nomo. He made Alex Rodriguez—who had another less than stellar day in the field—look bad in three at bats. For his part, Chien-Ming Wang was flat for the second-straight outing, giving up six hits and three runs in the first inning alone.

The Angels bullpen was its usual stellar self and they set the Yankees down like lambs until Rodriguez blasted his 25th dinger of the year with two men out in the bottom of the ninth. Jason Giambi followed with a solo shot of his own, just to the right of the 399 ft sign in left center, but that was it as the Angels bounced the Bombers, 5-3 in front of a sellout crowd in the Big House.

Man, that was a heck of a way to sperl a wonderful day in New York, particularly with Boston, Minnie and Chicago all leading their games as the Yankee game ended. The Yanks will likely be just a game ahead of Boston in a few hours (and here I thought, just listening to the noise coming out of Boston this past week, that the Red Sox were dead). But then again, the Yankees are accustomed to hellish games against the Halos. And tomorrow night they get to face L.A.’s ace, John Lackey.

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It is another absolutely gorgeous day here in New York as Chien-Ming Wang squares off against rookie sensation Jered Weaver this afternoon in the Bronx. Tyler Kepner has a profile on Wang this morning in the Times, while Rich Lederer has Everything You’ve Always Wanted to Know About J. Weaver (but were afraid to ask*). While it appears increasingly unlikely that Hideki Matsui or Gary Sheffield will return this season, today promises to give us an exciting pitching match-up. Both Cliff and I will be there.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

After a couple of ugly losses, the Yankees breezed to victory this afternoon on an impossibly beautiful Saturday in the Bronx. Jaret Wright was up to his usual tricks in the first, walking the speedy Chone Figgins on five pitches to start the game and the dangerous Vlad Guerrero on four pitches after a pair of foul outs by Maicer Izturis and Orlando Carbrera. The hot-hitting Juan Rivera then singled to right to plate Figgins, but Guerrero failed to respect Bobby Abreu’s arm and was nailed trying to go first to third when Abreu fired a one-hop strike to Alex Rodriguez to end the inning (it was the first of two crucial baserunning gaffes by the Impaler, who was later picked off second by Jorge Posada to kill an Angel rally in the sixth). That play just might have been the key to the ball game, as Wright settled down from there, facing the minimum over the next three innings and pitching around a pair of walks in the fifth.

Meanwhile, the Yankees got all the runs they needed in the second inning on a pair of home runs by Robinson Cano, a three-run shot, and Johnny Damon, a two-out, two-run job. Cano’s homer was an absolute blast, landing half way up in section 41 of the right field bleachers. I had been concerned about Cano’s loss of power during the first half of the season. His slugging percentage was below .400 as late as June 4 at which point just 14 of his 63 hits had gone for extra bases. Since then, however, he’s smacked another 14 pitches for extra bases over a span of just 35 hits and in his first five games since being activated from the DL six of his nine hits have gone for extra bags, including this afternoon’s dinger, his second in four games which accounts for a full third of his 2006 home run total. As for Damon, his shot just cleared the right field wall and slipped into the old Yankee bullpen. It was Damon’s 16th homer of the year, putting him on pace for 23 on the season. His current career high is 20. Ten of those 16 homers have come at Yankee Stadium, all of them going to the short porch in right.

The Angels picked up a run off Scott Proctor in the seventh when rookie Howie Kendrick doubled into the gap in left, Adam Kennedy singled him to third, and Jose Molina scored him with a sac fly to right that knuckled on Abreu, preventing him from setting his feet for a strong throw to the plate. But that was all they’d get. Farnsworth and Rivera followed Proctor with a pair of perfect innings, both requiring just ten pitches eight of which were strikes, and the Yankees evened the series with a 5-2 win.

The series will now be decided by a pair of fantastic pitching match-ups, emerging Yankee ace (at least at home) Chien-Ming Wang against rookie sensation Jered Weaver tomorrow afternoon, and all-or-nothing future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson against John Lackey, who at age 27 is suddenly the veteran ace of this exciting young Angels rotation, Monday night. If this weather holds up, and it should, we’re in for a real treat.

The Yankees continued their week of self-destructive play on Friday night as they fell to the Angels, 7-4. L.A.’s rookie southpaw, Joe Saunders pitched very well, mixing fastballs, changeups, and breaking pitches with poise and confidence. No rookie jitters for him, and why should there be? He plays for the Angels, who seemingly have no fear of the Bronx or the Bombers. (The Yanks are now 48-50 in the regular season against the Halos since 1996, never mind the playoffs.)

Still, the Yankees had their chances and, as DeNiro told Stallone in “Copland:” “You blewwwwwwwwwww it.” Battling a stomach bug, Corey Lidle didn’t have much and threw so many pitches that he was gone after four innings, having allowed three runs. Sidney Ponson’s adventures with the leather put two men on in the fifth and then Orlando Cabrera grounded a double past Alex Rodriguez–the ball took a tough hop to Rodriguez’s back hand but it looked as if the Yankee third baseman should have at least knocked it down. Two runs scored, 5-1, and once again the Angels were handling the Yanks. More than 54,000 were sitting on their hands.

The Bombers mounted a threat in the sixth. Derek Jeter reached on an infield hit and then Bobby Abreu lined a two-strike pitch into right for a single. Saunders got ahead of Rodriguez too but then left a pitch over the heart of the plate. Rodriguez lined it to center and it appeared as if it would drop in for another hit. But Chone Figgins raced in and made a lovely catch, robbing Rodriguez of a sure RBI and the Yankees of a big inning.

“He’s unbelievable,” Rodriguez said. “He’s always making some type of heroic play against us.”

[Yankee manager, Joe] Torre called that catch the play of the game, saying, “Who knows what that inning turns into? He stopped it right there.”
(N.Y. Daily News)

Jason Giambi–whose dirty-blong mustache continues to fill out–followed and hit into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning. O.K., the double play was a drag but what can you do if the other team makes a great play?

The next inning was far more troubling. Craig Wilson reached on an error and Melky Cabrera walked, putting runners on first and second with nobody out. Sal Fasano’s foul ball dropped safely between the catcher and first baseman near the Yankee dugout and then Sal lined a double to right center. Ah-ha, just the kind of break the Yanks had been looking for. Nobody out, runner on second and the score was now 6-3. Nick Green, who started in place of Robinson Cano, looked at three pitches from the new pitcher, Scot Shields, and offered to bunt at two of them. “Vas dis?!” cried many a Yankee fan watching along. When Green finally got the bunt down, it wasn’t down at all, it was popped up. Shields sprung off the mound and caught the ball. Yet Fasano was practically at third, the dope, and he was doubled off second with ease. End of rally, and end of game, so to speak.

Each team would add another run–Vlad and Alex both hit solo dingers–and Fransico Rodriguez got the last four outs (including three strikeouts) to secure the win for the Angels. It was the third time in four days that the Yankees have lost with less than their A-game. The Red Sox–prematurely given for dead by too many members of Red Sox Nation this week–finally won and now trail New York by just two games. It’s a long way from over, folks. The Yanks picked a heck of a time to start playing this sloppily. Time for them to get their heads out of their asses today. With Jaret Wright on the hill today, all I can say is Heaven Help Us (and that famous temper of ours).

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking, but all kidding aside, I feel confident that the Yanks can turn this around.

Go git ’em, boys.

Like the rest of their division, the Angels are average. They’re in the middle of the pack in hitting and pitching, barely over .500, yet just 3.5 games behind the first place A’s, but also just 2.5 games ahead of the last-place M’s. Ho hum.

If there’s anything compelling about this Angels team, which is enduring Vlad Guerrero’s least productive season since he was a 21-year-old rookie with the Expos in 1997, it’s the glimpses into their future this season has brought. Jered Weaver, Howie Kendrick, Kendry Moralis, Mike Napoli and tonight’s starter Joe Saunders have all made their major league debuts this season, though with varying success.

As for Saunders, he’s made three starts since being called up to replaced the injured Bartolo Colon in the rotation, each of them nearly identical to the next. Here’s his average line: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 HR, 3 BB, 5 K. He did something like that against Cleveland, Oakland and Texas in his first three starts, winning each. Tonight, however, will be his first major league road start. It will be interesting to see how the 25-year-old lefty from Falls Church, Virgina responds to his first appearance in Yankee Stadium.

Cory Lidle, meanwhile, will be making just his second start as a Yankee, both coming in home pinstripes. In his last, eight days ago, he held the Blue Jays to one run on a solo homer by rookie Ryan Roberts, allowing just three other hits, walking two and striking out five in six innings on a brutally hot afternoon (the box score temperature was 97 degrees and you know it was well into triple digits on the field). With the weather having cooled nicely (beautifully, in fact, current temp is 77 with a soft breeze), the hope is that Lidle can go deeper tonight. After all, it only took him 80 pitches to get through those six innings last week.

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On the night that the Red Sox were swept by the major league worst Royals, the Yankees failed to take advantage, dropping the rubber game of their series in Chicago due not to the strengths of their opponent, but to their own ineptitude.

Things started promisingly after a 90-minute rain delay with Johnny Damon doubling off Javier Vazquez, Derek Jeter reaching on an infield single and Bobby Abreu moving both runners up via a fly out to the weak-armed Scott Podsednick in deep left. But Alex Rodriguez struck out and Jorge Posada followed a Jason Giambi walk by lining out on the first pitch he saw, leaving the bases loaded. The Yanks stranded a Robinson Cano leadoff double in the top of the second, then melted down in the bottom of the inning.

Mike Mussina started things off by clipping Jermaine Dye in the hand with a 2-2 pitch, then surrendered a single to A.J. Pierzynski that moved Dye to second. Joe Crede then hit a grounder to Alex Rodriguez that looked like a possible double play ball only Rodriguez threw the ball wide of second and into right field, plating Dye and putting runners on the corners. Alex Cintron then singled home Pierzynski and, when the ball skipped under Melky Cabrera’s glove on the wet outfield grass, Crede scored and Cintron motored into second. Mussina then struck out Brian Anderson for the first out, but allowed another RBI single to Podsednick to run the score to 4-0 before getting the final two outs of the inning.

The Yanks got two back in the top of the third on an Abreu walk and a two-run Giambi homer, but that was all the action until the sixth. In the meantime, the Yankees stranded seven more runners–a two-out Cano double in the third (Wilson K), three men in the fourth (Giambi K), a two-out Wilson single in the fifth (Melky foul out), and two more in the sixth (a shallow Rodriguez fly and another Giambi K).

Mike Mussina, who settled down nicely after the second inning, got the first two outs in the bottom of the sixth on six pitches, at which point he had retired nine of the last ten batters he’d faced and 13 of 16 since Podsednick’s RBI single in the second. He then got ahead of the weak-hitting Brian Anderson 1-2 only to have Anderson foul off two pitches and take a borderline strike that home plate ump Bill Miller called ball two. Moose had taken several steps to the dugout when he heard the call and, forced back onto the mound, served up a two-out double on his next pitch. That man Podsednick then singled home Anderson with a crucial insurance run.

You see, in the top of the seventh, after reliever Brandon McCarthy struck out Jorge Posada and Robinson Cano, Craig Wilson doubled and Melky Cabrera deposited McCarthy’s very next pitch in the right field seats for his third home run in the last four games and the first no-doubter of his young major league career. With that the Yankees pulled within one, but despite a strong relief performance by Scott Proctor and a two-out rally in the top of the ninth against Sox closer Bobby Jenks, they were unable to make up that last run, losing 5-4.

Still, the Yanks finish the season with a 4-2 record against the defending World Champs and current Wild Card leaders, while the Red Sox remain three games out in the AL East and are now two games out in third place in the Wild Card race. Ain’t so bad. Plus the Yanks are coming home for a seven-game home stand that starts tonight against the Angels. More on them this afternoon.

The good news is that, with the Red Sox having lost their first two games to the Royals, the Yankees could lose tonight and still finish the three-game stretch in which they played the defending World Champs while their rivals played the worst time in baseball without having lost a game in the standings.

The bad news is this trend I just noticed in Mike Mussina’s game log:

First 12 GS: 7-1, 2.42 ERA, 7.71 K/9, 1.43 BB/9, 7.16 H/9, 0.96 WHIP, 0.99 HR/9, 12 QS, 6.81 IP/GS
Last 12 GS: 6-3, 4.65 ERA, 8.29 K/9, 2.13 BB/9, 8.67 H/9, 1.20 WHIP, 1.13 HR/9, 6 QS*, 5.97 IP/GS

*would likely have been seven, but he was forced out of his June 30 game after allowing no hits over four innings because of a long rain delay

The more than two extra runs per game (!) seem to be the result of his increased number of baserunners. Moose has been getting hit harder and more often, and that might be the result of a slight loss of command that has also inflated his walk rate (though note that his K rate has also increased). More runners mean more pitches and more pitches and more runs mean fewer innings and a bigger strain on the bullpen.

Now compare that bottom set of numbers to what Moose did over the 2004 and 2005 seasons:

57 GS: 25-17, 4.50 ERA, 7.16 K/9, 2.27 BB/9, 9.85 H/9, 1.35 WHIP, 1.18 HR/9, 28 QS, 6.04 IP/GS

So much for Moose having discovered the secret to late-career success. Not that he’s a bad pitcher, but he is a league average one, though with a great K/BB rate and the ability to go on a dominant run like he did in Septemer 2004 or the first two months of this season. Still, the Yankees would be wise to bear this in mind when making a decision about his 2007 option this fall. Given the other options, it’s likely worth overpaying Moose for a year to keep his reliability in the rotation, but he’ll be 39 in November 2007. I wouldn’t give him a multi-year deal at this point.

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Johnny Damon’s most recent ouchie, a tender right groin, doesn’t appear to be of major concern to the Yankees, but his removal from last night’s game exposed a major flaw in the Yankees current roster construction. With Bernie Williams DHing for Jason Giambi, who was hit hard in the right arm with a pitch in Tuesday’s game, Joe Torre chose to move Bobby Abreu into center, Craig Wilson into right, and insert Andy Phillips at first base in Damon’s spot. Never mind that Melky Cabrera played center field in the minors earlier this year and that Abreu had played just 1/3 of an inning in center since 2002 when he made 18 of his 20 major league appearances there. After Bernie’s at-bat in the top of the eighth, Torre moved Abreu back to right and gave up the DH to move Bernie and his 72 Rate (!) into center and put the pitcher in Wilson’s spot in the order.

That cinched it. If Joe is that dead set on not returning Melky Cabrera to the scene of his defensive crimes of a year ago (which will have to change sooner rather than later), the Yankees need to bring Aaron Guiel back up from Columbus. Guiel played 24 games in center field for the Royals last year and made two appearances for them there earlier this season. He posted a 95 rate in those 24 games in 2005 and is dead average for his career in the middle pasture. What’s more, he’s the lefty bat this team desperately needs off the bench. Bernie Williams is 0 for 11 as a pinch-hitter this season and is still hitting just .250/.284/.380 against righties. Guiel, meanwhile, is 1 for 5 as a pinch-hitter (impossibly small samples, I know, but zero hits are hard to argue for), and is hitting .242/.356/.532 against righties.

As for Andy Phillips (brace yourselves, folks, I’m finally fessing up), he has become redundant in the wake of the Craig Wilson acquisition. As I said at the time of the trade, “a career .268/.360/.486 hitter, Wilson is exactly the hitter I had hoped Andy Phillips would be at the plate given a proper opportunity . . . is just four months Phillips’ senior and has put up those numbers over 2,133 career major league plate appearances.” Both players give the team added defensive flexibility (Andy at second and third, Wilson in the outfield corners and behind the plate), but Torre seems more willing to move Wilson around. What’s more, Andy has had just five at-bats since the acquisition of Wilson, three of them coming last night when Guiel would have been a better option. I may have been Andy Phillips’ biggest fan for the past couple of years, but he no longer fits on this roster. The Yankees need to replace him with Aaron Guiel, and they need to do it now.

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There are many impartial observers who consider Shea Stadium to be the worst park in the major leagues, but for a lot of New Yorkers, there is something endearing about the dumpiness of the place. It may feel like a municipal recreation center, but there is openness—not only to the structure of the place, but to the atmosphere too—that you won’t find at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. It is loose. From the Olay “Jose, Jose, Jose” chants for Jose Reyes, to the organist playing the opening riff from the Violent Femmes classic, “Blister in the Sun,” to the post-“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” segue right into “Tarantella,” Shea offers a completely different, but equally genuine, slice of New York. I was in Queens last night with my brother, my pal Alan, and Jay Jaffe, for Game Two of Mike Piazza’s homecoming. Head on over to Baseball Prospectus (reg. req) where I’ve got a piece on what went down.

For everyone who is positively sick of analyzing Alex Rodriguez’s head, Jeff Albert has a terrifc and informative analysis of Rodriguez’s swing over at The Baseball Analysts. This one is a home run.

I missed the entire game last night as I was fortunate enough to be out at Shea to witness Mike Piazza’s big two-dinger performance against the Mets. Wow, what a nail-biter in Chi-town, though, as the Yanks held-on to beat the White Sox, 7-6. Randy Johnson pitched well, Kyle Farnsworth did not, and Mariano Rivera bounced back to earn the save. Johnny Damon was pulled from the game with what is being called a tweak of in his groin, while Bobby Abreu led the offense, hitting his first home run as a Yankee. The Bombers added another game to their lead in the AL East as Jonathan Paplebon improbably blew a one-run lead to the Royals in the bottom of the ninth. New York’s lead is now three games.

Randy Johnson has not struck out a batter in either of his last two starts. Go figure that. Dude is third on the all-time strikeout list and yet he just hasn’t been able to get hitters to swing and miss of late. Johnson has practically become a hold-your-breath-and-pray pitcher, a far cry from his former self. It would be huge for the Bombers if he can come through with a strong performance tonight. But I figure that we could be in for some real offensive fireworks. The White Sox and Yankees have played some tense games this year. No reason to believe tonight will be any different.

Let’s Go Yan-Kees!

I realize that the last thing regular Bronx Banter readers probably need is another Alex Rodriguez article, but there are two that I wanted to share with you. The first, by Eric Neel, is up on ESPN today. Neel explores what I’ve been talking about all year–how Rodriguez’s vulnerabilites actually make him approachable. Rodriguez, Neel writes:

…Comes off as this odd blend of superstar talent and confidence, packaged with common-guy uncertainty and instability. He’s someone we have to think about. What makes him tick? How’s he holding up? Is being in the fishbowl getting to him? Someone we have to engage on a kind of basic human level.

“It’s complicated with A-Rod,” says Steven Goldman, author of the Pinstriped Bible at YesNetwork.com. “It’s about us, too — writers, fans, whomever — about how we respond to him. Can we accept him; can we empathize with the possibility that he has weaknesses just like any of us? Or do we reject him? Do we make fun of him and distance ourselves from him? It’s like an after-school special almost.”

Everyone says, “It’s hard to have sympathy for a guy making $252 million.” We struggle to see ourselves in someone so wealthy and so talent-rich. The guy is so good, and at such a young age, that we literally have no analogs for him in our experience. We don’t relate. He strikes us as robotic, as impossibly skilled. We can’t sympathize. But empathy is a different impulse.

Empathy means stepping outside ourselves and our conventions. We don’t really know what kind of stress A-Rod feels, but empathy would have us wonder. Empathy would have us thinking about how “sensitive” might be the flip side of “passionate.” Empathy also could mean imagining how opening up to the media, or being vulnerable to the people, wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world for a guy who has been under the microscope since he was a teenage kid growing up in Miami without a father. It would mean being emotionally entangled, responsible even.

Most of us reject that prospect. We run from it. We prefer the simple, familiar mechanics of winners and losers, heroes and villains, guys who have it and guys who don’t. We say it’s all about the rings. We say, as if we have no weaknesses ourselves, as if we’ve never shrunk from anything in our personal or professional lives, “suck it up” and “be a man.” We demonize, then exile the “weak” guy. We treat him as if his sensitivities were contagious, as if he had cooties.

Bruce Weber, writing in the New York Times several weeks ago, echoes this line of thinking:

The sports talk shows relentlessly parsed Rodriguez’s personality. What the heck is wrong with the guy? It must be in his mind, right? One television analyst (baseball analyst, that is), said Rodriguez was already a lost cause in New York, that it would be better both for him and the Yankees if he were traded to another city, where his delicate psyche could repair itself in an atmosphere unpoisoned by the home fans’ disappointment. The former mayor of New York Rudolph W. Giuliani was moved to give an interview, counseling New Yorkers not to boo A-Rod because, he said, positive reinforcement is clearly what the man needs, and besides, it’s in the best interest of the Yankees.

Through it all, the lack of sympathy has been remarkable. People aren’t exactly angry at the guy, but they seem to feel his troubles serve him right — certainly not the general reaction to those in the throes of a breakdown.

His critics fixate on his failures: it was rare you heard that the same week he made the five errors, he also became the youngest man in the history of baseball to reach 450 home runs. Besides, hitting is more of a reactive enterprise than throwing; when a pitch is thrown you’ve got only a fraction of a second to swing the bat, and that’s not enough time for a mental lapse. (Another bit of Berra wisdom: “You can’t hit and think at the same time.”) The point is that A-Rod’s problems are not so easy to explain away with a definable diagnosis, as a mental tic that leaves him helpless, a condition you can look at and say, Huh, poor guy, it must be tough to live with something like that. Rather, he seems to be someone with a life, an attitude, a personality, demands, responsibilities, priorities and uncertainties, operating in an arena where success is far from a certainty. Someone, well, normal.

He turned 31 on Thursday; maybe it’s a midlife crisis. In any case, unlike, say, Knoblauch, whose fits of poor throwing seemed alien, like an exotic disease he somehow unluckily caught, A-Rod is anything but strange. Maybe we’re so caught up in his angst because we have met the All-Star and he is us.

We like our failures to be obvious–that is why it is easy to root for underdogs like Sal Fasano and Bubba Crosby. But when the guy who seemingly has everything–talent, money, good-looks, is also terribly vulnerable, it is a turn-off. Moreover, it brings out a viciousness in people that is almost palpable. What’s up with that?

The Yanks lost an extra-inning heartbreaker in Chicago last night 6-5, and had nobody but themselves to blame. Too many squandered scoring opportunities. Mo blows the save. The only silver lining is the Boston also lost. But that didn’t really make me feel much better. Tonight’s game can’t come soon enough, though you’ll forgive me if I’m not exactly bursting with confidence in the Big Unit right about now. More enthusiasm, less pessimissm to come…