Here’s what I wrote in anticipation of last night’s game:

Given their performances over the past few weeks, tonight’s match-up of fireballers Randy Johnson and Josh Beckett could be the wildest game of them all. In his last three starts, Beckett has posted this combined line:

16 IP, 16 H, 18 R, 17 ER, 6 HR, 10 BB, 11 K, 9.56 ERA

Meanwhile, in three of his last four starts, Johnson has done this:

15 IP, 22 H, 18 R, 18 ER, 2 HR, 8 BB, 8 K, 10.80 ERA

That’s ugly enough in and of itself, but consider that, despite all of those crooked numbers, the two have combined to go 2-2 in those six games thanks to their offenses, which have scored 15 runs for Beckett and a whopping 32 for Johnson in those three games. That would seem to place the over-under on total runs scored tonight somewhere around 15.

The Yanks and Red Sox combined for 17 runs last night. What I didn’t expect was that the Red Sox scored 14 of them, posting a pair of touchdowns to the Yankees lone field goal.

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Last week’s two-game series in Fenway Park was disappointing as scheduled and became even more so after the second game was rained out. The three-game series that kicks off tonight in the Bronx, however, should make up for it and then some, thanks in large part to some fantastic pitching match-ups. Both teams are skipping a starter due to yesterday’s off day (Wright for the Yankees, Clement for the Red Sox), and the Red Sox fifth starter/place holder Lenny DiNardo started on Sunday, leaving us with the three best starters on each team for this week’s series, the highlight of which, at least on paper, should be tomorrow’s pairing of rejuvenated aces Curt Schilling (5-1, 3.02 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 45 K, 7 BB, 6 quality starts in 7 games) and Mike Mussina (5-1, 2.35 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 42 K, 8 BB, quality starts in all 7 games).

Coming into the season one would have thought that Thursday’s matchup of soft-tossers Shawn Chacon and Tim Wakefield would be the most likely of these three games to be a high-scoring shootout, but given their performances over the past few weeks, tonight’s match-up of fireballers Randy Johnson and Josh Beckett could be the wildest game of them all. In his last three starts, Beckett has posted this combined line:

16 IP, 16 H, 18 R, 17 ER, 6 HR, 10 BB, 11 K, 9.56 ERA

Meanwhile, in three of his last four starts, Johnson has done this:

15 IP, 22 H, 18 R, 18 ER, 2 HR, 8 BB, 8 K, 10.80 ERA

That’s ugly enough in and of itself, but consider that, despite all of those crooked numbers, the two have combined to go 2-2 in those six games thanks to their offenses, which have scored 15 runs for Beckett and a whopping 32 for Johnson in those three games. That would seem to place the over-under on total runs scored tonight somewhere around 15.

Incidentally, the Yanks and Sox are still tied for first in the AL East, with the Yanks still ahead by percentage points and a game in the loss column due to having played two fewer games. Both teams have won five of their last six. The Sox have won their last four, the Yanks their last five and seven of their last eight.

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Anything interesting going on this week for the Yanks? Ah, yes, baseball’s version of the WWF returns to the Bronx. In-Your-Face Action! No, it’s not Madden 2006, it’s the most over-hyped rivalry in professional sports. But even with the customary hoopla, there are three fun pitching match-ups to be had in Boston’s first trip to the Stadium this year, starting tonight with Randy Johnson vs. Josh Beckett. Cliff will be round a bit later with a thorough series preview. On a softer note, erstwhile Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez is featured on the front page of the New York Times this morning as a gardner of all things. When he was with Boston, I feared and loathed Martinez. He was an easy villian. But I have to say, in spite of his faults, I can’t continue to hate the guy–I’m a sucker for his charm, his sense of humor and his sense of theater. This article accentuates the sensitive side of Pedro.

While Cliff and I were busy with our lives this weekend, the Yanks took two more from Texas (6-1 on Saturday, 8-5 on Sunday) to extend their winning streak to five games. Hideki Matsui and Alex Rodriguez had strong weekends, while it appears as if Gary Sheffield is headed for the DL. Yesterday’s win was the 1000th of Torre’s Yankee career. But it didn’t come without some tense moments from the usual suspects. Tyler Kepner reports in the Times:

The Yankees’ bullpen has not blown a lead for a starter this season, but Tanyon Sturtze did not help Sunday. He is struggling at a crucial time, because the Yankees may need to find room in their bullpen if Octavio Dotel returns in a few weeks.

It is clear now that Scott Proctor is going nowhere, despite having minor league options. Proctor bailed Sturtze out of a seventh-inning jam after Sturtze walked the leadoff man, threw away a grounder with an off-balance heave to second and walked the No. 9 batter.

“I wanted to wring his neck,” Torre said of Sturtze, referring to the error. “You’ve got to keep in mind the score. He looked like he was trying to get rid of the ball so we can get a double play, but we just needed one out there. He dug himself a hole. Fortunately, Proctor dug him out of it.”

Sturtze, Torre: wringing necks. Does any of this sound familiar to any of our readers?

The Yankees hope to clinch the first of their two series in Texas this year with a far less eventful game tonight than last night’s. The pitching matchup will see Shawn Chacon take on the lone holdover in the Rangers’ rotation, Kameron Loe (though Loe pitched primarily in relief last year, he did do it in a Texas uniform). Chacon’s last start got washed out by rain in Boston. As a result he’ll take the mound tonight on eight day’s rest. Here’s what I wrote in anticipation of Tuesday night’s game in Boston:

After a couple of rough outings and an ugly stint in the bullpen, Chacon has come around in his last two starts working his low BABIP magic to hold the Orioles and Devil Rays to a combined .190 BABIP over 13 1/3 innings that saw just two runs cross the plate. That sort of thing won’t continue, of course, and the Red Sox, even with their diminished offense, are exactly the sort of team in exactly the sort of park in which such a stat is likely to correct itself.

The same could be said of the Rangers and their ballpark, though the Texas hitters are in general a less patient sort, which gives Chacon a little more leeway.

Loe, meanwhile, has alternated good and bad starts over his first five turns. His last start saw him hold the A’s to three runs over six innings. If the pattern holds, the Yanks will do some damange tonight.

Perhaps the hardest part of any manager’s job is managing his bullpen. Some relievers need to pitch regularly to stay sharp. Others need proper rest to avoid fatigue and injury. And there’s often a very fine line between one and the other. But in a pen such as the Yankees’ that has a clear hierarchy of talent, there is one overriding principle. There are high-leverage relievers (Rivera, Farnsworth, Myers against lefties) and low-leverage relievers (Sturtze, Proctor, Villone, Small). The high-leverage guys need to pitch in high-leverage situations (leads of three runs or less, tie games at home or on the road, and, depending on the relative strengths of your offense and the opposing pitching staff, trailing by one or two). The low-leverage guys, meanwhile, are there to eat low-leverage innings, allowing the manager to save the high-leverage guys for when they’re most needed.

Of course, it’s impossible to stick to this formula exactly. Going deep into extra innings will require the use of a low-leverage pitcher in a high-leverage situation, as might playing many tight games in a row. Conversely, participating in a number of blowouts in a row might force a manager to use one of his high-leverage guys in a low-leverage situation just to keep him fresh. Last night was not one of those situations.

Mike Mussina entered the eighth inning with an 8-1 lead having held the Rangers to a run on three hits over seven innings, striking out five, walking none, and needing just 85 pitches, 72 percent of which were strikes, to do it. After Kevin Mench lined Moose’s first pitch of the eight into center for a lead-off single, Joe Torre popped out of the dugout and signaled for Aaron Small.

Fair enough. Sure, Mussina was cruising and a first-pitch single with a seven-run lead hardly amounted to a sign of struggle, but Small had pitched just once since coming off the disabled list on Monday and here was an extreme low-leverage situation in which to get him a couple of innings of work, both for his own good, and so Torre and his staff could have a better idea what Small has to offer now that his surprising 10-0 run is a thing of the past.

Brad Wilkerson hit a sharp grounder through the second base hole into center on Small’s second pitch to put runners on the corners. Rod Barajas then a punched a 1-1 pitch past Derek Jeter to score Mench and push Wilkerson to third. Mark DeRosa followed by grounding into a fielder’s choice to score Wilkerson, and Gary Matthews followed that by singling under the dive of a drawn-in Alex Rodriguez to put runners on first and second for the Rangers who still trailed by five runs.

That brought Torre back out to the mound, but he didn’t call for Sturtze, Villone or Proctor. No, he went straight to Kyle Farnsworth. The very same Kyle Farnsworth who sat and watched as the Yankees lost a tie game on the road in Oakland in the season’s second game. The same Kyle Farnsworth who didn’t get into the next night’s game until after Jaret Wright had allowed the A’s to break another tie in the eighth inning. The very same Kyle Farnsworth who got the night off in Boston on Monday while Small and Tanyon Sturtze allowed the arch rival Red Sox to break another eighth-inning tie. True, Farnsworth was rested, having not pitched on Thursday, but he was not in need of work, having gone an inning and a third in a high-leverage win on Wednesday.

What happened next was not Joe Torre’s fault, but it exacerbated the damage done by going to his high-leverage pitchers in a low-leverage situation.

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“If the guys behind me would have come in and it would have been smooth, nobody would have thought anything of it,” [Mike] Mussina said. “You’ve got to believe those guys can come in and pitch, and they can. Today was the day when it was tough to get through that one inning.” (New York Times)

Yeah, and if Woody had gone straight to the police, none of this would have ever happened…

The Yanks and Rangers played two games on Friday night in Arlington. The first saw Mike Mussina continue his stellar early-season pitching, while the offense patiently beat the bejesus out of the Rangers’ pitching. Alex Rodriguez, dropped to fifth in the order, had two hits, a walk and three RBI–nothing like being back in Texas. The first game ended when Moose allowed a single to open the bottom of the eighth and was relieved by Aaron Small. Certainly Mussina could have continued to pitch, but with a huge lead, it didn’t seem odd that he was pulled.

Then the second game began. The one where the Rangers rallied for six runs against the Bombers’ bullpen in the same eighth inning. Aaron Small, then Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera were slapped around as the home team pulled to within 8-7. With a runner on first and one out in the ninth, Michael Young hit a hard ground ball to the hole between shortstop and third base. Derek Jeter moved to his right and made a nifty, mid-play adjustment, stabbing at the ball which had taken a late, high hop. There would be no chance to get Young at first; Jeter’s only play was to second. As his body carried him out to left, Jeter spun and fired to second to nab Gary Matthews, Jr by a half a step. It was a fine play and most likely helped save the game for Rivera, who then retired the Rangers’ slumping Mark Teixeira on a well-struck line drive to right to end it. (Rivera’s location was off all night and he was hit relatively hard.)

In a Sports Illustrated poll released earlier this week, Jeter was voted by his fellow-players as the most overrated player in the game. I haven’t mentioned it earlier because this doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t already know. Jeter makes a lot of money, and has had the good fortune to be the star player on a string of championship teams in New York. He is as over-exposed as a player can get. You could say he’s overrated, but I think if you asked players who the most respected player in the game is, Jeter would find his way to the top of the list too, so you’ve got to take these things with a grain of salt.

I don’t need to argue Jeter’s case–his numbers speak for themselves: the man is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. One thing that I think is interesting is that in the same issue of SI, there is a piece on the Rangers’ Michael Young, talking about what a stand-up guy he is, what an overachiever he’s been. One of his teammates said that if Young played in New York he’d be bigger than Jeter. Now, I don’t know about that, but Young is very much like Jeter–a hard-working gamer.

There is a little blurb in the Young article about the three great shortstops in the American League right now–Miguel Tejada, Michael Young and Derek Jeter. Ten years ago, Jeter was the weakest link in the Rodriguez-Nomar-Trio of great young shortstops. Nomar fell off that list due to injuries a few seasons back, and Rodriguez has shifted positions. But Jeter still remains. I’m not saying he’s better than Tejada or Young, but he’s right up there with them, and if either of those two players are still amongst the best in six, seven years, that’ll be something too, wouldn’t it?

If the Yankees caught the Devil Rays at exactly the right time over the past week and a half, getting off to a 3-1 start in the season series against their nemesis of a year ago while Aubrey Huff, Julio Lugo, and Jorge Cantu languished on the DL, the opposite is true about the six games they’ll play against the Texas Rangers over the next two weeks. As of this afternoon, the Rangers had a half-game lead on the Yankees for the second-best record in the American League, they’re sixth in the AL in runs scored, but just five runs behind the second place Yankees (the Indians lead by a bunch), and fifth in the AL in ERA with a 4.21.

It’s that team ERA that is the big news here. The Rangers pitching has been awful for years, and the primary reason their crop of young hitters has been unable to take the team into the playoffs. In 2001 and 2003 the Rangers were dead last in the AL in team ERA and they were in the bottom three in 2002. In 2004 they lept into the top half of the league on the strength of a fluke season by their bullpen, which posted the third best pen ERA in the majors, but their starters still struggled, posting a 5.16 mark, leaving few leads to be protected. Last year, their pen crashed back to earth and the Rangers once again finished among the worst three teams in the majors in team ERA.

This year, the Rangers rotation features just one pitcher who was with the team last year, and he, 24-year-old Kameron Loe, pitched primarily in relief in 2005. Loe’s 4.15 ERA stands as the worst of the five men currently in the Texas rotation. While big trade acquisition Adam Eaton languishes on the 60-day DL following surgery on the middle finger in his pitching hand (he’s due back in August), Loe, late-March acquisition John Koronka (25) and veteran free agents and former Phillies Vincente Padilla and Kevin Millwood have combined to record 14 quality starts in 24 tries. Meanwhile, Robinson Tejeda, who is younger than Loe (having just turned 24), and a more recent Phillie than Padilla, and more recent acquisition than Koronka, held the Devil Rays to three hits over five innings in his first start of the year on Tuesday. Other spot starters and new acquisitions Rick Bauer and John Rheinecker have also turned in solid, if abbreviated starts, with only famiar face R.A. Dickey, since dropped from the 40-man roster, stinking up the joint.

Things have been only slightly less encouraging in the bullpen, where Francisco Cordero has lost the closer job he’s held for the past several seasons, but Akinori Otsuka, who came over in the Eaton trade, has picked up the slack, posting a 1.98 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP in 13 2/3 innings. No one else has been quite that dominant, but only another member of last year’s staff, lefty C.J. Wilson, has been truly bad.

Back on the other side of the ball, the few Rangers hitters who didn’t get off to hot starts have heated up in past weeks including Brad Wilkerson, the key player in the Alfonso Soriano deal, and Kevin Mench, who–as the Yankee broadcasters are sure to tell you far too many times over the next three days–discovered his shoes were a size to small and has been hitting the cover off the ball ever since he fixed his footwear. Most notably, Mench fell one game shy of Don Mattingly’s shared record for most consecutive games with a homer (the record is eight, shared with Griffey Jr. and Dale Long, Mench hit homers in seven straight).

The good news is that the Yankees have Mike Mussina on the mound tonight and Gary Sheffield back in the lineup to get things off on the right, properly outfitted foot. Moose’s opponent will be Vincente Padilla, a borderline All-Star for the Phillies in 2002 who posted similar numbers in 2003 before a pair of disappointing and injury-shortened seasons in 2004 and 2006. Still just 28, Padilla looks to be reestablishing himself as a solid mid-rotation starter, having failed to record an out in the sixth inning just once in six starts, and lasting through five in that exception. Padilla had one dominant outing against the Mariners two turns ago (7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 7 K), which was immediatley preceeded by that stinker in Oakland (5 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 HR). His other four starts have fallen in between those two extremes, though curiously he hasn’t given up any other home runs in those four other starts.

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Last week, Emily and I were watching the game and she says, “Isn’t Al Leiter there tonight?” Indeed he was. It was just that, without anything pressing to say, Leiter had actually been silent for several minutes. Go figure that. Generally, new announcers are so geeked-up, they go the other way–they never shut up. They don’t actually say anything, but that doesn’t stop their mouth from running. Of course, this happens to some veteran announcers as well. Earlier this season, Michael Kay and Bobby Murcer were calling a game, and for the life of me, bless ‘ol Bobby, but I don’t think either came up for air all afternoon. It was exhausting, because it was as if they were talking just to talk.

Al Leiter’s sense of reserve is appealing–he’s learning the ropes and being cautious and respectful in the process. His insights into pitching have been outstanding. He’s still not completely sure of himself, but is obviously being encouraged to be more forceful in selling his thoughts. (Richard Sandomir has a good piece on the man-behind-the-scenes at YES, John Filippelli today in the Times.) Last night, he talked at length about how Randy Johnson is still making the transition from menacing flame-thwrower to crafty veteran. He discussed why this would be more difficult for a guy like Johnson, who used to be able to overwhelm hitters with his stuff, than for guys like Maddux or Glavine. Leiter even snapped at Kay at one point, and then made sure to soothe any hard feelings moments later.

It has been a pleasure following Leiter’s progress thus far. That he’s willing to keep his trap shut, listen, and learn already sets him apart. Good job by the YES in landing him.

The Yankees beat the Devil Rays 10-5 last night, but the game was closer than the final score indicates. There were five lead changes and the Bombers didn’t break the game open ’til late. Here are a few things that caught my eye:

Randy Johnson, who had another uneven game, smirking to himself and then laughing as he came off the field in the second inning. The guy is so private you don’t normally see him smile. I wonder what struck his funny bone.

In the fifth, Robinson Cano lined a double to right field (Cano would also line out hard to the outfield twice) and Bernie Williams followed with an RBI single, also to right. It’s funny, we’ve been busting on Bernie for his lack of pop. His single missed being a home run by a few feet–it was a line drive that just didn’t get up enough, but it was hit too hard for him to get to second. I was laughing, thinking, “Even when he strokes one, it’s still a single.”

The Yankees went ahead for good in the top of the seventh. The most encouraging part of the inning was that the Bombers rallied after recording two quick outs. Gary Sheffield started it off with a pinch-hit single to right (he would later line out to right field too). This was Sheff’s first appearence since colliding with Shea Hillenbrand last weekend and it was a pleasure to see him again.

Alex Rodriguez went 0-4 but had the go-ahead RBI (he was plunked on the first pitch of his at bat with the bases loaded). How’s that for clutch? Har-har-hardy-har-har.

Jason Giambi had “driven in” the tying run one batter earlier when he walked with the bases loaded. It was another impressive at bat for Giambi who was down in the count 0-2. He took two very alluring change ups with the count 2-2, and then 3-2, showing tremendous restraint.

The strangest moments of the game came in the top of the eighth inning. After Jorge Posada walked to start the inning, Dan Miceli entered the game for Tampa Bay and promptly booted a little tapper hit by Cano. Then, Bernie Williams stepped in and sqaured to bunt. He took the first pitch right-down-the-pipe for a strike. It looked like an ideal pitch to bunt, but then again, what does Bernie know from bunting? Well, he laid down a nice sarifice on the next offering and almost beat the throw to first. The YES announcers said that Bernie had one sacrifice bunt last year, one in 2004, but prior to that his last sacrifice came in 1996. That’s three in eleven seasons.

The Rays chose to intentionally walk Sheffield, and the first pitch came a little high to the catcher, Toby Hall. Then Miceli stuttered off the mound and chucked one way over Hall’s head. Talk about a pysch job. Posada, who is not one of the team’s best base runners, screamed for a balk then didn’t get a great jump, so he did not try to score. The ball actually bounced off the fence behind home plate and right back to Hall, so Posada would have likely been out had he tried to come home. Larry Bowa, and then Joe Torre, joined Posada in arguing about the missed balk. The umps didn’t change their mind, but they clearly blew the call. Actually, they were probably as caught off guard as eveyone else was, but it was as obvious a balk as you are likely to ever see. So of course, Miceli completes the intentional pass, then serves up a grand slam to Johnny Damon. He then fell behind Jeter 2-0, was taken out of the game and later placed on the DL with a sore shoulder and hurt feelings.

I usually don’t play armchair manager at home, but I was thinking about a lot of our readers who enjoy that sort of thing, watching Torre manage the bullpen last night. It seemed as if Torre was over-managing taking out Scott Proctor (heck, even taking out Sturtze), but for one night, all of the moves worked out.

Even with Johnson not pitching especially well, I had all the confidence in the world that the Yanks would come back and win that game. It was great to see the two-out rally. These are games good teams need to win. The Rays were without some of their best hitters and man, thier bullpen is just plain lousy. In the end, it was a satisfying, though slightly odd night. Hey, we’ll take it, right?

With Joe Torre having finally figured out that he needs to go to his big guns in tie games on the road, the Yankees are set up for a quick two-game sweep of the Devil Rays with Randy Johnson taking on Doug Waechter tonight. The only question is which Unit will show up tonight, the one that has done this in two games against the Blue Jays:

8 1/3 IP, 15 H, 13 R, 2 HR, 6 BB, 4 K

Or the one that has done this in four starts against everyone else:

28 IP, 19 H, 6 R, 2 HR, 1 BB, 21 K

I know one thing for sure. He’s happy that Eduardo Perez has moved to the central division.

For his part, Waechter has made just four starts thus far, failing to make it through four innings in two of them. Does anyone still remember when a 22-year-old Waechter shut out the last good Mariners team in his first major league start in 2003, pitched five solid innings to beat the Yankees in Tampa two starts later, and then lost a tough 2-1 game in the Bronx in his next turn? He seemed like the next big thing back then, the Tampa rotation’s answer to Aubrey Huff, who had what remains his best season that year. Waechter’s still just 25, but that exciting start seems like a lifetime ago. I still root for him to make good, but it seems increasingly unlikely. Here’s hoping if he ever does break through he won’t start tonight.

Hey, I forgot to mention it earlier, but just how digusting was the last pitch of the game last night? Joey Gathwright, a slap hitter was batting against Mariano Rivera, and he kept fouling pitches off. Rivera threw cutter after cutter. Then at 2-2, he tried to go away with a fastball. It was up and away and Gathwright took it for a ball before fouling off a few more pitches. I thought Rivera might try going away again, but no. He throws a cutter on the inside corner at the knees–the best pitch of the sequence. Gathwright didn’t offer at it–he didn’t have a chance. Wow.

In his latest mailbag column, Tom Verducci was asked about Carl Pavano:

Remember, teams such as the Tigers, Mariners and Red Sox also wanted Pavano badly, even indicating that they would have paid more than the $39.95 million over four years that New York did. There is no way to be delicate about this: The Yankees have come to question Pavano’s toughness. Now, injuries are always sensitive subjects, because only the player knows for sure about the severity. But this is two years running where Pavano seems to be doing nothing but playing catch in Tampa. Could all of those teams have been wrong about measuring his character? So far, and until he takes regular turns in the Yankees’ rotation, yes.

Though he’s only be out for a handful of games, how much do you guys miss watching Sheffield?

Lastly, fellow Yankee bloggers, Pete Abraham and Mike Plugh note how even when he does something well, Alex Rodriguez gets precious little love. Is it ridiculous to say that Rodriguez is to Winfield what Jeter is to Mattingly?

No two Yankee hitters have struggled as much of late as Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui. Rodriguez struck out in the fourth inning last night, swining through a hittable slider that Casey Fossum left over the plate; with the Yanks trailing 2-0 in the sixth, he tapped into an inning-ending double play. Normally, Rodriguez is so fluid that it almost seems as if the game is easy for him. However, in the middle of a rough stretch, everything looks difficult for him, from recognizing pitches, to being able to put a good swing on the ball. On the other hand, Matsui had a single but was robbed of two hits. While Rodriguez looked out-of-whack, Matsui’s at bats were encouraging. He was simply running into hard luck, just off. Yet the Bombers eventually tied the game–and received some fine pitching from starter Jared Wright and relievers Ron Villone and Kyle Farnsworth (my boy Farnsworth, was particularly sharp).

The game went into extra innings and Johnny Damon doubled to start the tenth. Derek Jeter followed with a walk, and Jason Giambi’s ground out advanced the runners. Rodriguez had another chance and got ahead in the count, 2-0. He fouled off a slider bearing in on his hands and on TV, he appeared uncomfortable, though Joe Torre had given him a bit of encouragement just before he went to bat. According to Tyler Kepner in the New York Times:

While Rodriguez waited to hit, Torre tried to get his attention. The bench coach Lee Mazzilli whistled him over from the on-deck circle, and Torre gave him a message.

“Just hit the ball on the good part of the bat,” Torre said, repeating what he told Rodriguez. “Just trust the ball will find a hole somewhere. Have an at-bat where you just make good contact.”

Rodriguez stroked the next pitch into center field for an RBI single. Matsui followed with a ground ball single that snuck through the infield, driving in another run. A-ha. Nice and easy. No 500 foot dingers, just two singles. It was enough, as Mariano Rivera closed the door and the Yanks came away with a tidy 4-2 victory in Tampa Bay.

Flipping around the tube last night, I caught portions of the Met game, which was mostly played through a steady rain out at Shea. I was surprised to see how many fans stuck it out, getting soaked in the process. Many simply seemed oblivious to the conditions. Man, you’ve got to be a devoted–or slightly crazed–fan to sit and get rained on for that long, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t have that kind of tolerance. The Mets have an exciting team who has performed well early on, and it’s cool to see the fans have responded to them. Met fans deserve to have a great guy like Carlos Delgado on their team. Great win last night.

Following last night’s rain out and in anticipation of the start of the Yankees’ two-game series in Tampa, here’s a quick status report on the team:

• Joe Torre has declined the opportunity presented by last night’s rainout to skip Jaret Wright’s start tonight. His reasoning is that Wright had already flown ahead to Tampa before yesterday’s game whereas Shawn Chacon, who will now be pushed back to Saturday (an odd decision that puts him one day short of his originally scheduled next start on Sunday while giving Chien-Ming Wang an extra day of rest), had to be dressed and ready to pitch in Boston until the game was officially cancelled around 8:00 last night. Torre also wants to see if Wright can build on the four scoreless innings that concluded his last start against the Blue Jays. What I took away from that start was not the fact that Wright appeared to settle down after a rough first inning, but that he pitched five innings without striking out a single batter, walked four while throwing just 52 percent of his pitches for strikes, and benefited from three double plays in those four scoreless innings. One could blame the balls and walks on rust, and the ground balls just might be a good sign, but the lack of strikeouts for a pitcher who throws in the mid-90s and has supposedly discovered a nasty new curveball is alarming. Wright’s next turn falls on Monday’s off day and is followed by a three-game series with the Red Sox. I imagine he’ll be skipped then and, depending on his performance tonight as well as how well Aaron Small (who replaced Matt Smith on the roster on Monday, for those who missed it) does out of the bullpen in the interim, could find himself out of the rotation when that spot comes due again a week from Saturday against Oakland.
• Speaking of rotation rumblings, Carl Pavano is expected to make his first rehab start with single-A Tampa on Sunday. If nothing else, that starts his rehab clock, which means that he will have 30 days before the Yankees will have to activate him, shut him back down, or otherwise dispose of him. Pavano pitched well in an extended spring training game yesterday needing just 59 pitches to get through five innings, allowing one run on five hits and striking out three (no word on his walk total, though walks have never been Pavano’s problem).
• The Yankees other rehabing pitcher, Octavio Dotel, who’s progress was recently derailed by tendinitis in his surgically repaired elbow, threw 35 pitches in a bullpen session yesterday. He’s expected to throw another bullpen later in the week and could get back into extended spring training games next week if he can avoid further complications.
• Speaking of injuries, Gary Sheffield has yet to swing a bat due to his swollen wrist. Until he can take some swings, he won’t see any game action. The Yanks are hoping they won’t need to disable him, but for the moment he’s not a consideration, and the Yankees are operating with a three-man bench.
• With Sheffield on the mend, last night’s line-up was to include Bubba Crosby in right field and Bernie Williams at DH. Ouch. Hopefully Andy Phillips, who hit a game-tying home run in his last start on Sunday, will take Bernie’s spot tonight against the left-handed Casey Fossum. Fossum, for his part, has a dreadful season line due largely to a pair of awful outings in Toronto and Texas in which he gave up a total of six home runs in 8 2/3 innings. He’s allowed just one dinger in his other three starts, one against the O’s and two against the Red Sox, posting this combined line: 19 1/3 IP, 13 H, 5 R, 1 HR, 11 BB, 6 K. Looks great until you get to those walks and strikeouts. The Cherry Hill, NJ native was surprisingly successful against the Yanks last year, posting a 2.66 ERA in four games (three starts). Makes you wonder if tonight will be a repeat of the Yankees’ odds-defying 14-walk, 2-run performance against Seth McClung and company from last week.
• Finally, I’ve been ranting at anyone who will listen about Hideki Matsui’s current slump. Every year, Matsui’s swing falls apart as he starts opening up too early and pulling off the ball. In his first year with the Yankees, Jorge Posada noticed it and told him to keep his hands back as a reminder, setting Godzila off on a tear when interleague play began in June. Last year, Matsui was doing the same thing when he hurt his right ankle playing right field in St. Louis on June 12. The injury forced him to keep his weight back in the batters box and again he went off on a tear. It’s the same thing every year, he starts with a flourish, starts pulling off the ball and falls into a slump, and then hits the cover off the ball once he corrects his swing. One would think that he’d be conscious of it now, but he’s been doing the same thing this season. Fortunately, his manager and hitting coach have been paying attention. From Tyler Kepner:
  

  The hitting coach Don Mattingly has shown Matsui video of his at-bats this year and last, and Matsui agreed with Joe Torre that he was opening his front shoulder too soon.

  “He’s probably right,” Matsui said through an interpreter. “Usually when I get into bad slumps, the bad habit that comes specifically is that I come off the ball and open up a little bit. It’s something you go through during a season.”

  Matsui’s a month ahead of schedule in recognizing the problem. If he fixes it as easily as he has in the past, he could be well on his way to replicating his outstanding 2004 season, which was easily his best in pinstripes. Indeed, Matsui’s swing could be one of the more compelling aspects of what promises to be an ugly game at the Trop tonight.

Update: A monster headache wiped out my afternoon and, having just come to, I just realized that I forgot to rest the D-Rays roster for you all. There’s not much different. The only actual roster move they’ve made since putting Jorge Cantu on the DL and calling up Greg Norton during last week’s Yankee series was trading non-roster minor league reliever Carlos Hines to the Giants for righty set-up man Tyler Walker and designating Scott Dunn for assignment to make room for Walker. They have, however, shuffled their line-up, moving the surprising Ty Wigginton to second in Cantu’s absence and giving Sean Burroughs the third base job for the time being (bouncing Russell Braynan from right field, to third base to the bench). They’ve also moved Joey Gathright from ninth to lead off and promoted Toby Hall, resulting in something that looks like this:

L – Joey Gathright (L)
L – Carl Crawford (L)
R – Jonny Gomes (R)
R – Ty Wigginton (R)
R – Toby Hall (R)
R – Damon Holins (R)
L – Travis Lee (L)
L – Sean Burroughs (L)
S – Tomas Perez (S)

Yankee fans love to talk about which players are “real Yankees,” and which players are not. Joe Girardi was murdered here in New York when he replaced the popular Mike Stanley in 1996. Tino Martinez took over for local legend Don Mattingly the same year and felt the heat as well. Now, both Girardi and Martinez are considered “true Yankees.” Jason Giambi, of course followed Martinez, and because of the size of his contract as well as his involvement with performance-enhancing drugs, learned how difficult it can be to be embraced by Yankee fans. But after a fine performance in 2005, and a terrific start this season, how long before Giambi is considered a bonafide Yankee? Last year at this time, it looked that would never happen, but now? It’s closer than you think. He’s a productive hitter, Don Mattingly’s boy, and a likable lug. I think if he has another good year, he’ll win over the remaining doubters.

Steven Goldman has some cherce material in the latest edition of his Pinstriped Bible over at YES: Larry Bowa talking about Derek Jeter’s fielding:

Where Jeter can improve:

“One area we’ve talked a little bit about is playing more to his right on some ground balls. But for the most part, he follows our game plan. When we say straight away, he’s there. When we say, ‘Pull,’ he’s there. I think what happens is people, they’re used to him making every single play, and if he just misses a ball, it could be the pitch. A lot of times when you’re playing shortstop, and location’s away, you’re mentally saying, ‘Okay, the pitch is this way, it’s going to be hard for this guy to pull.’

“Now the pitcher misses this much inside, that has a lot to do with it also. You have pitchers who hit spots and pitchers who don’t hit spots. Everything is thrown into the hopper when you talk about how he’s making plays and not getting balls he should have gotten. Maybe he was playing up the middle like we said and [pitchers] kept pounding him inside because they were missing their target. These things, people, when you break it down, they don’t look at stuff.

“It’s very important. And it’s even more so important when you get on these fast fields like when we go down to Tampa or when we play in Minnesota or when we play in Toronto, we have that turf. There are some fields that are faster than others. Big-league pitchers, you hope they hit their spots about 10 out of 10 times, or six or seven out of 10 times. A pitcher on a bad day will maybe hit his spots three out of 10. There’s nothing you can do about that.”

Terrific stuff from Bowa. Thanks, Steve.

As impressive as Boston’s new young closer Jonathan Papelbon has been, and as easy as it is to dislike–though impossible not to admire–Curt Schilling, I’m prepared to regard Josh Beckett as Red Sox enemy number one by the end of the year. He’s good enough to fear and arrogant enough to loathe. John Harper has a piece on Beckett in the Daily News today which indicates just how volatile the pitcher can be:

Beckett is ultra-cocky, and seems to consider himself something of a guardian of the game’s unwritten rules regarding conduct on the ballfield. Four times over the last two years he has publicly criticized players for what he considered showing him up, and in two of those incidents he nearly ignited brawls.

Late in spring training he got into it with Ryan Howard when the Phillies’ slugger was slow to leave the batter’s box on a long fly ball that wound up being caught at the wall. Beckett yelled at Howard to run, using rather salty language to tell him to tell him to stop acting like a prima donna, and then to get back to the dugout.

“I wanted to make a point,” Beckett explained later that day. “You look like a jackass whenever you hit the ball like that and you’re pimping it, and you’re out. I’m kind of about respecting the game, and I’m not the type of guy to not say anything.”

I wonder what he’ll say to his teammate Manny Ramirez, who can be timed getting around the bases with a calendar after one of his majestic home runs. Harper concludes:

Last night a former teammate of Beckett’s, a player who is a member of neither the Red Sox nor Yankees, predicted trouble ahead.

“He’s not afraid, I’ll give him that,” the player said. “But one of these times he’s going to say something to the wrong guy. It’s more likely to happen when emotions are high, like when Boston and New York play. One of these days somebody’s going to go after him.”

Last night’s rain-out will be made up as part of a twi-night double header in mid-August. Instead of a tense four game series at Fenway Park, it will kick off what is now scheduled to be a five game series. Now, that’s serious.

Not for nothing, but I watched a good portion of the Mets game last night with some friends on the count of the Yanks-Sox were warshed out. Did anyone see ‘lil Soriano’s home run? Oh my Lord, he absolutely hammered it–deep into the left field seats. Jeez, what a blast.

Update: Indeed, tonight’s game has been rained out. It will be made up on Friday August 18 at 1:05 as part of a day/night double header that will open what will now be a five-game series in Fenway.

If the rain allows, the Yankees will get a chance to counter the Red Sox victory in the first game of their season series and depart Boston where they came in, tied for first with the Sox.

If the rain allows, the Yanks will send Shawn Chacon to the hill to get the job done. After a couple of rough outings and an ugly stint in the bullpen, Chacon has come around in his last two starts working his low BABIP magic to hold the Orioles and Devil Rays to a combined .190 BABIP over 13 1/3 innings that saw just two runs cross the plate. That sort of thing won’t continue, of course, and the Red Sox, even with their diminished offense, are exactly the sort of team in exactly the sort of park in which such a stat is likely to correct itself. Indeed, Chacon was lit up by the Sox in his one start against
them last year, a very forgettable three-inning outing in the Bronx on the Saturday Game of the Week.

Chacon’s mound opponent, Josh Beckett, meanwhile, has been heading in the other direction. After three strong starts to start the season, Beckett has gone from bad to worse in his last two outings against the Blue Jays and Indians, failing to make it out of the fourth inning in his last outing against the Tribe. As a result the two pitchers have very similar season stats: both are 3-1 with an ERA very close to 4.50, K/9 close to 5.90, and K/BB close to 1.70 (startlingly, Chacon’s K/9 and K/BB are both better than Beckett’s thus far), while Beckett’s .272 BABIP is actually more likely to regress than Chacon’s overal .303. Hmmm. Could be an interesting night. If the rain allows.