As I was buying the papers this morning I saw a middle school kid waiting for the bus. He was wearing a Jason Giambi shirt and I instantly remembered being his age and how proud I’d be to wear my gear after a big win like last night’s 5-4 Yankee victory over the Devil Rays. (It was only the fifth time in fifteen games that New York has toppled Tampa Bay this year.) He was a small dude, and his napsack looked half as big as he did. Looking at the back cover of The Daily News I said to him, “You must be a happy man this morning.” He assured me that he was. I asked him if he thought the Yanks would make the playoffs and he said with the utmost confidence that he believes they will beat the Sox to win the AL East. Whatever scars he has from last year’s October meltdown were not discernable. “Damn, you are too young to remember the Yankees not being good aren’t you?” He smiled in the self-satisfied fashion that Yankee fans have for generations. Dag.

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Jaret Wright returns to the mound tonight. It should be interesting to see what kind of stuff he’s got against an aggresive Tampa Bay line up. If this gets ugly it could get ugly if you know what I mean? Couldn’t you see Gomes charging Wright? Although I don’t have much of a vibe about the game I have to think the Yanks are going to bomb those suckers.

The latest word on Mike Mussina, brought to us by Bob Klapisch, is not encouraging for the Yankees:

Asked if he was feeling better, Mussina shook his head and said, “Actually, it’s feeling worse. At least when I was pitching, it would loosen up after a while. Now, I’m just sitting around and I can feel it tightening up.”

…There’s no medical procedure to cure it. No little white pill, including an anti-inflammatory, diminishes it. No massage or acupuncture treatment can mask it. The only antidote is rest, and Mussina never considered that option.

“It was killing me three months ago, but I didn’t tell anyone. I made up my mind to keep throwing,” he said. “I pitched until I couldn’t take it any more. I had to. Everything [everyone] else was falling apart around me.”

Oy.

Randy Johnson finally got his third-consecutive quality start last night, allowing three runs in 6 1/3 innings while throwing 73 percent of his pitches for strikes, but it wasn’t enough. Thanks in large part to a quartet of baserunning errors and one decisive fielding error, the Yankees once again came up short against the last-place Devil Rays. In turn, the Devil Rays clinched the season series, while the Yankees’ opportunity to reverse course against these pesky Rays slipped away, possibly along with their postseason hopes.

Everything started out well for the Yankees last night. While Randy Johnson started the night with two perfect innings, the Yanks put a two-spot on the board in the first via a quartet of singles (two of which never left the infield) and an error by Tampa second baseman Nick Green, then added another run in the second on a Robinson Cano double and Derek Jeter’s second single in as many innings.

Things started to turn in the third. Up 3-0, Johnson allowed his first baserunners when an overactive slider hit Green in the foot and Julio Lugo followed by drawing a six-pitch walk. In the fourth, Jonny Gomes picked up the first Devil Ray hit of the night with a one-out single and moved to second on a ground out for the second out. Alex Gonzalez then pulled a double down the left field line to plate Gomes and came around to score himself on a single by Toby Hall to bring the D-Rays within one. Meanwhile, Casey Fossum kept the Yankees off balance by changing speeds and hitting his spots, setting the side down in order in the third, fourth, and fifth innings.

Then came the sixth inning.

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I first posted this in the wake of Randy Johnson’s showdown with Felix Hernandez, but as tonight is his first start since that inspiring performance, here it is again:

Randy Johnson’s best consecutive starts this season:

April 24 (Tex), 29 (Tor): 17 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 4 BB, 16 K

June 11 (StL), 16 (Pit): 16 IP, 9 H, 1 R, 1 HR, 0 BB, 18 K

July 21 (Ana), 26 (Min)*: 14 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 0 HR, 2 BB, 15 K

Aug 26 (KC), 31 (Sea): 15 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 HR, 2 BB, 13 K

*this pair, unlike the others which are more evenly split, is largely due to the excellence of the second start

Johnson has not turned in three consecutive quality starts at any point this season. The closest he came was an eight-inning, three-run performance against the Mariners following the first two starts on the above list. I’ve disqualified that start, however, as Johnson actually skipped his turn following the Toronto game due to a strained groin suffered while completing that duel against Roy Halladay.

That skipped start would have come against in Tampa against the Devil Rays (Sean Henn took Johnson’s turn and got lit-up in his major league debut). Johnson has made three other starts against the Devil Rays this year with the Yankees, none of which have produced the desired result. Here’s a brief history:

Tues 4/19 (home): With yours truly sitting in $5 seats in the upper deck, Johnson pitches well but surrenders a two run home run to Eduardo Perez in the third and a solo shot to Perez in the sixth. Meanwhile, the Yankees struggle to hit current Columbus Clipper Hideo Nomo, who was pitching on three day’s rest. Final score 6-2 Devil Rays.

Tues 6/21 (home): Again facing off gainst Nomo, Johnson gets absolutely lit up, surrendering back-to-back homers to Damon Hollins and Kevin Cash amid a five-run second inning and a two-run shot by Jonny Gomes in the third. Johnson leaves the game down 7-1 after three innings, but the Yanks come back to win 20-11.

Tues 8/16 (away): Much like the first game, Johnson pitches well save a two-run homer by Eduardo Perez in the sixth. Still, he leaves with a 3-2 lead, which is erased when Perez hits a solo shot off Mariano Rivera with one out in the bottom of the ninth. The D-Rays win it in the eleventh when Scott Proctor, on in relief of Alan Embree, is ordered to intentionally walk Aubrey Huff to load the bases, then proceeds to walk Jonny Gomes on four pitches to drive in the winning run.

By now it’s common knowledge that the Yankees are 4-9 against the Devil Rays this season. With six games to play against Tampa this week (home) and next (away), the Yankees need Johnson to step up and stop the bleeding tonight, setting the tone for the remaining five games between these two teams. Outside of the six remaining games against the Red Sox, tonight’s contest just might be the most important game on the Yankees’ remaining schedule.

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Last week Bob Klapisch wrote an interesting article for The Baseball Analysts about pitching in a semi-pro league. He wrote that no feeling in the world “matches making a hitter swing and miss.” The historian Glenn Stout has also played baseball as an adult, also as a pitcher. Here is his take on the allure pitching:

I don’ think it’s so much the feeling you get when a batter swings and misses. What’s addictive is everything you have to do and go through to make a batter swing and miss being confirmed when the batter misses – the swing is confirmation that everything that has come before has been concluded and all is right with that world – or even if it’s not, like when your arm hurts or you know you have nothing, a swing and a miss is sometimes even better then, because you used your brain – mentally and emotionally, you were able to affect the physical world, which is a powerful narcotic. And I think that as pitchers age, this generally gets more pronounced, because when you are young and can just throw the ball past people, so what? But whenever you are pitching at a level where the hitters, or a good number of them, can hit your shit and aren’t overmatched, then you have to use everything. I think I’ve said before that nothing I’ve ever done successfully before has ever required so much physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally at the same time. When it is all working together, it’s the most powerful feeling in the world. There are times you just know that you’re going to get the hitter out, or get out of the inning, or win the game. You don’t get that feeling in the rest of the world very often.

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Labor Day weekend in New York City is undoubtedly my favorite holiday of the year. The town is dead, which means plenty of room to move around for the natives. You can get a parking space without a problem, stroll around without having to deal with crowds. There is a sleeping feeling about the place that is almost magic. What makes it even more enjoyable is the knowledge that it will all soon change, in a matter of hours. Tuesday will roll around, everyone will return from vacation, kids will be on the train on their way to school, the buzz will return. It makes the last moments of summer feel even more precious.

We were blessed with gorgeous weather this year. Saturday and Sunday were bright, sunny days, still very warm–ideal for taking longs walks followed by an afternoon nap (I ate corn and tomatoes from a local farmer’s market and made the first, and probably last, fresh pesto of the season). Yesterday was sunny as well but there was a crispness in the air, a chilly breeze that felt like the start of autumn. I visited a friend in New Jersey in the morning and spent the early afternoon listening to old records. By the time I returned to my neighborhood around 3:00 the place was still deserted. Space, silence. Talk about two things that a New Yorker relishes.

The Yanks return home along with everyone else tonight, kicking off a week-long homestand with three against the Devil Rays. With six games remaining against Tampa Bay, the Bombers can still salvage the season-series (10-9) if they sweep ’em. I think they need to take 5-6 to feel good about themselves. I know if they drop more than one game to them, I will be leading the moans and groans. We Yankee fans are known to be a tad dramatic, but from here on out, all bets are off: bring on the sturm and drang. Randy Johnson, who has not pitched well against Lou’s Crew this year, goes tonight. It’ll be nice to see him settle the score with one E. Perez, no?

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Behind another unspectacular yet effective performance from Shawn Chacon, the Yankees defeated the A’s last night 7-3. They jumped all over Barry Zito early and often, knocking the Oakland southpaw from the game by the fourth inning. Zito gave up six earned runs (including two solo dingers–Jeter, Bellhorn) on five hits and three walks. With the win, the Yanks are a game ahead of Oakland in the wildcard race, two in front of the Indians. They remain three-and-a-half behind the Red Sox in the AL East.

Mark Bellhorn started at second base, hit a home run, worked a walk with the bases loaded, and made several nifty plays in the field. In the first, he made a basket catch on Mark Ellis’ foul pop in foul territory, and in the fourth he started a slick double play. With Jay Payton on first, Dan Johnson hit a hard ground ball to Bellhorn’s left. He bent over and fielded the ball, and instantly spun toward second. Turning his body, and falling into right field he made a perfect throw to Jeter who then completed the play. I was surprised that Bellhorn attempted the double play in the first place. But there was no hesitation on his part and it was a fine play.

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After a shaky outing and a thoroughly poor one, Shawn Chacon looks to get back on the good foot tonight for the Yanks. He’ll face Barry Zito in Oakland on the ESPN Sunday Night Game of the Week. The Red Sox won this afternoon, and the Angels are well on their way to a win, but the Indians fell to the Twins.

The Yanks didn’t score on Friday, and the A’s didn’t score yesterday. Wish I could say I had a hunch about what’s going to happen, but I don’t. Hopefully, the Yanks pull out a win and come back home feeling okay about things.

Enjoy. I hope everyone is having a beautiful holiday weekend. Let’s Go Yan-Kees.

Aaron Small out-dueled Kirk Saarloos yesterday afternoon in Oakland as the Bombers rebounded from Friday night’s beating. As our colleague Ken Arnson noted, the final score of 7-0 is misleading as this was a tense game until the Yankees broke it open in the seventh (Ken was at the game and took a series of nice photographs). And even then, the A’s were close to getting out of the inning without the damage being too costly.

With the score 1-0, Hideki Matsui came to the plate with the bases loaded and just one out (Posada had singled, Cano dribbled a single that barely found a hole through the left side of the infield, then Bubba Crosby sacrificed the runners to second and third before Jeter was walked intentionally). The A’s brought in the left-hander Ricardo Rincon. Though Matsui has been slumping, I had a good feeling about his at bat as I’m sure many Yankee fans did. Sure enough he smashed a line drive up the middle. But it was speared by Oakland’s second baseman Mark Ellis and it appeared as if the A’s were going to be able to turn the double play and get out of the inning. But Matsui beat the relay throw, a run scored, and the inning was alive. It was a heck of a way for Matsui to drive in his 100th run of the year.

The young right-hander, Justin Duchscherer replaced Rincon, got ahead of Gary Sheffield but then lost him. Sheffield walked and the bases were juiced again for Alex Rodriguez who had two ground ball singles and had been hit by a pitch on the afternoon. Rodriguez took a strike and then fouled off a fastball that was over the plate. The second pitch was his pitch to hit and he missed it. But Rodriguez did not give up. Duchscherer then just missed striking Rodriguez out with a curve ball. The pitch was low but Rodriguez’s knees buckled all the same. Two more balls and the count was full before Rodriguez poked an outside pitch into right field for a single, scoring two runs. Rodriguez said something aloud half-way to first, and he clapped his hands once he reached the bag, looking directly into the Yankee dugout (the visitor’s dugout in Oakland is along the first base line). At that moment Joe Torre, who held the eighth team meeting of the season prior to the game, pointed directly at Rodriguez as if to say, “Right on!” That is about as animated as Torre gets, but it was an important at bat. Rodriguez did not try to do too much, he went with the pitch and came through once again. Jason Giambi followed, and he muscled a three-run dinger into the right field seats and that, as they say, was that.

After getting blown-out on Friday night, Aaron Small pitched a shut out. Hard to believe what a ride this guy has had since joining the team this summer. I’m sure it has been the time of his life. One thing is for sure, he has been a savior for the Yankees. I shutter to think where they’d be without him.

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Kicking off the biggest series of the year thus far for the Yankees, Al Leiter faced ten batters and retired just two of them before being removed from last night’s game down 6-0 with runners on second and third. Never mind that lead-off hitter Jason Kendell, who was hit with a 2-2 pitch to start the game, appeared to be thrown out stealing second but was called safe. Or that when Mark Ellis followed Kendell’s stolen steal by hitting a payoff pitch over Hideki Matsui’s head in left that Matsui misplayed badly, Hideki recovered to throw out Ellis trying to stretch it into a triple only to have Ellis called safe as well. Such quibles are minor in the face of the 12-0 thrashing the Yankees took at the hands of the A’s last night.

Leiter had nothing, resulting in the shortest non-injury start of his career. According to Joe Torre after the game, Leiter, notorious for his refusal to throw strikes, was simply catching too much of the plate. Though Leiter’s 50/50 ball to strike split would suggest otherwise, Leiter did say that, as a result of watching video on the A’s, he expected the Oakland to take more pitches and thus tried to get away with a few gimme strikes. What he failed to realize was that the A’s take balls and swing at strikes, particullarly big juicy ones over the heart of the plate.

With Mike Mussina out indefinitely and Aaron Small insterted in his place in the rotation, Joe Torre called on Jorge DePaula to stop the bleeding and soak up inings. Armed with an 86-mile-per-hour fastball, the 26-year-old DePaula, who has spent the season in Columbus working his way back from Tommy John surgery, was only up to half the task. DePaula got the final out of the first on three pitches, but then gave up four more runs in the second and single runs in the third and sixth. Still, credit Brian Cashman (as Torre did after the game) with realizing that the Yankees might need an innings sponge such as DePaula with Leiter and Small starting on consecutive days. DePaula and Wayne Franklin, who pitched two perfect frames against Oakland’s subs to finish the job, prevented Torre from having to use any of his more valuable relievers.

On the other side of the ball, the Yankees stranded runners in scoring position with less than two outs in the second, third and fourth innings against Danny Haren, also stranding a lead-off walk by Jeter in the first. After it took Haren just 18 pitches to get through the the Yankee’s three through eight hitters in the fifth and sixth, Joe Torre put in his B-squad:

1B – John Flaherty
SS – Mark Bellhorn (now with high sox and double-flap helmet)
3B – Andy Phillips (who hit the only pitch he saw to the warning track in left in the eighth, causing my heart to skip a beat)
C – Wil Nieves
LF – Matt Lawton (2 for 2, the only Yankee with a multi-hit night)
CF – Tony Womack
RF – Bubba Crosby

Shockingly, Womack and Flaherty got themselves on first and third in the eigth only to be stranded by Nieves, otherwise Lawton’s two hits were all the subs had to offer.

Elsewhere, the Red Sox lost, thus failing to increase their 3.5 game lead in the East, but the Angels and Indians won. As a result, the Yankees have fallen into a second place tie with the Indians in the Wild Card race, a game behind the A’s and Angels, who remain tied for first.

Today’s game starts at 4:05 and it couldn’t come soon enough. Last night’s game was far too reminiscent of Game Seven of last year’s ALCS and I’m desperate for a brand new ballgame to erase those awful memories (not to mention put the Yankees back in a tie for the Wild Card). Aaron Small, show your old team what you can do.

The A’s and Yankees enter this weekend’s series with identical 75-58 records, tied for third best in the American League, the lead in the Wild Card race, and in the case of the A’s, with the Angels for lead in the AL West. It’s a rather stunning accomplishment considering how badly both teams stumbled out of the gate.

For the A’s, their lowest point came after an eight-game losing streak in late May. After losing to the Indians on May 29, the A’s were 17-32 (.347). Since then they are 58-26 (.690).* I’m not entirely sure that it’s a coincidence that May 30 was the day that the A’s activated their 25-year-old shortstop and number-three hitter, Bobby Crosby, from the disabled list.

Crosby started the A’s opening day loss to the Orioles in Baltimore, but was removed mid-game and placed on the DL due to a stress fracture of his ribs that had resulted from being hit by a pitch in spring training. The A’s had lost their last eight games prior to Crosby being activated at the end of may, but with him in the line-up, Oakland ran off four straight wins, with Crosby getting a hit in each. Crosby proceeded to hit .337/.394/.568 (.319 GPA) through the end of June as the A’s finished the month with an eight-game wining streak, the last seven games of which also saw Crosby hit safely.

Bobby fell off some from that point hitting (.260/.333/.431 – .258) in July and August, but his presence in the line-up and Gold Glove-worthy defense at shortstop (112 Rate) remained a key part of the A’s success, as they started the second half with seven straight series wins (20-4, .833). Well, last Saturday, Baltimore struck again as Crosby suffered a non-displaced fracture in his left ankle when he slid into Sal Fasano at home plate. Crosby is now back on the disabled list and the A’s are unsure if he will return before the end of the regular season.

Thus far the A’s have done well in his absence. With Crosby still at short, the A’s followed their remarkable start to the second half of the season by dropping series to the Twins, Orioles and Royals and losing the opening game of a series in Detroit, a 2-8 stretch, only to recover and with their next four games, the last of which was the game in which Crosby broke his ankle.

With Crosby on the shelf, the A’s completed a four-game sweep of the O’s and then dropped a hard-fought and well-pitched three-game set to the rival Angels, in which aggregate score of the entire series was 6-3 Angels, with A’s winning the first game in eleven innings and the Angels taking the last two. Thus it’s difficult to say whether or not the Yankees, who are 5-1 against the A’s this season having played all six games against them during Crosby’s absence in May, are returning to Oakland at an advantageous time or not. In a sense, this series will be a greater test for Oakland than it will be for the Yankees. In addition to Crosby, the A’s are likely to be without center fielder and number-two hitter Mark Kotsay for at least the first two games due to back spasms. Kotsay last played on Sunday in Baltimore and received an epidural injection on Wednesday. The A’s are also playing without their young ace Rich Harden, who has missed his last two starts due to a strained right lat and is likely to miss at least one more. With harden out a month due to a strained left oblique suffered in a start against the Yankees in Oakland on May 14, the A’s went 17-19 (including losing that game against the Yankees). They later won Harden’s first three starts (and seven of his first eight) after being activated.

These injuries to Crosby, Kotsay and Harden, along with the just completed series loss to the Angels which erased the A’s lead in the West, could put the young A’s into a psychological funk. As Barry Zito told MLB.com, “Potentially it could bring us down, but we’ve faced adversity before and come through it. Granted we sucked the last time we had a bunch of guys on the DL, but now we have some momentum. We’ve been picking each other up for the past two months.”

As it turns out, Marco Scutaro has been almost as solid as Crosby in the field (108 Rate at shortstop), and the Yankees would have missed Harden’s turn in the rotation this weekend even if he had been healthy. The Yankees will also miss Joe Blanton, who along with Harden has formed a new trio of aces with Sunday’s starter, Barry Zito.

Hot on the heels of those three aces, however, is tonight’s starter, Dan Haren. Haren will oppose Al Leiter, who is coming off six ugly two-hit innings against the Royals, proceeded by a relatively efficient seven innings against the Blue Jays. The way the pitching rotations fell this weekend may not be ideal for either team, but no matter what happens this weekend there should be a playoff atmosphere in Oakland as the odds are the team that wins the series will emerge with the lead in the Wild Card race (though a poor performance by the Angels against the Mariners this weekend could put the A’s in the AL West lead and thus Yankees in the Wild Card lead regardless of the series outcome, but we’ll ignore that for now).

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Bob Klapisch has covered baseball in New York since the heyday of the Mets in the 1980s. He is a columnist for The Bergan Record and a contributor to ESPN. Now in his forties, he continues to play semi-pro baseball. Yesterday, he contributed a terrific post about playing ball to The Baseball Analysts. Klapisch’s article has some keen insights into the pysche of ballplayers, and it is nice to see him write something longer, and more personal. But Klap isn’t just a guy who loves to play the game, at heart he’s a pitcher, and they are a breed apart:

From Little League all the way to Cooperstown, there’s a fraternity convened by the adrenaline rush of throwing a baseball. Bret Saberhagen once told me, “Nothing matches making a hitter swing and miss. It’s the greatest feeling in the world. Guys who retire, they spend the rest of their lives looking for it, but once you stop pitching you never get it back.”

…So why do I keep pitching? Probably for the purest reason of all – it’s what I do, at least when I’m not writing or helping feed the kids. To stop now would mean tearing away layers of psychological flesh. I guess I’m afraid of what’s underneath. Middle age, maybe.

I sent the article to Pat Jordan, the veteran journalist and former pitching prospect for the Braves. He replied:

The allure of pitching is about being in control and playing God. Nothing happens without you. You control the game, good or bad. also the feeling of ball off fingertips and your ability to make it spin and do things is exhilarating. I love to throw a baseball. The feeling of artistry and power in making a ball approach the plate with the speed or curve that I dictate is unrivaled in anything else I’ve ever done, including writing. I was born to be a pitcher, but taught myself to be a writer. I was an artist on the mound, but, alas, am merely a craftsman, like a brick layer, in front of a typewriter.

Which brings me to another thought. Why do the best jock-turned-writers all seem to be pitchers? Jordan, Jim Brosnan, Jim Bouton. Glenn Stout pitched in an over-30 league for years. What gives? Michael Lewis was a pitcher when he was in high school, Rich Lederer was a pitcher back in his playing days, and Will Carroll was too. Bouton thinks that it “may be that pitchers spend a lot of time sitting around.” What do you think?

“I still like how we feel right now,” Manager Joe Torre said. “We have a great deal of confidence right now. A game like today is not going to shake that.”

I’m glad that Torre feels that way. I felt far more discouraged yesterday after the Yankees dropped the final game of a four-game set in Seattle yesterday afternoon, 5-1. But I should keep things in perspective, especially considering what is happening in New Orleans right now. I know the two don’t have anything to do with each other, I simply mean that in light of the distressing situation down there it is inappropriate for me to feel too grave about how our team is playing. Jaret Wright was beaned by a line drive in the collarbone in the sixth inning. It was a scary moment, fortunately, x-rays were negative. However, Taynon Sturtze, Alan Embree, and Ramiro Mendoza did not pitch well in relief, while Joel Pineiro had a fine game for the M’s. It was an unfortunate loss. The Bombers fell another game behind Boston who beat up Tampa Bay again (Ah, so that’s what good teams do–beat the bad ones). The Red Sox offense has carried a mediocre pitching staff. Meanwhile, the Yankees have scored six runs in the last three games combined. The Angels beat Oakland last night, and the two teams are tied for first in the AL West, and tied for the wildcard lead with the Yankees.

As I made my way out of my apartment building this morning I saw several brown leaves on the ground. The weather, which has been hot and muggy for the past few days, was clear and lovely and for the first time this year I thought, fall is near. For a decade that’s meant one thing for Yankee fans: the playoffs. Yet with 29 games left in the regular season, the Bombers are no lock to play October baseball. Funny, but I feel more confident in their chances should they reach the playoffs than in their ability to actually make it in the first place (damn those Devil Rays). From here on out, the wins will be that much sweeter and the losses more painful. Joel Pineiro is starting for the Mariners this afternoon and he’s not a bad pitcher, but the Yankees have to win this game and that is all there is to it. I feel if they can take two-of-three from the A’s, Rays, Sox and Rays again, they should be in good shape.

Time to step up, fellas.

It was billed as “The Battle in Seattle,” there were even fans at Safeco last night wearing t-shirts featuring the mug shots of the game’s starting pitchers. It was the 19-year-old phenom, “King” Felix Hernandez, against the 41-year-old former Mariners’ ace and sure-thing Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, and it lived up to the hype.

The rookie and the veteran exchanged hitless frames through two, with Hernandez throwing 97 mile per hour fastballs and sharp curves and Johnson locating both his slider and 95 heaters.

Hernandez began the third by striking out his opponent’s personal catcher, John Flaherty, on a wicked curve that came in just below the waste on the outside corner and dropped into the dirt. King Felix then threw a fastball away to Robinson Cano and came back with a change-up over the plate. Hernandez is as good as advertised, but his change-up is the weakest of his three pitches. This one hung up in the zone and Cano deposited it in the right field seats, just beyond the reach of Ichiro Suzuki to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead (note the white t-shirt in the latter photo).

After Johnson pitched another hitless frame (aided by a fantastic play at third base by Alex Rodriguez in which he made a backhanded stab of a sharp bouncer up the line by Suzuki and pivoted on the foul line to make a Jeter-like jump throw to nail the speedy Ichiro by a half step), Gary Sheffield, back from his one-day suspension, led off the fourth by blasting a Hernandez heater over the wall in left to make it 2-0 Yanks.

As it turned out, that would be the end of the scoring in this game, but Johnson and Hernandez continued to deal, blowing away hitters with heat and confounding them with breaking pitches, pitching quickly, all the while backed up by some terrific defense (the Mariners turned three double plays and Alex Rodriguez literally filled an entire highlight reel with his play at third base).

Likely invigorated by being back in Seattle and overshadowed by a young punk less than half his age, Randy Johnson didn’t allow a hit through five innings. Given the electricity of the game and the sharpness of his defense, it seemed Johnson had a very real chance of completing his third career no-hitter, but Yuniesky Betancourt lead off the sixth with a double over Matt Lawton’s head in left. Betancourt then moved to third on a grounder to shortstop by Suzuki, but Johnson recovered to strikeout Jamal Strong (starting in center for the left-handed Jeremy Reed) and, after Tino Martinez dropped a foul pop up by Raul Ibanez, Alex Rodriguez turned in yet another fine play to strand Betancourt at third.

The Mariners got a man to third again in the seventh. After Johnson struckout Sexson to start the inning, Rodriguez made a wicked backhanded stab of a hot shot by Adrian Beltre, but despite having plenty of time to make his throw, drew Tino Martinez off the bag for what was generously ruled the second Mariner hit of the game. Beltre then moved to second on a Jose Lopez single and to third on a Mike Morse fly to center. Now at 111 pitches and still nursing a 2-0 lead, Johnson reared back and fired a series of mid-90s fastballs to Yorvit Torrealba: 94 high, 94 a tad lower called strike, 95 barely inside, 95 same spot for a called strike. After the second called strike, Torrealba and home plate ump Ron Kulpa took a moment to jaw at each other. Johnson then fired his 116th pitch of the game. Torreabla grounded it to Derek Jeter, who flipped to Robinson Cano at second, just barely forcing out Lopez to end the inning and Johnson’s night.

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“I don’t think we’re talking about poise here…I think we’re talking about a 97-miles-per-hour fastball and a curveball from hell.” Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire

Tonight gives an extremely compelling pitching match-up in Seattle. If you root for the M’s I’m sure that there are precious few games you’d like to see your team win more than this one. Seattle’s teenage dynamo “King” Felix Hernandez squares off against one of the league’s best offenses, while thier erswhile ace Randy Johnson pitches for New York. I do not get the MLB TV package or Direct TV so I have not seen Hernandez pitch yet. Better still, I haven’t even seen highlights of him, just still photographs. Hernandez has a round, open face, and apparently poise to spare along with incredible stuff. He’s what they’d call “the Emmis” back in the old country.* All I know is what I’ve read, and that’s plenty to keep me up to see what the fuss is about. Pitching against the Yankees is sure to bring ’em out to Safeco and have the boys at Baseball Tonight salivating.

For obvious reasons, nobody has followed Hernandez’s rookie campaign as closely or as passionately as the good folks over at the U.S.S. Mariner (here is a selection of posts for you to peruse: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). There have also been King Felix pieces by Bill Simmons, David Schoenfield, and commentary from Bert Blyleven.

I expect this to be a close game and figure that Johnson will be sharp. Perhaps it will be a crisp pitcher’s duel like the one Johnson had against Roy Halladay earlier this season. It is an exciting game for the M’s but an even more important one for the Yankees.

All aboard.

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Shawn Chacon pulled a Mussina last night, giving up eight runs combined in the second and third innings due to an alarming lack of control (three walks, a wild pitch, and twice hitting Seattle left fielder Mike Morse with a pitch in those two innings alone). Those eight runs would be all the Mariners would score, and all they would need, as 31-year-old rookie starter Jeff Harris, who entered the game with a 1.69 ERA, escaped a one-out bases loaded jam in the first and eventually settled down to hold the Yankees to three runs over 6 1/3 innings.

With Joe Torre having cashed in Aaron Small last night, the Yankee skipper was forced to stick with Chacon as he started the second by allowing a pair of singles, hitting a batter to load the bases, uncorking a run-scoring wild pitch, and walking a man to reload the bases, all before recording an out. The Mariners then scored another run on an RBI groundout by Yorvit Torrealba, and cashed in the rest on a three-run homer by Ichiro Suzuki to go up 5-0.

Suzuki’s homer was his second in the first two games of the current series, marking just the second time in his major league career that he has gone deep in consecutive games, the first such occasion since last August, and the first time he has homered on consecutive days as a Mariner (though he did hit two jacks in a single game against Cleveland on July 30 as well as on two other occasions earlier in his Mariner career).

As the folks over at U.S.S. Mariner have noted, Suzuki has been hitting for more power this year, but sacrificing his average as a result. Ichiro!’s two homers against the Yankees over the past two nights have been his 14th and 15th of the season, breaking his major league career best of 13 set in 2003, which, not coincidentally, was also the year that he posted his lowest major league batting average (.312). Suzuki hit exactly eight home runs in his other three seasons with the Mariners, a number he’s almost doubled in 2005. This year, Suzuki is also exceeding his typical and major league high isolated power numbers–.104 and .124 respectively, the latter also in 2003–with a .146 ISO (slugging minus average). Meanwhile, in the three at-bats in which he did not homer last night, Ichiro, whose game has always revolved hitting the ball on the ground and speeding to first, flied out and twice struck out, dropping his average to .299, which has in turn suppressed his slugging percentage to his typical .445 despite his increased isolated power.

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Shawn Chacon goes for the Yanks tonight at beautiful Safeco Field in Seattle. He was effective if not especially sharp in his last outing. Should be interesting to see what kind of performance he has in store for the M’s.

Go Yanks!

Last night Seattle reliever Matt Thorton came in the game, threw sliders instead of fastballs, gave up the lead and then heard it from manager Mike Hargrove. There is a special baseball word for his performance and it’s likely Hargrove mentioned it in their little chat. According to Bob Finnigan in The Seattle Times:

In a rare display of anger, Mike Hargrove stomped to the mound in the sixth inning and apparently gave reliever Matt Thornton a hard lesson in what he expected to see from a pitcher, with much vehemence and finger-jabbing.

…Thornton, who walked Bernie Williams after Giambi’s game-turning strike, was frank in revealing what the skipper would not. “He wanted to make sure he knew I can compete, for me to pitch like he knows I can, like I know I can,” said Thornton, who had given up crushing homers earlier in the year, but not lately.

Be sure and peep the U.S.S. Mariner, especially tomorrow night with Felix Hernandez on the mound, to see how the other half lives.