Javey Vazquez’s stuff looked much improved in the first inning yesterday. The fastball was moving, the breaking ball had some bite. But he was timid when pitching to the Orioles better hitters. With two-men on and two-out, Raffie P. came to bat. I said, “Home run,” and Raffie complied. Then I yelled. Loudly. Though Vazquez put the Yankees in a 3-0 hole, he recovered and pitched well through seven innings, not allowing another run to score. Meanwhile, the Yankees hit Bruce Chen hard in the first inning but only had one run to show for it. They ultimately tied the game at three but couldn’t get much of anything cooking offensively. (That’s wrong. Derek Jeter, batting lead off, had a very nice game.) Alex Rodriguez is still pressing, waving at pitches out of the strike zone. He whiffed twice and heard the boo boids; he was also robbed of a double by Jay Gibbons in right.

The Yankees ended up winning the game by the skin of their teeth when Jorge Posada walked on a full-count with the bases-loaded in the bottom of the ninth. The game was a nail-biter for Yankee fans. Who would have thought three weeks ago that the Bombers would be playing a must-win game against the Orioles at this stage of the game? They had some good fortune; Vazquez bare-handed a sure-fire single and turned it into a double play, with some help from poor Baltimore base-running, and perhaps a missed call at second base; Mariano Rivera had runners on first and third with nobody out in the top of the ninth and didn’t allow a run. (And Lee Maz made some head-scratching moves late in the game to boot.) All of which helped the Yankees stay two-and-a-half up on the Sox who survived a late rally by Texas yesterday and won the weekend series, two games to one.

I am Sorry

Kevin Brown was at the Stadium yesterday after he had surgery on his left hand. He apologized to his teammates. That’s a start. According to the Daily News:

“It’s my fault, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it,” Brown said. “I don’t expect anybody else to understand. … The blame is mine.”

…”Whatever actions they take, I’ll handle and I’ll take,” Brown said. “I understand the team’s position.”

… “He didn’t have to do what he did,” Tom Gordon said. “That was a class act. We all make mistakes and he stood up and handled it. We’ve all been in situations where we’ve wanted to break things because we were frustrated. I just hope we can get him back.”

The real shame of it is that Brown pitched well on Friday. As a matter of fact, the Yankee starting pitching has been fine over the past five games.

We Don’t Want to Work

This is my favorite weekend of the year to be in New York City. Why? Because the town is absolutely dead. I remember working with a girl who was originally from Miami a few years ago, and she’d get nuts when the city was like this. Maybe it’s something about being a native New Yorker, but there is a stillness and a sense of calm in Manhattan that is priceless. And the space. Lots of elbow room for all. I guess the beauty part is knowing that come Tuesday morning, everyone will be back from vacation; by Wednesday, kids will be back to school. The buzz will be back. All of which makes savoring these last precious moments of summer tranquility all the more special. Go to the farm market, grab some corn, make a fresh tomato, basil salad…it’ll all be over soon.

The weather was cool and overcast in New York yesterday. The fall is in the air. It’s hazy but sunny this morning, though still chilly. I’m headed over to the stadium for at least one of the two games they’ll play against Tampa Bay today. It’s an old-fashioned single admission double-header. Go figure, and go Yanks. Hope everyone has enjoyed their holiday weekend. And that’s the triple truth…Ruth.

Free Fallin

“For certain I’m happy it’s the left and not the right,” [Joe] Torre said. “But the thing that bothered me is the fact that he thought enough to throw the left and not the right. I wish he would have thought a little bit more on that subject.” (N.Y. Newsday)

“If you’re going to get hurt playing this game,” fellow starter Mike Mussina said, “let’s get hurt playing the game. Pull a hamstring, get hit with the ball. But to take yourself out for possibly the rest of the season because of a situation like this is frustrating for the rest of us, I think.” (N.Y. Newsday)

“I think we’ve all been frustrated about stuff,” Mussina said. “We’ve all been upset. We’ve all said stuff. But to physically do something to cause injury to yourself, I don’t relate to that.” (N.Y.Times)

“You just hope anybody can control their emotions. Sometimes your emotions get the best of you. Hopefully, if you’re going to harm yourself, it’s not going to harm the team.”

“He’s probably the most competitive guy I’ve ever played with,” [Gary] Sheffield said. “He cares about his performance and how the team does. And he takes it all on his shoulders when he doesn’t have to. In this situation, I’m sure he didn’t want to hurt the team. He’s probably feeling worse than anybody.” (Newsday)

Why don’t we start with the good news? First of all, Em and I took a drive to the country yesterday afternoon, so we missed the game. That’s for starters. Second, the Red Sox finally lost a game. (What? Is the moon blue or something?) Lastly, Mike Mussina pitched well. Now for the cruddy news: Mariano Rivera gave up four runs—ouch, that smarts, okay, mercy, mercy—and Sidney Ponson pitched a two-hit, complete-game shutout. As the say in my ‘hood: “Oy.” Kevin Brown will have surgery this afternoon at Columbia Pres. He’ll be out for at least three weeks.

Schmuckaholic

“A selfish and immature act by the most self-centered man in baseball may have cost the Yankees the AL East last night at Yankee Stadium.” George King (N.Y.Post)

Kevin Brown broke two bones in his left hand last night after punching a clubhouse wall:

“I reacted to frustration I’d swallowed all year. … There are no excuses. I let it boil over and I did something stupid.” (ESPN)

Brown later apologized to his teammates and to the organization. According to Jack Curry:

“It’s an issue we shouldn’t be dealing with,” General Manager Brian Cashman said, “and we are.”

…The one question the Yankees should ask Brown is how someone who is earning $15 million a year to pitch once every five days even dreams of putting his job and his team’s future in jeopardy with such an irrational act.

“You just can’t do this,” Cashman said. “You’ve got to keep your emotions in check.”

I liked the idea of Kevin Brown essentially replacing Roger Clemens at the start of the year. I knew he’d spend some time on the DL, but I liked his surly, Sal Maglie demeanor, and his intensity. I thought he was a gamer. But I can’t believe that he’s put his teammates in this kind of situation. Roger Clemens would never do something so thoughtless. I’d venture a guess and say that Jeff Weaver wouldn’t either. You know what this tells me about Kevin Brown? Consciously or not, he doesn’t want to pitch anymore. He just quit on the team. He’s not a gamer, he’s a clown. He’s going to have to live with the consequences of his actions, because it’s likely to follow him well past his playing days. There is a chance that he can come back this season. For his sake–as well as the Yankees–he’d better hope so.

Orlando Hernandez, Mike Mussina, Javier Vazquez, Jon Lieber: They must be dancing in the streets up in New England.

Foshizzle we can. Boy can we ever. No, you didn’t stutter, we can hear you knocking, but it feels more like pounding. The Orioles defeated the Bombers 3-1 in the Bronx while the Sox shut-out the Rangers 2-zip at Fenway Park. The Yankee lead is now down to two-and-a-half games, two in the loss column. When the Yanks were surging late in the 1978 season, they humbled the Sox in a four-game sweep in Boston which became popularly known as “The Boston Massacre.” NBC announcer, and former Yankee infielder Tony Kubeck commented at the time that “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a first-place team trying to chase a second-place team.” Though the Boston lead was seven games when Kubeck said this in 78, it kind of feels that way in reverse for New Yorkers right now.

Pedro Martinez continued to pitch brilliantly tonight as Boston won their tenth straight game. Meanwhile, Derek Jeter hit a solo home run off of Rodrigo Lopez in the bottom of the first; that was the only run the Yankees would score. They managed to load the bases after Jeter’s dinger, but Jorge Posada grounded sharply into a double play to end the inning. And that was as close to a threat as the offense would mount all evening. Simply put, Lopez was outstanding. He pitched into eighth and left the game with a runner on second and one out.

Erstwhile Yankee Jason Grimsley replaced him. Emily, the self-appointed “Big O”–Big Optimist–around these parts was uncharacteristically terse. “OK, enough of this shit already, let’s fucking go. I’m tired, I’m cranky, and I’ve had enough of these guys not being able to hit tonight. Let’s go.” I could hardly believe my ears. Grimsley faced Jeter and Sheffield and retired them on two pitches. Rodriguez, Matsui and Posada all went down swinging in the ninth. Kevin Brown pitched reasonably well, John Olerud made two nifty defensive plays at first, but Lopez was the star of the game.

It’s down to two. Mussina vs. Ponson tomorrow afternoon.

The Yankees responded to Tueday’s 22-0 drubbing in the best way possible; they won the three-game series from the Indians. Jon Lieber pitched an excellent game last night, getting lots of ground balls; he worked quickly and received more than his fair share of support from the offense. The Bombers chased Cliff Lee early, capped by a tremendous three-run home run by Alex Rodriguez, and essentially cruised the rest of the way. (Rodriguez is still chasing pitches out of the strike zone, and fouling off pitches he should pound.) They had a shut out going into the ninth inning when Steve Karsay gave up a solo home run to Victor Martinez on the first pitch he threw in the majors in a couple of years. Right before he threw the pitch I turned to Emily and called the home run. Karsay told Newsday:

“I guess he didn’t get the memo that I haven’t pitched in two years, and to take a pitch to see what I’ve got,” Karsay said. “That settled me in, actually.”

Karsay struck out the next two men, and his fastball and curve ball looked good.
I’m sure Jeter and company busted his chops pretty good about blowing the shut-out. Gary Sheffield had three hits and smacked the bejesus out of the ball on several occasions. He had three RBI and now has 101 on the season. Derek Jeter went hitless, but drew two walks. As badly as his walk totals have fallen off this year, Jeter has now earned a walk in seven straight games.

Heaven Help Us

The Bombers remain three-and-a-half up on the Red Sox, who completed a three-game sweep of the Angels in Boston last night. The Sox are the hottest team in the majors right now, and while the culture in Boston might be changing, it’s certain that a good portion of Red Sox Nation is viewing their team’s recent success with a healthy degree of skepticism. “They are just pumping us up to let us down once again,” is what I imagine some of them are secretly thinking. You can hardly blame them, especially the older fans. What I think is sad is the Yankee-obsessed mentality expressed by a Sox fan in the Times today:

“Winning the World Series is more important, but beating the Yankees is a close second,” said Mark Shiro, a hotel concierge. “If we beat the Yankees to win the American League and lose the World Series, it would be disappointing, but there would also be a lot of joy.”

That’s weak. Maybe it would suffice as a consolation prize, but come on now, winning it all is what it should be all about. You know what Yankee fans would think if they beat the Bombers but lost again in the World Series? The same thing they think about the Sox right now. On the other hand, I believe that there is another faction of Sox fans who buy into this team simply because they are a very good squad, curses and history be damned. They have a ownership and management team that they can get behind, players who are easy for them to pull for, and a legitimate shot at the title. You know what these fans hope for: the Sox to muder the Yankees and then win the World Serious. Full speed ahead.

Head Case

The Daily News has an exclusive story today concerning the location of Jason Giambi’s benign tumor. According to T.J. Quinn and Bill Madden, it is located in his pituitary gland:

The treatment, which has been approved by Major League Baseball, involves a form of steroids that are not performance-enhancing.

“It’s fine for a specific medical use,” one official with knowledge of his condition said. “He isn’t breaking any rules.”

The reason for his secrecy was simple, a source said: After testifying before a grand jury in the BALCO steroid-trafficking case and having to deny repeated rumors about steroid use, Giambi was worried that a pituitary tumor would make him guilty by association, according to a source.

Pituitary tumors have been anecdotally associated with anabolic steroid and human growth hormone use, but medical experts say there has been no documented connection.

No doubt, there will be more to come on this one…

I Come to the Party in a B-Boy Stance

George Steinbrenner didn’t rip his team in the papers, but he was at the Stadium again last night doing his best Knute Rockne routine. Before the game, he issued the following statement:

“Sure, we got punished badly last night, but winners never quit and quitters never win. We all know that New Yorkers never quit, and we reflect the spirit of New York.” (N.Y. Daily News)

Steinbrenner hawked his team from his private box as they conducted batting practice. He was in his finest big-game football form: playing a clip from the movie “Rudy,” as well as blasting “When the Going Gets Tough,” by Billy Ocean over the sound system. No matter the title, imagine anyone getting pumped up by a Billy Ocean tune? That’s a good one. (Why not, “Tuff Enuff,” by the Fabulous T-Birds?) Joel Sherman hit the nail on the head:

When the insane get goin’, the goin’ gets insane.

The Yankees responded behind another money performance from Orlando Hernandez. El Duque allowed a run in the first and then proceeded to shut down the Indians over the next six innings. Tom Gordon gave up two, two-out runs in the eighth which made things tense, but the Bombers added an insurance run in the bottom of the inning and Mariano Rivera recorded the save in the ninth. Jorge Posada hit a two-run bomb, and John Olerud and Miguel Cairo added solo shots. The Yankees remain three-and-a-half up on the Red Sox who beat up the Angels last night in Boston. But as Harvey Araton notes in the Times today, the Yankees are now seven games up on Anahiem. With the wildcard system in place, the bottom line is to make the playoffs, period. This is not to say that the Yankees won’t still win the division, but they have a safety net should Boston surge ahead of them.

I missed most of the game on the count of I was in Manhattan having dinner with the founder of All-baseball.com, Christian Ruzich, his wife Darryl and the co-host of The Cub Reporter, Alex Ciepley. But when I got home, I was able to catch the ninth inning and the highlights. I also taped the game just so I could get a better look at one of laugh-out-loud best plays of the season.

Coco Crisp led off the third inning and taped a ground ball up the first base line. Crisp is a fast runner, but Duque got off the mound quickly, fielded the ball and beat Crisp to the first base line by a stride. Crisp put the breaks on about three feet before he reached Hernandez. He threw his arms up and faked left. Duque reached for him first with his bare hand and then swiped at him with his glove. Jack Curry reports:

But Hern

An Insider’s Look at the Yankee Dynasty

Buster Olney’s new book, “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty” is the first major look at the Joe Torre years in the Bronx. I recently had the chance to catch up with Buster. The following is our lengthy chat. Strap yourself in and enjoy.

Bronx Banter: What are the origins of this book?

Buster Olney: I think that at some point

Let it Be…

“There’s a certain element of embarrassment, no question,” Yankees Manager Joe Torre said. “If you have a lot of pride in what you do and somebody has their way with you, you have to take your lumps. There’s no question. You can’t just turn the lights off and go home. You have to stay there and endure what you have to endure. If you accept winning, you have to endure losing. Something like this is hard to handle. It’s something you have to bounce back from. It counts as one loss.”

…”You can’t worry about the Red Sox,” catcher Jorge Posada said. “We’ve got to worry about us. We’ve got to worry about what we can do here. We’ve got to remember that we’re still ahead. I think everybody’s got to look at this game. You’ve got to look in the mirror and ask some questions.

“How good are we? We’ve got to look inside. We are a good team. We are still in first place. We’ve just got to do it. We’ve got to come out here and play good ball and just turn it around.” (N.Y. Times)

“Well, contrary to a lot of people in this region’s belief, the Yankees don’t [stink],” [Curt] Schilling said. “Their shortstop’s got four rings, they have probably one of the best managers in sports. I don’t expect them to fall down on the job. They were good enough to put 10 1/2 games between us. We’re going to need some help to catch up. (mlb.com)

“I’m a blunt getting smoked and I can’t wake up.” KRS-ONE

Man, I had the worst dream last night. The Yankees suffered the most lopsided loss in team history, falling 22-0 at home to the Indians. (I can’t believe they gave up the two-pernt conversion.) Hold up. That was no dream. It was a nightmare. Omar Vizquel had six hits, tying an American League record for hits in a nine-inning game. Esteban Loiaza finished the game for the Yanks. Not wanting to be left out of the festivities, he was torched in the ninth, serving up two, three-run bombs.

The Angels scored a bunch of runs late but it wasn’t enough to beat the Red Sox who won their seventh consecutive game. Boston now trails the Yankees by three-and-a-half games, and they are creepin’ closer.

A mortified Yankee team will look to rebound on Wednesday night against the ace of the Cleveland staff, C.C. Sabathia. Just what do the Yankees need to do to get a good performance out of one of their starting pitchers? Wait a minute, don’t answer that. I’m going back to bed.

“Don’t Look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Satchel Paige

Bring on Taynon, CJ, and who is that warming up in the bullpen? Esteban Loaiza? Come on in, the water’s fine. Welp, we Yankee fans need to laugh to keep from crying tonight. Take it on the chin, and suck it up. (And at this point, with the score 13, no 14, make that 15-0 in the fifth, getting some laughs out of this one is the best we can hope for.) It’s a joyous night for Red Sox Nation and an utterly forgettable one for the Bombers. Let’s turn the page, as they say. Hmmm. I think I’m out of cliches. Funny, how El Duque

Javier Vazquez didn’t make it through the second inning tonight in what was the shortest outing of his career. He was nothing short of awful. Jake Westbrook, on the other hand, looks sharp. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are out to an early lead in Boston. Need to vent? Unleash your fury below…

Every time I ride out to Brooklyn to visit my old barber I get this feeling that once I get there, he won’t be around anymore. It is not only because he’s getting older but because the Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill neighborhood has become so gentrified that the older shops along Smith street are regularly replaced by chic boutiques, hip bars and trendy new restaurants. I lived in Brooklyn for five years (1995-2000) and loved my barber, Efrain Torres, a soft-spoken Puerto Rican man who lost the lease on his barber shop four years ago. Since then, he has a chair in another shop on Smith street, and still happily works six days a week.

It may seem like a long way to schlepp for a haircut. After all, I live in the Bronx now. But Efrain approaches his work with great care and respect for his craft. The barbers around my way are a good bunch of guys, but they cut hair like they are late for dinner. And not only do they rush, but their movements are coarse and violent. Their work is often sloppy. I’ve got a hard cut to screw up–a conservative fade (1 1/2 on the side and 2 on the top with a straight razor to clean up the lines). But I usually come home with small nicks from the razor with random little hairs sticking up from the top of my head.

Emily, who loves my hair short, will inspect their work and usually has some cherce words for their craftsmanship. “You should go back down there and have them get it right.”

“Ahh, sweetie, it just doesn’t work like that. It’s fine, whatever.”

I know I’m getting a second-rate cut but it’s depressing trying to find a new shop. I always know that I’ve got Efrain, who I visited last Friday afternoon. (I’m not the only one who will travel a ways to see him either. He has regulars that come in from Long Island and Weschester as well.) A father and son–also Puerto Rican–own the shop and cut heads too. They will be silent for long periods of time and then suddenly come to life with tall tales of fighting and “How to be a man.” They speak a mixture of Spanish and English, usually depending on who is in the shop. A heavy-set Spanish woman has a corner area where she cuts women’s hair. A glass statuette of a dolphin sits on top of a can of hairspray next to her. I’ve rarely seen her with any clients. She spends most of her time rummaging through her bag or through the drawers of her table looking for make-up. You’d think her bag was a clown’s prop. She’s in there forever. Then she applies more lipstick, eye-shadow. She is comically vain. When she’s left with nothing else to do, she will take a hot-iron and touch up her big, orange hair.

Efrain speaks with a heavy Spanish accent, but has a gentle voice and is unhurried in virtually all of his movements. It is always comforting to see him. He works in a predictable, almost robotic manner. Always the same routine. It’s one that I’ve come to forget. I used to get impatient waiting for him to finish, but now, I appreciate the pace. His hands are soft. When he wipes away small hairs that have fallen in my face with a brush, he does it as if he touching somebody who is asleep, afraid to wake them.

He’ll tell me stories that have no punchlines. He’ll stop what he’s doing at one point for the payoff. I sit there with a frozen smile on my face waiting for the kicker which never comes. So I keep smiling and offer a laugh which prompts him to laugh back, pleased that I’ve enjoyed his story.

When he’s finished with the straight razor and everything is done, he’ll take a pair of sissors and snip behind my ears or on the top of my head. As he was doing this last Friday he stopped and told me, “I’m sorry it takes so long, but you have to pay attention to the details. It’s the small details that make the difference.”

Ain’t it the truth. The telling detail. It’s hard to find people who take their craft seriously, but when you do find them, they are worth their weight in gold. Am I right? No matter what they do. If they drive a bus, or cut heads or write for a living. Pat Jordan is a throwback baseball writer. He is a journalist who writes “straight” stories in a style that pre-dates New Journalism or Gonzo writing, though he came of age in the era of Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson. His best pieces are long profiles, but he doesn’t get to do much of them anymore. His most recent baseball piece for The New York Times Magazine wasn’t longer than 2,000 words. He used to write 6,000 word articles regularly.

It’s hard for a writer like Jordan to thrive in the today’s magazine culture, which is a shame for someone who takes his craft seriously. He writes clearly, and has a keen eye for observation, not to mention human behavior. He respects the language and doesn’t let cute language or gimmicks get in the way of the story. But even if he doesn’t get the opportunity to pen longer pieces anymore, he is now offering a look at some of his best unpublished work. Jordan recently launched a website which posts a new story every month. They are no baseball pieces yet, but a sampling of all kinds of work: a piece about a healer, an expose on the porno industry. Jordan is charging up to four bucks per story. The shorter stories are only one or two dollars.

Anyhow, they are worth the money if you appreciate honest and unpretentious craftsmanship. Jordan writes like Efrain Torres cuts heads: with sensitivity and discipline. His work also suggests that he is doing exactly what he was meant to do on this earth. He cares about his craft which makes the visit well-worth the trip. Tell him I sent you.

Rey Ordonez, eat your heart out

If most baseball writers are, at heart, failed players, then at least I meet requirment number one. Here are a couple of telling snap shots of me from a junior varsity game back in the spring of 1986.

Notice the fine form:

The discipline and grace:

For the record, my team lost the game. I struck out looking on a 3-2 pitch to end it. The damn pitch was right down the middle too (a bp meatball if there ever was one). This was the one game my dad attended that year; fortunately he brought his camera. Unfortunately, a shot of my coach consoling me after I made the last out has been lost. It was my favorite memory of the game.

And a literary career was born!

Half-Full

“We’re playing well,” [manager Joe] Torre said. “I’ll take winning five out of seven at every turn. If that’s not good enough, it’s not good enough. We have no control over them (Red Sox), but we’re playing well right now.” (N.Y. Daily News)

“This game is about runs, and they are on their best run of the year,” Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez said of the Red Sox. “We’re in the driver’s seat. We’ve got a month left of baseball, and hopefully our best baseball is ahead of us.” (N.Y. Times)

I’m generally an upbeat person but when we’re talking about sports I’m a pessimist–at least when it comes to rooting for my teams–always waiting for the the other shoe to drop. My girlfriend Emily has battled Crohn’s Disease for years and at times I see how it clouds her view on life. But above all, she is a fighter. No matter how difficult things get for her, how dark things can get, she takes her lumps then comes out swinging. And when it comes to baseball, she is an optimist of the first order. It makes for a good partner (and sometimes a good foil). She never thinks the Yankees are out of a game. The ninth inning on Saturday was proof enough for her that anything can happen at any time.

As frustrated as I was to see yesterday’s game slip away from the Yanks–a botched double play and a miscommunication between Derek Jeter and Enrique Wilson along with some poor pitches by Mussina and Paul “Lighter Fluid” Quantrill was enough to do the trick–let us look on the bright side: Mike Mussina pitched his best game since returning from his elbow injury and Alex Rodriguez went 4-4. Also, the Yankees went 5-2 on the week. Who knew that the Red Sox would forget how to lose? Boston won again yesterday, and now trail the Yanks by just four-and-a-half games (four in the loss column). They have won 12 of their last 13 games. However, now is the time for the Yankees to make up a few games as the Sox play their next nine games against the Angels, Rangers and A’s.

Larry Mahnken, another noted Yankee optimist, isn’t pressing the panic button yet either. In the latest edition of “Rivals in Exile,” Mahnken writes:

If A-Rod does hit in the clutch down the stretch and in the playoffs, it will make up for the loss of Jason Giambi, though Tony Clark and John Olerud have been surprisingly solid in his place. They’ve posted a combined .802 OPS as Yankees, which isn’t special, but above average for AL first basemen. That’s about the level of production the Yanks got out of Tino Martinez in the late 90’s. Clark and Olerud have taken a potential disaster and turned it into a push. If Giambi does come back and is effective, that would be huge, but with three great hitters already in A-Rod, Sheffield and Matsui, the Yankees don’t need him.

What they need is good relief, which could make Steve Karsay the most important September addition. While you don’t want to go too far in projecting the return of a pitcher who has been out almost two full years, but Karsay’s with the team, throwing in the bullpen, and looking good. If he’s able to pitch effectively in September, he could give the Yankees the vital solid middle relief they need to keep Quantrill, Gordon and Rivera on their butts. And if he pitched well, he could be a huge addition to the postseason roster.

The next three weeks represent the Yankees’ last, best chance to finally put Boston out of the AL East race. If they play well, they can tack on a couple of games before they play the Sox on the 17th. If they don’t add any games, or even worse, drop some, then things get hairy.

Amen. Not like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop or anything. But no matter what shakes down over the next few weeks, it looks like the Yanks and Sox will play six more exciting games against each other before we reach the playoffs. Did you expect anything less?

“If I had stuck on the base, it would’ve been worse,” Sheffield said. “I feel pretty good. I don’t have a big limp. … I walk pretty good. Freak accidents happen in this game. Thank God it’s not worse and I’ll be OK.” (N.Y. Daily News)

Yankee fans got a little bit of everything on Saturday: thrills, spills and even some uncomfortable chills. Kevin Brown had little control in the early innings, he labored, and before you know it the Bombers were behind 4-0. Then the offense rallied against Ted Lilly

In what was most likely his last chance as a starter for New York, Esteban Loaiza was awful once again but the Yankees scored enough runs to come away with a win. Phew. (Or is the P-U?) I know it is not nice to call a professional useless, but that is pretty much what Loaiza has been as a Yankee. Tom Gordon was forced into the game when the middle relief couldn’t hold a four-run lead (he earned the save). The Yankees walked eleven times and Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, and Bernie Williams added homers. The Bombers remain five-and-a-half ahead of the Sox who won again (Boston has won ten or their last eleven already).

Jason Giambi took some swings off a tee yesterday in Florida. Perhaps there is a chance he will make it back this season after all. Giambi’s saga continues…

Awww, Bacon

I won’t lie to you. When the Blue Jays had two men on with nobody out in the third inning, already up 4-0 lead, I started preparing myself for the Bombers to end the evening four-and-a-half games in front of Boston. Emily wasn’t home yet so I let out a few cherce words, a couple of primal screams. After all, the Red Sox can’t seem to lose these days, and it looked as if Jon Lieber wasn’t going to make it through five innings. I wasn’t the only Yankee fan groaning. Larry Mahnken was holding his own upstate New York:

We know that this is a slump, that this is not the real Yankees we’re seeing out there. We know this is a slump because the numbers being put up by their players are even worse than even the biggest pessimist could have predicited, and that we can be almost entirely certain that these players will almost all put up numbers better than the past week and a half over the remainder of the season, and for most, those numbers will be appreciably better. We know that, considering the unusual fact that nearly the entire team has entered a slump at the same instance, the slump is likely to end soon, if gradually. And more than this, we know that because of the relative ease of the remaining schedule, the possibility of the Yankees dropping the final 5

Dag Nabbit

The Yankees lost a game they should have won last night. Coupled with a Red Sox victory, the Yankees’ lead is down to five-and-a-half games. For the Indians, the win was a relief as it ended a nine game losing streak. The highlight of the evening was a squirrel which appeared in the third inning and liberally pranced around the field for the duration of the game. It was a frustrating loss for the New Yorkers who begin a four-game series in Toronto tonight.

El Duque pitched reasonably well, and the Bombers had a 3-2 lead when Flash Gordon took the hill in the eighth inning. But Gordon, working for the third consecutive night, didn’t have any control and walked the first two batters. Both men would come around to score and that was the game. However, it’s hard to get down on Gordon. If anyone or anything can be blamed for the loss it would be the Yankee offense, who once again hit the ball hard at times, but had little to show for it. Alex Rodriguez went 0-3 with runners in scoring position. According to George King in the New York Post:

Each team was terrible in the clutch. The Yankees went 2-for-12 and the Indians were 2-for-14. Alex Rodriguez’s troubles hitting with runners in scoring position continued. He went 0-for-3 and hit into a double play that vacuumed the life out of a possible big seventh inning. A-Rod, who has four hits in the last 27 at-bats in the clutch (.148), is hitting .200 (23-for-115) with runners in scoring position.

Jon Lieber will try to give the bullpen a rest tonight. The bats need to make like the Bombers and make it easy for him.

Sheff of the Past

Jack Curry has a nice piece on Gary Sheffield’s experience in the Little League World Serious today in the Times. Well worth a peak.

Bleeding Dodger Green

Jay Jaffe has the second part of his Gary Sheffield profile up at The Futility Infielder. This portion covers Sheffield’s time in L.A. Terrific stuff. Be sure to check it out.