Chien-Ming Wang is able to survive his alarmingly low strikeout rate by keeping his walks down and by inducing ground balls, the latter of which not only turn into outs with great frequency, but also rarely go for extra bases. Yesterday, Wang illustrated that formula for success by failing to execute it. Though none of Wang's three walks came around to score, he did give up four runs in six innings because of the three extra-base hits he allowed. In the first, he gave up a solo home run to David Ortiz with two outs. In the third he gave up a leadoff triple to Coco Crisp that scored on a subsequent groundout by Alex Cora, and in the fifth, after hitting Crisp in the toe with one of his sinkers, he gave up another home run to Cora, the Red Sox's surprise star of the game.

The Yankees countered the first two runs on an equally surprising three-run homer by Doug Mientkiewicz in the third, but Scott Proctor and Sean Henn combined to allow three more Boston runs (a Cora triple off Proctor in the seventh that was plated on a sac fly and a two-run Manny Ramirez homer off Henn in the eighth) before the Yankees were able to add their fourth tally on a Derek Jeter solo shot in the bottom of the eighth.

As it turns out, Wang was pitching with a broken nail on his pitching hand from the third inning on, thus the three walks, one hit batter, wild pitch (all of which came after the third inning), and unusual number of extra base knocks (Wang, who allowed just 12 homers all of last year hadn't allowed two homers in a single game since June 28, 2005). The nail on Wang's right index finger cracked in half perpendicular to his finger. According to Peter Abraham, Wang has reportedly fixed similar problems with glue in the past and says he will make his next start.

Despite not being on his game, Wang could have done worse. He gave the Yankees six innings and got 13 of his 18 outs on the ground (plus one K), but the nail effected his control, causing him to leave too many balls up in the zone. In addition to the two homers, both booming shots, and Crisp's triple, Wang got two of his outs in the sixth on booming fly balls. Those shots, combined with a walk and wild pitch in that sixth frame, motivated Joe Torre to remove him after just 84 pitches.

At the plate, Alex Rodriguez went 2 for 4, including a one-out single in the sixth with the Yankees down 4-3 and Derek Jeter on base representing the tying run, but did not add to his homer or RBI totals. He thus finishes April tied with Albert Pujols for the most home runs ever in the month of April and second to Juan Gonzalez for the most RBIs ever in April. His final April line:

.355/.415/.882, 23 G, 27 R, 7 2B, 14 HR, 34 RBI, 23 K, 2 SB, 0 CS

Bobby Abreu broke an 0-for-19 slump with a single in the eighth inning.

On the injury front, Jeff Karstens was placed on the 15-day DL with a fractured right fibula, he's expected to miss six-to-eight weeks. Colter Bean was recalled from Scranton to fill Karstens' spot. Bean, who was a high school and college teammate of Josh Hancock's, will likely return to the minors when Mike Mussina comes off the DL on Thursday. Johnny Damon will see a doctor about his aching back during today's off day. Pavano threw 45 pitches in the bullpen, 20 of them from the top of the mound. He'll throw again mid-week, but will remain on the DL for at least three weeks (which I read as "indefinitely").

Final note from the Abraham post linked above: "The Yankees used five pitchers for the 10th straight game. That is the longest such streak in at least 50 years according to the Elias Sports Bureau." The Karstens/Igawa game seems like a bit of a technicality there, but still, that about sums it up. One of these days, Joe Torre has to let his starter throw 110 pitches and let a single reliever finish the game regardless of the score. It's every bit as important to break that streak as it was to snap the losing streak that ended on Saturday.

Julio Lugo lined Jeff Kartsen's first pitch off the pitchers' right leg yesterday bringing to mind the lyric, If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all. "You can't print was going through my head and coming out of my mouth at the time that happened," Yankee GM Brian Cashman said after the game (he also added, "0-7 feels like 0-14 in New York"). Kartsens threw five more pitches before giving up a single to Kevin Youkilis and was removed from the game. Turns out the kid has a fractured fibula.

So with no out and two runners on in the first, Kei Igawa entered to face David Ortiz. Not a promising site for the Yankees. But Igawa got Cookie Monster to hit into a double play and pitched into the seventh inning without allowing a run. Brian Bruney, Kyle Karnsworth and Mariano Rivera held the Sox to just one run the rest of the way as the Yanks pulled out tense, hard-earned 3-1 win. Bruney was excellent, Farnsworth not so much. He struck out Manny Ramirez looking, throwing nothing but sliders for strikes. Manny didn't even take the bat off his shoulder. When is the last time you saw that? Coco Crisp was called out on strikes to end the eighth inning. He angrily threw his bat and helmet to the ground and was promptly tossed. Though home plate ump Bruce Froemming called wide strikes equally for both teams, it was hard to blame Crisp for being vexed. He didn't have a chance to do anything with those "strikes."

Jason Varitek got his third hit off of Mariano Rivera this season to start the ninth. But Rivera was helped out by a slick bare-handed play by Alex Rodriguez and held on for the save. After the game, Cliff e-mailed me, "Was that the tensest 9th inning you can remember in a long time or is it me?" He added that the win was "Huge in like 900 ways."

Jorge Posada's two-run homer proved to be the difference. If the Yanks can pull out a win today, it will be a huge relief for New York. If they lose, we're back to fret-con-one.

The Yankee offense did a decent job against D. Matsuzaka for the second time in a week, but Boston's bullpen was excellent and New York's pitching was absolute horses*** as the Red Sox rolled 11-4. Andy Pettitte was lousy and, adding insult to injury, Mariano Rivera was even worse. That makes it seven losses in a row for the Yanks. I guess it can get worse.

I know Steinbrenner isn't what he once was, but if this keeps up, would anyone really be suprised if heads roll?

I know I said last week that I'd do a full breakdown in previewing this series, but frankly, I'm winded. While no one expected the Yankees to win more than on game in Boston last weekend, their being swept in a series that was actually more evenly matched than most anticipated was a bitter pill and their three loses this past week that have pushed their overall slide to six games has even the most optimistic Yankee fans shaking their heads.

The Yankees are languishing in last place with the third worst record in the AL and the fifth-worst in baseball, yet their Pythagorean winning percentage is .562. There are two reasons for that. The first is that the Yankee offense, despite being shut out for the first time all season last night, is still the most productive in baseball, scoring six runs per game. The second is that the Yankee bullpen, which looked like a major strength entering the season, has blown seven saves. Losing close and winning big, that's how a team underperforms it's Pythagorean, and that's exactly what the Yankees have been doing. Only two of the Yankees' 12 loses have been by more than two runs. Think about that. Eight times they've been a bloop and a blast away from tying or winning a game in their final at bat, but eventually lost (two of those close losses were walk-off jobs in Oakland) including five of their current six-game losing streak. On the flip side, three of their eight wins have come in their final at-bat (the two game winners by Alex Rodriguez and Giambi's tie-breaker in extras in Oakland).

That's exhausting baseball, and exhaustion is exactly the problem. The rotation was supposed to shape up before it shredded the bullpen. That didn't happen. The offense is the best in the league but the best isn't good enough to overcome the team's pitching woes. Chien-Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte give the Yankees a powerful 1-2 punch atop the rotation, and both will face the Sox this weekend, but the Yankees have lost four of the five games those two have started because of the strain placed on the bullpen by the rest of the rotation. The pen appeared to get a reprieve with Wednesday night's rain out, but having already soured on Japanese import Kei Igawa, who's been pulled from the rotation, the team asked 20-year-old rookie phenom Phil Hughes to make his major league debut last night and thus needed another 4 2/3 innings from the bullpen. With the pen already exhausted, however, there was no one Joe Torre could turn to as a long man for mop up duty short of Igawa himself, so those 4 2/3 innings saw him burn through four of his seven relievers.

As a result the only fully rested relief arms for tonight's game are Luis Vizcaino, Kyle Farnsworth and Mariano Rivera, who have been the team's worst performers in the early going. Vizcaino was the pitcher most abused in the early going, but there's reason for optimism with Farnsworth and Rivera. Rivera, of course, is Mariano Rivera, and pitched a scoreless inning on Monday, working around a hit to strike out two. Farnsworth, meanwhile, has turned in a scoreless frame in each of his last four outings, allowing just two hits and a walk over that span while striking out three (though three Ks in 4 IP is still a bit low for him).

In other good news, Wang looked like he was in midseason form in his debut on Tuesday, picking up the loss only because of the failures of the bullpen, and Hideki Matsui has also hit the ground running since being activated from the disabled list on Monday going 2 for 7 with a homer and five walks (.583 OBP). It may not seem like it, but the Yankees are a strong team than they were a week ago heading into Boston.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, were merely .500 on the week, dropping a pair at home to the Blue Jays by a combined score of 17-6, but beating the Orioles twice in Baltimore by a combined score of 11-3. The good news is that the Yankees will be facing the guys who pitched against Toronto (Tim Wakefield and Julian Tavarez), and not the ones who faced Baltimore (Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett).

Tonight, they get their second crack at Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Yanks touched Matsuzaka up for six runs in seven innings on Sunday, one of them coming on a Derek Jeter homer over the Green Monster. On the other hand, Matsuzaka struck out seven Yankees and walked just one. Meanwhile, Andy Pettitte excelled against the Sox a week ago tonight, holding them to two runs over 6 1/3 innings, but Andy's peripherals were less impressive than Matsuzaka's. I'm anticipating a pitchers' duel tonight, which should simply add to the exhaustion factor for those of us watching the game, but could be a benefit to the Yankee bullpen.

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. . . you're not in Trenton anymore.

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You can see why people are so high on Phil Hughes. He has a nice fastball--imagine that, a Yankee starter with the ability to throw a fastball past a hitter?!--a good curve and is unafraid to throw a change-up too (at one point early in the game he threw three straight change-ups). He fell behind too many hitters, and Alex Rios and Vernon Wells hit the ball hard off him in the first inning (Frank Thomas also connected for an RBI single; Hughes made a good pitch against him, fastball on the outside corner, but The Big Hurt showed why he's a Hall of Fame hitter by slapping it into right). Hughes was just adequate last night, giving up four runs in less than five innings, but he's certainly more promising than the likes of Kei Igawa, the Bombers' new mop-up man in the bullpen.

"I certainly wasn't disappointed," Torre said. "I didn't think he was out of his league, by any stretch of the imagination."

..."The big thing I saw was even when he was down, he kept coming," catcher Jorge Posada said. "That's the sign of a good pitcher. I was really happy."
(Tyler Kepner, N.Y. Times)

Unfortunately for the Yanks, Toronto's answer to Nuke Laloosh, A.J. Burnett, was in fine form, pitching seven shut-out innings. The Bombers managed only four hits all night and lost their sixth straight game. Final score: Jays 6, Yanks 0.

How could Yankee fans be anything but glum watching the game last night? Oy and veh. The most exciting moment offensively came when Alex Rodriguez hit a ball to the warning track in dead center. It sounded great but came up just short. I did notice late in the game, both Johnny Damon and Alex Rodriguez smiling, so it doesn't appear as if the players are too tight yet. After the game, however, Damon told reporters:

"There's going to be panic soon, if the winning doesn't start," Johnny Damon said, although he quickly backtracked after realizing how that honesty came across. "We're not panicking, but we need to get on track soon. It doesn't matter who we get back on track with, we just need to start winning games sometime."
(Peter Botte, N.Y. Daily News)

I think the Yanks will turn it around shortly. Surely, it can't get much worse, can it? I'm more frustrated than panicked. It is dark and rainy in New York this morning with thundershowers in the forecast for much of the day. It is also supposed to rain tomorrow. I wonder how many games the Yanks and Sox will get in?

 

Last July, Steven Goldman and I headed down to Trenton to see 20-year-old Phil Hughes start against the Akron Aeros. The above and below are two of a series of photos I snapped during that game. Hughes dominated the Aeros that night, striking out eight in four innings, but a long rain delay ended his evening there. With Hughes due to make his major league debut tonight after just three triple-A starts, I thought these photos would explain what my words might fail to sufficiently communicate. That is, quite simply, that regardless of a players skill level, it's still a long way from double-A to the major leagues.

 
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Ballard's piece on Bobby V isn't the only reason to check out SI this week. Tom Verducci deconstructs Alex Rodriguez's hitting. Verducci gets the skinny from the Yankees hitting coach, Kevin Long, who "identified three major flaw" with Rodriguez's 2006 swing:

• Rodriguez would sometimes drag his back foot forward rather than leave it in place as he began his swing, which decreased his leverage.

• He would let his hands drift too far from his body during the swing, making it longer and "looser."

• His front leg kick, a trigger mechanism, had become grossly exaggerated. Rodriguez would sometimes lift his left knee as high as his waist, then step toward the pitcher with that leg -- a maneuver that would cause him to bring his front foot down late and violently, which created a tightness and imbalance in his swing.

"His leg kick was getting to a point where it wasn't getting down on time," Long says. "Your front foot has to land when the ball is about halfway to the plate. His was coming down much later than that. When that happens, you have to catch up a lot. You rush, and your body tends to drift [toward the pitcher]."

Long drastically cut the height of Rodriguez's leg kick and virtually eliminated the stride, instructing him to simply move his left foot up and down, not toward the pitcher. Now Rodriguez's left foot lands much softer and earlier, which gets him into a loaded, better-balanced position to hit. The changes also eliminated his drift and allowed him to keep his hands in tighter to his body, improving his core rotation. Think of a spinning figure skater: The closer the hands are to the body and the more stable the axis, the faster the skater spins. For Rodriguez, a faster, tighter spin has created better bat speed and power.

Rodriguez grooved his rebuilt swing through the winter to hit balls on a line into the back of the cage's net, an approach that de-emphasized lift and the temptation to pull the ball. Whereas Rodriguez actually fretted last season about how many home runs he hit in batting practice, Long has encouraged Rodriguez to maintain his line-drive approach in batting practice this year. Indeed, A-Rod did not hit one batting practice home run on Friday at cozy Fenway Park.

Over at The Baseball Analysts, Jeff Albert has a great take on Rodriguez's April, complete with images. Albert concludes:

While I am not so sure A-Rod will top 120 HR this season, I don't feel that this is simply a hot streak. What we are seeing is a great player making great adjustments and setting himself up for a great year.

Our good pal Jay Jaffe also tackles Rodriguez's hot start over at BP and The New York Sun.

Meanwhile, Jon Heyman has the latest on The Boss and the boys at River Ave. Blues tell us everything we need to know about Phillip Hughes (but were afraid to ask).

In the late 70s my father had a brief stint as a production manager for SNL. I remember him going to the Mets spring training camp (where they filmed the "Baseball been berry, berry good to me," sketch). When he returned, I peppered him with questions about who his favorite players were and was disappointed when he answered, "Bobby Valentine." Who? Bobby Valentine was a scrub. But years later, I understood perfectly well why Valentine appealed to my father. Bobby V is smart, articulate, charming, and just a tad egotistical (plus, he's generally convinced that he's Right about most things). Valentine has made it and he's done it His way, my dad's kind of guy. Even when I find him abrasive, I never really dislike Valentine, probably because he reminds me of my old man. And I just find him very amusing.

There is an entertaining (and lengthy) piece on Bobby V this week in SI by Chris Ballard. Check it out.

Andy Pettitte was scheduled to pitch last night, but after the game was warshed-out, he's being pushed to Friday, when Boston comes to town for a weekend series. Which means Phillip Hughes will start tonight as previously planned. After Chase Wright's poor outing at Fenway last weekend, the Yankees are intent on keeping the pressure off Hughes, who'll be plenty anxious anyhow, as he makes his big league debut (Cliff will be at the game tonight and hopefully will have some flicks for us to check out in the a.m.).

"I don't know how he's going to handle it," catcher Jorge Posada said. "We all hope he is going to handle it well. He's very smart. He understands what's going on. The last two spring trainings he carried himself real well so we're looking forward to it."

..."I feel like I've really come a long way in just a few starts," Hughes said, "especially that last start that I had went real well."

That last start was against Syracuse, Toronto's triple-A team. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said they'll learn what they can from the Chiefs but they expect Hughes to pitch well.

"He's thought very highly of," Gibbons said. "Arguably, they say the best pitcher in the minor leagues. So we know he'll be bringing it pretty good."
Jay Cohen, Toronto Sun,

A.J. Burnett, who can be awfully tough to handle when he's on will start for the Jays.

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I wrote a little something about the Blue Jays over on Fungoes while filling in on Alex's AL East beat while he was off getting nuptualized. The crux of what I had to say was that the simultaneous injuries to B. J. Ryan and Troy Glaus are going to make it awfully hard for the Jays to compete because of the resulting thinness of their bullpen and lack of offense. Since that post went live on Monday, the Jays swept a quick two-game series in Boston by a combined score of 17-6 while the Yankees got swept by the same Devil Rays that I claimed Toronto and Baltimore had "fattened up" upon.

Heh.

The injuries just keep on coming for the Jays, however. The lastest to hit the DL is catcher and on-base machine Gregg Zaun, who was hit on the throwing hand last night by a foul off the bat of ex-teammate Eric Hinske. In a fantastic bit of irony, Zaun is being replaced on the Jays' 25-man roster by ex-Yank Sal Fasano, who arrives accompanied by this gem from one-time Billy Beane disciple and current Jays GM J. P. Riccardi: "The nice thing is we've got Fasano to come up. Between him and [Jason] Phillips, we've got a veteran presence."

Things are the same all over.

Tonight the Yankees send April pitching MVP Andy Pettitte (three quality starts plus two scoreless relief innings) to the hill against Josh Towers. The 30-year-old Towers had a solid season in 2005, but pitched his way off the Jays last year only to win the fifth starters spot out of camp this spring when free agent John Thomson hit the DL. Towers dominated the Tigers two starts ago, but has been roughed up by the Royals and Orioles in his other two outings.

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[Note: I wrote this post Tuesday afternoon. Since then I've heard a rumor that the Yankees played the Devil Rays, but I am dismissing it as mere hearsay. I suggest you do the same.]

Spring is a time of hope and renewal. And allergies, but never mind. It’s a gorgeous day, and I refuse to ruin it by dwelling on the state of the Yankees’ pitching over the course of the last few days. Er, weeks. Moving on! I’m not here, as they say, to talk about the past.
Let’s talk about the immediate future instead: an obscure, unheralded minor leaguer flying under everybody’s radar by the name of Phil Hughes. Hey, you know you weren’t going to talk about anything else today anyway.

I’ve been in the minority, I think, in that I wasn’t opposed to leaving Hughes in AAA Dunder-Mifflin a while longer; I thought it made sense to go carefully with him, and build up his innings, arm, and confidence -- that was the Yanks’ original plan, and I can only assume they had their reasons for it. After all, it’s still only April, the guy can’t even drink legally (which certainly must have made it tough to watch these last few games), and he didn’t look quite ready for the bigs in spring training – though, for what it’s worth, Alex Rodriguez didn’t look quite ready to shatter every existing offensive record for the month of April, either. Regardless, when I heard Hughes was starting Thursday, it took me all of three seconds to decide to buy a ticket.

Normally when I go to the Stadium I sit in the bleachers, or the far reaches of the upper deck (don’t get me started on Yankee Stadium ticket prices). This time, though, I figured if I was going to be there, I might as well spring for a semi-decent seat. I imagine I’ll tell my children one day that I watched Phil Hughes’ very first major league start. I also imagine I’ll be telling them this by way of explaining why we don’t have the money to buy new shoes or turn the heat up, but what the hell.

I am a little worried. Expectations are stratospheric. I believe Hughes is the real deal, but many highly touted prospects never do make it in the majors, for reasons no one completely understands (although obviously one, two, or even twenty sub-par starts won’t mean that’s the case here). Expecting a guy in his first ever trip to the big leagues to not only pitch well, but also go deep, against a tough Toronto lineup, is asking a lot.

That said, I’m not particularly worried about his lack of AAA experience; it doesn’t seem to matter much, as demonstrated most recently by the performance this season of Mets reliever Joe Smith, who was in college less than a year ago and has yet to allow a run in 11 appearances. I also don’t see how making a few starts up here while the rotation scrapes itself off the DL would hurt his long-term health -- my understanding is that it’s his season-long workload that's the (potential) issue. Plus there's the fact that the longer they wait to bring him up, the more the pressure will build. Maybe it’s best, after all, to get that first major-league start out of the way while it's still early, before each game feels so freighted with importance, in a non-nationally televised contest with the Blue Jays (who, no matter how good they are in a given year, somehow just never manage to come across as legitimate rivals. Why is that? Give me your best cheap Canadian jokes).

So I’m psyched, but let’s try to stay realistic. It would be nice if Hughes could feed the whole stadium with just 20 kosher hot dogs and heal Carl Pavano with a laying-on of hands . . . but I’ll settle for six full innings.

Bonus Discussion Point: Let’s see if we can call the eventual Daily News/NY Post next-day headlines: Phil it Up? Hughes Your Daddy? The Post on Tuesday went with “Hughes Da Man For Rotation,” which strikes me as a bit of a stretch, while the Daily News disappointingly used merely “Panic!” instead of my dark horse pick, “Panic! At The Disco.”

Chien-Ming Wang was his old self in his 2007 debut last night. Pitching into the seventh inning, Wang worked quickly, efficiently (81 pitches over 6 1/3 innings), and effectively, getting 12 groundouts to just four fly outs, striking out three and walking no one. His one rough inning had as much to do with bad bounces as bad pitches.

Carl Crawford led of the fourth with a single and a stolen base. Ty Wigginton then hit a chopper in front of the plate that bounced so high that even the plodding Wigginton had time to beat it out (though replays showed he was likely out at first). Crawford, who scampered to third on Wigginton's chopper, scored on a groundout which also moved Wigginton to second. Carlos Peña then hit a clean single to left. Hideki Matsui's throw beat Wigginton home by several steps, but again bounced off that hard surface in front of the plate and bounded over Jorge Posada's glove to make it 2-1 Rays (the first Yankee run came on a tape-measure homer by Matsui leading off the second).

The Yankees took the lead in the top of the seventh after Matsui reached on a Scott Kazmir throwing error on an easy comebacker with one out. Jorge Posada doubled Matsui home and, after a Robinson Cano groundout, Josh Phelps came through with a huge two-out RBI single to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead.

Wang started the seventh by striking out Jonny Gomes, but then game up a single to Dioner Navarro and a double to B. J. Upton that put the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position with one out. The pitches to Navarro and Upton were high in the zone and that was all Joe Torre needed to see to take Wang out of the game with the top of the Rays' order coming up.

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The Yankees have the fourth-worst starters' ERA in baseball (only the Rangers, Mariners and these Devil Rays have been worse, which gives you some idea how rough those teams have had it thus far). The Yankee starters are averaging just 4.87 innings per game, and opponents are smacking them around at a .301 clip. After 18 games, the Yankee have received just five quality starts, three of them from Andy Pettitte, one from the indefinitely disabled Carl Pavano, and the last from Kei Igawa, who was quite a bit short of quality last night.

There's nothing this team needs more right now than a high-quality starting pitcher. Maybe something in a 19-game winner and Cy Young runner-up, ideally with a high pitch efficiency, possibly a pitch-to-contact groundballer of some type. Got anything like that? You do? Do you think he'd be available to pitch in Tampa tonight? You say he's already there? Sweet! Just wait until the guys hear about this, they'll be stoked!

Additional reason to be stoked (no, it has nothing to do with Brian Stokes . . . yet): The Devil Rays have placed Akinori Iwamura on the DL with an oblique strain and recalled Jorge Cantu, who failed to make the team out of camp and is hitting just .267/.317/.360 in triple-A. I don't know how Joe Maddon plans to alter his lineup, but moving Ty Wigginton to third base, putting Carlos Peña at first, and moving B. J. Upton up in the order would make the most sense to me. Whatever he does, this is good news for the Yankees, as Iwamura has reached base nine times in 14 trips against the Yanks, scoring seven times. It's a bummer for baseball fans in general, however, as Iwamura's been one of the better stories of the young season.

I doubt the Yankees are shedding any tears. They're too busy being stoked.

I had intended to follow up on last week’s poll with observations and details of the weekend’s coverage of the Yanks-Sox series, but the sudden death of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, historian, and author David Halberstam has rendered that idea moot. There will be plenty of opportunities to discuss Alex Rodriguez’s ridiculous video-game pace, the continuing wussification of Carl Pavano (Pavano told ESPN’s Rick Sutcliffe Monday that he was unsure if he’d pitch again this season – Pavano and the Yankees, despite there being a transcript of the interview, are denying the report and planning a throwing session Wednesday), the pantsing Yankee pitchers have received in the early going, and whether or not Dice-K is overrated.

Halberstam was killed in a car accident near Menlo Park, California, following a speech at UC Berkeley. He was 73.

In a strange, cosmic way, Halberstam’s death coming one day after the Yankees and Red Sox played their initial series of the season makes sense. He was a native New Yorker who grew up with Joe DiMaggio’s Yankees. He later became a Bostonian, graduating from Harvard and later residing in Nantucket as well as owning an apartment in New York City.

Furthermore, of the seven sports-specific books Halberstam completed – he published 20 non-fiction works in his career and was working on a book about the 1958 NFL Championship Game at the time of his death – the Yankees or the Red Sox were prominently featured in three. Summer of ’49, to me, is the definitive work about one of the most thrilling pennant races of all-time. The Teammates, which details Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, and Johnny Pesky’s trip to Florida to visit Ted Williams before his death, has much of the same biographical information as Summer of ’49, yet through the four Red Sox all-time greats, gives that pennant race a different sense of closure. Halberstam highlights the end of the Yankees’ dynasty some 40 years before Buster Olney in October 1964, chronicling that year’s seven-game World Series and the rise of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Many writers come to mind when thinking of the Yankees, the Red Sox, and their respective cities: Dick Young, Ring Lardner, Jimmy Cannon, Dave Anderson, Phil Pepe, Maury Allen, Bill Madden, Murray Chass, Mike Lupica (he was awesome once, and still can be when he wants to show he still has game), Leigh Montville, Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, Dan Shaughnessy, Gordon Edes, and more recently, Tom Verducci, Sean McAdam, John Harper, and Joel Sherman. Halberstam, although he never covered baseball as a newspaper reporter, deserves mention among those names. His work didn’t become part of the vernacular or a convenient way to describe 86 years of ineptitude, but it is lasting, and will continue to last because of the historic figures he highlighted, and the way he portrayed them.

I got to meet Halberstam twice: the first time was eight years ago when I interned at the defunct ESPN show “Up Close”; the second was a year and a half ago when he appeared on “CenterStage.” He was tall, quiet, very much the stern, intellectual, professorial type. Yet, for someone so reserved and measured in his speech and gait, he had an energy that belied his demeanor. I spent maybe a total of two minutes with him over the course of those meetings, but I came away with one thought both times: He’s a man that commands respect when he walks into a room.

I didn’t intend to participate in the eulogy, although I unintentionally have in this space. This is a place of intelligent discourse, so why not pay homage to an intelligent man and a giant in the writing field? Halberstam, along with Dick Schaap, made it acceptable for newsies to be sportswriters. They had different styles, but were similarly effective and entertaining in their storytelling. They educated their readers.

With both of them gone now, there's a great void.

Back to baseball next week, at which time A-Rod’s season totals will probably be in the range of a .400 average, 20 home runs, 50 RBIs, .475 OBP, and 1.500 OPS . . .

I have to admit, I missed the first six innings of last night's game. Since getting a digital video recorder last August, I've watched very few games live, and I simply forgot to set the thing to record yesterday's game. By the time I tuned in, the Devil Rays were up 7-6. Boy am I glad I forgot to set the DVR.

What I missed was Kei Igawa and Casey Fossum trying to out-awful each other. Fossum started the bidding with Alex Rodriguez's 13th homer of the year, a solo shot to lead off the second. Igawa countered with a three-run shot by Rocco Baldelli in the bottom of the inning that made it 4-1 Rays (two walks and a single preceded the dinger). Fossum gave one of those runs back in the third (a Josh Phelps double plated by a Melky bunt and Jeter sac fly), one in the fourth (singles by Rodriguez and Giambi, sac fly by Matsui), and one in the fifth on a Robinson Cano solo homer.

Igawa gave up another run in the bottom of the fifth on a single by Delmon Young and a double by Akinori Iwamura, then got the hook after 97 pitches. Colter Bean came on and struck out Elijah Dukes, but let Iwamura score on a Josh Paul single before getting out of the inning.

Fossom followed Igawa out of the game in the top of the sixth after allowing another run on a double by Abreu and singles by Rodriguez and Giambi, then plunking Robinson Cano with two outs to load the bases. Gary Glover came on and walked Josh Phelps to force in a run before getting the final out.

That's how it got to be 7-6 Devil Rays.

Brian Bruney and Luis Vizcaino combined to yield three more runs in the seventh, both yielding a walk and a double before Vizcaino recorded the first out of the inning, the big shot being B. J. Upton's bases-clearing double off Vizcaino. After appearing in eight of the Yankees' first 12 games and allowing just six base runners in those 8 1/3 innings, Vizcaino's been terrible in three of his last four outings. Those splits are symptomatic of the way in which the rotation's failures have wreaked havoc on the entire bullpen, which entered the season as one of the best in baseball.

Down four runs, the Yankees rallied in the eighth. After Juan Salas walked Giambi and Matsui, Brian Stokes came in and got Posada to foul out, but Robinson Cano singled to load the bases for Josh Phelps, who had doubled and walked in three trips. Except that Joe Torre sent Johnny Damon up to pinch-hit for Phelps against the right-handed Stokes. Sending Damon up wasn't a bad move, but sending him up for Phelps rather than saving him to hit for the next batter, Melky Cabrera, was. Damon battled Stokes, but fouled out and Cabrera struck out on four pitches to leave the bases loaded.

Against Al Reyes in the ninth, Bobby Abreu drew a one-out walk and Alex Rodriguez delivered yet another home run to pull the Yanks within two, but Jason Giambi struck out and Hideki Matsui popped out to mercifully end the game.

The 10-6 loss to the Rays drops the Yankees to just a half game out of last place in the East. The Yanks have now lost four straight because their pitching staff has allowed an average of 7.75 runs per game over that span. This feels like rock bottom. Here's hoping it is.

Chien-Ming Wang makes his first start of the season tonight. It's not soon enough.

The Devil Rays roster remains the same as it was on Opening Day, but the way Joe Maddon is using it has changed. To begin with, he's switched Rocco Baldelli and Carl Crawford in the order, leading off Baldelli and putting Crawford in the three-spot. He's also been working his four-man bench into the starting lineup with regularity, alternating Brendan Harris at shortstop with the struggling Ben Zobrist, starting Josh Paul behind the plate in two of the last four games in place of the scuffling Dioner Navarro, and setting up a rotation at DH that has allowed him to keep Baldelli and Ty Wigginton in the lineup on a daily basis while also working Elijah Dukes and Carlos Peña in at center field and first base respectively. Maddon will also use Wigginton at second base on occasion to give B. J. Upton a day off or at DH, and has also started Harris at third to give Akinori Iwamura a breather. As a result Jonny Gomes is last on the team in plate appearances, which is good news for the Yankees, though I must admit, I, like Alex, enjoy watching Gomes play.

Thus far Upton has been a world beater at the plate, but has committed five errors at second base. Iwamura has been the quiet surprise I anticipated. Peña has just six hits, but three of them are home runs. Paul is hitting for high average and getting on base, but has no extra-base knocks. Duke and Baldelli have both been struggling, and the team as a whole has been thrown out on 47 percent of its stolen base attempts.

The pitching, meanwhile, has been abysmal outside of the dominant performance of ex-Yankee and current closer Al Reyes. James Shields has been the team's best starter thus far, but has also allowed six homers in four starts. Tonight's starter, Casey Fossum, is the only other Ray with as many as two quality starts in the early going and, in fact, has piched very well after an opening week drubbing at the hands of the Blue Jays. In his last two starts against the Twins in Minnesota and the Orioles at home, Fossum has assembled this line:

14 IP, 11 H, 5 R, 1 HR, 1 BB, 6 K, 0.86 WHIP, 3.21 ERA, 1-0

The good news, of course, is that the Cherry Hill native will have to face a Yankee lineup that's back at full strength. Hideki Matsui returns to left field tonight and is reportedly all the way back from the hamstring injury that place him on the DL during the frigid opening homestand. Joe Torre has said that Jorge Posada will be back in the lineup tonight. Jorge could return as the DH, pushing Jason Giambi into the field, but if he's able to catch, the lefty Fossum will draw Josh Phelps at first base for a line-up that looks like it did on Opening Day

L - Johnny Damon (CF)
R - Derek Jeter (SS)
L - Bobby Abreu (RF)
R - Alex Rodriguez (3B)
L - Jason Giambi (DH)
L - Hideki Matsui (LF)
S - Jorge Posada (C)
L - Robinson Cano (2B)
R - Josh Phelps (1B)

Yum.

Kei Igawa takes the mound for the Yanks. He's improved across the board in each of his last two starts (IP, K, ground ball rate up; H, R, HR, BB, fly ball rate, pitch total down). Here's hoping that trend continues tonight.

By the way, Alex Rodriguez hasn't gone more than two consecutive games without a home run this season. He homered twice on Friday night, but was kept in the park over the last two games in Boston. He has four career dingers off Fossum in 34 at-bats.

Update: Chase Wright was optioned back to double-A to make room for Matsui. That means Kevin Thompson's still around, which suggests that Johnny Damon and his achy back may get the night off against the lefty Fossum on the Tampa turf (even if it's fancy new turf). I would expect Darrell Rasner to be recalled to make Friday's start against Matsuzaka at the Stadium.

Upupdate: Posada catches, Damon sits. Melky starts in center and leads off. Harris, Dukes and Paul start in the field for the Rays. Baldelli is the DH.

Upupandawaydate: Scratch Rasner. Phil Hughes makes his Yankee debut on Thursday against the Blue Jays. Karstens moves to Friday against Matsuzaka. More on Hughes after the game.

A recent YES Network article by sportswriter Phil Pepe, who ranked the greatest Yankees defensively at each position over the past half-century, has spurred an offshoot question resulting in some interesting internet debate. Who is the best defensive center fielder of the last 40 years? For me, there can only be one answer, and it’s been the same answer since he retired in 1980—Paul L D Blair. During the 1970s, this man was to catching fly balls what Alex Rodriguez is now to hitting two-out, game-ending home runs at Yankee Stadium.

Now before any San Francisco Giants fans call for the paddy wagon to be sent to Cooperstown, please remember that the question encompasses only the last 40 years. If we expand the question to 50 years (as Pepe did), then I would unquestionably vote for Willie Mays. But I limited the scan to 40 years because that approximates my life span, allowing me to select players based on what I have seen rather than merely relying on statistics. By the late sixties and early seventies, Mays had declined sufficiently to allow center fielders like Blair, Tommie Agee (he of the two great catches in the ’69 World Series), Ken Berry (the Gold Glover, not the actor), Curt Flood (his glove was nearly as pioneering as his labor efforts), and Cesar Geronimo (who had a booming right fielder’s arm) to creep into the argument.

Originally signed by the New York Mets in 1961, Paul Blair began his professional career as a middle infielder. He was incredibly nimble and quick, with enough arm to play shortstop in the minor leagues, but some scouts considered him too small to handle the wear and tear of the middle infield. After their inaugural major league season, the Mets left him unprotected in the 1962 first-year draft. The Orioles swooped in, eventually making the prudent decision to switch him from shortstop to the outfield.

Blair was a bit past his prime by the time he joined the Yankees in 1977 (still very good, though a step slower), but during his Baltimore Orioles heyday he established himself as the absolute standard bearer among center fielders. He played incredibly shallow, allowing him to catch almost any kind of short bloop, yet rarely let a ball get over his head for extra bases. He also had a good throwing arm, strong enough to play right field, which he often did as Reggie Jackson’s caddy in the late 1970s. With his shallow and proper positioning, his flawless jumps, and his oceanic like range, Blair simply had no weakness defensively. I can’t think of a center fielder who was better from the late sixties on, and that includes not only the older group of center fielders mentioned above, but more recent players like Garry Maddox, Gary Pettis, and Devon White, and the contemporary class of Andruw Jones and Jim Edmonds.

As much joy as Blair brought to those who appreciated the artistry of brilliant defensive play, he brings other desirable qualities to those who enjoy the game’s history. Blair loves to talk—he wasn’t called "Motormouth" for reasons of irony—and has plenty of opinions on baseball past and present. Last year, Blair visited Cooperstown, ably entertaining fans who had gathered in the Hall of Fame’s Bullpen Theater to hear some Hot Stove League banter. Although he played for the Yankees for only four seasons, Blair could write several chapters and multiple verses about his experiences with the Bronx Zoo. The topic of Reggie Jackson, the man whom he often replaced in the late innings, provided a good starting point to the conversation. "The only trouble that Reggie had," Blair informed the Cooperstown crowd, "was before and after games. Not during the games." (Well, with the exception of one infamous Saturday afternoon in Boston during the 1977 season. On that play, Blair defended Billy Martin’s decision to pull Reggie from the game in mid-inning. "You don’t hustle, you don’t play. Billy would have done it with other players.) As Reggie stirred the pot, Blair tried to keep the contents under the lid. "I really became the ambassador and tried to keep peace. If I hadn’t been there, Reggie would have been in fights every day." With other strong personalities like Thurman Munson and Mickey Rivers ready to butt heads with Jackson, well-liked peacemakers like Blair and Fran Healy served an important role as clubhouse coolers.

Temperamental players like Jackson weren’t the only ones who kept Blair on guard; there was a certain manager who had mood swings that would have made a psychiatrist twitch. And while Blair liked the idea of playing for Billy Martin after asking to be traded away from Baltimore, he recognized that his new manager in New York had a full share of quirks. "Billy held grudges," Blair said without hesitation. "If you were in his doghouse, you might as well forget it." Fortunately, Blair managed to remain on Martin’s good side, in large part because of his upbeat personality and willingness to play the unheralded role of outfield caddy.

While Martin and Jackson had a dark side, Blair had nothing but praise for Yankee captain Thurman Munson, whom he likened to one of his most respected teammates in Baltimore. "You have to put Munson in the category of a Frank Robinson," said Blair, recalling his onetime outfield mate with the Orioles. "Thurman was fiery, a leader. Thurman was also a special talent." And much like Blair, Munson was one of those players who could not be fully appreciated unless he was seen on a day-to-day basis, with fans bearing full witness to his extraordinary catching skills and deft baserunning prowess.

In listening to Blair talk so passionately about most subjects, especially fielding and baserunning, I’m saddened that he isn’t working for some major league team in a meaningful capacity. Simply put, someone should hire Blair as an outfield/baserunning coach. He knows a great deal about both subjects and is a good communicator (again justifying the nickname of Motormouth). But Blair himself knows why he isn’t working for a major league team. He’s all too willing to challenge players who don’t play the game properly, confronting them face-to-face, and he doesn’t think that will fly with most organizations. It’s shameful that there is no longer a place in baseball for such honesty—brutal honesty—that is intended to instruct players and reduce the frequency of future mistakes.

Not surprisingly, the outspoken Blair is not a big fan of the way that the outfield is played today. On the one hand, he says that Andruw Jones reminds him of the way he used to play, but also feels that Jones makes far too many fundamental mistakes. If Blair were to work with the Braves, the expletives would fly throughout the outfield at Turner Field.

On a larger scale, Blair thinks that most contemporary outfielders play way too deep (not just center fielders), not only preventing them from making the short catch but also hurting their chances at throwing out runners at the plate. And if you’re like me, and you had the privilege of watching Blair play the outfield the way that he did, you might agree that he’s absolutely right.

I must say, I think the Yankees acquitted themselves rather well this weekend. Facing the Red Sox three best starters, the offense scored at least five runs in each game and, save for the eighth inning on Friday and Scott Proctor's outing last night, the bullpen shut the Red Sox out over 9 1/3 innings. Unfortunately, that eighth inning on Friday and Proctor's outing last night led directly to two of three loses in a weekend sweep that will loom large as the AL East race heats up toward the latter part of the season.

The Yankees got out to an early 2-0 lead on Daisuke Matsuzaka in the top of the first on a two-out Jason Giambi double and added a third run in the third when Giambi singled home Johnny Damon, again with two outs. Chase Wright, meanwhile, stranded two runners in each of his first two frames, then started the third by getting Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz to fly out. Then Manny Ramirez homered. Then J. D. Drew homered. Then Mike Lowell homered. Then Jason Varitek homered.

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Daisuke Matsuzaka's line over his first three starts:

20 IP, 17 H, 6 R, 1 HR, 5 BB, 24 K, 1.10 WHIP, 2.70 ERA, 1-2

The combined line of the opposing starting pitchers in Matsuzaka's first three starts:

22 2/3 IP, 15 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 16 K, 0.79 WHIP, 0.79 ERA, 2-1

At first it seemed as though this trend was the result of Matsuzaka starting against two of the best young pitchers in the league, but last time out his opponent was Mr. Gustavo Chacin, who bosts a 5.32 ERA on the season inclusive of the game in which he outdueled Matsuzaka. Tonight, Matsuzaka starts against Chase Wright, who will be making just his second major league start and just his fourth career start above A-ball. Here's hoping the Matsuzaka effect is for real.

With Jeff Karstens making his first start of the season (and just the seventh of his major league career) after a stay on the disabled list due to elbow soreness, Hideki Matsui on the DL, Jorge Posada out with a bruised thumb, and Johnny Damon out with back and hamstring soreness, the Yankees were effectively playing yesterday's game with one hand tied behind their back, thus their eventual 7-5 loss was hardly a shock. Rather, the Yankees did well to score five runs against Josh Beckett, who came into the game having allowed just one run in each of his first three starts of the year. The bullpen contributed 3 2/3 scoreless innings--the highlight being Sean Henn's three-pitch strikeout of David Ortiz. And Damon, pinch-hitting for a still-hitless Wil Neives, Melky Cabrera, Derek Jeter, and Bobby Abreu each had good at-bats against a gas-throwing Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth. Cabrera worked a one-out, four-pitch walk to give Jeter and Abreu a chance to tie game. Unfortunately, Jeter took the most hitable pitch of his six-pitch at-bat for a called strike, and Abreu flied out to the warning track in center to end the game, leaving Mr. Clutch, Alex Rodriguez (2 for 4 with a double and an RBI single) stranded in the on-deck circle.

This gives me a good occasion to update the Yankees' laundry list of injuries and resultant roster and lineup changes:

• Chris Britton was optioned to Scranton to make room for Karstens, meaning Colter Bean remains on the roster, though he did not appear again yesterday. Kevin Thompson, who doubled and made a nice catch against the Monster in left yesterday, will likely go down when Hideki Matsui is activated tomorrow. Bean will then likely be optioned when Chien-Ming Wang is activated for the start on Tuesday, which Wang was cleared to make after throwing 55 pitches in the bullpen in Tampa yesterday.
  
• As per the above, Damon did not start yesterday due to general back pain, which he says he first felt while playing on the turf in Minnesota, but had subsided during the recent homestand only to be aggravated on a catch he made in Friday night's game. According to Damon, he's been having problems with his legs all season, and the back pain and leg pain are often related for him. Damon did pinch-hit in the ninth yesterday, working Papelbon for seven pitches before ultimately grounding out, and is expected to start tonight. However, one wonders if, with Hideki Matsui coming off the DL tomorrow, the Yankees might keep Melky in the lineup in Damon's place for the two games they play on turf in Tampa.
• Also per the above, Jorge Posada came out of Friday night's game after his left thumb was bruised by an Andy Pettitte pitch and did not play yesterday, though it turns out he was available if needed. He won't start tonight either, but will again be available as a pinch-hitter. His thumb is swollen, but x-rays were negative and it bothers him less to hit than to catch. Josh Phelps warmed up Scott Proctor and Luis Vizcaino in the bullpen on Friday night in order to serve as an emergency catcher if needed. Wil Nieves, meanwhile, failed to execute a sac bunt in yesterday's game, but reached on a Mike Lowell throwing error then came around to score. It was the first and still only time in Nieves's Yankee career that one of his plate appearances didn't result in an out.
• Mike Mussina threw 30 pitches in the bullpen in Tampa yesterday and will throw again on Tuesday, hoping to reach 50 pitches. The Yankees hope he'll be ready to make a rehab start on Friday and, if all goes well, he could rejoin the rotation when the Yankees travel to Texas, likely starting the final game of that series on May 3. Bobby Murcer is expected to join the team in Texas as well.
• An MRI on Carl Pavano's elbow revealed a mild strain on Thursday. He threw off flat ground yesterday and reported continued tightness in the elbow, but is expected to throw again on Monday. He's still traveling with the team.
• Humberto Sanchez had Tommy John surgery on Wednesday. He is the third Yankee minor leaguer to undergo elbow ligament surgery since the end of last season, the others being Mark Melancon, who had Tommy John over the winter, and J. Brent Cox, who had a less severe ligament repair at the end of Spring Training. This could ultimately be good news for Sanchez, who's had elbow problems most of his professional career. The hope now is that those problems will be a thing of the past once he's fully recovered from this surgery. There's no guarantee of that, of course, and he'll likely spend all of 2008 building back his arm strength, but the Yankees have enough minor league pitching to be patient with his recovery.

Everything went according to plan for the Yankees through the first seven innings of last night's series opener in Fenway. Andy Pettitte turned in a quality start, holding the Red Sox to two runs on a Jason Varitek homer over 6 1/3 innings, then passed the baton to Scott Proctor, who retired his two batters on six pitches (five of which were strikes). Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez hit not one, but two more home runs, both off Curt Schilling, a solo shot into the Monster Seats in the fourth and a three-run shot that sent Coco Crisp tumbling into the Boston bullpen in the fifth. Those two shots were bookended by two other runs, the latter a Rodriguez double in the top of the eighth that was plated by a Jason Giambi single. That gave the Yankees a 6-2 lead entering the bottom of the eighth inning.

With David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez leading off the eighth, the Yankees' four-run lead looked safe. Even if both mashers managed to come around to score, the Yanks still had two runs to work with. Joe Torre brought in Mike Myers to face Ortiz, who promptly doubled. He then turned to Luis Vizcaino to face Ramirez, who worked a full-count walk. J. D. Drew, who was 3-for-3 with a trio of singles against Pettitte, grounded to second for the first out, moving Ortiz and Ramirez to second and third. Mike Lowell followed Drew with a single into left field that plated Ortiz, put runners on the corners, and brought the tying run to the plate in the person of Jason Varitek. With that, Torre turned to Mariano Rivera.

In spring training, Joe Torre said that he was going to use Rivera exclusively as a one-inning pitcher this year, but with all of the Yankee wins coming either in their last at-bat (Jason Giambi's extra-inning homer in Oakland and Alex Rodriguez's two walk-offs at home), or in blowouts (Opening Day's 9-5 score being by far the closest of the other five Yankee wins which they've won by an average of 6.6 runs), Rivera hasn't had much opportunity to pitch. Indeed, he hadn't thrown a pitch in five days, dating back to his blown save in Oakland last Sunday. Thus, Torre had no qualms against using Rivera for five outs in order to guarantee a win in the only game that favored the Yankees entering their weekend showdown with the rival Red Sox.

In Oakland, Rivera struggled with his command. Pitches that were supposed to be down in the zone floated up and over the plate. Last night his first five pitches to Varitek were right at Wil Nieves's glove, the first four at the bottom of the strike zone. Varitek fouled off the last three, however, and the sixth floated up and over the plate. Varitek deposited it into right center for an RBI single to pull the Sox within two. That brought up Coco Crisp. Rivera again threw a pitch right to Nieves's glove on the lower inside corner and Crisp hit it all of three feet. In the air that is. Crisp beat the ball into the ground, but past Doug Mientkiewicz's dive at first and down into the right field corner for a bases-clearing triple that tied the game. Two pitches later, Rivera missed high again to Alex Cora who hit a flare over the drawn-in infield to plate Crisp with the go-ahead run.

Rivera has now blown his only two save opportunities this season, taking the loss in each of his last two outings. Conversely, each of the last two Yankee loses were games in which they handed Mariano Rivera a multi-run lead. Is this cause for concern over the baseball mortality of the Yankees' 37-year-old closer?

Probably not. In 2005, Rivera blew his first two saves of the year in consecutive games at home against the Red Sox. Last year, Rivera blew his second save opportunity of the season and three outings later came into a tie game at home in the tenth inning and gave up two runs to take the loss. Following the latter on April 26, Rivera was 0-2 with a 4.91 ERA. He'd lose just three more games all year and finish with a 1.80 ERA. In 2005 he finished with a staggering 1.38 ERA. Rivera's throwing hard, as evidenced by his virtuoso performance on Opening Day, and, despite the pitch that got away from him and sailed over Julio Lugo's head before he struck Lugo out to end the eighth, his location was improved last night save for three or four of his 14 pitches (11 of those 14 pitches were strikes, though his recent location problems have had more to do with throwing strikes that are a little to good than with missing the zone). Rivera was lights out in spring training and allowed just one hit and one walk in his first four innings of the reuglar season while striking out four. He'll be fine.

So will Jorge Posada, who left the game with a bruised thumb on his glove hand. His x-rays were negative, but he'll likely miss the rest of the series with Wil Nieves catching the rookies Karstens and Wright, and Josh Phelps serving as the emergency backup catcher. After subbing in for Posada last night, Nieves has now come to the plate 19 times as a Yankee and made 19 outs. He has no official sacrifices and, though he did get to run the bases last night after hitting into a fielder's choice, has not scored a run.

As much as last night's loss hurt, a win in either of the next two games would be just as painful to the Red Sox. They really have no excuse not to sweep this series now.

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The Red Sox may have faltered last year, but I think their offseason upgrades at shortstop, right field and in the rotation have put them back in a dead heat with the Yankees. I’ll save my breakdown for next week’s series in the Bronx, however, because, with Hideki Matsui and three starting pitchers due to be activated from the disabled list between now and then, this simply isn’t the same Yankee team. As a result, all of the pressure is on the Red Sox this weekend. They can’t afford not to take at least two of three from the dilapidated Yanks in their home park, especially when they’ve got their top three starters lined up against the likes of Jeff Karstens, who will come off the DL tomorrow to make just his seventh career major league start, and Chase Wright, who will take his second big league turn on Sunday.

The Yankees, meanwhile, will be content to win just one, though there’s still some pressure in that the most favorable pitching match up for them is tonight’s marquee battle between Curt Schilling and Andy Pettitte and a sweep would be disastrous regardless of the shape of the Yankee roster. These teams are too evenly matched for either to shrug off surrendering three games in the standings, no matter how early it is.

The good news for the Yankees is that the Red Sox, with the exceptions of J. D. Drew and David Ortiz (of course), aren’t really hitting. Jason Varitek looks as done as he did last year if not more so. Coco Crisp, who was expected to bounce back following a season hampered by a hand injury, has yet to rebound. Rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia is third on the team in walks, but has contributed almost nothing else. Manny Ramirez is off to a brutally slow start, finally hitting his first homer of the year yesterday. Kevin Youkilis has been only a hair better than Manny. Mike Lowell isn’t getting on base, and Julio Lugo isn’t showing any power.

Rather the Sox have been getting it all done on pitching. Schilling, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Tim Wakefield have all been excellent the first three times through the rotation, and Julian Tavarez (a placeholder for the progressing Jon Lester) had a good outing against the Blue Jays yesterday. The bullpen has been more problematic, but Jonathan Papelbon, Brendan Donnelly, and unheralded Japanese lefty Hideki Okajima have allowed just one run between them (a homer off Okajima) in 16 innings, striking out 22 against just four hits.

For his part, Schilling recovered from a shaky Opening Day outing in Kansas City to post the following combined line in his last two starts against the Rangers and Angels:

15 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 10 K, 2-0, 0.60 ERA

Fortunately, Andy Pettitte’s been almost as good over his last two outings against the Twins and A’s:

13 IP, 10 H, 1 ER, 0 HR, 2 BB, 7 K, 1-1, 0.69 ERA

Andy’s also a lefty facing a lineup in which the only two hot hitters are the only two lefties. In fact, the Red Sox have been sitting the fragile Drew against lefties in favor of Wily Mo Peña, as if Trot Nixon never left.

As for the Yankees, a week and a half ago I wrote: “The Yankee starters finished their first trip through the rotation with a 9.97 ERA. That was no more likely to hold up than the bullpen’s current 1.07 ERA or the offense’s 6.83 runs per game.”

Indeed, the Yankee starters ERA has dropped by more than half to 4.52, the pen ERA has more than doubled to 2.69, and the offense has scored . . . well 6.5 runs per game, actually. That’s a 1053-run pace with Matsui on the shelf for most of it, Melky not hitting in his place and Doug Mientkiewicz starting the majority of the games at first base. In other words, Alex Rodriguez will cool off (he won’t hit 116 home runs this year, you heard it here first), but the Yankees have the opportunity to compensate with a healthy Matsui and an upgrade at first, which could be as simple as giving the job to Josh Phelps. Wow.

What this weekend’s series comes down to is a match-up between the major league’s most potent offense and the major league’s stingiest pitching staff (2.57 R/G). In an identical number of games, the Yankee offense has scored 55 more runs than the Red Sox’s pitchers have allowed, that’s 253 percent as many runs (or, inversely, just 40 percent as many allowed by the Sox). The Yankees faced a similar situation heading into Oakland last week and played three games decided in the victor’s final at-bat. Here’s hoping this series is similarly exciting.

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Since I wrote about Carl Pavano last week, he . . . well, you know. (Whatever. Anybody can win with more than one legitimate major league starter on their roster! Where’s the fun in that?). I wasn't home that day and didn’t get to join in the discussion in the comments, but there was some good, thoughtful debate going on, and I wanted to follow up. First of all, several people pointed out, and I agree, that in sports too much is made of machismo and “playing through pain”. Not to say that moments like Kirk Gibson’s legendary World Series homer aren’t admirable,* or even inspirational—but there’s no shame in prioritizing your long-term health over a baseball game, either.

But several people raised another interesting point: if you really believed that, for example, Carl Pavano is a gutless liar (and to be clear, I’m not saying he is—just using it as a hypothetical), can you turn around and root for him this year? [Insert obligatory joke about how he probably won’t pitch again til 2008 anyway. Pause for laughter]. It’s hardly a new issue, just part of a broader question: how do we decide who to root for? Is it anybody on our team, no matter who they are or what they’ve done—up to, as someone jokingly put it, Charles Manson—or is there a line? If there is, where does it fall for you?

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Greetings from the Bahamas, my peoples.

So Em and I got hitched yesterday and it all went swimmingly. We are staying at a resort by the water and were all set-up to have our ceremony, just the two of us, on a pier over-looking the ocean. 1:30 p.m. was our launch time. Em went off to get her hair and make-up done just after 11:00 while I stayed in our room and finished ironing my shirt and getting myself prepped. And yo, wouldn't you know it, but by 11:30 the skies opened-up and it started to rain like mad. And it didn't stop.

I turned on the Weather Channel, and kept going out onto our terrace to look at the sky. Gray and raining, the palm trees rustling in the wind. Man, I was bugging thinking about Emily bugging (and she, in turn, was bugging about me bugging about her bugging). We came all the way down here to Paradise and it's freakin' raining, you've got to be kidding me. But then I thought of my cousin Eric who would have embraced the rain, the sense that Mother Nature was doing her thing, and it was all good, and that calmed me some. Then I thought, "Hey, I'm totally happy, I look great, and I'm marrying the love of my life, screw the weather."

The rain tapered off some by a quarter to one when Em called. She sounded calm. I asked if we were going to change the location to inside and she said "No, not yet." I went off to meet the minister, A. Dewitt Hutcherson, a tall-strapping man who looked vaguely like Michael Irvin. We were going to be the 9,796th wedding he'd performed in his career.

The rain had stopped and the humidity hit with the quickness. As we walked to the pier, believe it or not, the sun came out. Ten minutes later, my bride joined us, and it was completely sunny. The ceremony was short and sweet and lovely. We took pictures for a long while against the brilliant blue-green backdrop of the ocean and we were very happy.

Then, after eating the cake and drinking some champagne, we finally got back to our room. Em went to the bathroom to fix herself up and I quickly checked the ESPN ticker for the score of the game (incorrigible, I know, but come on, I had to distract myself for a minute). Yanks were down 6-2. Oh, well, I thought. No big deal.

We then consumated our love for each other while the Bombers roared back in the ninth. When we checked the scores later and saw that the Yanks had won, we couldn't believe what we were seeing. They didn't have any details, but when caught the highlights on Sportscenter, and...holy my god! Talk about Kismet. That was the icing on the gravy to what was already an amazing day. All those two-out, bottom of the ninth hits? Man, I was nervous just watching the clips. And our boy Alex Rodriguez hitting another huge home run? Dag, man, what a wonderful thing.

I realize that the Boston series is a thing onto itself (hopefully, the Yanks can take one out of three), but no matter what transpires this weekend, Em and I will always have the memory of A Rod coming through on the most meaningful day of our lives. It's a small thing, but a beautiful thing.

Hope everyone is doing well. I'll get atcha when I return next week.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you do not leave a baseball game early. You’ll have to bear with me through this recap, though, because I find myself unable to remember much about the first half of the game, and it’s tough to type with your jaw on the floor.

First of all, congratulations again to Alex and Emily, who got married during the early innings of today’s 8-6 Yankee win. I’m sure they didn’t need this win to make the day memorable, but you still have to appreciate Alex Rodriguez's thoughtful wedding gift.

The Yankees looked a bit listless throughout much of the game, unable to get much going against the awesomely named Fausto Carmona, who pitched much better than anyone coming in with an ERA over 12 has any right to. They eked out a run in the 3rd, when Abreu singled Damon home, and another in the 6th, on a Giambi homer, but that was it for the offense.

Meanwhile, Darrell Rasner was impressive through three innings, but ran into trouble soon after, when Dave Dellucci homered, and a quick single, a four-pitch walk, and a hit batsman loaded the bases with one out. Joe Torre, normally so impassive in the dugout, looked like gerbils were gnawing at his intestines. Rasner came up with a pop up (Blake) and a strikeout (Peralta) to wriggle free, but was apparently on a short leash thereafter; Torre lifted him when he allowed a single in the fifth, though it was still 1-1.

After leaving the bases loaded yet again in the sixth, thanks to stellar work from Brian Bruney, the Indians finally got their big blow in the seventh, off of the usually reliable Luis Vizcaino. A walk, a double, an RBI groundout, an intentional walk to Pronk, and a big three-run homer by catcher Victor Martinez made the score 5-2. Vizcaino recovered, but the Yanks went quietly in their next two innings, and a tough error on A-Rod allowed a runner to score on Sean Henn in ninth, leaving the Yanks staring at a four-run deficit.

Cleveland closer Joe Borowski came in to begin the ninth, and Robinson Cano promptly popped out, followed by a weak Melky Cabrera grounder. Now, I don’t think I’m unduly pessimistic when it comes to baseball, but I absolutely thought this game was over. Josh Phelps homered, and I still thought it was over. With two strikes, Jorge Posada singled—nearly decapitating Borowski in the process—and I figured, hey, good to see them going down fighting. But then Posada took second on defensive indifference, Johnny Damon—again with two strikes—worked a ballsy walk, and Derek Jeter came up as the tying run. At this point, though I am not proud to admit it, I sat down on the floor and began talking to my dog.

This is the kind of situational hitting Jeter has always excelled at, and he knocked a 1-0 pitch into left field, plating Posada. The score was 6-4, and the game’s momentum had completely shifted. Bobby Abreu, again with two strikes, did much the same thing, and Damon came home to make it 6-5. That brought up, of course and to no one’s surprise, Alex Rodriguez. “They have to walk him,” I said to my dog, and, in fact, Borowski’s first pitch made a desperate attempt to escape; it got by Martinez, allowing the runners to move up. That turned out not to matter, though, because the next pitch was up over the plate. What happened next was exactly what every single fan watching the game had been simultaneously, vividly imagining.

Rodriguez knew it was gone the second he hit it—straight to center—and he couldn’t seem to believe it himself, grinning and very nearly skipping all the way around the bases. Paul O’Neill, in the booth, just started laughing. The Yankee dugout gleefully rushed out to meet him. That’s A-Rod’s 10th home run of the year, in 14 games, but I personally ran out of superlatives for his hitting last night, so you're on your own there.

With this sweep of the Indians—who are playing below their potential for the third straight year—the Yanks head into Boston one game out of first here in the early going. Ninth inning, Fenway Park, Papelbon versus A-Rod? Should be fun.

The last time the Yankees started three rookies in a row prior to September call-ups was August 2-4, 1991 when the Yankees sent Scott Kamieniecki, Jeff Johnson, and Wade Taylor to the hill against the Tigers in Detroit. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, Yankee hitting coach Don Mattingly was the first baseman. A's manager Bob Geren caught Taylor's game. Hensley "Bam Bam" Meulens started two of those games. A rookie named Bernie Williams started all three in center field. Melky Cabrera was eagerly anticipating his seventh birthday. Bud Selig was simply the owner of the AL East's Milwaukee Brewers. Kurt Cobain wasn't famous yet, and the president was a guy named George Bush who, with the help of Dick Cheney, led us into a war in Iraq.

The Yankees lost all three of those games, allowing a minimum of seven runs in each. My how things have changed.

Today the Yankees throw Darrell Rasner, their third rookie starting pitcher in as many games, again Fausto Carmona. Carmona got lit up pretty good in his only previous start, that coming at home against the White Sox almost a week ago. Rasner, on the other hand, didn't allow an earned run or walk a batter on his way to a no-decision in the Yankees extra-inning win in Oakland this past Saturday.

Meanwhile, up in Toronto, the Red Sox are throwing Julian Tavarez against Roy Halliday. If the Yanks can pull out a sweep behind Darrell Rasner this afternoon, they stand a good chance of entering this weekend's series in Boston in a dead heat with the Sox.

More importantly, somewhere on a beach in Bermuda right around the time of the first pitch, our man Alex and his lovely bride Emily are going to become husband and wife. Please join me in wishing them a long, full lifetime of happiness, health, and prosperity together. Mazel tov!

One night after beating the Indians 10-3 on a cold, rainy, sparsely attended night at the Stadium, the Yankees beat the Indians 9-2 on a cold, rainy, sparsely attended night at the Stadium.

The Yankees jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first when a leadoff walk to Johnny Damon came around to score on a Derek Jeter double and a Bobby Abreu sac fly. Kei Igawa, meanwhile, looked sharp early, getting ahead of hitters and allowing only a Travis Hafner single in the first two frames.

Most of the scoring occurred in the third inning. Igawa started off the third by ringing up Josh Barfield for his third strikeout of the game, but Kelly Shoppach followed with a double to right and Igawa's 0-2 pitch to Grady Sizemore slipped out of his hand and plunked Sizemore in the tuchus. Igawa got ahead of Jason Michaels as well, but Michaels singled to plate Shoppach on the 0-2 pitch. Again, Igawa got ahead of Travis Hafner 0-2, but his next pitch was in the dirt and rolled away from Jorge Posada, sending Michaels to second. Hafner then tapped a slow three-hopper to the shortstop hole for an infield single that plated Sizemore. Igawa then started Ryan Gargo off with a ball, just the second time in his first 13 batters that his first pitch was out of the strike zone. On his next pitch, Garko hit a check swing flare over the mound. In reaching for it, Igawa sent his glove flipping into the air. Robinson Cano charged and scooped the ball after two quick hops, flipping it to Jeter in one motion to start a 4-6-3, inning-ending double play.

Trailing 2-1, the Yankees let loose on Jeremy Sowers in the bottom of the third. Jeter kicked things off with his second double in as many at-bats. Abreu singled Jeter home to tie the game. Alex Rodriguez ground into a fielder's choice to replace Abreu at first. Jason Giambi doubled Rodriguez home to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead. Posada singled Giambi to third. Cano singled Giambi home. Josh Phelps singled Posada home. Melky Cabrera flied out for the second out, and Johnny Damon finished the job by singling Cano home and knocking Sowers out of the game.

Igawa gave up just a walk and Travis Hafner's third single over his remaining three innings, again starting eight of the ten hitters he faced with strikes and erasing Hafner's single with a double play. All totaled, he threw 67 percent of just 92 pitches for strikes and struck out five in six innings while allowing just seven base runners on five hits (four singles, three by Hafner, one that weakly tapped infield single), a walk, and a hit-by-pitch.

Scott Proctor, Sean Henn, and Chris Britton added three more hitless innings to finish the job, each recording one strike out, with Proctor and Britton each issuing a walk.

Oh, and those last three Yankee runs? Yeah, another two-run Alex Rodriguez jack and a solo shot by Jason Giambi, back to back off different pitchers in the sixth no less. In case you're wondering, Rodriguez is on pace for 112 home runs, 287 RBIs, 199 runs scored, 62 doubles, and 237 hits. He's slugging .981 (no, that's not his OPS).

To sum up, in these first two games against the Indians, the Yankees have outscored Cleveland 19-5, two Yankee rookies have picked up their first major league wins, and the bullpen has contributed seven hitless, scoreless innings while issuing just two walks.

Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed.

Kei Igawa makes his third Yankee start tonight hoping to get the Yankees a series win over the Indians. Igawa's last start in Oakland looked a heckuva lot like Chase Wright's outing last night:

Igawa 4/13: 5 1/3 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 2 BB, 3 K, 95 pitches

Wright 4/18: 5 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 HR, 3 BB, 3 K, 104 pitches

Is that a compliment to Wright, a fresh-faced rookie out of double-A? An insult to Igawa, a seasoned Japanese veteran whose line above actually represents a significant improvement over his MLB debut a week earlier? A little of each? Curiously Igawa and Wright are both lefties whose best pitch is a changeup. Does that mean the Indians will benefit from seeing similar pitchers two nights in a row or that Igawa should have similar success against the Cleveland lineup because of his similar stuff, with hope for improvement because his Opening Day jitters are now two starts behind him?

So many questions.

Then there's Cleveland starter Jeremy Sowers, a 23-year-old lefty in his first full season in the majors. Taken out of Vanderbilt with the sixth overall pick in the 2004 draft, Sowers shot all the way to triple-A in his first professional season in 2005 and joined the major league rotation in late June of last year, finishing the season with a 7-4 record and a 3.57 ERA in 14 starts, two of which were shutouts. In Sowers' second major league outing, he faced the Yankees at Jacobs Field and held them to two runs over seven innings, those two runs coming on a first-inning Jason Giambi homer. Sowers is a finesse pitcher who fits the description of "crafty lefty" to a T and conjures up comparisons to Jamie Moyer and Tom Glavine, but his rate stats are troubling. In sixteen major league starts between last year and this, Sowers has struck out just 3.46 men per nine innings (Moyer and Glavine's career K/9 rates are both about 5.35). Seeing as he lacks the extreme groundball tendencies with which Chien-Ming Wang has survived a similarly miniscule strikeout rate, it would seem Sowers is going to have to figure out a way to miss more bats in order to keep winning. Indeed, his .257 opponents' batting average on balls in play last year is bound to snap back to league average (around .300), taking his ERA with it. Still, he's excelled in his two starts thus far this year, holding the White Sox to just one hit (but two runs on five walks) over six innings in his first start and the Angels to one run over seven innings in his last. Just because a correction seems inevitable doesn't mean it will happen tonight.

by Allen Barra

Alex Belth has asked me to fill in again this week with the explanation that he's getting married. He's used this excuse on four previous occasions, so all I can say is that this time I'd better see a ring on his finger when I bump into him.

I warned Alex that I didn't have anything good to say about the 2007 Yankees, and I'm warning you now in case you want to go read something else. My bad feelings about this year's team go beyond the recent rash of injuries, but I may as well deal with those before moving on.

Matsui's hamstring, I think, is a fluke, and he'll be back strong. I'm fed up with Mussina and especially Pavano. Mussina has increasingly become a frequent breakdown pitcher, one whose usefulness to the Yankees is very nearly at an end. Even when he's not hurting, he's wasting so much time trying to make that perfect pitch that he's usually teetering by about the fifth inning and threatening to be a burden on the bullpen. Pavano is simply a disaster, one of the highest priced in Yankee history. I think he's poised, when he comes off the DL, to replace Jaret Wright as the team's number one bullpen drainer. What, oh what, are the Yankees going to do when Andy Pettitte hurts himself? (And he will, you know it, before the season is over, probably before the first half of the season is over.)

Looking around the rest of the lineup, I don't see much to cheer about. Towards the end of last season, Jason Giambi, who really ought to know better, made an ass of himself by contributing all kinds of needless verbiage to articles written about Alex Rodriguez. My favorite comment, and I'm quoting from memory was, We really don't know who A-Rod is. We'll find out in the next couple of weeks. Well, when do we find out who the real Jason Giambi is? Actually, I guess we already have. He is now a practically useless ballplayer. He performs like 42-year-old man. He can no longer field and can't hit to the opposite field, which takes 40 or more points off his batting average. As for his base running ability, any time the Yankees get three hits without scoring a run, Giambi is usually involved.

Giambi is such a bad fielder the Yankees have had to compensate by giving a roster spot to Doug Mientkiewicz. There is no bigger mystery to me than how a team with the biggest payroll in baseball continually gets stuck with players like Mientkiewicz. I don't know that he's all that good a fielder, but even if he was the second coming of Don Mattingly or Keith Hernandez he would still be a huge liability. He is one of the worst hitters I've ever seen, the first man I can honestly say would lose a home run derby to Sal Fasano. How is it that the Yankees cannot find at least a player of average ability to put into the lineup at this key hitting position?

I can't say a great deal that is complimentary about the stars, either. A-Rod's hot start is probably for real, but I'm not yet convinced that his third base woes are over. Jeter's fielding problems are, I fear, for real and may be linked to his rumored back trouble. (Note his relative lack of power so far.) Yankee fans are reduced to saying "Wait till Chien-Ming Wang comes back," but if I was Wang and looking at the prospect of having opposing batters hit ground balls to this infield, I think I'd stay on the DL.

It's possible that if the Yankees go on a tear then the ugly disaster of the last road game in Oakland—the worst pitching I have ever seen from Mariano Rivera—will be erased. But with this rotation—and if you put a gun to my head right now, I couldn't tell you the starters the Yankees plan on using for the next five games—I don't see how any consistency is possible.

I guess this all sounds a bit doomsdayish, but the truth is I can't lose. If I'm right, I'll just remind all of you that you heard it here first. If I'm wrong, I'll be as happy as the rest of you.

Allen Barra is currently writing a biography of Yogi Berra.

Got four starters on the DL? No problem, call up a kid with just two starts above A-ball, knock the opposing starter out in the second inning, and coast to an easy win. The Yankees made it look just that easy last night.

Rookie Chase Wright made his major league debut with a Sean Henn-model glove on his right hand, a steady rain falling on his head, and no where near the reported 38,438 fans in the stands on a cold Tuesday night in the Bronx. Wright went full on his first batter, Cleveland's Grady Sizemore, and just missed outside for ball four. He then walked Jason Michaels on five pitches to put two men on for Travis Hafner. That drew an early mound visit from his new pitching coach, Ron Guidry. After an enthusiastic pep talk from Guidry, Wright got Hafner and Victor Martinez to ground out (plating a run in the process) and Ryan Garko to line out directly to Derek Jeter.

The Yankee offense then took some of the pressure off the rookie by plating a pair of runs in the bottom of the frame on a Damon walk, Jeter single, Alex Rodriguez RBI single, Giambi walk to load the bases, and a Jorge Posada sac fly to dead center that just missed being a game-breaking grand slam.

Wright again put the first two men of the inning on base in the second via a single and a walk, but again retired the next three in order, this time without yielding a run. Then the Yankees broke the game open for real.

After Melky Cabrera grounded out, Doug Mientkiewicz cracked a solo homer (no, really!) to the short porch in left. Johnny Damon doubled, moved to third on a Jeter groundout, and scored on a Bobby Abreu single. That brought Alex Rodriguez to the plate. Can you say two-run homer to the retired numbers? I knew that you could. That made it 6-1, but the Yankees weren't done. Jason Giambi followed with a single and Jorge Posada, having just missed that salami in the previous frame, cracked a two-run jack of his own, his 200th career home run. That made it 8-1 Yanks and bounced Jake Westbrook from the game with two out in the second.

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Due to the rash of injuries that have placed Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano on the disabled list alongside Chien-Ming Wang and Jeffrey Karstens, the Yankees were forced to dip into their minor league system for a starter for tonight's (and likely Sunday's) game. The three pitchers whose turns fell on the right day were Tyler Clippard and Steven Jackson in triple-A and Chase Wright in double-A. Of the three, Wright was both the only one already on the 40-man roster and the pitcher who'd had the most success in his two starts thus far this season. Clippard's had two middling outings for Scranton. Jackson has faired a tad better, but neither has lasted more than five innings in either outing. Wright, meanwhile, has dominated in a pair of seven-inning outings and will make his major league debut tonight in the Bronx against the Indians.

Here's what I wrote about Wright back in February:

L - Chase Wright (24)

A third-round draft pick in 2000, Wright has spent six years in the Yankees system without cracking double-A. He's made large strides over the last three seasons however. Check these trends:

Year	League	Level	ERA	H/9	K/9	BB/9
2004	Midwest	A	5.44	10.47	5.34	5.97
2005	Sally	A	3.75	8.00	6.88	4.31
2006	Florida State	A+	1.88	7.14	7.52	3.23

Wright claims the difference has simply been an uptick in confidence. I suppose it could be that after bottoming out in 2004 he figured he couldn't do any worse if he just challenged hitters. If so, it worked. Wright's best pitch is a changeup that works off his low-90s fastball, and he's working on developing his curve. He's still a work in progress, but it's certainly encouraging to see such rapid progress by a lefty starter. Indeed, he's come far enough that the Yankees had to add him to the 40-man to protect him from the Rule 5 draft last fall.

To that I'll add his spring training and double-A lines from this year:

Level	ERA	H/9	K/9	BB/9	IP
Spring Training	2.84	6.39	7.10	4.26	12 2/3
AA	0.00	2.57	12.21	0.64	14

Those 14 innings at double-A are divided evenly between two equally excellent starts in which Wright has posted a fantastic 2.29 groundball-to-flyball rate. Accordingly, Wright hasn't allowed a home run in any of his 26 2/3 innings thus far this year and allowed just one round-tripper in 119 2/3 innings last year.

After I wrote the above, I received a note from Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus's minor league guru. Kevin said that one thing he felt I got wrong was my estimation of Wright's velocity (which I got from assimilating various on-line scouting reports). According to Goldstein, Wright's fastball tops out in the high 80s, adding something to the effect that if Wright did throw in the low 90s, he'd be a world-beater. Judging by his recent results this season and last, I tend to wonder if Wright's recent improvement has had as much to do with an uptick in velocity as with an increase in confidence. I'll certainly be keeping an eye on the YES radar gun tonight. If it turns out that he is indeed working in the low-90s . . . look out world.

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The Cleveland Indians are a hard team to figure out. Two years ago they looked like an up-and-coming powerhouse in the Central. Built around stone cold masher Travis Hafner, the up-the-middle excellence of Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, and Grady Sizemore, and emerging ace C.C. Sabathia, they won 93 games in 2005, just missing both the Wild Card and AL Central titles due to a collapse in the season's final week. Last year, they collapsed altogether, winning just 78 games and finishing a distant fourth behind the Twins, Tigers, and White Sox in an increasingly competitive Central division. One seemingly obvious cause of this fall was the loss of Jhonny Peralta's production (he hit just .257/.323/.385 last year, down from .292/.366/.520 in 2005), but closer inspection shows that the Indians collapse was largely illusory.

In large part due to an abysmal showing by their bullpen, the Indians underperformed their Pythagorean record by a staggering 11 games in 2006. In fact, looking at their runs scored and allowed totals, the team the 2006 Cleveland Indians most resembled was the 2006 New York Yankees. The Indians were second to only the Yankees in all of baseball in runs scored per game last year (this despite Peralta's poor showing), and also finished right behind the Yankees in runs allowed per game (seventh in the AL to the Yanks' sixth). In fact, the Yankees and Indians had identical team ERAs in 2006 with the Indians holding a slight advantage in ERA+ due to playing in a less severe pitchers park.

One thing that tripped Cleveland up last year, in addition to their shaky bullpen, was poor defensive play. The Tribe was 25th in the majors in both defensive efficiency and fielding percentage. This year that trend has continued. Though the Yankees are dead last in the majors in fielding percentage thanks to their major league worst 14 errors (nearly half of which are Derek Jeter's), their defensive efficiency--the rate at which they turn all balls in play into outs--is actually the fourth best in baseball, just as it was a year ago. Cleveland, however, is 27th in fielding percentage (having made nine errors in nine games) and 21st in defensive efficiency. That means their pitching staff has to work that much harder to keep runs off the board.

Amazingly, it's been able to do that thus far. The Indians staff ERA is the third best in the American League, while the ERA of their rebuilt bullpen is second best in the AL to that of the Yankees' pen. The offense, however, is in a bit of a slump, though their scheduling problems may have played a part in that.

The big story of the Indians season thus far is that the entirety of their home opening series against the Mariners was snowed out and that their subsequent series against the Angels was moved indoors to Milwaukee's Miller Park because of the ongoing winter weather. The Indians scored 7 2/3 runs per game while taking two of three from the White Sox in Chicago to start the season. They then sat idle for four days as their games against the Mariners were snowed out, rescheduled as double headers, then snowed out again. They finally resumed play with three games in Milwaukee, then returned home for a series against the White Sox and have scored just 3 2/3 runs per game over those last six games.

Of course, it may not be fair to judge the Indians on their performance thus far this season. While the team has gone 6-3, winning all three series, six of their nine games have come against the White Sox. Their eventual home opener at Jacobs Field was played in front of just 16,789 people (as opposed to the usual 42,400 or so), and their catcher and cleanup hitter Victor Martinez has played only three games, suffering a quadriceps injury in the last game of their opening series in Chicago. That is to say, the Cleveland Indians are a hard team to figure out largely because there's not a lot to go on.

Still, the bullpen looks suspect as the new faces are Joe Borowski, Roberto Hernandez, and Aaron Fultz. C.C. Sabathia (who's still just 26 years old) is a true ace and Jake Westbrook is a strong mid-rotation starter and every bit as extreme a groundball pitcher as Chien-Ming Wang, but Jeremy Sowers' strike out rate is alarmingly low for a flyball pitcher and neither Paul Byrd nor extreme flyballer Cliff Lee or his replacement Fausto Carmona inspire much enthusiasm. On offense, Peralta, who had corrective vision surgery in the offseason and supposedly has put behind him some personal problems that contributed to his poor 2006 season, looks to be rebounding, Martinez should return to action this week, possibly even tonight, and the decision to platoon the outfield corners smells of small market brilliance. On the flip side, that platoon means Casey Blake still has a job, and everyone's still waiting for Andy Marte to hit. As they were two years ago, the Tribe was a trendy pick to win the Central this year. I'm not entirely sold. They're a good team, but not a great one. If they win, I suspect it will have as much to do with the decline of their competition as with their own success.

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The non-coverage of Derek Jeter’s six errors through the first two weeks of the season is a subject I’d love to get into. However, I want to wait on the Jeter issue to see if it
actually does become a story beyond the statistics table. Will any writers or broadcasters call him out and question his defensive ability? (I’ll be surprised if Steven Goldman doesn’t mention the Jeter situation in the Pinstriped Bible tomorrow).

So, with the first round of Yankees-Red Sox games taking place this weekend, I figured this would be a good time to bring the banter fully to you the readers and get an informal poll of which team has the better mainstream and blog coverage.

TV
Yankees: YES
Red Sox: NESN

YES play-by-play: Michael Kay
NESN play-by-play: Don Orsillo

YES analysts: Ken Singleton, Joe Girardi, Al Leiter, John Flaherty, Paul O’Neill, Dave Justice
NESN analysts: Jerry Remy, Jim Rice, Dennis Eckersley, Dave McCarty

YES field reporter: Kim Jones
NESN field reporter: Tina Cervasio (who used to voice the show “Running” on YES, and auditioned for the field reporter job that eventually went to Jones)

YES studio host: Bob Lorenz, Nancy Newman (backup), Chris Shearn (Batting Practice)
NESN studio host: Tom Caron, Hazel Mae (rewind), Kathryn Tappen (weekends)

TV NETWORK WEB SITES
Yankees: yesnetwork.com

Red Sox: boston.com/sports/nesn

MLB.COM OFFICIAL SITES
Yankees: yankees.com
Red Sox: redsox.com

RADIO
Yankees: WCBS 880-AM
Red Sox: WEEI 850-AM

Yankees radio team: John Sterling, Suzyn Waldman
Red Sox radio team: Joe Castiglione, Dave O’Brien, Glenn Geffner
--> Geffner is the the team’s former media relations/PR head

NEWSPAPERS
Yankees: NY Daily News, NY Post, New York Times, Newsday, Journal News, Newark Star-Ledger, Bergen Record, Hartford Courant, New Haven Register
--> Alternates – Times Herald-Record, Staten Island Advance, New York Sun, Village Voice, AM New York

Red Sox: Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, Connecticut Post, Portland Press Herald, Concord Monitor, Nashua Telegraph, Manchester Union-Leader, Springfield Union-News, Worcester Telegram, Quincy Patriot-Ledger, Woonsocket Call

BLOGS
See sidebar

LITTLE KNOWN FACT
During each regular season Yankees-Red Sox series, the beat writers and columnists for the two teams play a game against each other at the ballpark. The writers get very stoked for this. They talk about it for weeks and discuss their exploits prior to that particular night's real game between the Yanks and Sox. The New York crew has a secret weapon: Bob Klapisch, who pitched at Columbia University.

* * *

Which group of media serves its audience best? Which group of writers and/or broadcasters provides the most comprehensive, intelligent, and provocative coverage? I’ll join in the discussion when I can throughout the week. We can discuss it in more detail next week, when the aftermath of the three-game set at Fenway has dissipated somewhat.

Sunday didn't start or end well for the Yankees, though they did have a seven-inning oasis in the middle of it all.

The day started with the announcement that both Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano had been placed on the disabled list, leaving the starting rotation in shambles behind Andy Pettitte. Pettitte then took the mound and four of the first five A's he faced reach base, the first on Derek Jeter's sixth error of the year. With just one out in the bottom of the first, the A's had a 2-0 lead and two men on. The Yankee bullpen, which had marched each of it's seven members out to the mound the night before, began to collectively weep.

Pettitte then rallied to strike out Bobby Crosby and get Todd Walker to ground out to short. From there things started to look up. Pettitte settled down, pitching around a pair of singles in the second, stranding a two-out triple by Eric Chavez in the third, and setting down 13 of the next 14 men he faced after Chavez. Oakland starter Rich Harden was even better, but the injury-prone righty left the game due to shoulder stiffness in the seventh, opening the door for a three-run Yankee rally. The Yanks added another run in the eighth, handing a 4-2 lead to Mariano Rivera in the ninth, Mo's first save opportunity of the season.

Mo got Chavez to ground out on an 0-1 pitch, then, after failing to get a called strike three call on Bobby Crosby, got the Oakland shortstop to fly out to right for the second out of the inning. Mo's next pitch bore down and in on Todd Walker, but Walker was able to flare it out to left for a two-out single. Walker then moved to second on defensive indifference as Jason Kendall swung through a high fastball to run his count to 1-1.

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Jason Giambi's bat has been ice cold, and he was 0-5 last night when he hit a solo home run in the top of the 13th inning last night to help boost the Yankees to a 4-3 win over the A's. Alex Rodriguez hit his seventh homer of the year, Jorge Posada had a huge pinch-hit double, and Robinson Cano banged out three hits.There was more sloppy fielding for the Yanks--four errors in all, two more by Derek Jeter--but the bullpen was outstanding. Starter Darrell Rasner allowed three runs in the first and then settled down. He was relieved in sixth and the Yankee bullpen, seven pitchers in all, allowed zero runs on just two hits. At this rate, it's a good thing that the Bombers have some off-days, because the pen sure is getting its work in.

I watched most of the last two games in Oakland, stayed up as long as I could before my eyes just couldn't stay open any longer. Dude, I'm a lightweight. Not that I've got anything on my mind. I'm only getting hitched.

Em and I are leaving tomorrow for the Bahamas, where we'll be spending the next week enjoying our Marrymoon. We're actually getting married on the beach, just the two of us, no family, no friends ("No Roger, No Re-Run, No Rent"), just a minister, a photographer and us, this coming Thursday afternoon at 1:30. The Yankees and Indians should be in the second inning, weather-provided, so raise a cup to us at some pernt during the game. I won't be rushing to check the score--which is why we're getting married in the spring and not the fall--but will check in on the Banter periodically.

Cliff and company will be holding it down around these parts, as the Yanks host the Tribe and then take on the Red Sox for the first time this year. You're in good hands, as the old commerical used to go.

Hey, how about a nice send off from the Yankees today as Andy Pettitte goes against Oakland's ace, Rich Harden.

The A's and Yankees played a thrilling eleven-inning game last night, but let's skip straight to the action in the eighth inning, as it was in the top of the eighth that the worm turned for the Bronx Bombers.

With the game tied 4-4, Oakland manager Bob Geren called on his ace set-up man Justin Duchscherer to face the heart of the Yankee order. Alex Rodriguez singled on Duchscherer's first pitch. Jason Giambi followed by yanking a double into the corner in right field, pushing Rodriguez to third. Joe Torre sent in Kevin Thompson to pinch-run for designated hitter Giambi at second base with Jorge Posada coming to the plate. Posada worked a 2-1 count then hit a blistering liner directly at first baseman Todd Walker for the first out. Geren then elected to have Duchscherer intentionally walk Robinson Cano to load the bases, thus allowing Duchscherer to Doug Mientkiewicz with a force at every base.

At this point Mientkiewicz was 0 for his last 18 with just one walk over that span. In his three previous at-bats in this game he had struck out and hit into two double plays, the first a line-drive to left that doubled up Posada at first, the second a conventional 4-6-3 that plated a run, but otherwise killed a bases-loaded, no-out rally in the sixth.

Now, if you're Joe Torre, or even Yankee bench coach Don Mattingly, what do you do in this situation.

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The A's, at least in the early going in 2007, are a pretty easy team to figure out. They don't give up very many runs, but they don't score very many either. Only two American League teams (the Red Sox and Angels) have allowed fewer runs per game thus far this season than the A's' 3.4, but only two major league teams (the Nationals and Giants) have plated fewer runs per game thus far than the A