Johnny Damon CF
Derek Jeter SS
Bobby Abreu RF
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Jorge Posada C
Craig Wilson 1B
Bernie Williams DH
Melky Cabrera LF
Miguel Cairo 2B

Chien-Ming Wang RHP

Giambi's out of the lineup, presumably due to the cramps that got him pulled last night.

I too shell out the bucks for Extra Innings and MLB.TV (still can't see all the games, stupid FOX network contract). BTW, did Bobtaco's "trick" work last Saturday?

I found it excruciatingly slow to watch Wright. He gets two strikes and cannot put these guys away. I get this gut feeling that he is real close to becoming a very good pitcher, or to falling apart. Constantly teetering on some precipice. It is kind of like an episode of Lost where the entire episode revolves around that same confrontation that only lasts two minutes, but somehow lasts an hour on tv.

Of course, the Dodgers are on the road now.

http://tinyurl.com/n6th2

12 That was hilarious, Remy did a funny play by play bit with it...

Though if birds prove to be Boston's doom, I have a feeling it's going to be Blue Jays, not ravens. ;-)

I'm in Silverlake, and there is a pretty nice breeze to boot! Are you out in the West Side?

You're up there? I love the city, but the weather up in those parts, eeeks!

I wish there was a better picture of the bird taking off though.

If you haven't read it yet:
"Now presenting the most lopsided deadline deal of this millennium:"
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2536659
OF THIS MILLENNIM!

And it was pretty close that Rog was a Red Sox again. We are riding a lucky streak.

He's got only one error so far this year. Andy has 5, Giambi 7.

Let's go, Jorgie!

Tiger's being squeezed.

Tiny strike zone today...

I hope Fasano was telling Pavano to lose the Ragu...

Looked like it cracked Jeter up a bit...

MVP! MVP! MVP!

Over in Baaahston, Jon Lester going to school.

(I keeeed, I keeeed)

74 Hopefully you'll help get a rally going, here, Abby...

:-)

4 ip 2h 0r 0er 1bb 5k

Man, Tiger rocks...

Gotta love those ground balls.

real efficient inning! only 6 pitches!

You get NOTHING! You LOSE! Good DAY, Sir!

Meanwhile - HIP HIP....

They also didn't see that incredible slide by A-Rod and that MAMMOTH 2-Run Shot by Posada to give us a 3-0 lead.

Papi: No mas.

Go Melky!

He definitely needs a shirt.

C'mon, JD!

I think 'Cashman' over the #99 would be pretty neat. I bet you even get on camera for wearing a shirt like that to the Stadium...

And Wilson scores his first run as a Yankee.

(Not in a Brokeback sense)
(not that there's anything wrong with that)

Nomaas had a hysterical pic up of Cashman all gangsta'd out btw, in celebration of his beat-down of Maddog Russo.

Fill in Cashman and 99 at the bottom - unless someone has a better idea for a number..?

http://tinyurl.com/oaddh

http://tinyurl.com/q6dhf

I think a Cashman jersey with $$ instead of a number would be great.

http://tinyurl.com/hzxbv

Let's hope a few more runs make the decision easier.

Anyone want to see this?

That play by a catcher never fails to impress me - gotta be one of the toughest throws an infielder can make..

http://www.spot98.net/1-order/BUY-SINGLES.html

Buy a shirt with Cashman on the back with no number and then iron on your own "$"

It's awful hot be be squatting for 9 innings.

Wang is a flat out stud!

I think that not only do we now have a much better team that Bawston, but that even without Shefsuibreu we were much better, so . . .

I want a 10 game lead by September. I want to blow the doors off Boston this month. I want them whimpering. I want the idiots at the Globe calling for Theo's scalp. I can taste it.

Newsday says the Yanks don't feel comfortable with only 11 pitchers, and may call Beam up again when he's eligible. But I really don't want to see either Beam or Ponson on the mound unless we're leading by, say, 30 runs. :-P

And one scrub's in. Bubba in CF for Damon.

Nice strikeout, Villone

Of course, if you want a Bronx Banter calling card shirt, you could always get "Bronx Banter" as the name and 88 as the number (looks kinda like BB), or better yet 02 which is when Alex started this blog. We certainly wouldn't mind the free (for us) publicity.

Tribe goes down passively to Papelbon, they go to the bottom of the ninth. But Papi won't bat. Well, he could in principle -- he'd be the sixth batter of the inning, so it would be tied with the bases loaded.

Note to Cleveland...do NOT let Boston score in the bottom of the 9th!

Of course, it was against KC.

:(

Tribe still lead. Not that I am predicting anything.

It's up to Mirabelli. (Oooh, I like the sound of that phrase. Let's hope we hear it over and over again in the weeks to come.)

Oh, good, 3-1 on Youk...

Kapler is pinch running at third, though at this point it doesn't matter. In for Mirabelli. One thing that means is that if it goes to extras (which would mean Ortiz makes an out, unthinkable), the BoSox have to bring in their AA catcher.

yay Yankees!

SOX WIN!

He may not be done yet, either. There's still tomorrow.

Jesus, can they play a real team with a freakin' bullpen?!

This stupid woman on ESPNews says the Yankees were making a run at the Red Sox that had an incredible finish. Aren't the Yankees in the lead? How do they take a run at the team behind them?

I made the comparison two days ago, but to reiterate: The Indians having Carmona close, a guy who has only converted 54% of his career save opportunities, would be like the Yanks using TJ Beam.

Have some respect for Kim and his frisbees.

"The only thing it means is that we don't have to worry about another team," said Derek Jeter. "If we play the best in the division we win it."

'nuff said. Now four words:

Cor-ey Lid-le

Andy's job could be in the line.

Hah, the Yanks were watching the Boston game in the clubhouse.

You know what the win expectancy is with two outs, bases empty, last of the ninth, down a run? About 3.6%. And that's with average hitters coming up, not Doug Mirabelli and Alex Gonzales.

Not that hitting him wasn't the worse thing possible, but agon's hitting 285. That's not horrible.

Here's hoping the Yanks do the same with teams we are supposed to beat. Help is always nice, but I never count on it nor am I disappointed when it does not materalize.

This thing is now officially ours for the taking. If we finish one game out and miss the post-season, the last guy I'm pointing the finger at is Carmona.

Cleveland is not a horrible team. They're just mediocre. But they do have a horrible bullpen.

Hey, let's stop talking about the Red Sox! How 'bout that Chien-Ming?

April - 4.80 ERA
May - 4.28 ERA
June - 3.19 ERA
July - 3.03 ERA
August so far - 0.00 ERA

and line for last two games:

17 IP, 6 H, 5 BB, 0 ER, 4 K

phenomenal!

And no one thought he'd amount to much. The Yanks let him pitch in the Olympics. (Hell will freeze over before they let Hughes do that.) The Diamondbacks didn't want him. Heck, probably the only reason we still have him is a lot of other teams didn't want him.

I guess scouts don't know everything.

The last runs he gave up were back in Canada, 2 runs in the fifth. He went on to pitch a scoreless sixth before being lifted for Everyday Scotty Proctor.

More info here for tectonic plate movement junkies:

http://tinyurl.com/pecus

I always pulled for him but he clearly had to go, but I'll continue pulling for him with Pittsburgh.

We gave him shit for letting Rios catch the ball.

ESPN.com Headline:

• Wang dazzles Jays; Yankees keep pace with Red Sox

Keep pace? Let's see. Yanks begin day in first place. Defeat Jays before Sox games ends. Technically up .5 games at that point. But, wait. 45 minutes later, Sox win to hold their position, but it is the Yanks we are keeping pace.

I'm sure the editorial wizard who OK'd that will be on BBT any day now...

At least they give A-Rod some props for the slide.

The first few seconds did get your attention, though...

I am down in LA. I was hoping we could get through the crazy weather without a quake. I have only been out here from NY for a few years, so I haven't adopted the California devil-may-care attidute towards eathquakes. I still have more of a holy-shit-I'm-going-to-die attidude. The only weather that could kill you where I'm from Upstate is a one in a million lightning hit, which coincidentially just happened to a colleague of my mother this past week in a rain shelter while playing the 10th hole. You never think you'll actually know someone struck and killed by lightning, but never say never I guess. I always suspected those little brown huts offered no protection.

What a great few days for the Yankees. It would be nice if Boston would lose once in a while, but oh well. Great chemistry in the dugout, Alex playing just flat out hard right now (What, does he just enjoy hot weather?), great pitching from our Ace, Wang. We went from having to get by on a shoestring and a prayer, to having a stacked bench (assuming Mats and/or Sheff come back). If Lidle has a decent start and, I can't believe I am saying this, Pavano comes back, watch out fellas, that would be some kind of dominating roster.

Luckily for us!

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/1006/riospw3.jpg

Yesterday's game was still on the Tivo. That was the best screen shot I could get. If that's you.

http://img433.imageshack.us/img433/9297/jentb1.jpg
(Right on the right edge of the frame)

http://img433.imageshack.us/img433/3166/jen2cf8.jpg

If I didn't get thwacked in the head on Opening Day, I might not have been so gun shy.

I'd probably end up getting thwacked, too. I tend to get easily distracted. Deadly in the foul ball zone.

/jk