Nix On -- He's the One

The first live professional sporting event that I ever saw was the Yankees against the Toronto Blue Jays at the old Yankee Stadium. The Jays won. I have hated the Jays ever since. They've been a pain in the Yankees' neck ever since, too: No matter if one team is good and the other is struggling, or both were good, or both were struggling, they have been annoying. I call them the Pesky Blue Jays.

Yesterday, due to an earlier-season rainout, the Yankees had to play a day-night, separate-admission doubleheader at Yankee Stadium II against the Jays. I wanted to win both games. I also wanted to be there for either game, but it was not to be. (I had to work during the first, and wouldn't have gotten out of work on time to catch the start of the second. I'm at the point where I can no longer take 18 innings of baseball at once. Nine is enough, thank you. With all due respect to Dick Van Patten, Betty Buckley, et al.)

Ivan Nova started the 1st game for the Yankees. He'd been great lately, but in the top of the 2nd, he allowed 4 Toronto runs, all earned. Oy vey...

But that was it. Nova didn't allow any other runs. "Onebadinningitis" can kill a team's hopes. But Nova settled down, and the Yankees got him the runs he needed.

In the bottom of the 3rd, with 1 out, Brett Gardner singled, Ichiro Suzuki doubled, and Robinson Cano hit a home run to center field, his 23rd round-tripper of the season. The Yanks were within 4-3.

Alex Rodriguez led off the bottom of the 6th with a single. Curtis Granderson and Mark Reynolds struck out, but Jayson Nix (who would be heard from a few times on the day) drew a walk, and then Chris Stewart hit his 4th homer of the year, getting Nova off the hook. 6-4 Yankees.

Ichiro led off the bottom of the 7th with a single, and Cano doubled him home. Nix led off the bottom of the 8th with a single. Stewart flew out.  Gardner was up. Nix tried to steal 2nd, and Jays catcher Thad Weber threw the ball away, allowing him to get to 3rd. A sacrifice fly was all that was needed, and Gardner got it, driving Nix in.

Yankees 8, Blue Jays 4. WP: Nova (7-4). No save. LP: Neil Wagner (2-4).

*

Phil Hughes started the 2nd game, and it was a case of here we go again -- not just because he's had such trouble this season, but because the 2nd game started off like the 1st game, with the Jays taking an early lead. Fortunately, Hughes ended up pitching better than Nova, even though Nova got the win in his game, and Hughes didn't get the win in his.

Hughes allowed a single, a stolen base, a move-up grounder, a run-scoring wild pitch, and a walk. And that was in the 1st 3 batters of the game. But then he induced a 3-6-3 double play to leave the Jays only up 1-0.

Nix would be a major factor in the game, but not while leading off the bottom of the 3rd, as he grounded out. But Austin Romine singled, Gardner moved him over with a groundout, Vernon Wells walked, and Cano singled Romine home to get the run back.

The Jays -- who have a player named Kevin Pillar, no relation to former Boston pain in the ass Kevin Millar, or as they pronounced it up there "Kevin Millahhhh" -- got another run in the 5th, after Hughes made a mistake allowing a triple to Munenori Kawasaki (who, in spite of his name, has never hit for the cycle) and a sac fly by Rajai Davis. But with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th, Nix hit one out to left field, only his 3rd homer of the year, and the game was tied again.

When the Jays brought Darren Oliver to pitch the bottom of the 9th, you could feel that the win was in the bag: Oliver had frequently been pounded by the Yanks in the past, especially when he pitched for the Texas Rangers in the 1990s, and he's about to turn 43 and would've been out of the major leagues years ago were he not a lefthanded pitcher. (There aren't a whole lot of players who have batted righthanded and thrown lefthanded, but he's one of them. Easily the greatest of those was Rickey Henderson.)

Reynolds led off the inning by drawing a walk. Ichiro pinch-ran for him. Eduardo Nunez bunted him over to 2nd. Ichiro stole 3rd. And Nix completed what soccer fans would call a "Man of the Match" performance by singling him home. Yankees 3, Blue Jays 2.

WP: Mariano Rivera (4-2). No save. LP: Oliver (3-4).

The Yankees have won 3 straight, and 9 of their last 12. The return of A-Rod, the somewhat different return of Curtis Granderson, and the very different return of Alfonso Soriano, are big reasons why. Mark Teixeira, Kevin Youkilis, Francisco Cervelli and David Phelps are out for the season, but Derek Jeter may return in a week. Travis Hafner and rookie revelation Zoilo Almonte might also return soon. Look out.

We are now 6 1/2 games behind Boston and Tampa Bay, who are tied for the AL East lead. The Rays have 4 games in hand on the Sox and 1 on the Yanks, so the Yanks are 7 games behind the Rays in the loss column, 5 thus behind the Sox. We are 5 games out of the 2nd AL Wild Card spot.

The Yanks are coming.

Eighteen Innings. And What Did We Get?

The longest baseball game I've ever seen live was 15 innings. Well, 18, if you count the Old-Timers' Game before it. It was July 11, 1987, at the old Yankee Stadium. Catfish Hunter, 41 years old, was painting the corners the way he used to. Made sense, he'd had 8 years' rest.

It was the first time players I'd grown up watching played in an Old-Timers' Game, and that creeped me out. Two of "my Yankees" were still playing in the regular game. Willie Randolph didn't do much. Ron Guidry struck out 14 batters, but couldn't finish the 7th inning. The bullpen held off the Chicago White Sox as long as it could, but the Pale Hose scored 3 in the top of the 15th, and that was it: Yankees lose, 5-2.

The longest game I'd ever seen on TV was 19 innings, the Mets-Braves epic in Atlanta on July 4, 1985, the Rick Camp Game. I watched it on Channel 9, then WOR, with Ralph Kiner, Tim McCarver and Steve Zabriskie. Little did I know that, doing the game for the Braves on WTBS, was John Sterling. The Mets finally won it, 16-13.

The longest Yankee game I'd ever seen on TV was 17 innings, in the magical season of 1978. Unfortunately, there was nothing magic about that one: It was at home, against the Boston Red Sox, and after 14 innings, the game was suspended due to the American League's curfew: No inning can start after 1:00 AM. (That rule no longer stands.)

The game was resumed the next night, August 3, and Boston hit 4 singles off Ken Clay in the top of the 17th to win it, 7-5. My man Reggie Jackson went 0-for-7. So did Cliff Johnson, catching that night to give aching Thurman Munson some relief. It didn't work: Thurm was the DH that day, and he went 1-for-7. (He was still better off that day than he was exactly 1 year later.) Then the Sox took the night's regularly-scheduled game, too, 8-1, smacking Jim Beattie and Paul Lindblad and making a winner of Mike Torrez. And seemingly ending that year's AL East race. (Little did we know... )

Just a few days ago, the Mets lost to the Miami Marlins in 20 innings.

*

And then came yesterday's season finale in Oakland, with the Athletics already having taken the 1st 2 games against the Yankees. It was a 12:30 PM Pacific Time start, meaning 3:30 Eastern Time. No help for anyone there, although it looked like it was a beautiful day for a game. (Which isn't all that common in Oakland: They got a lot of the drawbacks of living in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the weird weather, and few of the perks and little of the glamour.)

To paraphrase Tennessee Ernie Ford: Yesterday the Yankees played 18 innings, and what did we get? Another day older and deeper in debt.

As with last year's postseason against Baltimore and Detroit, we certainly can't blame the pitching. Hiroki Kuroda started and allowed just 2 runs, 2 hits and 2 walks over 8 innings. David Robertson was a little shaky in the 9th, but struck out the side. Between them, Boone Logan and Shawn Kelley managed to not screw up the 10th.

Adam Warren had what would usually be considered a "quality start." Except it started in the 11th inning. He threw 85 pitches, and, as Paul Sullivan of Sully Baseball (a pretty keen observer so don't hold it against him that he's a Red Sox fan) pointed out, every single one of those 85 pitches could have ended the game in defeat for his team. None of them did.

Warren pitched the 11th, the 12th, the 13th and the 14th like nobody's business. At which point, YES Network announcer Michael Kay said, "You want free baseball? You got it!"

No, I don't want free baseball! I want winning baseball! If I just wanted the game, I could've rooted for that other team!

Warren got into serious trouble in the 15th, and I thought, "It would be a damn shame if Girardi left him in too long, and he got tired, and he ended up the losing pitcher because of that." The A's had Brandon Moss on 2nd and Josh Reddick on 1st with 1 out. The batter was Coco Crisp, who's hit the Yankees well for a long time. And, sure enough, Crisp got a hit, a single to left.

"Well, that's it, game over," I thought. Except Vernon Wells threw home, catcher Chris Stewart got the ball and blocked the plate, and Moss was out. Then Warren found something deep within his character and struck out Adam Rosales to end the threat.

Then I began to wonder if Joe Girardi's Binders Full of Strategies had any contingencies for games that lasted longer than 15 innings, because he left Warren in for the 16th. Warren got the 1st 2 outs, then allowed a single and a walk, before Nate Freiman hit a liner to right. Ichiro Suzuki slipped, but caught the ball anyway. I yelled out a profanity at Ichiro and added, "We don't need that kind of drama!"

Girardi took Warren off the hook, and sent Preston Claiborne out to pitch the 17th. Flyout, flyout, single, strikeout.

After all this good pitching, you'd think the Yankees would have given their pitchers the gratitude of scoring at least 3 runs. Yeah, well, you would think, but you'd be wrong.

Brett Gardner led off the game with a double. Jayson Nixon hit a line drive that A's shortstop Jed Lowrie caught. Then Robinson Cano hit his 16th home run of the season, to make it 2-0 Yankees.

Over the next 17 2/3 innings, the Yankees sent 67 batters to the plate. They got 8 hits and 7 walks. Zero runs.

Let me spell that out: Sixty-seven batters, no runs.

The worst offenders:

* Travis Hafner, 0-for-8, including 3 strikeouts, and 7 men left on base.

* Vernon Wells, 0-for-8, including 3 strikeouts, and 3 men left on base, although he did make that great throw in the 15th to keep the game alive.

* Kevin Youkilis, 0-for-7, including 3 strikeouts, and 6 LOB.

* Mark Teixeira, 0-for-5, including 3 strikeouts, and 4 LOB, though he did draw 2 walks.

* Chris Stewart, 1-for-6, including a strikeout, and 2 LOB, though he did have that great plate-block in the 15th.

* And the 2nd spot in the order: Between them, Jayson Nix, Lyle Overbay and Reid Brignac were 1-for-8 with a strikeout and 5 LOB.

Essentially, this is the kind of game people were fearing they would repeatedly see, when they saw in Spring Training that we would, through injuries, be missing Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson, and also Teix who could once again, once he came back, go into the traditional Yankee 1st baseman's role (which predates even Don Mattingly) of getting off to a slow start (he's now batting .163).

I began to wonder if I was going to get a text message from the Yankees:

"We're so sorry, Uncle Michael, but we haven't hit a bloody thing all day!"

In the bottom of the 18th, Claiborne got Derek Norris to ground out, but allowed a single to John Jaso. In this case, the right thing to do would have been to give him at least 1 more batter, to see if he could get out of it.

But Girardi consulted his Binders Full of Strategies, and he brought in Mariano Rivera to relieve in the bottom of the 18th inning of a tie game. Andy Pettitte, scheduled to be tonight's starter in the opener of a series in Anaheim against the "Los Angeles" Angels, was sent out to the bullpen, just in case someone was needed to pitch a bottom of the 19th.

I remember saying, "I don't like this... " I saw someone on Twitter invoke the old Star Wars line: "I've got a bad feeling about this!"

Mo allowed a single to Seth Smith. Jaso got to 3rd. 1st & 3rd, 1 out. Girardi told Mo to intentionally walk Lowrie to load the bases and set up a double (or at least a force) play.

No use. Freiman hit a weak liner to left, and Wells had no chance at it. Ballgame.  A's 3, Yankees 2.

WP: Jesse Chavez (1-0). LP: Claiborne (0-1), though he hardly deserved to be assessed the loss. Nor did Mo.

It was a long day's journey into numbness.

Tonight, at 10:05 PM our time, the Yankees send Pettitte out to face the Angels. Their pitcher is C.J. Wilson, whom you'll remember giving us trouble in the 2010 ALCS with the Texas Rangers.

At this point, I could live with it if the Yankees lost 9-8. Or even 13-7. (Sorry, Andy.) At this point, I could take a 13-7 loss a lot easier than I could take one that was 2-1.

Boone Logan Is a Bum... Again!

Boone Logan is a bum. He proved it again yesterday.

This weekend, the Yankees played a 3-game home series with the Oakland Athletics, a team which always seems to give them trouble, no matter how good either team is.

On Friday night, the Yankees sent out their ace, CC Sabathia, who grew up in California's East Bay section and was thus an A's fan. That didn't seem to stop him from pitching well, and he pitched well enough to win, going 6 innings, allowing only 2 runs. Adam Warren then pitched 3 shutout innings. Given that kind of moundwork, the Yankees should have won.

But this was the kind of performance that people feared the Yankees would put up when so many great hitters got hurt. A.J. Griffin, Sean Doolittle and Grant Balfour combined on a 6-hit shutout. Brett Gardner singled in the 1st and 8th innings, Chris Stewart walked and Robinson Cano hit a ground-rule double in the 3rd, Ichiro Suzuki singled in the 4th, Jayson Nix singled in the 5th and doubled in the 7th,

The Yankee stranded Gardner on 2nd with 1 out in the 1st, Stewart on 3rd and Cano on 2nd in the 3rd, Ichiro with 1 out in the 4th, Nix on 2nd with 1 out in the 5th and Nix again on 2nd in the 7th, while Gardner's leadoff bunt single in the 8th was erased with a double play.

A's 2, Yankees 0. WP: Griffin (3-2). SV: Balfour (4). LP: Sabathia (4-3).

*

On Saturday, it was Phil Hughes against former Yankee Bartolo Colon. Colon didn't pitch all that badly (3-1), but the Yankees didn't need him, because Hughes was fantastic, throwing 8 shutout innings (1-2). Chris Stewart (his 2nd) and Lyle Overbay (his 5th) hit home runs off Colon.

Shawn Kelley almost blew it in the 9th, and Mariano Rivera had to come in and put out the fire (not a save situation). Yankees 4, A's 2.

WP: Hughes (1-2). No save. LP: Colon (3-1).

*

Then yesterday's game, in which Boone Logan once again proved that he is a bum.

Andy Pettitte started for the Yankees, and did not have good stuff. He only went 5 innings, allowing 4 runs. Still, the Yankees kept coming back. They were down 1-0 in the 3rd, and 4-1 in the 6th, and on each occasion tied it up. The Yankees got 2 perfect innings, the 6th and the 7th, from Preston Claiborne, a 25-year-old kid from Dallas making his major league debut, wearing Number 38.

Now, those of us who use our eyes would say, "This kid's doing very well.  Let's leave him in there."

Joe Girardi uses his Binder, which obviously said, "It's the 8th inning, and it's a tie game, so you need to bring in Boone Logan. But don't blame me if it goes wrong. Again."

Logan got Yoenis Cespedes to fly to left. Then he served up a meatball to Josh Donaldson, who hit it out to left field. 5-4 A's. Then he allowed a single to Nate Freiman.

Did Girardi say to himself, "Oh my God, this bum screwed us again. I have to get him out of there"? No, he sent pitching coach Larry Rothschild out to calm Logan down.

Did it work? For the moment: Logan struck out Luke Montz and got Seth Smith to ground out. But Girardi sent Logan back out for the top of the 9th, and Josh Reddick hit a line drive to right field for a double. Only then did Girardi come to his senses and yank the bum. He brought in Kelley, who got the last 3 outs.

But the damage was done. In the bottom of the 9th, Chris Nelson lined to left, Brennan Boesch struck out, Gardner singled to center, a wild pitch sent that tying run to 2nd, Cano was intentionally walked -- always risky, putting the winning run on base -- and Vernon Wells struck out.

WP: Doolittle (2-0). SV: Balfour (5). LP: Logan (2-2).

*

Did I mention that Boone Logan is a bum?

The Yankees head out for a roadtrip, 3 games in Denver against the Colorado Rockies, 3 in Kansas City against the Royals, then on Monday they play a separate-admission doubleheader in Cleveland to make up the 2 snowouts against the Indians last month.

And if Logan pitches in any of those games, expect the Yankees to lose.

Because Boone Logan is a bum.

All's Well That Ends Wells

The Yankees went into Toronto for the weekend, and, let's be honest, those pesky Blue Jays didn't look like obvious choices to win the AL East.

On Friday night, the Yankees struck like people vote in Chicago: Early and often. A double by Robinson Cano, Kevin Youkilis getting hit by a pitch (but not whining like he did when he was in Boston, guess he got de-bitch-ified), Travis Hafner doubling and Vernon Wells grounding out scored 2 runs before the Jays ever got to bat. Hafner homered in the 3rd (his 5th of the season), followed by a Wells single, an Ichiro Suzuki double and an Eduardo Nunez sacrifice fly.

In the 6th, Lyle Overbay homered (his 2nd), Francisco Cervelli doubled, Brett Gardner tripled, and Cano got another run home on a groundout. In the 7th, Wells tormented his former team again with his 4th homer of the season.

Andy Pettitte had some shaky moments, but pitched into the 8th, allowing 3 runs on 6 hits and a walk (3-0). Shaun Kelly went the rest of the way (not a save situation). Brandon Morrow took the loss for the Jays (0-2). Yankees 9, Blue Jays 4.

*

Saturday afternoon's game had, "Uh-oh, here we go again" written all over it. Hiroki Kuroda took a 2-hit shutout into the bottom of the 8th, while Wells hit his 5th homer in the top of the 2nd, and the 5th included a Jayson Nixon single, a Gardner double, an intentional walk by Mark Buehrle to Cano, and a Youkilis single. Wells should have had another RBI right after that, but Cano wasn't able to score on his single.

And that ended up making a difference. It was 3-0 Yankees in the bottom of the 8th, when, with 1 out, Colby Rasmus singled off Overbay's glove. It was then that Joe Girardi consulted not his eyes, which should have told him to leave Kuroda in, but his binder, which said take him out. He brought in David Robertson, who struck out Maicer Izturis, but then walked Adam Lind, who was then replaced by pinch-runner Emilio Bonifacio, and gave up a single to Rajai Davis to make it 3-1.

Up stepped Melky Cabrera, our old friend from 2009, outed as a steroid user last year with the San Francisco Giants, and thereafter they won the World Series without his help. Apparently, the Jays don't care about a guy's past -- but then, you could also say that about the Yankees. The Melkman singled home Bonifacio and Davis. Tie game.

Then Robertson walked Jose Bautista. Winning run on 2nd. All because Girardi trusted his damn binder instead of his eyes. The next batter was Edwin Encarnacion, who is off to a lousy start this season but hit 42 homers with 110 RBIs last year.

The season thus far has been good to the Yankees and bad for the Jays, in each case confounding predictions. This next batter could have turned around both seasons.

Roberts dug deep into his character, and struck him out swinging.

Unfortunately, the Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the 9th, and Girardi dug deep into his binder, and brought in Boone Logan to pitch. Joe Girardi hates me.

Incredibly, Logan got the Jays out 1-2-3 to send the game to extra innings. Additional frames. Extended play. Free baseball. Bonus cantos.

The Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the 10th. But Logan remembered that he sucks, and allowed a leadoff single to Izturis, and allowed Bonifacio to bunt Izturis over to 2nd. Winning run on 2nd, only 1 out.

Girardi's binder must've told him the same thing my eyes told me, and he yanked Logan for Kelley. Kelly induced Davis to pop up and Melky to ground out, ending the threat.

Who do you think started the winning rally in the top o fthe 11th? In the words of the immortal Jim Varney, "Hey, Vern!" Wells led off with a single, Cervelli hit the same, and then Ichiro bunted. Aaron Loup, now pitching for the Jays, did what every fielder is taught to do: Get the lead runner. Which made sense, since he was a lefthanded pitcher throwing to 3rd base, the easier throw. But it was anything but easy, and he threw it away. Wells and Cervelli both scored, and that was all Mariano Rivera should have needed to close it out in the bottom of the 11th.

(The play reminded me of the thrown-away bunt that gave the Yankees an extra-inning win against the Texas Rangers in Game 2 of the 1996 ALCS, which was a huge moment in making Title 23 possible, as the Ranges had won Game 1 and looked most of the way like they were going to win Game 2 as well, in New York, but because of that throw, they didn't win another game until April 1997.)

But Mo allowed a leadoff double to Bautista, and Encarnacion hit a liner to right. or a moment, the game was back in serious doubt. But Ichiro managed to catch it. Mo then struck out J.P. Arencibia and Brett Lawrie to nail it down.

Yankees 5, Jays 3. WP: Kelley (1-0, his first win as a Yankee after 10 previous, all with the Seattle Mariners). SV: Rivera (5 -- Who's an old man?). LP: Loup (1-1).

*

Yesterday's game wasn't so good. Ivan Nova started for us, and allowed 4 runs on 7 hits and 4 walks over the 1st 5 innings. In the end, though, he wasn't the losing pitcher.

Chris Stewart, Nova's personal catcher (again, nobody who isn't at least as good as Steve Carlton should have a personal catcher, and Carlton was the best lefty pitcher I've ever seen) homered in the 3rd (his 1st of the season), and the Yankees picked up 2 more runs in the 5th and another in the 6th. That made it 4-2 Yankees, and that should have given Nova a boost to at least get through the 6th.

It wasn't. He started the inning by walking Lind, then allowed a double to Arencibia. Enter Logan. Exit any chance the Yankees had of winning. Logan allowed a soft liner in front of Wells, no chance of catching it. Lind scored.

Since Logan couldn't get out the one man he is actually paid to get out -- the guy named Lefty Hitter -- Girardi pulled him for David Phelps. Unfortunately, as they would have said on Mission: Impossible, Mr. Phelps self-destructed in five seconds. He allowed an RBI double to Lawrence to tie it up. He got 2 outs, but then Melky singled home a run.

It was only 6-4 Toronto. As John Sterling taught us, a 2-run deficit can be erased with a bloop and a blast. Unfortunately, in the 7th, the Jays added a walk and a wallop, with Phelps walking Lind and giving up a gopher ball to Arencibia.

Jays 8, Yankees 4. WP: Brett Cecil (1-0). No save. LP: Logan (0-1).

There was one highlight for the Yankees in this game, aside from Stewart's homer, and it came in the other half of the 3rd. Bautista led off with a single, and Encarnacion hit a long drive to left, but Wells snagged it, and followed this great catch with a peg to Cano, who threw to Overbay, and Bautista was out on a double play.

The Toronto fans, who treat going from the Blue Jays to the Yankees (never mind that Wells stopped in Anaheim in between) the way they'd treat someone going from the Maple Leafs to the Montreal Canadiens, booed Wells lustily. He turned to the fans in the left-field seats and tipped his cap.

The Jays should never have let him go. But how smart does Brian Cashman look for picking him up? And Youkilis? And Hafner? And Overbay?

*

So here's how things stand in the American League Eastern Division, after 3 weeks of the 26-week season:

The Boston Red Sox are in 1st place, 12-6. The Yankees are 10-7, a game and a half back, 1 in the loss column, with a game in hand. The Baltimore Orioles are 10-8, 2 back. The Tampa Bay Rays are 8-10, 4 back. And the Jays are 8-11, 4 1/2 back.

Not exactly what everyone expected when the Jays got those 3 starting pitchers, is it? After 4 starts, R.A. Dickey is 2-2, ERA 4.30, WHIP 1.35; Morrow is 0-2, 5.57, 1.71; Buehrle is 1-0, but 6.26 and 1.16; and Josh Johnson is 0-1, 6.86, 1.88. After 3 starts, J.A. Happ is 2-1 with a 1.19 WHIP, but his ERA is a high 5.06.

For decades, we've heard the old saying: "Pitching is 75 percent of baseball." That's why so many people thought the Jays would win the East. It's also why they won't. As usual, the Yanks and Sox lead the way, and there is no longer any reason to believe that it won't be those two down to the wire as usual.

The Yankees head down to Tampa to play the Rays. Tonight, CC Sabathia against Matt Moore; tomorrow night, Phil Hughes against David Price; Wednesday night, Pettitte against Alex Cobb.

Girardi Fails to Kill Me, Yankees Win In 14

Perhaps I spoke too soon. The National League East isn't that easy.  Especially the up-and-coming Washington Nationals. (I won't say they've already come, because that would indicate they've made the Playoffs. They may, but not yet.)


But just because they're making the Yankees work for it, doesn't mean it isn't getting done. Last night, Phil Hughes refused to go veggie. He brought the meat. He pitched 6 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits and 2 walks, striking out 9. Cody Eppley and Clay Rapada each pitched an inning of scoreless relief.

David Robertson, thankfully, returned from the Disabled List. He was a little rusty, allowing a run, but that ended up not mattering.


Because the Yankees took the lumber to the Nation's Capital. Curtis Granderson hit his 20th home run of the season, and he and Derek Jeter hit RBI doubles. Yankees 7, Nationals 2. WP: Hughes (7-5). LP: Gio Gonzalez (8-3).


Actually, Gio, rumored to be a Yankee target last winter, didn't pitch all that badly. It was Brad Lidge, who relieved him, who let the game get out of hand.  o perhaps the Phillies were right to get rid of Lidge, but wrong to get rid of Raul Ibanez.

*


Then today, Andy Pettitte took the hill, having turned 40 yesterday. Funny, but he didn't pitch like an old man. Not so much as one knuckleball. Andy pitched 7 innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks, with 6 strikeouts.


But it wasn't enough, because, this time, not enough lumber. The Yankees led 2-1 going into the bottom of the 8th, but Cory Wade blew Pettitte's lead.


The game went to the bottom of the 9th, and Joe Girardi trusted a tie game in the bottom of the 9th to Boone Logan.


I am 99 percent sure that Joe Girardi does not know I exist, or that this blog does. So why is he trying to kill me?

Maybe he's not, because Logan, after being a disaster in 2010 and 2011, has pitched pretty well this year. He got through it, and his ERA for the season is now 2.31.


Yes. Boone Logan.

The game went on. And on. And on.  he Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the 10th. And in the 11th. In the 12th, with 2 out, Mark Teixeira reached 2nd on a throwing error. This led the Nats to walk Robinson Cano intentionally to set up a force play and bring the pitcher's spot to the plate.

Remember, National League park, National League rules, no designated hitter, the pitcher must bat or you must bring up a pinch-hitter.

And who did Girardi bring up to pinch-hit? Chris Stewart. A 30-year-old catcher from California. Who had 54 major league plate appearances going into the 2011 season. Whose lifetime batting average is .200. Whose lifetime on-base percentage is .270. Whose lifetime slugging percentage is .286. Who's got 20 RBIs and 35 strikeouts. For his entire freaking career.


Stewart struck out. The pitcher he was pinch-hitting for, Cody Eppley, has made 28 big-league appearances and has come to the plate exactly zero times. Would he have done any worse than striking out? No. Theoretically, he could have grounded into a double play, except that there were already 2 out.

Joe Girardi, I know you can't make the National League give up their monumentally stupid aversion to the DH. But if your options are leaving in a pitcher who's gotten 5 outs on just 1 baserunner (a walk), and bringing up a pinch-hitter whose best season in pro ball was seven years ago in Double-A, damn it, leave the pitcher in.  Sure, Eppley could have struck out.  But Stewart did.  And the odds were every bit as much against him as they would have been against Eppley -- maybe more so, since we have absolutely no idea of what Eppley can do at the plate, since he's never been there. He literally could not have done any worse!

At any rate, the Yankees also went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 13th.

Ah, but the bullpen did pretty well. Once Wade gave up the run that tied the game in the 8th, just 5 more baserunners -- 3 hits, a walk and an error -- were allowed the rest of the way. Logan pitched the 9th. Clay Rapada and Eppley did just fine in the 10th. Eppley got through the 11th.

Then came the move that got a lot of Yankee Fans more nervous than bringing in Logan. Since Girardi pinch-hit for Eppley, he had to bring in someone new to pitch the 12th. And it was Freddy Garcia.

This was actually a good move, since Garcia is a starter, and hadn't pitched in 11 days, so he certainly wasn't tired. If this game went another 6 innings, he could well have been just what the doctor ordered. And he pitched 2 innings, with only an error (not his fault) in the 13th blotting his record. That runner got to 3rd base with 2 outs, but Freddy got out of it.

Then came the top of the 14th. And the Nats brought in Lidge. Has it really been so long since, counting all 3 rounds of the postseason, he was 48-for-48 in save opportunities in 2008?

Apparently so. The 1st batter he faced was Jayson Nix, who beat out an infield single and stole 2nd. Jeter singled, but Nix could only get to 3rd. Granderson struck out, but there was still 1st and 3rd with 1 out. All we needed was a fly ball.

Teix gave us more than that, sending a drive to right that landed for 3 bases (though only credited as a double, since he advanced to 3rd on the throw to the plate). Both runners scored.

Girardi sent Rafael Soriano out to finish it up in the bottom of the 14th. He got Adam LaRoche to fly to left, but gave up a single to Jesus Flores, bringing the tying run to the plate. Steve Lombardozzi singled Flores to 2nd.


(If those names sound familiar, LaRoche is the son of Dave LaRoche, a former big-league pitcher who starred for the Angels and was briefly a Yankee; while Lombardozzi's father, also named Steve Lombardozzi, was the 2nd baseman for the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins.)

Now the tying runs were on, and the winning run was at the plate. And pretty much everybody was used. The only pitchers on the roster who hadn't been used were starters: Hughes (who'd gone 6 the night before and thus had 21 hours' rest), CC Sabathia, Hiroki Kuroda, and tomorrow's intended starter, Ivan Nova.

With Mariano Rivera out for the season (and, if available, he would've been used earlier in the game anyway), it was Soriano or an emergency situation. Not much of a choice. Maybe Girardi should have left Garcia in. After all, he let Garcia bat for himself in the top of the 14th, after the runs were scored, and he certainly wasn't injured.


After a mound conference, Soriano pitched to Danny Espinsoa. Soriano got him to fly to right. Two outs, but still a man on 2nd, the tying run on 1st, and the winning run at the plate.

And that batter was Bryce Harper, the most-hyped young player of the season.

Soriano got him to ground harmlessly to Cano.  hew.


Ballgame over. Yankees win. Theeee Yankees win.  5-3 in 14.


WP: Garcia (1-2). SV: Soriano (12). LP: Lidge (0-1).


The series concludes tomorrow afternoon, with Nova starting against Edwin Jackson. Then the Yankees come home, but Interleague play continues as they start a series with the Atlanta Braves.


*


No, the Yankees didn't have it easy. But they've now won 8 straight, all against NL East teams, and 17 of their last 21.


The Yankees now have the 2nd-best record in baseball, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers. Going into games played tonight, they lead the American League Eastern Division by 2 games over the Baltimore Orioles, 3 over the Tampa Bay Rays, 6 1/2 (7 in the loss column) over the Toronto Blue Jays, and 8 over the Boston Red Sox. And since the worst record of these teams is the Sox being just 2 games under .500, the Yanks have not achieved this against an easy schedule.


The Magic Numbers to eliminate the other teams are: O's 96, Rays 95, Jays 91 and Sox 90.

Derek Jeter now has 3,173 career hits. Alex Rodriguez has 2,839 hits, 161 away from 3,000. He still has 639 home runs, 61 from 700 and 129 from a new record. He has 1,924 RBIs, 76 from 2,000 and 374 from a new record.

*


Days until the Red Bulls play again: 1, tomorrow night, at the Chicago Fire. They got knocked out of the U.S. Open Cup, our equivalent to England's FA Cup, in the 4th Round. I guess they didn't care enough to try.

Days until the Red Bulls next play a "derby": 8, against D.C. United at home, a week from tomorrow night, on Sunday night, June 24. They next play the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, on Sunday night, July 8. They next play the Philadelphia Union on Saturday afternoon, July 21, at Red Bull Arena.

Days until the next Yankees-Red Sox series begins: 20, on Friday, July 6, at Fenway Park in Boston. Under 3 weeks.

Days until Chelsea play Paris Saint-Germain at Yankee Stadium: 36, on Sunday night, July 22. A little over 5 weeks. Although the old Stadium hosted plenty of soccer games, concluding with the North American Soccer League's New York Cosmos in 1976, this will be the first match in the new Stadium. They had trouble fitting a football field in there, so I don't know how they're going to fit a "football pitch."

Days until the 2012 Olympics begin in London: 41, on Friday night, July 27. Under 6 weeks.

Days until the Red Bulls play Tottenham at Red Bull Arena: 45, on Tuesday night, July 31. I won't call this preseason match a "friendly," because it's The Scum. At least I won't have to watch Harry Redknapp twitching in shorts, like I did when they visited for the 2010 New York Football Challenge.

Days until AC Milan play Real Madrid at Yankee Stadium: 53, on Wednesday night, August 8. Unlike Chelsea vs. PSG, I really would like to see this one, but will so many Italian-Americans in the Tri-State Area, and probably more of them being fans of Milan than of any other Italian club, this may be tough to get a ticket for.

Days until Arsenal play again: Unknown, as the Premier League announces its schedule -- sorry, forgot to "speak English" there, releases its fixture list -- for the upcoming season this Monday, and the new season always starts on the 2nd Saturday in August -- meaning that they next Arsenal match (excluding preseason friendlies) will probably be on August 11, which is 56 days from now. Exactly 8 weeks. Though it could turn out to be the next day, Sunday, August 12.

Days until the next North London Derby: Unknown. As I said, the fixture list hasn't been released yet. But it almost certainly won't be in the opening game. "Derbies" rarely lead off a season.


Days until Rutgers plays football again: 77, on Saturday September 1, at the Superdome in New Orleans against Tulane University. Not exactly a rivalry game, although Tulane was founded by a Princeton man. And thus, in 11 weeks, will begin the Kyle Flood Era. Good luck...


Days until East Brunswick High School plays football again: 83, on Friday, September 7, home to South Brunswick. Under 12 weeks. I'm glad it's a home game: It's always good to open the season at home, and South Brunswick is particularly tough to get to: Despite the distance, it's not close to public transportation. But that's the only thing I have against them: Though they are neighbors, they are not rivals.

Days until the U.S. National Soccer Team plays again: 87, on Tuesday night, September 11, against Jamaica, at Columbus Crew Stadium in Ohio. Under 3 months. Sadly, by then, Jurgen Klinsmann will still be the manager. Which is a bad thing, because he cannot pick a lineup! Sack him, Sunil Gulati! Better yet, let him get the vacant job at Tottenham! I know they hate him there, because of his poor play there in the 1990s, but, screw it, they deserve each other!

Days until the Devils play again: Unknown, as the 2012-13 NHL schedule has yet to be released. Opening Night will most likely be the first Friday in October, which would be the 5th, so it can't be any sooner than 111 days from now.

Days until the Devils play another local rival: Also unknown, due to the schedule not yet having been released.

Days until the 1st Nets game in Brooklyn: Unknown, as the 2012-13 NBA schedule has not yet been released. The season usually starts in late October, so we're talking about 130 days or so. A little over 4 months. 

Days until the 2012 President election: 140, on Tuesday, November 6. Under 5 months. Register to vote... and on November 6, vote!

Days until the next East Brunswick-Old Bridge Thanksgiving clash: 159. Under 23 weeks. Come on you Boys in Green! Beat those Purple Bastards!

Days until Alex Rodriguez collects his 3,000th career hit: 410 (estimated around August 1, 2013). Presuming he doesn't get hurt, less than 14 months.

Days until Super Bowl XLVIII at the Meadowlands: 596 (February 2, 2014). Less than 20 months.

Days until Alex Rodriguez hits his 700th career home run: 688 (estimated).

Days until Alex Rodriguez hits his 756th career home run to surpass all-time leader Hank Aaron: 1,523 (estimated).

Days until Alex Rodriguez hits his 763rd career home run to become as close to a "real" all-time leader as we are likely to have: 1,568 (estimated -- estimating 28 home runs a year, and he might get it by the close of the 2016 season, maybe around October 1, at age 41).