The Yankees old nemesis reared its ugly head again, the lack of clutch hitting, especially by A-Rod. Rodriguez struck out twice with runners in scoring position, the second time in the ninth with runners on 1st and 2nd and only one out.

Chris Ray the Orioles closer made every attempt to let the Yankees tie or win the game, but the Bronx less than Bombers couldn't take advantage of the opportunitiy. With the Yankees down by one run at 6-5 to start the bottom of the ninth, Damon was retired before a walk to Jeter and a single by Sheffield put the tying and potential winning runs on base with only one out. A-Rod struck out for the second out. With Giambi up the Yankees ran the baserunners and moved up on defensive indifference. Giambi eventually walked to load the bases but Hideki Matsui looked at a called third strike on the corner to end the game.

Chien-MIng Wang was getting mostly ground balls but they eventually found holes and the Orioles took the lead at 3-1. With the bases loaded Derek Jeter fielded a grounder off the bat of Brian Roberts but threw high to Andy Phillips at first and the runner was called safe. With the runners going on the pitch, two runs scores. The replay clearly showed that Phillips came back down on the bag before the runner reached, but the Yankees were the recipient of poor umpiring again. Remember a few days ago, Rivera had both Castillo and Mauer struck out before they reached, but a check swing and a called third strike were not called in the Yankees favor.

The Yankees came back to take the lead on a two run homer from Cano and a RBI single by A-Rod but gave it right back when Scott Proctor gave up a bases loaded walk when he was clearly upset by not getting a call from the umpire. He then gave up another run to extend the O's lead to two runs.

The Yankees got one back in the eighth but it wasn't enough as the O's held on to eventually win the game 6-5. The Yankees are now 7-8 on the season and in their losses have not looked good at all.

First, taking a look at the minors, Steve L. posted about someone that I've been following for the last couple of days: Jose Veras. 13 to 1 K:BB ratio in 8.2 innings isn't bad but I'm not going to get interested just yet as this guy doesn't have a great track record. Outside of two decent-good years (2002, 2005), he's been quite mediocre and sports a career whip of 1.49. Still, he's a young (25) power arm (career 8.2 K per 9) so if he can keep it up, he could be of some use later on in the season either as a filler for the Yankee bullpen or as a chip in a trade (apparently he's under a one-year contract so if he can fetch something that the Yanks can use, great.)

And for more Phil Hughes, Brian Cashman says that he should be promoted to Trenton soon.


In my humble opinion, Brett Gardner should also be considered for a fast track promotion. He's doing very well at Tampa and is a hell of a smart player who knows how to use the tools he has (read legs; on the scouting scale of 20-80, his speed has to be at or near 80). Moving in the opposite direction unfortunately is Tim Battle who cannot buy a hit right now (3 hits in 46 ABs, 3 BBs, 21Ks!) . We'll have to see how long this is allowed to go on.

Speaking of prospects, John Sickels posted a prospect retrospective of Gary Sheffield. If you don't know the man's history, I'd give it a read. Finally, I'd also take a look at the Q&A that MLB.com recently did with Scott Proctor. It's pretty interesting, especially the following answer as Proctor has historically been an extreme flyball pitcher:

Obligatory catchphrase.

The Yanks are money. That's a fact. They are now worth, on paper, more than one billion dollars.

I would take the time to read the article, especially if you are a Yankee fan. Read it and remember what it says so that the next time some uninformed "fan of baseball" says that the Yankees are bad for baseball, you can refrain from violence and recite it to them.


Evil empire indeed.

Oscar Acosta, the manager of the Gulf Coast Yankees of the Rookie League, and Humberto Trejo, the Yankees' field coordinator in the Dominican, were killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic.

Everyone here at YanksBlog.com would like to send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Acosta and Mr. Trejo.

Mike Mussina saw the Yanks bleeding and wanted to put an end to it. He held the Blue Jays to just one run over 7 1/3 innings.

It was a beauty to behold, as Moose and former Yankee Ted Lilly went inning after inning with no score. The blanks on the scoreboard ended in the 5th, when A-Rod connected off of Lilly for his 5th homerun of the year. Another run was added in the 5th, although Posada got caught off guard and got tagged out for the inning ending play, Matsui was able to cross home before the tag, so the run scored.So, bad baserunning by Posada...then good baserunning by Posada to avoid the tag.

Rivera finished the game for his second save of the year.

I'll have to say that I didn't expect such a masterpiece by Moose today, although I will admit he has been pitching like the Mike Mussina of old. I'm definitely looking forward to Moose's next outing.

The Yanks are off tomorrow. They return home for a Friday night game against the Baltimore Orioles. Chien-Ming Wang (1-0, 4.08 ERA) faces Kris Benson (1-2, 3.32 ERA) face each other for a 7:05pm ET start.

I don't care...I'm drooling already and he's only in Tampa. TINSTAPP all you want - I'm in favor of irrational exuberance in regards to your team's prospects!

Phil Hughes went 6 innings, gave up 2 hits, walked none, struck out 8...and lost. Of his two hits, one was to the leadoff hitter in the first inning, who promptly stole second base and scored on the only other hit Hughes gave up. Talk about tough luck. Still, another dominant performance and the growing anticipation/fervor of Yankees' fans everywhere continues to grow.

Eric Duncan has put together a couple of two hit games at Colombus and has pulled his average up to .234. When he starts hitting the .260s-.270s and starts hitting with power, I'll get excited. Until then, maybe Carlos Pena can enlighten him on some slick fielding. Also, Tyler Clippard had a decent outing last night though he took the loss and goes to 0-3 for the year. Clippard is one of my favorite prospects and I fully expect him to continue to make adjustments as the season goes on - he'll be one to watch.

Melky Cabrera is still turning some heads and here's a question: Does this remind anyone of what happened to Cano last year? No one expects that much of either player (both are considered fringe prospects) to begin the year, both hit solidly in winter-league play and both got red hot in Colombus to start the year. Robinson put up a line of .333/.368/.574 in 108 ABs in his age 22 season. Contextually, this was somewhat out of place with his career minor league numbers of .277/.329/.424/.753 though he had started to hit with more authority the previous year. In Melky's case (and man, I love that name), he's hitting .380/.448/.540 in his first 50 ABs (and struck out once) in Colombus in his age 22 season. Obviously, there will be cooling off but I'm just using this to illustrate that he's still very young and is showing he can handle AAA pitching. His career minor league numbers are .285/.339/.409/.748 (better plate discipline - less power than Cano so far) so yes, this would be an outlier just like with Cano. One of the differences between the two is that Melky didn't show much improvement the previous year. In 2005 at AA Trenton, he hit .267/.310/.413 (not exactly awe-inspiring) but was promoted to AAA anyway and responded with a .324/.425/.647 line in 9 games. Then came the call up to the majors (ouch), being sent back to Columbus where it looked like his confidence was shot and then all the way back down to Trenton again. He finished 2005 with a .275/.322/.411/.733 at AA Trenton. Not horrible numbers for someone his age but not exactly eye-popping. That being said, I think it will be pretty exciting seeing how long Melky can stay this hot and where that might lead.

The Yankees fell under the .500 mark once again after Randy Johnson blew a 4-0 first inning lead in the Yankees' 10-5 loss to the Blue Jays. The Yankees jumped out early with four runs in the first inning, including back to back homers from A-Rod and Giambi. The Blue Jays responded with three in the first and three in the second, as the Jays scored seven off the Big Unit before he was pulled in the 4th. Derek Jeter and Gary Sheffield had two hits, although Sheffield dropped a routine liner off his glove in the 7th inning. Troy Glaus went 3-4 with two homers, one of which was off Shawn Chacon in the 7th. The Yankees' bullpen was for the most part okay, with the exception of Chacon who struggled a bit.

More and more people are going to wonder now if there is really something physically bothering Randy Johnson. Honestly, I hate to say it, but I think if the excuse was really there for him to use he'd be one to take advantage of it. I think tonight was just one of those nights where he didn't have his stuff, which isn't uncommon for him this early in the season.

Also, I'm not really sure what to make of Gary Sheffield's error in the 7th inning on what should've been an easy line out by Bengie Molina. The way he catches the ball is unorthodox and is not the way how you'd teach your little leaguers to play the outfield, but that's the way he's been comfortable catching the ball the last few years and he hasn't had a problem with it before. I of course don't mean to defend Gary Sheffield in this instance. I think it was more a case of him just getting lazy and being a little too careless and nonchalant out there.

The Yankees will try to bounce back early tomorrow afternoon (12:35 EST) in a matchup that features Mike Mussina against former Yankee Ted Lilly. Mussina is coming off a loss in Minnesota on Friday night in which he gave up 3 runs on 6 hits in 6 and 2/3 innings. Lilly to-date this season is 1-0 with an E.R.A. of 3.86.

Steve L. over at WasWatching points out a story at SI that suggests that Randy Johnson's shoulder troubles have more to do with his repaired knees than his shoulder.


Yes, that would certainly be interesting to know...and if this turns out to be a recurring issue, get that man an oil change! (if it's medically all right, of course).

Seriously though, by this point, I figure that Randy knows his body and what his knees can take so if he thinks he needs another injection of fluid, he'd probably say something. My only question is the timetable of these injections. Is this a procedure where they just put a needle in there and fill up and he's good as new the next morning or is this more of a prolonged procedure? If anyone has any idea, please let me know; I'm pretty very interested in how this works now.

I've been swamped at work the past week or so (and nuts, it doesn't look good for the forseeable future) but I couldn't hold off that much longer. A lot of people have beaten me to the punch on a bunch of these topics but hey, I might as well throw in my two cents.

Even at 6-6 and with the issues with the starting pitching, the Yankees actually lead the AL in ERA (they're 4th in all of baseball). I know this is over only twelve games but hopefully, we can see this kind of performance all year from the staff and with the Yankees offense being what it is, that W-L record should be much improved.

There's been some bluster (including from myself) about Jeter sac-bunting and whether it makes sense but I wanted to make this caveat. Late in games when the Yankees are tied, I really don't have a problem seeing a sac bunt to move the runner over. In my mind, this is only because of Mariano. I am so confident in Mo that if you can just get that run to eke it out, Rivera will get you that win. Most other closers...no thank you, a hitter of Jeter's ability should hit away.

Speaking of bunts, you know who really should bunt a couple times just to see what would happen? Jason Giambi. Seriously, if he pushed a couple bunts with that infield shift on that most teams play against him, I wouldn't be surprised to see him make it to first base standing up. If nothing else, it would certainly give other teams something else to think about when Giambi comes up. Not that opposing teams are doing much thinking these days, just some neck excercises so they can watch the path of some his latest moonshots as he's been on fire lately.

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Mike A. over at In George We Trust has done a great job of keeping abreast of player notes in the minors and if you check his last few posts, he'll back me up on some of these observations. He's also created a Philip Hughes watch on the left side of the page so if you like, you can keep track of the best Yankee pitching prospect since Brien Taylor (as I knock on wood, trees, throw salt over my shoulder, etc. etc.). So far, Hughes has looked pretty good in high A Charleston and barring injury, I can see him moving to AA Trenton pretty easily before the year is out.

In AA Trenton, Stephen White almost pitched a no-hitter, going into the eigth inning before giving up a hit. Playing at Commerce Bank Park, which was literally 2 miles from where I used to work, White dominated the Harrisburg Senators but the bullpen eventually gave up the game. Stephen White is an interesting case - he was the Yankees 4th round (124th overall) selection of 2003 draft and pitched well going into last season. However, he blew up in AA (6.44 ERA in 50.1 innings) but he did recover to pitch well in very limited innings in the hitter-friendly AFL. Hopefully this season, he can hopefully recover his prospect status (he turns 25 in June) and start to extend his arm a little bit (he maxed out at 129 innings in 2003), especially if he plans to remain a starter. (Update - another very good start by White - that's 3 in a row)

Speaking of no-hitters, former Yankees prospect (26 year-old Ben Julianel almost got one himself, pitching a perfect game into the seventh. Julianel, a power throwing lefty was a reliever in the Yankees system (and was traded for Ron Villone) but it looks like the Marlins are trying to stretch him into a starter.

In AAA, 25 year-old Darrell Rasner's first start was very impressive and through two starts (I know...small sample size), his numbers are pretty intriguing. Hopefully, he can keep it up and if (I originally wrote when here) Jaret Wright either goes down due to injury or ineffectiveness, we'll have a good, young pitcher who can replace him. Colter Bean is also an option but of course, I have a feeling Scott Erickson will probably get the nod instead.

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