So much for missing time. A-Rod is in the lineup, playing third and hitting clean up according to Peter Abraham.

From MLB.com:


As part of the award, he gets a 52" LCD TV from Sharp.

His injury last night is being called a "strained hamstring". We'll know more today as he's going in for tests.

The Yankees won their series opener over the Twins Monday night thanks to Roger Clemens' masterpiece and some timely hitting from guys who haven't been getting it done the last week and a half or so as their 5-1 victory kept them 11 games behind the Red Sox in the A.L. East race. Clemens retired the last 15 batters he faced and allowed only two hits in eight innings and Bobby Abreu broke a 1-1 tie with a mammoth home run to the upper deck in right field. Abreu came out of his slump with a 3-4 night while Derek Jeter and Melky Cabrera added two hits each. Mariano Rivera closed the game with a scoreless ninth.

There was a major cause for concern in the game, however, as Alex Rodriguez strained his hamstring after tripping over the ankle of Justin Morneau as he hustled down the first base line. Rodriguez would stay in the game for Posada's at bat which followed, but after advancing to second he surrendered to the hamstring injury and was taken out of the game. Hopefully it's nothing too serious. If it is, though, all the A-Rod naysayers will finally get to see how much better the Yankees will be with Miguel Cairo at third base.

I remember back in 2003 how big a deal was made when Clemens was stuck on 299 wins and attempted to get No. 300 several times. There was the game in Wrigley when Juan Acevedo blew Clemens' 1-0 lead on the first pitch in the 7th, and then there was the 16-inning game in Detroit in which his bullpen blew a big lead late. Every day he pitched he was the story of the night and finally when he got it in a victory over the Cardinals the Yankees showered him with a huge celebration and even gave him a Hummer. I bring this up because it seems not as big a deal was made about his last few starts in which he was going for 350. I don't think people realize what kind of an accomplishment this is. The Rocket is only the 8th person every to do it and Greg Maddux might reach it before his career is all said and done, but after that 350 wins is a number that we may NEVER see again in the game of baseball. Clemens is the ONLY pitcher ever to accomplish this feat since teams started routinely going to 5-man rotations in the mid 70's and reaching a number like that nowadays is near impossible. That's the same as seventeen 20-win seasons plus a 10-win season or twenty-three 15-win seasons plus a year with five. I was at the game last night and I gotta say that's one ticket stub worth keeping (and I thought Tony Clark's 3-home run game in Toronto was special).

Also of note: Last night was the fifth straight day in which the Yankees and Red Sox both got equal results. As New York Knicks' color commentator Clyde Frazier always says, you can ill-afford to trade baskets when you're behind.

Series resumes tonight at 7 E.T. Chien-Ming Wang will be going up against Carlos Silva.

Andy Pettitte lasted only 1.2 innings and surrendered eight runs including a three homer to Jack Cust and a two run shot to Dan Johnson.

The Yankees cut the lead to 8-5 and had opportunities to cut the lead even further. Ron Villone followed Pettitte and pitched 3.1 scoreless innings. However, the Yankee nemesis of 2007 - the bullpen - eventually imploded or exploded and gave up three more runs. Mike Myers who has been awful vs. left handed batters this year gave up one run and Vizcaino got hit for two more on a single up the middle from Eric Chavez.

With the Red Sox losing again, the Yankees remain 11 games behind the Bosox in the AL East.

The Twins come to town tonight with Roger Clemens again looking for his 350th career win.

Pete A. over at LoHud points out the absolute worst part of this Yankee slide and what really ticks off me, the wasted opportunity.


7-5 - is that too much to ask? Oh right, I guess it was. I guess it could be worse - the Red Sox could have been on fire during this stretch and the Yanks could be 15+ out. Ugh.

This is my weekly recap of the performance of the YanksBlog.com teams in the Yankees Bloggers Fantasy Baseball League.

Last Week

James defeated Seamus, 5-3. The winning batting average in this one was .227. Not much in the way of contact hitting going on here. In fact, each side only had one hitter reach .297 or higher. The newly acquired Lance Berkman went on a tear for James, hitting .286 with 8 runs, 4 home runs and 9 runs batted in. Carlos Delgado (4 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, .308 AVG), David Wright (4 R, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB, .273 AVG) and Eric Byrnes (3 R, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB, .296 AVG) lead Seamus' offense. On that side, James and Seamus were split with 2 victories each and a tie.

The pitching side is where it tipped in James favor. He won saves (7), strikeouts (55) and WHIP (0.98!). They tied in wins and Seamus took ERA with a low 2.84. Chad Billingsley (11 strikeouts) and Ted Lilly picked up wins for James while the saves came from Bobby Jenks (4), Jose Valverde (2) and Billy Wagner (1). Jeremy Guthrie added 13 strikeouts. Seamus' victories came from Brandon Webb and Mike Mussina with his 2 saves coming from Todd Jones.

Just when I thought I was making some progress, Dave wiped me out by the score of 8-2. His offense was incredible (38 R, 10 HR, 51 RBI, 14 SB, .322 AVG... holy mackerel) and he swept the side. Dave's hitting was pretty balanced, but Chase Utley put the biggest week together with 7 R, 3 HR, 8 RBI, 2 SB and a .400 AVG. Juan Pierre had 8 stolen bases! Carlos Lee led my side with 4 R, 3 HR, 9 RBI, 1 SB (i.e. my only stolen base) and a .320 AVG.

Pitching was where I picked up my 2 victories, thanks to 6 saves and 43 strikeouts, but Dave still won that side by taking wins, ERA and WHIP. My pitchers were just bad. Even guys I've come to rely on, like Pettitte and Verlander, killed me. Joe Borowski and Mark Buherle had my victories while Borowski (3), Octavio Dotel (2) and Mo (1) had my saves. Dave's 5 wins were spread around with Dan Haren, Tom Glavine, Matt Capps, Akinori Otsuka and Carlos Zambrano each winning a game. His 3 saves came from Capps (2) and Jason Isringhausen (1).

Top 3 teams in the league:

1. Mike (River Ave. Blues) (77-49-4)
T2. Ben (River Ave. Blues) (70-58-2)
T2. James (67-55-8)

This Week

James (T2nd, 67-55-8) vs. Patrick (8th, 58-66-6).

Seamus (10th, 47-74-9) vs. EJ (Pinstripe Potentials and Pending Pinstripes) (6th, 58-61-11).

The A.L. all-star team has been announced (save for the final vote, which no Yankees are on, anyway) and A-Rod, Jeter and Posada have been named to the squad.

A-Rod led all vote getters in either league with 3,890,515 votes. Jeter came in second with 3,199,571. Ivan Rodriguez will be the starting catcher for the American League, but Posada was selected as a player's pick. It's A-Rod's 11th, Jeter's 8th and Jorge's 5th.

With June coming to a close, I thought we'd take a look at Mo's season divided by the 3 months of baseball played so far.

Month  G W L  S BS   IP HR BB  K   ERA WHIP  BAA
April  9 1 2  1  2  7.2  1  3  8 10.57 1.83 .333
May   10 0 1  3  0 10.1  2  1 10  1.74 0.77 .189
June  10 1 0  6  0 12.0  0  1 12  1.50 0.92 .227
Total 29 2 3 10  3 30.0  3  5 30  3.90 1.10 .246

As you can see, he's had 2 awesome months (not his fault he's not being used) and one really, really bad one. That first one was so bad that it's pulled his overall numbers up a ton. But, if he continues to pitch as strongly as he did in May and June, those numbers will continue to come down, as well.

The Newsday.com blog Keyboard Quarterbacks is running Mustache Madness, a head to head tournament pitting the great mustaches in New York sports history against one another. The first round is over and the second round is now underway. See the full bracket.

Of the Yankees in the tournament, Goose Gossage, Thurman Munson, Tony Pena, David Wells, Sparky Lyle, Catfish Hunter, Willie Randolph, Don Mattingly, Reggie Jackson and Sal Fasano resigned (current or former Yankees account for 10 of the 16 left). Meanwhile, Tom Gordon, Gary Sheffield, Billy Martin and Jason Giambi fell.

The Yankees are starting to make some moves, the first of which is calling up Edwar Ramirez to take Chris Basak's spot on the roster. The NY Post confirms the call-up.


In other news, Bill Madden, who apparently knows nothing about player development or the state of pitching in the Yankees system, tries to bury the Yankees minor league personnel. Now, I could understand if this piece was written 2 or 3 years ago but now? Really? When Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein put the Yankees system at #4 at the start of the season and Baseball America even points out the fast rise of the organization, I don't know how you can really write the following line... but Mr. Madden does it, anyway.