Bronx, N.Y., May 15, 2011 – The Yankees put up a semblance of a fight in the Sunday night ESPN game vs. the Red Sox, taking their first two leads of the three-game Boston sweep. It had to concern fans going in that, with Sox ace John Lester throwing and aging Freddy Garcia toeing the rubber for the home team, this contest on paper was the one of the three the Yankees were least likely to win. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 14, 2011 – The Yankees dropped another precious home game to the Red Sox, 6-0, on Saturday, and could hardly have looked worse doing so. The numbers, sports websites, commentators, talk radio and the newspaper in full chorus will tell you, bear out that Josh Beckett outdueled CC Sabathia badly, but don’t you believe it. Sabathia proved his mettle early, and had he received any kind of support from his team, I might be writing a very different column. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 13, 2011 – Two struggling teams resumed their age-old rivalry in the Bronx Friday night with the Red Sox coming to town to face the Yankees. Both teams got good work from their starters, and both offenses broke through once to get the game to the seventh inning tied 2-2. But back-to-back long drives to the opposite field made Joba Chamberlain and the Yankees a loser, eventually by a 5-4 score. The two teams played pretty well, and the crowd, at 48,000-plus, up some 7,000 from what it’s been in a cold wet Spring, cheered mostly for the home team, with the usual significant minority going the other way, though New York’s northernmost borough ended up with a quieter than usual evening nonetheless. A slight chance of rain never materialized, and it was pleasant if still cooler than baseball weather. Both teams made mistakes too, but when the Yankees shot themselves in the foot, the hurt lasted longer. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 11, 2011 –You can expect to see and hear plenty of sources lamenting the continued struggles of the Yankee offense Thursday after their 4-3 loss in 11 innings to Kansas City Wednesday night. I get that two runs in regulation is disappointing, and three in 11 innings hard to take. And that the team struggles to score when it doesn’t hit home runs. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 10, 2011 – Freddy Garcia continued to defy Father Time Tuesday night, giving the Yanks yet another quality start in a 3-1 win vs. Kansas City in Yankee Stadium. As has been his wont, Garcia threw everything but the kitchen sink against them, starting second baseman Chris Getz with an 87 mph fast ball, and following with sliders, curves, a change of pace and, perhaps his plus-one pitch of the night, a nasty split-finger, all before getting three outs to get through the first. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., May 1, 2011 – We got to see the bad and the good of Ivan Nova the starter in Yankee Stadium Sunday afternoon, in a 5-2 vctory over the Toronto Blue Jays. The young righty threw less strikes than balls in the second inning once Adam Lind reached him for an opposite-field home run off the foul pole in left. The blast evened the score at one because Mark Teixeira had reached righty Jesse Litsch for a homer to right center in the bottom of the first; Nova went to 3-0 on Juan Rivera next, the first of four batters he would fall behind on three throws. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 30, 2011 – Blame it on the quite vocal Toronto fans several rows behind me, but I had this game all wrong, at least for a while. Listening to them heckle ex-Jays hurler A.J. Burnett once Rajah Davis “tripled” leading off and scored, I witnessed the stalwart pinstriped vet respond to undeserved adversity. What I saw was a Yankee right-hander totally on his game, and looking even better when stacked up against the work of hot shot prospect Kyle Drabeck, who got the start for the visitors. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 28, 2011 – The Yankees fell 5-3 to the visiting Toronto Blue Jays Friday night, largely due to an unfortunate confluence of events: Freddy Garcia took the mound for his first start this season without his pinpoint control, David Robertson had a rare tough outing in relief where he couldn’t throw where he wanted no matter the target, and the Yankee offense showed what happens all too often when they fall behind even if they put runners in scoring position. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 28, 2011 – The Yankees surprised many in their fanbase Thursday night, first by getting a game in after a day of driving rain, then by evaporating a four-day slump, and four-inning no-hitter, in an offensive explosion in the fifth inning. The six-run frame was not just cathartic for the team and its fans. Not only did it merit a Yankee history mention with a team four-batter cycle; it may have fixed a couple of starting outfielders as well. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., April 27, 2011 – Bartolo Colon made his first pinstriped start in the Bronx Wednesday night, and his work electrified a crowd craving success off the disappointment of two dispiriting losses. Pounding mid-nineties heat from pitch one, the rotund vet dominated a White Sox team that has pitched the Yanks tough for three straight games. Continue reading →