Bronx, N.Y., September 23, 2007 — The good news for the majority of Yankee fans that showed for the rare daygame in the Bronx Monday afternoon was that hard-throwing A.J. Burnett, who had shut out the club in Toronto little more than a week ago, would not be arriving to make his scheduled start. The bad news was that much of the Yankee club did not arrive either, or so it seemed. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 23, 2007 — A favored term among baseball writers not that many years ago was the battery, referring to the day’s pitcher and catcher combination. The Yankee battery outdueled that of the Blue Jays in a 7-5 win in Yankee Stadium Sunday afternoon. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 22, 2007 — I’m told there’s no truth to the rumor that the Blue Jays and Yanks have decided to suspend this coming Monday’s makeup of an April rainout, simply because they’ve more than made up for it in the nearly 10 hours of baseball they played in the Bronx starting with Friday night’s first pitch. Heck, throw in the 90-minute rain delay before Saturday’s tilt got underway, and they could suspend Sunday’s game too. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 21, 2007 — The Yanks hosted the Blue Jays in the first of four Friday in the Bronx, the last regular-season night game in Yankee Stadium in the 2007 season. Following an oft-repeated script, it was a gorgeous night, and the Stadium was packed. Toronto came in after having swept the Red Sox in three at home, primarily on the strength of superb pitching. The bad news for tonight’s home team was that they brought all the great arms with them. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 19, 2007 — The Yanks looked to be in for an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel against the Orioles Tuesday night, until a fourth-inning offensive explosion. The only thing that exploded Wednesday was one ball off Hideki Matsui’s bat, and perhaps the blood pressure of thousands of fans. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 18, 2007 — Confounding “experts” both pro- and anti-Yankee, Mike Mussina turned in his best performance of the 2007 season in a 12-0 drubbing of the visiting Baltimore Orioles Tuesday night. Almost from the first pitch the cagey veteran was in control in a game that initially had the look of a pitchers’ duel. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 17, 2007 — There was a seasonal chill in the air Monday night as the Yankees hosted the Baltimore Orioles in the Bronx to start the last regular-season homestand of the year. The good news coming in was that the Baltimore team is struggling badly. But the Birds have dominated the Bombers this year, winning eight of 12 with six games to go. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 5, 2007 — Jarrod Washburn may or may not be great fun at parties, but he has one very good parlor trick. For six solid innings he convinced almost the entire Yankee lineup that they could not hit mid-to-high-eighties heat. Mixing in the occasional bender and change, the Seattle lefty knocked the collective bats out of the hands of seven Yankee hitters two-plus times through the order. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 4, 2007 — Yankee lawyers had better get busy finding a case in the rulebook that allows cross-species rooting, because everyone’s favorite squirrel made a reappearance on the right field foul pole Tuesday, and the offense returned with him. If the laughably biased way major league baseball has been adjudicating wayward pitches is any guide, the game is making a case for neutralizing the happy rodent as I write. Continue reading →

Bronx, N.Y., September 2, 2007 — The Yankees’ task this last four weeks of the 2007 is simple: Play well, win every game if you can. No need to do much more minor-league player auditioning than they’ve been doing all year. After all, they had a game begun by their eighth rookie starting pitcher of the year on Saturday. The team needs to play well, and it did not do so this weekend. Continue reading →