Bronx, N.Y., May 6, 2008 — Well, the baseball weather has finally arrived in New York, and the Yankees finally got a day off — at home — yesterday. All of which, sadly, made Tuesday night’s loss that much more disturbing. We’ve come to look on the young Joba Chamberlain as every bit as automatic as Mariano Rivera, and we got burned for that this night.

It was a given going in that this would be a tight contest. Although Yankee bats have shown some signs of life lately, there are still a few unproductive spots in the lineup, and Jorge Posada and Alez Rodriguez are still out with injuries. Cleveland, too, is having trouble scoring runs, so with Fausto Carmona dueling Andy Pettitte, runs figured to be at a premium.

Carmona has been a little wild this year, and he was in this game, with five walks allowed over five frames. A one-out walk to Bobby Abreu in between Derek Jeter and Hideki Matsui singles set the Yanks up in the first, and when Jason Giambi beat the relay and avoided a double play after grounding to Ryan Garko at first, the Yanks had a 1-0 lead.

Pettitte got through the first three innings facing the minimum nine, albeit with a little help when Jose Molina caught Ben Francisco stealing following an infield single on a swinging bunt in the third. Robbie Cano got the first out of the fourth on a nice over the shoulder catch of a popup, but Jamey Carroll singled in front of Abreu with one down. Pettitte had a lead nine days ago in Cleveland on a couple of Giambi home runs until Jhonny Peralta homered to ruin a fine night’s work. He did the same now, and the Tribe had a 2-1 lead. Garko followed with a single, but Andy escaped with back-to-back strike outs. As it was, this three-hit, fourth-inning assault was all he would allow except for the Francisco dribbler until Travis Hafner flared a single to right to lead off the seventh inning.

The Yanks wasted no time in coming back after the Peralta home run. Matsui, who would have three singles, worked a nine-pitch walk, and Giambi drilled a 1-2 offering deep to left center for a game-tying double. Melky Cabrera moved Jason 90 feet with a grounder to second, and Robbie Cano took advantage of a pulled-in infield to slap a single to left, for a 3-2 lead. The Yanks threatened to break it open then, as Jose Molina followed a Wilson Betemit fielder’s choice with a single to left. Johnny Damon laced a line drive to the gap in left center that might even have scored the lumbering Molina, but Cleveland centerfielder Grady Sizemore made a sprawling catch. The Yanks threatened to add to their lead in the fifth when Matsui singled following an Abreu walk. Right fielder Franklin Gutierrez made a great throw to third, however, and umpire Sam Holbrook called Abreu out, though he was clearly safe on a close play.

With that rally prematurely and incorrectly blunted, the Yankee offense was pretty much done. Carmona left after five, and they scratched a single off southpaw reliever Rafael Perez, who pitched the sixth and seventh, and another against righthander Jensen Lewis, who worked the eighth inning. But that was it.

Pettitte stayed in to face Francisco after that seventh-inning Hafner single, and struck him out, his sixth on the night. He had a 64/39 strikes/balls ratio through 6.3, and threw 13 first-pitch strikes to 25 batters. When Kyle Farnsworth retired two straight to close the seventh, Andy was in line for a win — and rightfully so, with the six strike outs, five hits, and just one walk. The Yanks had the Indians right where they wanted them, with Joba Chamberlain warming for the eighth inning.

Then the plan derailed. It was a different Joba this night, and not just because he failed. He came out throwing curve balls, a pitch that is known to be in his toolbag, but not one you’d expect him to use much in the eighth-inning role. We’ve become used to the fastball/slider guy that we saw last year, and that he showed against Cleveland a week ago Sunday in a 1-0 win as well. The curve ball is not a bad pitch, but in mixing it with his slider and heat he walked both Sizemore leading off and Peralta hitting third. He flied Garko out to right, but Cleveland sent out lefty hitter David Dellucci to hit for Guttierez. David promptly turned on an 0-1 fastball and lifted it over the fence in right.

There is a history with Dellucci, a decent-fielding, but weak-throwing outfielder, whom the Yanks picked up from Arizona in a trade for disgruntled rightfielder Raul Mondesi in July 2003. David was in the outfield mix with the club for the next two months. He played well in the field, but not with a bat. He hit .176 in 21 games, and hit one home run. The multi-game audition cooled the Yanks on him, and he went to Texas for two years, where he proceeded to terrorize Yankee pitching. In 2004 he hit .368 against New York, with two home runs and six rbi’s. The 2005 average against dipped to .316, but then he cleared two fences again and hit two doubles, good for another six runs driven in. He has done less damage playing with Cleveland following a stop in the National League, or at least he had until this night.

So let’s see. The Yanks have played with two rookies in their rotation for a full month, and never won a game on either one’s record. Their hitting has been weak, and the performance with runners in scoring position has been particularly ineffective. They do have the injuries to key personnel, so in five-plus weeks we have seen several ways to lose ballgames. And as fans who know that it is a long season, we need to remain resolute as the team grows and learns from the mistakes.

But I have often been stunned a bit when the best and the brightest fail, something we’ve been lucky enough to see relatively few times with Mariano Rivera, for example. May 6 is the 87th anniversary of the death of Frank Baum, the man responsible for writing The Wizard of Oz. If Mr. Baum could rewrite his book with me in mind after a game like this, I would not ask the wizard for a brain, a heart, courage, or even cab fare home, either for the players on the team, myself, or my fellow fans. No. The players will show tomorrow and play hard, they know the job at hand. The fans will line up and cheer them with all their might, they will know in their hearts this is a good team that will win often. Joba will command respect with his hard heat and his mesmerizing breaking pitches. He has stood up to worse in his life, he’ll show courage in this . And none of us will run home; heck, we froze for a month to get where we are. It would be stupid to leave just as things heat up.

No, I would simply ask Mr. Baum’s Wizard for a pat on the back and a reassuring smile. The players, the team, the fans could use it. We play yet again tomorrow.

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!