BREAKING NEWS

JD Drew has materialized in the form of a pinch hit appearance in the 9th inning. He drew (no pun intended) a two out walk, but the Red Sox lost 3-2.

Bad Endy

Ineffective offense, horrendous relief pitching, and a rash of injuries. It's the Yankees...it's the White Sox...it's the Mets. After a string of miracle wins, the Mets have suddenly lost two of three to Arizona and the first two to Philadelphia. Aaron Heilman did his best Kyle Dial 911 Farnsworth impression, and Endy Catch-It-I-Can Chavez went down with a hamstring injury. Time to fire the conditioning coach?

(How good is El Duque? Good enough to have his own dance [old school, but still a classic]. I think it's perfectly clear why The American Idle doesn't have his own dance. And we know what kind of dances A-ROD enjoys.)

We'll lay off the Yanks for one day, thanks to Cy Wang.

Still no sign of JD Drew (Wily is getting Mo Pena-time). No sign of Chairman Mao, either, for that matter.

Oh, there's panic in Beantown

The Red Sox have lost five out of six, the lead is down to 11.5, and you can sense it. JD and Coco seem to be taking the brunt of it. Granted, we've been hard on JD here, but Coco seem like an OK guy, and has annoyed the Yankees this year. But the real stunning quote comes from Dice-K:

"The Red Sox are a team that doesn't lose many games often," Matsuzaka said. "I felt a sense of urgency to stop the losing skid."

I guess the Boston Massacre II wasn't televised in Japan?

(Hey, let me have my fun for one day.)

Won One for the Clippard

Finally, a solid win - solid hitting, solid start pitching, and while Kyle Dial 911 and the Sultan of Bruney made it a little interesting, Rivera shut the door. A bit of a quick hook for the Clippard (5 innings, 89 pitches), which led to two innings for Beam Me Up Scottie. (I wonder what happens more frequently: Proctor pitches in a game for the Yankees, or Kirk says "Beam Me Up" in a Star Trek Episode?) Also props for the Egyptian one: after not playing in weeks, Cairo had an RBI single and made several plays in the field that Josh Phelps would probably have screwed up.

Interesting note on the Abreu-Dye trade rumor. Apparently this is a case where the media can cause something to happen, rather than just report on it. Cashman must have been overjoyed when reading his Chicago newspaper, which first floated the idea, as he promptly called the White Sox GM to see whether there was really an interest in such a trade. Predictably, the answer was no. (Any chance this was a practical joke either by the Chicago paper or the White Sox to see how fast Cashman could press the speed dial button? If so, it worked.)

Back to the Drewing Board: In case you were asleep last night, Francona pinch hit for the $70 million man in the 9th inning with Varitek, who delivered a pinch hit single. JD hasn't been seen to date in tonight's game, either.

We've Seen This Movie Before

When they pitch, they don't hit. When they hit, they don't pitch. When they hit and pitch, they don't play defense. Well, tonight they managed not to pitch, hit, or play defense. And, ironically enough, the only team they can seem to beat, other than the hapless Texas Rangers, is the Boston Red Sox.

Tonight's culprit was clearly Josh Phelps, who is not long for this team, at least not as an everyday fill in for the injured Doug Mientkiewicz. Phelps is so bad that I have to stop referring to Mientkiewicz as Me-I-stink-o-witz. In addition to throwing the ball into centerfield on a potential double play ball, he grounded into two double plays that killed potential rallies. He can't field, period. Even Giambi was better. I really don't understand why Andy Phillips is not on this team - the guy can play first, not as well as Mientkiewicz, but he can hit a little better. If you were willing to live with Mientkiewicz's low batting average for his glove, why not the same with Phillips? The most notable thing that Phelps has done is level Seattle catcher Kenji Johijma for no apparent reason. Well, at least that did lead to four days off for Proctor (who, incidentally, didn't pitch yesterday or today. That must be a record).

Minor point: A-ROD needs to work on the 5-5-3 double play, which he botched tonight as well as last week in Toronto.

24-31. That means they have to go 15-8 just to get to 39-39, which is where they were on July 1st in 2005. The scarier part is that the 2005 team went 56-28 the rest of the way, to finish with 95 wins. Does anyone sense that is going to happen here? Remember also that Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small went a remarkable 17-3 in 2005, and to my knowledge neither one suffered from a fatigued groin.

Everything Exactly Backwards

I admit, I thought it was over when Pettitte was taken out - not just the game, but the season. For a few hours there, it seemed liked Pettitte was seriously injured, but apparently it was just some stiffness in his back, and he says he will be ready for his next start.

Starting from the bottom of the 7th inning, the game proceeded in exactly the opposite fashion from the rest of the season to date. Farnsworth managed to retire the side without giving up a run (apparently Ortiz has never got a hit off him - go figure). The Yankees tied the game off Hideki-Everything-Will-Be-Ok-ajima, after being completely baffled by him in previous outings. Abreu actually caught one in RF to keep the game tied in the bottom of the 8th. Then, improbably, A-ROD of all people hits an A-BOMB off Papelbon of all people to take the lead. Finally, Rivera records a save against the Red Sox - and retires Ortiz, Ramirez, and the new Yankee killer Lowell to end it. Turning point? I wouldn't bet on it, but at least the season was saved for another day.

(One aside: The crowd was chanting "Where is Roger?" the last two days. Personally, I think a "Where is JD Drew?" chant is order. He was taken out of Friday night's game, presumably with an injury, and wasn't seen since. $70 million well spent).

One Step Back

If you had been on vacation for April and May somewhere without access to baseball, and froze your television set at the beginning of the bottom of the 7th inning today, you might well have assumed that Boston was the team that was 13.5 games behind in the standings. After Wakefield imploded last night, the Yankees managed to knock out Schilling and survive another 5 run, 5 inning performance from Mussina. They had a one run lead and needed nine outs, with a Hall of Fame closer ready to get at least three of them, but of course, not with this team, not this year.

The seeds were actually planted in yesterday's game, and some of the blame has to rest on the manager. Granted, Torre was ejected yesterday, so it may have been Mattingly actually handling the bullpen, but regardless, I doubt the strategy would have been any different. I have no idea while Kyle Farnsworth and Scott Proctor needed to pitch the 8th and 9th innings, respectively, of a game in which the Yankees had a 6 run lead. If Vizcaino and Villone can't get six outs with a six run lead, they shouldn't be on the team. And Proctor drilling Youkilis last night not only forced Rivera into the game, but probably contributed to the meltdown in the 7th today.

Proctor did his job in the 6th, after Mussina gave up the lead, and that should have been it. The whole purpose of having Mike Myers on this team is to get Ortiz out, and if Torre doesn't have confidence in him to get him out with nobody on base, Myers has to be released. Instead, Proctor was brought out for a second inning, after seemingly pitching in every game this year save the four in which he was suspended. Granted, the defense was horrendous - Abreu can't go near a wall, Cano made another careless feed to Jeter, and Jeter himself made two errors. But Proctor should not have been out there. And certainly not after he intentionally walked Ramirez (after Ortiz doubled) - having him face Youkilis again was just asking for trouble. It should have gone Myers-Bruney-Farnsworth-Rivera. Farnsworth may not have been available, which is maybe why Torre left Proctor in (with Bruney pitching the 8th), but that's only because he pitched yesterday in a meaningless situation. Of course, Farnsworth easily could have blown it, but at least you go with the plan you drew up, rather than continuing to throw Proctor to the wolves. It has to stop, or this team is beyond dead. If confidence is gone in the other relievers, you have to get rid of them. Mussina is at best a 6 inning pitcher, and even if Clemens materializes that is the most you are going to see from him, and probably form Clippard as well. Nine outs from the bullpen three out of every five days is going to require more than Proctor and Rivera. The bullpen must be fixed, and right now. Torre is a great manager (just look at what is going on in Chicago if you want Piniella instead), but this Proctor fixation must end.