Yankees 6, Red Sox 4

Found out about this the old-fashioned way: eating breakfast at a greasy spoon in Dallas; got up from the outdoor table to walk to the metal newspaper box in order to buy the Dallas Morning News and retrieve the "ball scores." That Swisher. Two more home runs.

Rangers 10, Yankees 6

Saw this one in a poker room--win three straight against the Rangers, overcome 2 Hamilton home runs in the same game, overcome your own lack of CC . . . and this is what happens when you play with house money. Six games up--against, among others and improbably, the Orioles. Bring on the Red Sox.

Yankees 3, Rangers 2

A close-run thing--Hamilton did his best George Brett imitation.

Yankees 3, Rangers 0

Kuroda! They'll need him if Hughes doesn't come around.

Yankees 8, Rangers 2

My favorite game in about a month. One thought: Nick Swisher. As I've made clear before, people look at Swisher's cherubic face, his smile, his sideburns, his dopey commercials, and assume he's some glorified Yankee mascot. He's not. Nick Swisher is a badass. The former football tight end, brought in almost as an afterthought to CC, AJ, and Tex in 2009, has provided an element to the Yankees that was missing, previous to 2009. Nobody remembers how the Yankees, before 2009, were dismissed as too gentlemanly, certainly too refined to mix it up with the 2007 Red Sox (Youklis, Millar, Varitek, Schilling), or the 2008 Phillies (Halladay, Rollins, Utley, Victorrino). So they went and got CC, and Tex, and Swish. And then they got mean.

Blue Jays 10, Yankees 7

Gald I missed it. 5 ahead of Tampa, and--oh man--Baltimore still hanging around.

Yankees 5, Blue Jays 2

Sorry I missed it.

Yankees 10, Blue Jays 4

Okay, anice wi. But WHAT are the Oriles doing, hanging around?

Yankees 4, Tigers 3

All the strengths and weaknesses of the Yankees, on display. Strengths: power, bullpen. Weaknesses: Shaky (as of late) starting pitching, on-base percentage, reaction to misfortune. In a game where the crucial moments seemed to cluster 200 feet down the left field line, the Yankees, for the second day in a row, seemed determined to thrust the game at the Tigers, who, in the end, didn't seem to want it. Things have been going so badly for that, last night, when Cano misplayed the double-play grounder; and today, when Andy Dirks hit the now-it's-foul-now-it's-fair ball down the left field line, every Yankee fan was on the same page: Here we go again. This was Soriano giving up the ninth-inning home run in Oakland, Felix Herandez going Sal Maglie and hitting three Hall of Famers. This was the Yankees having to face Verlander and King Felix in rapid succession, and--of course!--losing both games. Forget this game . . . Until the eighth. The good ol' longball . . . Then the ninth: Avila doubling and hancuffing Ibanez--every fan was on the same page. Note that, with one out, the Yankees played for the double play, seemingly certain that the tying run would come in and they would worry about it in extras--if it got that far. Then, Soriano, who got them into that mess, gets them out. Line out, pop-out, scary fly ball to Granderson--or rather not quite to. Three outs, and ballganme. And here come the lesser mortals in the bullpen.

Yankees 10, Tigers 8

A trainwreck of a game. But a win. Baltimore defying gravity--hanging in there with their incredibly awful run differential and . . . Oh, my 4.5 games.

Tigers 7, Yankees 2

Verlander. Whaddya gonna do?

Yankees 6, Mariners 2

Just a lovely win--mindful of those Sunday games at the old stadium, when the sun beat down so hard you could see the stitching in Mike Mussina's cap.

Mariners 1, Yankees 0

King Felix, as dominant in the ninth inning as in the first--maybe more. Whaddya gonna do? Kuroda and the bullpen were stellar. Just not enough today. Come back tomorrow.

Yankees 6, Mariners 3

Until the ninth inning, just about the very first end-to-end pitching-fielding-hitting-baserunning Yankee game in oh, about three weeks. Or maybe it just seemed like that. Oh yeah, the first Red Sox game a week ago was pretty good, the Granderson slammy and all. But otherwise? Swisher seems back. If Tex is not, he's nearly so. Thanks to what CC did in innings 1-8, he two-run homer was unconsequential. So we'll see about today.

Yankees 12, Orioles 3

About time.

Orioles 11, Yankees 5

Someone tell me the bright side. A 5-0 lead squandered? The secondary stopper melting down? Three of the projected eight Opening Day defenders now sidelined? Their All-Star (as of last year) catcher batting .188? Gardner and Mo out for the season? A-Rod, Tex, Pettitte, and Joba suffering varying aches and pains? Cano only now climbing out of the worst slump of his career? Check, check, check, check, check, and check. Assume Cano is back to snuff. Are he, Jeter and Granderson supposed to play three-against-nine? Is what would be, if everyone were healthy, a talented (Nix, Stewart) and experienced (Ibanez, Jones, Chavez, and you can even count Ichiro) bench supposed to produce like frontline players, with no bench to speak of behind them? 5 1/2 games, and the Orioles are the least of the Yankees' worries.

Orioles 5, Yankees 4

Genuine slump, anyone? Don't wanna hear nothin' bout no one-run games. the '27 and '98 Yankees, maybe the two greatest teams of all time, won a crapload of one-run games. That feat made their teams more impressive, not less. 3-8 since Oakland. The scores of the eight losses: 4-3, 3-2, 2-1, 5-4, 4-2, 8-6, 3-2, 5-4. That's an 0-8 in games they've been outscored only 34-24: 1.25 runs per game. That's eight losses, versus zero wins, in which their pitching and defense have given up a tolerably respectable 4.24 runs per game. Dig deep for the crucial numbers. These Yankees: First in slugging percentage. Third in on-base percentage. Fifth in runs. Batting average? Tenth. 0-35 when trailing after eight. Translation? First, too dependent on the long ball. Granderson and Tex are stuck around .250; Martin, who is apparently the catcher for the long haul, is looking up at the Mendoza line. Second, when top-flight relievers throw strikes, they're cooked. Third, with Pettitte out, when they don't win with CC and Kuroda, they put themselves in a terrible position. So we come back tomorrow. 6.5 is your cushion.

Red Sox 3, Yankees 2 (10)

2-0 Red Sox, Bottom 8. When Martin made it 2-1 with a homer in the eighth, then tied it up with that RBI single in the ninth--his most beautiful hit of the season--I was all set to say, "You cannot stop Russell Martin, you can only hope to contain him!" Instead, one tenth inning bloop later, on the heels of a game-winning triple on Saturday, and you can now apply the above to . . . Red Sox' Pedro Ciriaco. Yeah, I know. Who? The skinny kid. Still 7 1/2 games. Push the O's out of sight, all is forgiven, for now.

Boston 8, New York 6

Missed it, and glad I did--Fox in Houston stayed with the terrible Giants-Dodgers game even after the rain lifted; Yankees came back to tie, lost in ninth. Lately they lose these games is all.

Yankees 10, Red Sox 3

Against all mathematical odds, the Orioles (despite losing to Okland tonight, in a thriller all the way to near the end that saw four lead changes) remain in second place while the Red Sox remain in fifth. The Red Sox' run differential is, in the aggregate, 85 more than the O's--very nearly one run per game. And yet they lose. People had said Ibanez had slowed down, that Tex had a tired bat . . . and now A-Rod went down just as he was starting to play his best baseball in a year and a half. If CC wins tomorrow . . .