[The Yankees won 4-1 over the Orioles; CC Sabathia giving the Yankees eight strong innings and Randy Winn had his first home run as a Yankee, but the lingering stories are otherwise]

Jorge Posada left tonight’s game early with “tightness in his calf” and was going for an MRI tonight. After already losing Curtis Granderson, likely for at least a month, the Yankees can ill afford to use another regular starter.

If Posada has to miss any extended period of time, Cervelli would be your every day catcher, but it is incredibly, incredibly unlikely that Jesus Montero would be called up–he’s hitting below .250 at the moment, and disrupting his development would be a really bad idea.

We have the 2008 season to remind us what the team may be facing if Posada has to miss any extended period of time.

Also: The Yankees had a three run lead in the ninth inning, but Mariano Rivera did not pitch–he never even started to stretch.

Such a deviation from the norm immediately sparked tweets and comments wondering if Mariano was hurt. Bryan Hoch is now reporting that it was stiffness in his left (ie, non-pitching) side. He reportedly felt the stiffness after pitching on Friday.

I don’t need to tell you what Mariano being hurt would mean to the team, so let’s hope that it’s something that will quickly abate and that he will be back on the mound in time for the series with Boston this weekend.

[Edit] Girardi’s words, in today’s postgame: “Level of concern: It’s definitely gotten better each day and he played catch today and felt ok. It would be nice to give him another day off but we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”

Mo, on the stiffness: “the one I felt on the right side in the World Series was worse”

So there is reason to be optimistic.