The game came apart when Mark Teixeira came apart.

The life of the offense, the team and the ballpark seemed to come undone after Teixeira strained his hamstring running to first. The shock of the almost catastrophic injury (in the postseason, any injury to a regular starter may, perhaps, be termed such) was still in full play when Joe Girardi began a series of managerial blunders that hurt the Yankees on the field, and perhaps killed their season.

In list form, you could argue the choices:

1) Starting Francisco Cervelli
2) Not PH-ing for Cervelli in the fourth inning
3) IBBing Murphy
4) Not pulling Burnett
5) The choices of bullpen relievers–
6) Especially going to Mitre, and not Mariano Rivera in the ninth. Even a four run game can be tied with one swing.
7) PH-ing for Berkman in the eighth. This one I’m not sold on–not sure who you would pinch hit with, but even Austin Kearns may have been a better choice than a right handed Berkman.

We could start with Nelson Cruz going to second on a fly-out, but in my mind it was the intentional walk of Murphy with two outs that did it. An intentional walk to bring up Bengie Molina would have, maybe, been okay if Girardi had removed Burnett after the batter, after nearly Ankiel-ing one of the intentional walk pitches. Girardi, however, left Burnett in the game, and one pitch later, an evening of solid work was completely undone by a no-doubt-about-it home run.

Enter the Yankee bullpen, which, aside from David Robertson (who was himself the goat last night), was simply flat-out awful, turning a two run deficit again into a seven run deficit. Sure, the Yankee offense had plenty of missed opportunities, but at least with a two run deficit there is still some semblance of hope. Not so much seven.

So what now?

Do we prepare for a funeral tomorrow? The Rangers have outplayed the Yankees in every inning but the eighth of game one, and the Rangers are certainly a good enough team to win the World Series. That said, teams have come back from 3-1 deficits before–of recent memory, the Boston Red Sox did it in 2004 and 2007 (yes, I know, it feels filthy to aspire to do something a Boston team has done, but in this case, that is the task before them.)

Right now, the Yankees just need to worry about tomorrow. They need Sabathia to do what he hasn’t done and pitch well, and the bats to do what they haven’t done and hit. They need to just flat out win tomorrow, get the series back to Texas, and give New York one more day of baseball.

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So that game didn’t go exactly as planned.

You can divvy it up however you want, but the honest truth is that Phil Hughes did not pitch like a Game Two starter is supposed to pitch, and Colby Lewis did–at least enough to keep the Yankees unbalanced and make his pitches when he had to.

So now the Yankees head back to New York City, with the ALCS tied at one game a piece, and Cliff Lee slated to pitch on Monday and AJ Burnett on Tuesday.

Some, such as Ian O’Connor, might argue it’s time to panic.

Here’s why you shouldn’t.

1) Cliff Lee is not unbeatable, even in the postseason.

In Game Five of last year’s World Series, Lee pitched seven innings, allowing seven hits and five runs, all earned. No, the Yankees did not win that game–but that had more to do with AJ Burnett’s poor start than Lee’s good one, which wasn’t actually a good start. If you remember the Yankees almost completed a ninth-inning come back.

More recently, this August, Lee pitched six-and-a-third innings, allowing eight hits and four runs.

Cliff Lee is a very, very good pitcher. He has mind-boggling numbers in the majority of his postseason starts. He is not unbeatable.

2) Andy Pettitte will be on the mound for the Yankees on Monday, opposing Lee.

Name me another Yankee starter you’d rather have on the hill in the postseason in a Game Three scenario.

3) AJ Burnett is not an automatic loss.

First of all, to get it out of the way, if the Yankees are down 1-2 going into Tuesday’s game, it’s entirely possible Sabathia pitches on short rest. Of course, the Yankees would prefer that from occurring, but let’s say AJ does pitch Game Four.

Last year, at home in the postseason, Burnett was fantastic.

In three starts at Yankee Stadium, in a total of nineteen innings, Burnett allowed four runs. While past performance does not guarantee future performance, it should be of some comfort to know that it’s not as though Burnett has never pitched a postseason game at Yankee Stadium, or never pitched a decent one.

Tommy Hunter, good as he may be, is not Sandy Koufax, and the Yankees’ A lineup is, well, pretty good. They don’t need Burnett to be perfect, they need him to give their lineup a chance.

4) The bullpen has been fantastic.

The Yankees have, through five postseason games thus far, allowed just three runs in the sixth inning or later, and two of those in the sixth inning itself in games one and two of the ALDS. Otherwise, seventh inning on, with the exception of one run in the 8th inning of ALCS Game Three–a game the Yankees led by a considerable margin–the bullpen has been flawless.

Mariano, of course, is Mariano, and David Robertson has taken to pitching in the postseason like a fish in water, but Boone Logan had been great, Kerry Wood’s been good enough, Dustin Moseley was nothing short of heroic on Friday night and Joba Chamberlain’s been good himself.

TBS threw out a stat about the Yankees and the great scoring disparity when it comes to the seventh inning or later–the excellence of the Yankee bullpen has more than a little to do with it.

5) Home Sweet Home

The ALCS is returning to the Bronx, and since the Yankees still can clinch in five games, they have the home field advantage.

Texas, good as they are, pitches worse on the road and hits worse, too.

You can argue that it’s a moot point because it clearly didn’t hurt the Rangers in Tampa, but Yankee Stadium is still Yankee Stadium. Even if it doesn’t hurt the Rangers, it will (theoretically) help the Yankees.

The ALCS has now become a Best-of-Five series, and hey, if you have Andy Pettitte going in Game One of a Best of Five, it’s not the end of the world. Far from it.

The Yankees have been here before; they know what to do.

Keep calm, and carry on.

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Miss me? No? Ah, well, too bad.

Anyway, some hopefully coherent thoughts about the postseason:

1) Since May 1st, Derek Jeter has 148 hits, of which just thirty-four have gone for extra bases, and only one out-of-the-park home run since June 12th. His slugging (.344) is only six hundredths of a point higher than his not-quite-as-awful on base percentage of (.338) in that same time span.

Since May 1st, Brett Gardner has a .380 OBP and .378 slugging. Sure, his OBP being higher than slugging doesn’t suggest he’s a great power hitter, but the argument can and should be made that Brett Gardner should hit lead off for the Yankees in the post season, as their highest OBP guy, and, at this rate, his 29 extra-base hits in the same time span is not sufficiently less than Jeter’s 34 for his lack of power to be such a liability to keep him out of the top spot.

2) A discussion on Twitter emerged tonight over who the Yankees should start game two, Andy Pettitte or Phil Hughes.

I’m falling into the Hughes camp for these reasons:

a) his home/road splits go beyond just the home run: a higher SO/9 and SO/BB rate indicate pitching better on the road, even accounting for the difference in innings pitched.

b) Target Field is a pretty massive ball park, which should theoretically help with the whole home run issue.

c) While you can argue that you’d rather have Pettitte pitching in game five, I think that it’s not the wisest move to plan for game five before you’ve finished games one, two and three. The Yankees’ best bet is, of course, to win the LDS in as few games as possible.

d) If the Yankees do lose game one, they can adjust the rotation if they see fit, although I imagine this is quite unlikely.

That said, the big difference between this year’s Yankees and last year’s has got to be the current confidence in the rotation: last season, besides CC, Pettitte was still healthy and although AJ Burnett was a wild card, he was not downright bad as he’s been for much of this season. This year, there’s CC, sometimes Hughes, pray Pettitte stays healthy…

3) It’s not that this year’s Yankees team is bad or undeserving; but that last season’s, especially after mid-June, was that good, getting better as the year went on. This year’s team started strongly enough, and then stumbled once Pettitte got hurt, Vazquez came up lame and Burnett was, well, AJ Burnett.

That said, this year’s squad has much to commend to it: Nick Swisher’s had a brilliant, consistent year, Brett Gardner has emerged as a legitimate mlb-caliber outfielder, Curtis Granderson’s remembered how to hit of late, and even with Jeter’s struggles you can still argue the Yankee infield is one of the best in the league. Kerry Wood has been simply fantastic in pinstripes, and Boone Logan’s turn around means the loss of Damaso Marte is a little less gaping.

4) So what happens if Girardi fails to win the World Series?

It seems almost unfair that he could make it to the World Series, or even game seven of the ALCS, lose and then not be invited back even when he won a World Series just last year, but, of course, the world of Yankee baseball is not a forgiving place.

I think, in the end, if the Yankees don’t win it all (and even perhaps if they do), it will depend as much on how the events occur as the events themselves; managing a team out of an ALDS win because Francisco Cervelli is hitting instead of Jorge Posada is a little bit different than losing in a game seven bottom-of-the-ninth hit with Mariano Rivera on the mound.

Of course, everything could go right and then Girardi choose not to return, but that’s probably a bridge to cross when it’s reached, to use a cliché.

5) Lastly, on the question of Minnesota or Texas as a playoff opponent, I’ll simply say that either team would offer its benefits and drawbacks, and it’s still up to the Yankees to win the games they need to win–and that, even if they do so, the much-imagined ALCS versus the Rays is not a guarantee, as the Rays would need to take care of business on their end and well.

Neither Minnesota nor Texas is a walkover…

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For the most part, life in Yankeeland is quite grand.

For AJ Burnett, however, it is not so. Just take a look:

Coming into tonight’s game, for the month of June Burnett was 0-4, 10.35, with a slash line of .337/.422/.744/1.166 against, and eleven walks to just fourteen strikeouts. You can see the stats here.

This doesn’t include what he’s done tonight thus far–five walks, five hits and five runs in three innings.

The issue’s apparently gotten so bad, that it was Joe Girardi–and not acting pitching coach Mike Harkey–that came out to talk to Burnett while he struggled in the first inning.

Yankee fans are used to having to deal with Good AJ and Bad AJ, perhaps, but there’s a difference between having one or two implosive starts among many good ones, and having an 09 Wangnerian-run such as he is right now. Given the money and years the Yankees have tied up in Burnett, and his position, trying to figure out a way to get him out of his rut is an imperative.

If we are to be optimistic here, however, Yankee fans can take comfort is that the rest of the staff–Sabathia, Pettitte, Vazquez and Hughes–has been performing admirably of late, helping the Yankees to the best record in baseball. For the moment, the team can weather the Burnett storm.

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[Yes, it is very early in the season and unlikely that these stats will last...however, a full month, or 1/6th of the season, is not entirely insignificant]

1) After AJ Burnett’s great, eight strike-out, one run performance tonight, he now has a 1.99 ERA. This means the Yankees now have 2 starters with ERAs under 2, (Phil Hughes is at 1.44) and Pettitte is just over at 2.12.

This means that CC Sabathia, the Yankees’ number one starter, at 2.74 is the highest non-Vazquez ERA on the Yankee starting staff.

During the game today it was mentioned that the non-Vazquez starters’ combined ERA was 2.15; as Burnett pitched to a few batters after that, that number is lower (albeit probably only by a hundredth or two)

2) Two of the four lowest Yankee OPS’s belong to Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez (.622 and .767, not counting tonight), the 2-3-4 hitters have a .661 OPS combined, and yet the Yankees have had just one game–out of 26 played–in which they have scored less than three runs, and just three when they have scored less than four.

3) Apparently, no one has told Francisco Cervelli that you’re not supposed to go from AA to the Major Leagues and all of a sudden become a better hitter at this level than the others.

Also, the catch he made over the dugout railing tonight was fantastic. Dreamy eyes of doom and all.

There is a lot you can say to qualify these–ie, about ERA being a bad stat and that Teixeira and Nick Johnson are having some really, really bad luck on the baseballs they do put in play–but for the moment, I’m just going to enjoy this.

It’s good to be a Yankee fan.

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Remember, last season, when we all ragged mercilessly on Girardi because he had the temerity to bat Robinson Canó fifth?

Uh.  Yeah.

After two home runs and a double tonight, he’s now batting .407, and slugging .790.  His OPS is up to 1.235–and to put that in perspective, Alex Rodriguez had an OPS in April 07 of 1.297–a difference that at this point in the season is small enough it could be made up with a good game from Canó tomorrow.

Between 2007 and 2010, A-Rod has Canó beat in home runs (13 to and slugging percentage (.882 to .790), but Canó has the benefit of playing on a team that is not knocking on the door of their division’s basement.

If, in fact, Canó wasn’t too busy channeling his inner Albert Pujols, we’d all be talking about AJ Burnett’s start tonight–eight innings, three hits and one walk, no runs.  Out of 116 pitches, 76 were strikes, and given the dichotomy between Good AJ and Bad AJ, tonight was a thing of beauty to watch.  AJ’s ERA on the season sits at 2.43.

The Yankees are now 14-7, and have only played six games at home–they return home tomorrow to face the Chicago White Sox.

Now, if only Tampa Bay would realize it wouldn’t kill them to lose a game…

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Of all Major League teams, thus far, the Yankees rank just twelfth (as of this writing) in hits.

That’s almost as middle-of-the-pack as you can get, given the thirty teams in the league over all. Not all that remarkable, one would think–certainly, one might expect a team which hits so, well, averagely, to be closer to the middle of the pack in the standings.

If, however, you learned baseball fan (which, by this point, you probably are), visit the stats page, and then move to the column third from right, labeled OBP, and click that to sort, you’ll see that the Yankees rank not 12th, but second.

On a team where Mark Teixeira and Nick Johnson are both hitting under .150, and Robinson Canó, albeit briefly, had a higher batting average than an on-base percentage, it can occasionally be hard to believe that the team has not yet had a game where they’ve scored less than three runs, or that they’ve scored five in nine of 12.

Still, if one really wants to know what’s gotten into the Yankees this season, all one has to do is look at the just-completed series with the Texas Rangers to get some idea.

The Rangers are not supposed to be a poor team, pitching wise, yet in this series only one of the three starters pitched more than four innings.

On the flip side, the Yankees starters all went at least six innings–and Sabathia, who threw 73 pitches and had a staggering 58 of them count as strikes, would have certainly pitched longer had not the game been called due to rain. AJ Burnett pitched seven innings; today Andy Pettitte has, despite not having his greatest ‘stuff’, pitched eight.

One can’t discount the Texas offense, either–a team with Michael Young, Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz and Vladimir Guerrerro is hardly the Pittsburgh Pirates or the San Francisco Giants of recent memory.

So here you have it: the Yankees aren’t (necessarily) blowing teams out 10-0 every game, but with the way the starters are throwing and the bullpen is not making headlines (because it is, by and large, doing its job), four runs begins to feel like twenty.

It’s been a while since the Yankees have had this good of an April–not only are they winning, but they are winning against teams that should shape up to be among the league’s elite–so there is certainly a temptation to let it go to one’s head.

Yeah, this team is good, but Yankee fans should know better than most that the baseball season is a marathon (yeah, yeah, cliché and all that). A hot April can turn out to be insignificant if the team levels off in June and July.

That said, the more last season progressed, the better the Yankees became. Right now, the Yankees are pretty darn good, but some of their best hitters aren’t even hitting the Mendoza line, and Javier Vazquez has, well, not been great. So, as good as the Yankees are, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

That’s reason enough to be optimistic, if ever there was one.

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It’s tempting to judge a decision as right or wrong based on whether or not it works out.

While this may be the case in some aspects of life–ie, surviving on a desert island–it is not necessarily the case in baseball.

Since so much in baseball depends simply on pure luck, it is entirely possible to make the wrong decision–starting Hairston in Game 2 of the World Series–and not be penalized for it.

On the other hand, it’s entirely possible to make the right decision and have it backfire. History abounds with plenty of these and I’m sure you can find an example without much thought.

The decision to go with a three-man rotation–invariably one that requires each pitcher to make at least one start on three days’ rest, could end up the most egregious example of a right decision that doesn’t work if the Yankees cannot win tonight or tomorrow.

I’ve had this argument with a few of you, but let’s rehash why the three man rotation is the right decision. It goes something like this:

1) Chad Gaudin has pitched one inning since September. One. Asking him to suddenly make a start–against the Phillies, no less-would be like asking my brother, who hasn’t done much running since the birth of his son six months ago, to have run the NYC marathon last Sunday.

2) Joba Chamberlain, the other option for a fourth starter, utterly bombed in his last start. Don’t try to tell me different–I had the misfortune of seeing that one in person!

Anyway, for what it’s worth, the Yankees actually really have needed Chamberlain in the bullpen, as Hughes has more or less run out of gas, and Girardi, for whatever reason, still seems scared of using Robertson (though he’s getting better).

Joba’s last performance from the bullpen, in Game Four, was stellar, even with the mistake to Pedro Feliz.

***

That the Yankees would go to the postseason with a three man rotation has its roots in the injury to Chien Ming Wang and the fact that, well, Sergio Mitre is still Sergio Mitre.

A healthy Wang that pitches anywhere near his performance pre-June 2008 is a more than competent fourth starter, and this discussion never happens. In fact, it’s tantalizing to think about just how good the Yankees would have been this season if Wang had been healthy and, well, Wang all season long–they won 103 games more or less without him (he had two wins).

***

Such as it is, the three man rotation is the best choice the Yankees could have made given their circumstances.

It should also be noted that Gaudin in the bullpen has allowed Girardi the flexibility of playing bullpen mix-and-match (even if sometimes he shouldn’t), but that has kept the bullpen from being burnt out.

Tonight, the Yankees have a full bullpen available–even AJ Burnett in an emergency–to back up Pettitte’s start.

It’s not a bad place to be.

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(h/t: The Yankee Universe)

The City, it seems, is in a groggy funk this morning.

Lots of people who think a Game 5 loss automatically means the Yankees are going to completely collapse and Philadelphia will win the series.

Clearly, these people did not watch the 2009 ALCS.

Philadelphia’s a good team. The Yankees have their work cut out for them, yes, but don’t forget, it’s the Yankees–not the Phillies–who are up three games to two.

The Yankees haven’t been this deep in a postseason in almost a decade–a series that either the Yankees will win or a series that will go seven games.

How many of you would sign up in February for a team that will play in the sixth and possibly seventh game of a World Series? I guarantee you every single one of you would do so.

Let me say this again, for dramatic effect: the Yankees are in the World Series.

As far as baseball is concerned, you cannot ask for more than that.

The Yankees are the only team in the American League left standing; better than the Red Sox and the Angels and the Rays and the Twins and the Tigers and on and on.

As much as we may worry about Andy Pettitte going on three days’ rest, remember also who Philadelphia is throwing on the mound–Pedro Martinez, who’s had a decent postseason, and Cole Hamels, who is so utterly lost he provoke a teammate to ask “Hey, didn’t you quit?”.

The Yankees, instead of turning to infighting and public remarks about wanting the season to end, have instead chosen to wear it, owning up to when they don’t play well, and taking it in stride when they do.

That’s class.

There is no good reason, no way to convince me, that these 2009 Yankees, that these fine men and centaurs cannot finish the task set before them.

Even if calamity strikes and they do not, I will still hold my chin high–this is one of the best, most fun to follow Yankee teams that there ever has been, and I am honored to be a fan the whole way through. Whatever happens from here on out, nothing will invalidate how much fun this season has been, and how much it has meant to be able to remember why it is we are Yankee fans in the first place.

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You will want to blame Derek Jeter and Phil Coke.

You should not.

If AJ Burnett pitches past the third inning, none of what happens in the later innings becomes an issue.

Not being able to record an out in the third inning is bad pitching any way you slice it.

Part of you may feel for AJ. That is now twice this postseason he has been on the mound for a clinching game and twice now that he has been unable to accomplish it. There is no doubt that unlike some other pitchers (I am looking at you, Hamels) Burnett wanted to be on the mound.

Alas, a twenty-seventh was not in the cards tonight.

It’s not so bad though-Andy Pettitte is on the mound in game six, in the Bronx and the Phillies are without their best pitcher.

There is no reason to dispair.

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