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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After last night’s Yankees debacle-cum-Curtis-cum-HOLY CRAP MARIANO IS BETTER THAN YOU, one comment was voiced by a number of different people:

“The Yankees still haven’t hit their stride.”

The Yankees, at 45-27, are a game and a half better than anyone else in the Major Leagues (Texas, yes that Texas, is next at 43-28, followed by Tampa and Boston). Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes are having such decent seasons that there are arguments as to whether one or both of them ought to go to Anaheim in a couple of weeks. Robinson Canó is hitting like an MVP.

The team is second in runs scored and OPS in the Majors, and first in OBP. Their total pitching and starting pitching both have ERAs in the Major League top ten.

Perhaps most telling, the Yankees have a run differential that’s twelve points higher than the next closest team, and thirty points higher than any other division leader.

Yet, that comment from last night was repeated by a number of people:

“The Yankees still have not hit their stride”

The claim is not baseless. Mark Teixeira, the Yankees’ three hitter, has a season line of .229/.347/.405. Alex Rodriguez, the clean up hitter, has a line of .280/.358/.472 which would be maybe not so crazy except that A-Rod, a guy with almost 600 career home runs, has just nine so far–a pace to hit about 24 or so for the season. This is a guy that still hit thirty home runs last season after missing a month.

AJ Burnett, the team’s second starter, hasn’t won a game this month and has an ERA over 10.00. Until the 15th of this month, CC Sabathia hadn’t beaten a team not named Baltimore since April 16.

The Yankees have been playing, pretty much since the beginning of May, without a DH. Say what you will about Posada, but he’s still a catcher the Yankees are asking to DH, making Cervelli catch a lot, and thus become over exposed in the process. (In other words, the Yankees are playing a bit like a National League team).

Writ simple, the Yankees are on pace to win 101 games this season. That’s pretty darn good, even if it may not necessarily be enough to win the crazy AL East (which is a comment more on the alignment system than anything else).

So what happens when Teixeira starts hitting, A-Rod starts hitting home runs, Jeter stops swinging at so many darn first pitches, AJ remembers how to be good AJ, and Joba pretends it’s 2007 on a consistent basis?

If you’re not a Yankee fan, I’d be afraid. I’d be very afraid.

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1) The Orioles won a game after being down four runs in the eighth inning.

2) The Padres are three outs from sweeping the Giants.

3) The Cardinals lost to the Astros–again–and the Astros even hit a home run (!)  (Then again, the Yankees haven’t hit one in a while, so…)

****

The point is, in baseball, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.

The Yankees dropped their second series all season, so while they may not have played particularly well against the Tigers, I’ll take winning nine of eleven series every. single. time.

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Tonight’s performance by AJ Burnett is exemplary of why have the good AJ/bad AJ dichotomy. It was also only the third time all season an opposing starter had completed seven innings (J Pineiro and D Price being the others)

So I’ll leave you with this, instead, because it’s a happier thing.

(You can also check the “For Your Viewing Pleasure” link, which has a link to the actual video on the MLB archive)

Also, Alex Rodriguez had a home run, no Yankee got hurt, the Yankees did take two out of three at Boston, and Romulo Sanchez saved a bullpen that’s likely to get killed between tomorrow and Tuesday.

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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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Last night’s game might have been one of the most sloppy Yankee games I’ve seen in recent memory.  Thus, for my sanity, as much as anything else, here are some reasons to back away from the GWB:

• CC starts today.
• Teixeira had a hit last night!
• A-Rod would have tied the game if Julio Lugo wasn’t so out of position! (yes, I know I’m stretching)
• Hughes had nothing and still lasted 5.2 innings and left with a lead.

Mostly, though, I’m optimistic because of this:

• The Yankees made a game of it in the ninth inning.  Instead of going down 1-2-3, they had the tying run on third base.  You get the feeling, perhaps, that had this game been played at home, the Yankees would have found a way to win it.  I don’t think that 2010 becomes the Sequel to the Season of the Walkoff, but seeing the Yankees not giving away at bats is an encouraging sign.

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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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I was going to attempt this post in the vein of Jay-Z’s “99 problems and a bitch ain’t one”, but the thing is, the Yankees don’t actually have 99 problems.

Well, I’m sure they do, but I got stuck after 34–and that was with the majority of them being completely nonsensical.

So where does a manager who brought the Yankees a 100+-win season and their 27th World title in his second year with the team–and third, overall–rank in terms of issues the Yankees may deign to consider as the dawn of the 2010 season approaches?

Pretty far down. I can think of a lot others–both serious and not-so-serious–(these are only in the order they occur to me)

Oh. And for the record, since this seems to sail over some people’s head: If the following is all that plagues your franchise, you are in remarkably good shape.

For instance,

1) Nick Johnson, who history tells us will probably get hurt at some point, is supposed to be the fulltime DH.

What happens when Johnson goes down? Right now your fillers are Randy Winn and Jamie Hoffman; otherwise you’re talking Posada DHing and Cervelli catching, and if Cervelli goes down, you’re rushing Jesus Montero. Johnny Damon would be the perfect fit here, of course, but it looks like both sides blew that one.

2) Jeter’s 36, Mo’s 40, A-Rod’s 35, Posada’s…you know what? I’d rather not know.

For a team that prides itself on getting younger, many of the most important players–Jeter, Mo, A-Rod, Posada, Pettitte–are all on the wrong side of 35.

I’d hate to be considered agist, but the older you are after your mid-20s, the easier it is to wear-and-tear and get hurt, and the Yankees, as 2008 showed us, can ill-afford a slate of injuries. To keep them healthy, Girardi needs to rest them, but when he does rest them, he gets hammered Jim Caldwell-style for sitting his starters…

3) Our best prospect is a 20 year old kid who’s never played above AA.

Yeah, sure, trades are fun, but we’ve more or less gutted the upper levels of our farm system. Sure, Kelvin DeLeon and Slade Heathcott and Manny Banuelos may turn out to be studs, but they are a long, long way off.

2009 worked as well as it did because we had guys like Cervelli and Peña who, though not All-Stars, could still come up and do their fill, what was needed of them, and not be completely overmatched. It meant that hurt guys, like Posada and A-Rod, could take their time coming back, instead of risking re-aggravating their injury.

4) In the time it takes Joba to set between pitches, I managed to finish, print, revise, print, publish and ship my novel.

Speaking of which, there’s the whole Joba-vs-Phil debate, and then someone is bound to bring up the 8th inning thing again, and meanwhile you want to tear your hair out because you remember that good pitchers aren’t built in a day–even though the rest of the media seems to have forgotten this.

5) That (rhymes with duck)-ing moat.

And Kate Smith. And Cotton Eye’d Joe. And YMCA. And fans doing the wave. And everything that says “let’s be cheesy” instead of just letting fans enjoy the game that’s played on the field, like the main attraction it’s supposed to be.

6) The fact that if Granderson and Winn hit back to back, there exists a potential “Grandy and Randy go back-to-back, ain’t that dandy?” from Sterling.

‘Nuff said.

Yeah, there are a lot more problems, I’m sure, but the point is, all things considered, Joe Girardi isn’t really a worry.

Yes, if the Yankees miss the playoffs it will be 2-of-3 years that they missed, but let us not forget that in 2008 the team lost many of its best players due to injury for extended time and still managed to win 89 games–which would have made the playoffs in at least two other divisions.

Then, last year, Girardi and his team won over 100 games, far and away the best team in the league, and virtually steamrolled through the postseason.

Honestly, there are other New York coaches–Tortorella, Coughlin, whatever dude manages the Mets–that should find their seats a whole lot hotter…

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Yankee fans–the majority of them, anyway–learn fairly early on to believe that anything is possible; that there is no decent reason why their team can’t win night after night and year after year.

Jets fans…well, not so much.

I realize this may be hard for a number of Yankee fans to comprehend (hell, I can’t), but here goes:  before this January, the Jets had won a total of six playoff games between the 1969 Super Bowl and 2009.  They had not won two playoff games in the same season since 1982–(look away if you’re older than me)–a full four years before I was born.

The Yankees, of course, have had no such issue–missing the playoffs only once between 1995 and 2009, and having won seven titles since the Jets won their lone Super Bowl.

So now that the Jets sit one game away from the Super Bowl, what’s a Yankee/Jets fan to do?

First of all, there’s what I say when someone walked in last Sunday as the Jets had a lead with 3.55 left to go in San Diego:

“The Jets have no business winning this game”.

Forget that, the Jets had no business playing that game (or so we thought).  The nine-and-seven Jets had only made the playoffs because a bunch of teams all lost on the same day, the Colts decided to rest their starters and the Bengals had nothing to play for, right?

Okay, so maybe you could give the Jets the Wild Card game because they’d just played the Bengals and they matched up well and because Chad Ochocinco is a little whack, but San Diego would set things right, right?

The hottest team in the league could not have been gifted an easier opponent, right?

Then the words of another ring in my ear:

“Hey, you never know,” and it’s followed by a couple missed field goals and interceptions and what do you know, the Jets, who weren’t supposed to be the better team in their own city, are playing for a conference title.

The Jets, of course, are certainly not supposed to beat the Colts, who have to go and prove that resting their starters still wasn’t a mistake–but then you remember that the Jets are out there to show that their beating the Colts had nothing to do with the Colts playing poorly as it did the Jets playing well, and you begin to think that, hey, anything is possible.

The Yankee fan in you begins to creep out, long hidden in the depths of winter, it’s hungry for some action, and right now it has the perfect opportunity.

If the Jets have gotten this far, halfway home, you say, why can’t they go just that little bit further?

Even as recently as a week ago, few not named Rex Ryan would have believed it, and most who did were those who where green and white and shoulder pads to work.

Now, though, it’s different.  It’s not just a nice story about a team that caught a few breaks.  It’s about a team that earned its right to play on Sunday, earned every little bit of that right.

No one ever questions the Yankees’ right to be in the postseason, or their right to be in the World Series.  If they make it that far, it’s because they’re that good, not that the other team is that bad.  We accept this as fact and don’t blink even when we win a World Series on the strength of 87 regular-season wins in 2000.

Why should the Jets be any different?

If you make it this far, there is every reason to think that you can go further, still.

At some point, the Jets stopped being lucky and started being good.

Believe.

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[I'm working on something big. I have been since yesterday evening and I haven't the slightest idea when I'll be done. So if the posts these next couple of days are spotty, this is why. I think, though, should I finish in the manner I want--and it is doable once I figure out how--it will be well worth it.]

There are a lot of reasons you can say that the Yankees had a successful 2009.

They pitched well.

They hit the baseball.

They played solid fundamentals when other teams did not.

So on and so forth.

There is, however, in my mind one thing that stands out, one crucial difference between the success of 2009 and the failure of 2008 and it is thus: With a few exceptions, this was a team that managed to stay healthy all year.

That’s a pretty significant feet.

Let’s compare.

In 2008, the Yankees lost Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui for more or less the entire season, lost Chien Ming Wang halfway through, lost Johnny Damon for a few weeks, lost Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, lost Brian Bruney…on and on you can go, and I know I’m missing people. Even Andy Pettitte pitched the second half with an injured shoulder.

In 2009, the Yankees lost Xavier Nady for the season, Wang for the majority of the season with a brief June interlude, Alex Rodriguez for a month, Brett Gardner for a month, and their catchers for a couple of weeks.

The difference, however, is that in 2009, with the exception of Nady and Wang, all of the injured players made a full recovery. Rodriguez, Molina and Posada were all hurt early in the season, but returned early. Posada returned before Molina and Molina’s replacement, Francisco Cervelli, performed much better than many of us had hoped.

With the exception of Wang, the starting rotation stayed healthy–Sabathia, Burnett, Pettitte and Joba made nearly all of their starts–without question more production than the ’08 Opening Day rotation of Mussina, Pettitte, Wang, Hughes and Kennedy.

If 2007 and 2008 were the years where everything went wrong, 2009 was the year where everything went right.

Now that the World Series has been one, I no longer need worry about mentioning the team’s good health becoming a jinx.

Unless, of course, someone decides to play an off-season pickup basketball game…

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