The LoHud Yankees Blog

Last night, it was Alex Rodriguez who said the Yankees needed a starting pitcher to step up. Tonight Phil Hughes did exactly that, but it wasn’t until Juan Miranda drew a bases-loaded walk in the 10th inning that the Yankees had a 4-3 win that cut their magic number to one. They also pulled within a half game of the Rays in the American League East. A home run by Rodriguez and six strong innings from Hughes had the Yankees on the verge of a win before a wild ninth inning that saw them blow a lead, then come back to tie.

Associated Press photo of Rodriguez

YANKEES (92-63)
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Lance Berkman DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Brett Gardner LF

RHP Phil Hughes (17-8, 4.31)
Hughes vs. Red Sox

RED SOX (85-69)
Marco Scutaro 2B
J.D. Drew RF
Victor Martinez C
David Ortiz DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Jed Lowrie SS
Ryan Kalish CF
Bill Hall LF
Lars Anderson 1B

RHP Daisuke Matsuzaka (9-6, 4.86)
Matsuzaka vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 8:05 p.m. / ESPN

UMPIRES: HP Phil Cuzzi, 1B Brian O’Nora, 2B Jerry Crawford, 3B Chris Guccione

WEATHER: Temperatures in the 60s, with a breeze blowing in from center field. It feels pretty chilly at the ball park.

STUMBLE IN SEPTEMBER: The Yankees are so far 10-13 in September. They haven’t had a losing record in the final month of a season since 2000 when they went 13-18 and went on to win the World Series.

ONE MORE FOR JETER: With a hit tonight, Derek Jeter will extend his hitting streak to 15 games. It would be the 12th hitting streak of at least 15 games in his career, the second most among active players behind Ichiro Suzuki who has 14.

MORE WITH LESS: Alex Rodriguez has a home run in three of his past five at-bats. He already has 117 RBI and will play, at most, 137 game this season. According to the Yankees, since RBI became an official statistic in 1920, there have been only 19 times that a player has recorded more than 117 RBI while playing 137 games or less. Two Yankees have done it: Babe Ruth in 1929 and 1932, and Joe DiMaggio in 1939 and 1940.

CUTTING IT CLOSE: Eight of the Yankees past 12 losses have been by three runs or less. So have 21 of their 31 losses since the all-star break.

UPDATE, 8:56 p.m.: RBI single by Victor Martinez has given the Red Sox a 1-0 lead in the third inning. Nick Swisher didn’t help things by diving for a ball in right field, playing a single into a double.

UPDATE, 9:13 p.m.: Last night, Alex Rodriguez said the Yankees needed a starting pitcher to step up and give them a big start. Hughes seems to be on his way, but he’s going to need some runs. It’s still 1-0 heading into the bottom of the fourth. The Yankees have Swisher, Teixeira and Rodriguez coming up.

UPDATE, 9:45 p.m.: Hughes is through six innings, but the Yankees still can’t get to Matsuzaka. It’s 1-0 in the bottom of the sixth.

UPDATE, 9:54 p.m.: Hughes walked the leadoff man in the seventh and Robertson is getting loose in the bullpen.

UPDATE, 10:02 p.m.: Hughes is finished after back-to-back walks in the seventh. Robertson is in. Hughes walked off to a big ovation. He gave the Yankees what they needed, but the Yankees homer-happy offense hasn’t done anything tonight.

UPDATE, 10:08 p.m.: Some big outs from Robertson who didn’t let the ball out of the infield. He was pretty fired up when he struck out Anderson to strand runners at the corners.

UPDATE, 10:18 p.m.: Rodriguez comes through for the Yankees, a two-run home run to put them in front 2-1 in the seventh. Kerry Wood is getting loose in the bullpen. Rodriguez has four home runs in the past three days. Every run the Yankees have scored since Friday has come on a home run.

UPDATE, 11:02 p.m.: Ryan Kalish stole two bags, the Yankees infield was playing in and Bill Hall got a game-tying single past Rodriguez at third. Tied at 2 in the ninth.

UPDATE, 11:35 p.m.: While I’ve been frantically rewriting and re-rewriting my running game story, Mariano Rivera has given up the lead, and Jonathan Papelbon has blown a save. It’s now 3-3 in the 10th, and I can’t help wondering if Eduardo Nunez didn’t just locked up a spot on the postseason roster with his steal of third base. He might not be as fast as Greg Golson, but he might be a better base runner, and that might make him a better option as a pinch runner off the bench.

In the early innings of yesterday’s game, Dustin Moseley was in the Yankees clubhouse, not an unusual place for the next day’s starting pitcher to be. He had no idea the Yankees coaching staff was looking for him, and he was initially caught a little off guard when they found him and told him to get his cleats on and get to the bullpen. If necessary, the Yankees were going to use him in long relief.

“I’m a realist. I see what’s going on,” Moseley said. “We just have to win some ball games. For the move they made, being a realist, I understand that. You’ve got to go with your guy. We’ve got to win and Phil’s been starting all year long and doing a great job.”

The decision was made yesterday, and Hughes was told last night. He’d thrown his regular bullpen and done his normal flat ground work. He was prepared to make today’s start, just didn’t know he was actually going to make it until a little less than 24 hours ago.

“We wouldn’t have prepared him for this if we didn’t think it was a possibility that he would pitch,” Joe Girardi said. “Usually if we give guys time off, we give them (full) time off.”

Girardi said there were two factors in today’s decision: One was the state of the bullpen, and the other was the state of the wild card.

“We’ve used pretty much every long guy that we’ve had in the last three or four days,” Girardi said. “I couldn’t envision Hughesy being the long guy and Dustin starting… We’ve been going at it hard here, and sometimes it’s hard when your starters don’t give you any distance. All of a sudden you’re using your bullpen a little bit different that day (and) when you do it four days in a row, things can get a little bit messed up.”

A win tonight — against the team that’s chasing them in the wild card — would cut the Yankees magic number to one with six games to play.

“That’s one of the factors that we look at, sure,” Girardi said. “My job is to make decisions with the information that I have. People are going to look at it the way they want to. We’ve been trying to win games, trying to win our division and trying to win home field advantage. We haven’t stopped doing that.”

• Girardi wouldn’t say whether this will be Hughes final appearance of the regular season. “We will see,” was his answer to the question. “My job is to manage his innings and we’ve been doing that all year long,” Girardi said. “It’s something we talk about on a fairly regular basis. I just felt that where we were today, today was the right day to start him.”

• For now, the Yankees rotation in Toronto will be A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte. That does not seem to lineup Sabathia for a Game 1 start in the division series.

• I sit next to Mark Feinsand for nearly every home game. I’m positive CC Sabathia told Mark that he was starting on Friday, not Tuesday. Girardi, however, said he never told Sabathia that the rotation was going to change. “We told him he was on rotation as long as we need to keep it,” Girardi said.

• That said, don’t be surprised if the rotation changes again in the next 48 hours, especially if the Yankees clinch. “Then we’ll look at it and see what’s best for us,” Girardi said. “But the point is that we have to get in first. We have to win ball games and play better.”

• Yankees relievers who have not been used at least one of the past two days: Mariano Rivera, Dave Robertson, Javier Vazquez and Andrew Brackman. Robertson and Brackman have each been up in the bullpen.

• Just a guess, but the Yankees seem to be saving Vazquez to start if/when they’re ready to realign the rotation for the playoffs.

RED SOX
Marco Scutaro 2B
J.D. Drew RF
Victor Martinez C
David Ortiz DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Jed Lowrie SS
Ryan Kalish CF
Bill Hall LF
Lars Anderson 1B

Associated Press photos of Hughes and Chad Gaudin

Here’s the short version of what Joe Girardi just said.

The decision to start Phil Hughes was made last night, but the Yankees already had Hughes doing his normal between-starts routine just in case something like this popped up.

Beyond this weekend, Girardi said the Yankees will stay on rotation. That means A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte in Toronto. Girardi said plans could change if the Yankees clinch — obviously — but for now everything is on schedule. Girardi said he never told Sabathia that he would be pitching on Friday, despite that fact Sabathia specifically said he was going on Friday.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Lance Berkman DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Brett Gardner LF

The Yankees just announced that Phil Hughes will start tonight against the Red Sox.

If only to play devil’s advocate…

The Yankees have made it clear that they consider a healthy roster — and, in theory, a more productive roster — to be more valuable than home-field advantage in the playoffs. The team has been losing, but the Yankees remain heavy favorites for a playoff spot, and some of the recent days off might actually have helped some of their lineup regulars.

There is, of course, no way of knowing whether the rest played a role in these numbers, but it’s worth considering.

• Since he came back from the disabled list, Alex Rodriguez has been held out of the starting lineup three times. He’s shown no signs of the calf injury returning, and the previous hip and groin injures have not resurfaced. He’s hit .333 with seven home runs and 20 RBI in his past 18 games, and he has three homers in his past two games.

• In the month of September, Derek Jeter has been held out of the lineup twice. When he’s played, he’s had a hit in 19 of 21 games including a current 14-game hitting streak that is his longest of the season. Since the last time he was given a day off — Sept. 11 in Texas — Jeter has hit .346 with the same number of walks as strikeouts.

• Mark Teixeira was limited to one pinch-hit appearance during two days in Baltimore. He essentially had three days off in a span of four days. At the time he was hitting .211 with no home runs in the month of September, hampered by a hand and toe injuries. On Thursday he had his first extra-base hit since Sept. 3, and on Friday he hit two home runs, his first and second of the month. Even after the days off, though, Teixeira has not seen any sustained success.

• Given basically a week off to deal with a sore left knee that had shown no structural damage, Nick Swisher returned to everyday duty last Saturday and had two hits. He’s hit .303 since coming back to the lineup and has two home runs during this home stand. Of his nine strikeouts since coming back, five came in his first two games.

• Robinson Cano, who has not been given any time off, has hit .125 during this home stand. His .272 batting average and .370 slugging percentage for the month of September are his lowest numbers of any month this season.

Tonight was supposed to be a Phil Hughes start. It would have been his 29th of the season, his next-to-last before the playoffs, but Hughes was instead pushed back one last time to further limit his workload.

The Yankees still haven’t given a number, but it seems pretty obvious Hughes entered the season limited to roughly 175 innings. He’ll reach that number with 5.2 innings on Wednesday.

“It’s something I can’t really fight whether I’m used to it or not,” Hughes said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with going out on the field and making pitches.”

Hughes will make his final regular-season start on seven days rest. He’ll make his first playoff start after at least that many days off.

“Mentally figuring out how to handle it (is the important thing),” pitching coach Dave Eiland said. “Pitchers, especially starters, they’re creatures of habit. If they get knocked off their routine just a little bit, it kind of messes with them mentally.”

Hughes seemed to adjust to the extra days off the last time he was skipped. He went 10 days between starts earlier this month but did some extra work — including an inning of relief work — in between. Maybe that’s what made the difference. Maybe Hughes was simply used to the rest. Or maybe his stuff was simply better that day than in his previous extra-rest starts.

“It was probably just coincidental,” Hughes said. “I try not to put too much stock into extra rest or things like that. The fact I pitched better after the second time I was skipped than the first time I would say was just a matter of making better pitches and not necessarily the rest having affected me.”

Here’s Hughes talking before yesterday’s game.

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Associated Press photo of Hughes.

This afternoon, Jon Lester threw seven shutout innings and got his sixth straight win. Since September 3, the Yankees have had a starting pitcher do that — throw seven innings of any kind and get the win — exactly once. It was CC Sabathia last Saturday.

At some point around the seventh or eighth inning, my friend Marc Carig and I realized we had seen this game before. It was then that Marc pointed out the fact the Yankees have had the lead only once during this four-game losing streak. Sabathia gave up that lead in the sixth inning on Thursday, and the Yankees haven’t been in front since.

“Part of it is we haven’t gotten a whole lot of distance out of our starters,” Joe Girardi said. “One was due to a rain delay and there’s not a whole lot you can do about that. We’ve gotten behind in games, which always changes the complexion of a game.”

As we’ve noted many times, the win statistic isn’t a good way to measure the whole of a pitcher, but the fact the Yankees rotation has won just two games in the past three weeks does begin to tell the story. Tonight, Ivan Nova was no match for Lester. That was the long and short of this one.

“It’s hard to play with an edge when you’re down by five or six runs,” Alex Rodriguez said. “…I think the bottom line is it starts with our starting pitching, and we have to have someone come out and step up and go six or seven innings, and the offense has to do our job.”

Here’s Girardi’s postgame.

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• A fair point from Girardi about the frequency of ups and downs: “You can’t make too much of four games, because you take the previous five games and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. You go through those ups and downs and you don’t evaluate your club on a short-term period.”

• Rob Thomson on getting Austin Kearns thrown out at home in the sixth: “Sometimes you factor in the fact you’re not scoring a lot of runs or you’re not getting a lot of hits with runners in scoring position, but that wasn’t the case because we scored a bunch last night. I thought he was going to score so I sent him. It was a mistake.”

• Nova had kind of a typical start. He was very good when he was good, but when things started to fall apart, he unraveled. “He nipped Kalish, just nipped his jersey, and then he lost the strike zone,” Girardi said. “It was the first time he was in the stretch and he walked the next guy.”

• In that three-run third, Girardi had Dave Robertson getting loose, but a double play seemed to buy Nova some more time. “It looked like he was in trouble and it’s a situation where if I need Robby to close out the inning,” Girardi said. “He gets up and get loose quicker than a lot of the other guys. That’s why I was going to go to him.”

• The weird Joba Chamberlain pickoff throw: Home plate umpire Chris Guccione called for time, and it caught Chamberlain off guard. Obviously not thinking about the fact the runner was at second, Chamberlain turned to throw to first and sent the ball into the ground when he saw no one there. “I just kind of panicked, I guess,” he said.

• Speaking of balls in the dirt: Andrew Brackman was up and throwing in the bullpen in the ninth but didn’t actually get in the game. “My first pitch was 40 feet into the ground,” he said. “After that, everything was perfect.”

• Brackman said if people were shouting at him, he couldn’t hear them.

• Jonathan Albaladejo and Romulo Sanchez combined for 1.2 scoreless innings. Every other Yankees pitcher was, in some way, responsible for a run.

• Derek Jeter extended his season-high hitting streak to 14 games.

• Rodriguez has three home runs in his past five at-bats. He’s hit 48 career homers against Boston, the most among active players.

• Curtis Granderson has nine home runs in his past 22 games, and 13 home runs in his past 40 games. That’s after hitting 10 homers in his first 90 games this season.

• The Yankees have lost the home series against Boston for the third time in the past five years. They are 3-5 against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium this year.

• Mark Teixeira was not hurt when he came out of the game. Just a double switch that left Lance Berkman in the lineup.

• A minor move that could come into play tomorrow and next weekend: The Red Sox have signed infielder Felix Lopez.

Associated Press photos of Nova, Rodriguez and Francisco Cervelli being helped out of the Red Sox dugout by Victor Martinez.

Jon Lester was the difference this afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees scored some runs off the Red Sox bullpen, but the seven scoreless innings from Lester left the Yankees with a 7-3 loss that was their fourth straight. Ivan Nova took his first big league loss, and the Yankees bullpen didn’t do a whole lot to pick him up. The Yankees offense managed just two hits off Lester before getting a two-run home run by Curtis Granderson and a solo home run by Alex Rodriguez off the Boston pen.

Associated Press photo of Kearns