Mussina tops Jays for third straight win

Mussina tops Jays for third straight win

Righty's seven strong innings help Yankees gain on Red Sox

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- The Yankees are almost certainly going to be in the playoffs, and Mike Mussina is almost certainly going to be a part of it.

Making his third start since returning to the rotation, Mussina moved closer to locking up a potential playoff start on Sunday, pitching seven strong innings against the Blue Jays to help the Yankees to a 7-5 victory, the 250th of Mussina's career.

The effort moved the Yankees to within 1 1/2 games of the Red Sox in the American League East as they close in on completing a historic comeback. New York's magic number for clinching a playoff spot dropped to two, as the Yankees remained 5 1/2 games up on the Tigers in the AL Wild Card race.

"We're just playing baseball the way we wanted to play it from the beginning," said Mussina (11-10). "We had a lot of struggles in the beginning of the season, and now, with a week to go, we're in the position we want to be in. We're playing the game the way we want to play it. It's not anywhere close to the same team it was in April and May."

The Yankees have won 14 of 17 to improve to a season-high 25 games over .500. New York will complete its home schedule on Monday, making up an April 25 rainout, before playing its final six games on the road.

"This is the time of year that you want to play well, because the pressure is on," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "You have certain things that you need to accomplish. We've played well under pressure all year. The most important thing is to make sure we don't lose our edge."

Mussina, who had to be pulled from the rotation in late August after three consecutive horrid starts, has re-emerged in September to regain Torre's trust. With the exception of a three-run blip in the second inning, Mussina held Toronto scoreless in six of the seven innings he pitched on Sunday, including retiring nine straight to close out his start.

"I'm just glad [Torre] gave me a chance to go back out there and pitch," Mussina said. "He didn't have to. He made a decision and could have stuck with it. They let me get back out there and do it again, and I've thrown the ball pretty well since they let me back out there. It's the way the game works sometimes."

Mussina scattered seven hits and struck out five to move past Vic Willis for sole possession of 43rd place on baseball's all-time wins list, one shy of longtime Torre favorite Bob Gibson.

"It's nice to have been given a chance to go out there for that long a period of time, a chance to win 250 games," Mussina said. "To play with some of the talent and some of the people that I've had a chance to do it, it's been a lot of fun. It's been great, and I hope to go out there and win a few more."

After playing two extra-inning contests to open their series with the Blue Jays -- 25 innings of baseball that spanned nine hours and 45 minutes -- the Yankees were able to record Sunday's win in more efficient fashion.

Toronto starter Dustin McGowan was chased in the fifth inning, as Robinson Cano gave New York the lead on the final pitch from McGowan (11-10), ripping a run-scoring single to right. Facing reliever Brian Tallet, Doug Mientkiewicz nubbed a slow roller up the third-base line that Russ Adams could not barehand, allowing a second run to score on the hit.

Jose Molina then came through with a bloop single to left that brought home New York's sixth run, one of a season-high three RBIs in the backup catcher's three-hit game.

Molina opened the season with the Angels, now a possible playoff opponent, and has provided an upgrade over original backup Wil Nieves. After Jorge Posada caught all 10 innings of Saturday's arduous five-hour affair, Molina was able to offer a full day off and yet not hurt the team offensively -- he has hit safely in nine of his last 10 starts and 10 of 14 since joining the Yankees.

"I'm still adjusting," Molina said. "It's not easy. I've been on the West Coast for seven years, and coming to the East Coast, it's not easy, family-wise or personal-wise. You've just got to step up and do your job, no matter what the situation is. When you get home, you deal with those things."

The two clubs traded three-run innings in the second, as Mussina saw a string of 14 scoreless frames end. Adam Lind had a two-run double and Curtis Thigpen had a run-scoring single for the Blue Jays, but the Yankees answered with run-scoring singles by Molina, Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter in the bottom half, providing Mussina with enough of a cushion to get back to work comfortably.

"He was great," Molina said. "He was hitting his spots. In the second inning, he gave up some runs, but those pitches were good. There wasn't anything bad at all."

Mussina also had strong defense and some fortunate play-calling. Molina picked off Alex Rios on a snap throw down to first base in the third inning, and Melky Cabrera, who preserved a tie game in the 10th inning on Saturday with an outfield assist, turned in another on Sunday to throw out Gregg Zaun at the plate on a questionable tag play ending the fourth inning.

Like on Saturday, the Yankees had to endure a bullpen crisis, but this time they had a magic answer. Before the game, Torre had indicated to reporters that rookie sensation Joba Chamberlain would be unavailable, but he reversed field after consulting with general manager Brian Cashman and pitching coordinator Nardi Contreras, the architect of the so-called "Joba Rules."

"We're on the move with this thing," Torre said. "A lot of it is going to be judged on pitch counts. The days off will vary. Certain situations have to be right for us to be in a position to use him, and unfortunately, it called for that."

Reliever Luis Vizcaino surrendered a two-run homer to Matt Stairs in the eighth, but Chamberlain -- pitching on his 22nd birthday -- was summoned to pitch out of a two-out, two-on jam, striking out Lind on a slider to end his inning. Since Chamberlain threw just five pitches to Lind in the eighth, the Yankees sent him back out for the ninth, when he set the Blue Jays down in order for his first career save.

"It's all fun," Chamberlain said. "It's all new experiences every time I go out there, so it's good."

Mussina out of rotation; Kennedy up

Mussina out of rotation; Kennedy up

Veteran may return to starting staff after being skipped once

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

NEW YORK -- Mike Mussina could not find the answers to correct his recent lackluster performances, and the Yankees have run out of opportunities to fix them on the field.

Yankees manager Joe Torre confirmed on Tuesday that the club will skip the 38-year-old right-hander for at least his next turn through the rotation. Instead, Ian Kennedy, a highly touted Minor League prospect, will make his big league debut on Saturday against the Devil Rays.

Torre said he broke the news to Mussina in a one-on-one meeting after the Yankees completed batting practice on Tuesday, prior to a 5-3 victory over the Boston Red Sox.

"He was disappointed," Torre said. "That's one of the tough conversations to have to have. He was down about it. But he's a teammate -- he was out there at the end of the game, shaking hands like everybody else."

Mussina's performance fell off rapidly following a four-start winning streak that carried him into mid-August. The veteran allowed nine hits and six runs over three innings in a 16-0 Yankees loss at Detroit on Monday; his last three starts have produced 25 hits and 20 runs (19 earned) over 9 2/3 innings, a 17.69 ERA.

Overall, Mussina is 8-10 with a 5.53 ERA in 23 starts for New York this season, the first year of a two-year, $23 million contract signed over the winter. He did not speak to reporters before leaving Yankee Stadium on Tuesday.

Torre said that he encouraged Mussina to continue his normal throwing program and left open the possibility that Mussina could rejoin the rotation after the Devil Rays series. Torre seemed to rule out the idea of using Mussina in relief.

"I'm really not thinking about him as a guy coming out of the bullpen," Torre said. "We'll skip the one start and see what we see. We'll look at it and we'll make an evaluation."

Kennedy, 22, was the Yankees' first-round selection in the 2006 First-Year Player Draft from the University of Southern California. A finesse pitcher who has been compared to Mussina in terms of his command and approach, Kennedy features a low-90s fastball, a changeup, a knuckle-curve and a slider as part of his repertoire.

"We're at a point in the season, with 30 games left, [where] we're going to take what we can and run out whatever we can for as long as we can," Torre said.

Like the Yankees' Joba Chamberlain, Kennedy will be completing a meteoric jump from Class A ball to the Major Leagues in his first full professional season. Kennedy was 6-1 with a 1.29 ERA in 11 games (10 starts) for Class A Tampa and went 5-1 with a 2.59 ERA in nine starts for Double-A Trenton before joining the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees.

At Triple-A, Kennedy had gone 1-1 with a 2.08 ERA in six starts, walking 11 and striking out 34 in 34 2/3 innings. Opposing batters hit just .182 against Kennedy in 146 1/3 cumulative Minor League innings, though he suffered his first International League loss in his last start, an Aug. 25 defeat at Buffalo in which he allowed two runs in 5 2/3 innings.

"He's my best friend and didn't even text [message] me," Chamberlain said. "I'm going to have to get on him about that. It's great. He deserves all of it. I can't wait for him to get up here and experience what's been going on. To see the young guys come in and help, that's great. He deserves every single thing that he's got.

"He's got great mound presence. He understands how to pitch and how to get outs. He's going to do a great job, and it's going to be exciting to see a guy that I've learned to love. To be able to watch him from A-ball to the big leagues in one year is going to be amazing."

Kennedy is primed to become the eighth rookie pitcher to start a game for the Yankees this season, joining Tyler Clippard, Matt DeSalvo, Phil Hughes, Kei Igawa, Jeff Karstens, Darrell Rasner and Chase Wright.

Hughes, who last pitched on Sunday at Detroit, said that the promise of promoting top-level talent to the Major Leagues has renewed hope in a system that was once well-known for shipping out young players as bait for more experienced personnel.

"That's the way it was for a while," Hughes said. "Now, a lot of guys are getting opportunities. It's definitely different. Instead of saying, 'I'll never get out of this spot that I'm in,' [players are saying], 'When am I going to get out of this spot?' I haven't been around that long, but it's definitely changed from when I was first here."

Mussina sets tone in humbling loss

Mussina sets tone in humbling loss

Out by second, veteran puts Yankees in insurmountable hole

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

ANAHEIM -- Mike Mussina led a parade of Yankees pitchers into the path of Garret Anderson's career night. Some three hours later, it ended with a deflating 18-9 Yankees loss to the Angels on Tuesday.

Anderson hit a grand slam and a three-run homer as part of a four-hit, 10-RBI night, serving as the Angels' most damaging offensive performer. The home team called it a historic night, scoring its highest total of runs in a game against the Yankees, while Mussina simply called it "awful."

"It's tough to take," Mussina said. "I think that was in the top-five worst games of my career, right there. When you can't throw strikes, it really hurts. When I was throwing strikes, they were hitting them."

The Yankees fell six games behind the Red Sox in the American League East and lost a game on the Mariners in the AL Wild Card pursuit, falling 2 1/2 back of Seattle.

Mussina endured his shortest career start as a Yankee, battered for seven runs in 1 2/3 innings, his quickest hook since 1995. The early exit forced him to watch from the clubhouse for most of the fireworks -- quite literally, as the California night sky was illuminated by red sparks shooting from beyond the center-field rock pile.

"It never looked like he got into a rhythm," said Yankees manager Joe Torre. "It was the same story. He's such a touch-and-feel guy that when he can't put the ball where he wants to, he gets frustrated by it. That's what I saw."

Anderson's two-run double in the first brought home the Angels' first runs and put him on his way to coming within one RBI of the American League record of 11 in one game, set by the Yankees' Tony Lazzeri in 1936.

Mussina faced eight batters in the second, allowing five runs on five hits in that inning before handing the ball off to reliever Ron Villone.

After a string of four consecutive victories, Mussina has now been hit hard in his last two starts. He was looking to rebound from a season-high seven runs allowed in an Aug. 16 loss to the Tigers and said he felt good in his pregame bullpen session on Tuesday, though obviously the results were anything but acceptable.

"I try not to get too caught up in believing things are going to be one way and that they're going to stay that way for a long time," Mussina said. "This game isn't like that. We all go on hot streaks and we go on bad streaks. Just because you're going good for a while doesn't make the bad times any better."

Asked about the possibility of an injury hampering his performance, Mussina said that there is nothing wrong with him except that he was unable to throw the ball where he wanted.

Likewise, Torre dismissed the idea that Mussina may be masking something, saying, "There's nothing that I know is physically wrong with him."

"Hopefully, there isn't anything wrong," Torre said. "Obviously, with the last couple of starts, I know he concerns himself with it. We certainly do."

The Yankees briefly surged to make the game closer, putting up four runs in the third inning against Angels right-hander Kelvim Escobar.

"We're not going to stop playing," Torre said. "It's just that what we do is going to be based on how we pitch. Tonight, we didn't pitch well."

The Angels greeted Villone rudely when he opened the fourth, as the left-hander did not retire a batter and had to be relieved after allowing a bases-loaded walk to Chone Figgins, accounting for one of four runs Villone was charged with.

"It was the beginning of an ugly night," Villone said. "It could have been stopped if I'd come back and had a good inning. It's ultimately just a bad start to the possibility of us getting back on top."

Edwar Ramirez, twice released by the Angels organization in 2003 and 2005, made his first Anaheim appearance against his old club and surrendered a three-run homer to Anderson in a two-inning appearance, though one of the runs was charged to Villone.

Sean Henn, who was originally thought to be unavailable due to numerous warmup sessions in Monday's loss, volunteered for three innings of relief duty and allowed five runs, including a grand slam to Anderson that drew a curtain call for the Angels outfielder in the sixth.

Henn's performance may have staved off a possible roster move for the Yankees, who could have been left short-handed in the bullpen for Wednesday's series finale. Luis Vizcaino threw 17 pitches in the eighth, and the Yankees were able to keep rookie Joba Chamberlain out of action.

"[Henn] took a bullet for us today," Torre said.

Alex Rodriguez's 41st and 42nd home runs, solo shots off Escobar in the second inning and off Marc Gwyn in the ninth, were reduced to footnotes by the blowout final. Escobar went six innings for the victory, allowing five runs and striking out seven.

Wilson Betemit hit a three-run homer and Bobby Abreu drove in two runs for the Yankees, who have lost six of their eight games against the Angels this season.