Notes: Peace of mind for Posada

Notes: Peace of mind for Posada

Yankees catcher rests easily after tests come back negative

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

BOSTON -- Jorge Posada's pounding headache had disappeared and the results of a CT scan concurred, relaying that no ill effects remained from a vicious home-plate collision during Saturday's loss to the Red Sox.

For the Yankees catcher, who was broadsided by Boston's Eric Hinske on what was later deemed to be a "clean play" at the plate, such precautionary trips to hospitals have become commonplace.

Posada revealed that he has had the procedures, each requiring approximately 10 minutes, performed during each of the last three winters. The scans offer Posada peace of mind at a point when he can actually exhale and ponder the bruising he takes during the season -- a luxury neither he nor the October-contending Yankees can afford right now.

"You can't think about the negative, and you can't think about the stuff that could happen," Posada said. "You've just got to keep on hoping that everything is going to be fine and you can keep on playing the game.

"It could happen anywhere. It could happen walking down the street and you get hit by a car. You can't really worry about things that you can't control."

Posada believes that, through the course of his career, he has suffered "three or four" concussions. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital after Saturday's 10-1 loss at Fenway Park, and doctors took scans of the 36-year-old catcher's head and neck.

Though they proved negative and Posada said he slept well, the pounding of his headache quieting, Posada was offered designated-hitter duties, with backup Jose Molina assuming the catching role for Sunday's series finale.

Manager Joe Torre said he was concerned that Posada might have to deal with an assortment of foul tips off his mask, an inevitability that the manager would prefer to delay for another 24 hours.

"I need his bat in the lineup right now," Torre said. "We just decided to do the safe thing."

Torre said that he had been informed of Posada's medical status over dinner with the Yankees training staff on Saturday night. Somewhere along the line, Posada's regular trips for CT scans have also been topics of conversation, a personal decision that Torre said has proven wise.

"With what's gone on in football, talking about the cumulative effect of concussions, I think it's a great idea," Torre said. "It's a question no one can answer. I never thought about it until the football situation came up, the fact that there were so many. It's frightening."

Everyone's a comedian: Derek Jeter's immediate reaction concerning Posada's collision with Hinske displayed little concern. Standing in a tunnel outside the visitors' clubhouse at Fenway Park on Saturday, Jeter smirked and assured reporters, "He'll be all right. He's got a hard head."

Later, in a private conversation, Jeter apparently offered his good friend a little more heartfelt reaction.

"He makes fun of it, but he said he couldn't do what I'm doing," Posada said. "That's pretty encouraging."

Never forgotten: Doug Mientkiewicz found his way into the Yankees lineup on Sunday, taking over duties at first base after two days of questionable defensive play by Jason Giambi.

Mientkiewicz's season nearly ended here in June after a violent collision, when he was clobbered by Mike Lowell on a play at first base. Leaving the field on a stretcher, Mientkiewicz -- a member of the 2004 Red Sox who drew the fans' ire by briefly retaining possession of the final World Series out -- was given a standing ovation by the Fenway Park faithful.

They weren't quite as forgiving on Sunday, as Mientkiewicz took a verbal pounding from autograph seekers during batting practice.

"Give back the ball," Mientkiewicz said. "Yeah, I know. I've heard it before."

Torre said he selected Mientkiewicz over Giambi because Giambi's recent at-bats against Boston starter Curt Schilling have not been very good, not because of the hit-by-pitch Giambi suffered in Saturday's contest, apparent retaliation by Josh Beckett.

Rolling Thunder: Double-A Trenton secured the Eastern League championship on Saturday, posting a 10-5 victory at Akron to take the best-of-five series in four games.

The Yankees will recall two players from the Thunder, pitchers Tyler Clippard and Chase Wright, to join the club in New York. Both appeared and made starts for the Yankees earlier this season but are likely to be used only in emergency situations.

"They're champions," Torre said. "Maybe they'll rub off on our guys."

Bombers bits: Ross Ohlendorf, who made his second Major League appearance on Saturday, has made a quick impression on Torre. The Yankees manager likes Ohlendorf's power sinker and competitive attitude, calling him "intriguing." ... The Yankees plan to invite several Minor League prospects to New York to work out with the club and get a taste for Yankee Stadium, but the players will not dress or be added to the roster.

Coming up: Their nine-game road trip complete, the Yankees will return home on Monday to open a three-game series with the Orioles. Right-hander Phil Hughes (3-3, 4.91 ERA) will take on right-hander Daniel Cabrera (9-16, 5.37 ERA) on Monday, with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. on the YES Network.

Jeter's homer lifts Yankees at Fenway

Jeter's homer lifts Yankees at Fenway

Go-ahead shot off Schilling in eighth cuts deficit to 4 1/2 games

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

BOSTON -- Derek Jeter's go-ahead three-run homer on Sunday broke up a back-to-the-future pitchers' duel, lifting the Yankees to a 4-3 victory over the Red Sox on a memorable night at Fenway Park.

Jeter's shot to the back row atop the left-field Green Monster came on a hanging eighth-inning splitter from Curt Schilling, who spent six frames entangled in a one-run fight with 45-year-old Yankees righty Roger Clemens in a rematch of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

Making his first start at Fenway Park since the 2003 American League Championship Series and the 200th Yawkey Way start of his career, Clemens pitched nothing short of the gem he became so well-known for within the stadium's confines.

Clemens rolled back the clock in limiting the Red Sox to one unearned run and two hits over six innings, his first start back after receiving a pair of cortisone injections in his pitching elbow and missing one turn.

Boston got its only run off Clemens in the first inning, when Johnny Damon misplayed a Jacoby Ellsbury fly ball for an error. After a one-out walk to David Ortiz, Mike Lowell came through with a run-scoring single. That would be Boston's last hit until Lowell again singled with one out in the sixth, as Clemens was completing his successful 87-pitch return to Fenway Park.

Instead of Clemens, the victory would go to reliever Joba Chamberlain, who surrendered an earned run after 17 2/3 innings of scoreless work. Chamberlain pitched a scoreless seventh after a leadoff double to Eric Hinske but gave up a solo home run on a high 98-mph fastball to Lowell with two outs in the eighth, cutting New York's lead to 4-2.

Damon's fifth-inning home run over the Green Monster was all the Yankees mustered against Schilling before Jeter gave New York the lead. Mariano Rivera pitched the ninth inning to help the Wild Card leaders take two out of three games in the weekend series, moving within 4 1/2 games in the AL East with 13 games to play.

Wang outdone by Beckett in Boston

Wang outdone by Beckett in Boston

Yanks' ace chased in sixth inning; deficit back to 5 1/2 games

By Bryan Hoch / MLB.com

BOSTON -- On an afternoon when Josh Beckett freely gassed batters with swing-and-miss stuff, the more soft-spoken Chien-Ming Wang was unable to make much of a statement.

While Beckett three-hit the Yankees over seven innings, Wang -- also a front-runner for the American League Cy Young Award -- had his troubles with the Red Sox, taking the loss in a 10-1 Yankees defeat on Saturday afternoon.

"You know, it wasn't one of his great days," Yankees manager Joe Torre said. "What can I say? Beckett was great. He came at us and kept coming at us, and we couldn't mount any kind of offense."

Wang had heard some of the whispers about how his mid-September showdown in the creeping shadows at Fenway Park could help influence voting, but it is a postseason berth -- not awards -- that the Yankees must harbor the most concern about.

With five Boston runs home in 5 2/3 innings, it was a bad day to have a bad day.

"Sometimes, I lost my control," Wang said. "Other times, they got hits."

The Yankees can call a relatively steady 2 1/2-game lead their own in the AL Wild Card race, but they have insisted upon dangling heartier aspirations toward the division, making up some emotional ground with a miraculous comeback on Friday night that made some wonder if nothing was impossible.

Yet if that carrot was to be reached, a three-game New England sweep -- shades of last season's five-game Boston Massacre -- would have made New York's most damaging dent in the AL East deficit, which returned to 5 1/2 games.

"Certainly, it would have made it more reasonable," Torre said of a win on Saturday. "In this game, anybody is capable of losing three or four in a row, or winning three or four in a row. Things turn real quickly."

That much is certain. The Yankees' six-run eighth-inning rally on Friday created little carryover -- in this case, momentum only being as good as the way the offense could handle the next day's starting pitcher.

Beckett made that a difficult proposition. Allowing a solo home run to Derek Jeter in the top of the first but otherwise quieting New York in a seven-inning, seven-strikeout performance, Beckett became baseball's first 19-game winner this season and helped Boston to its largest margin of victory against the Yankees since a 14-3 drubbing last May 9.

"You have to get to him early and get some mistakes, because once he establishes strikes and starts throwing everything, he can work both sides of the plate," said Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi. "That's the biggest thing."

Meanwhile, Wang -- who usually showcases a diving sinker to induce opponents into pounding ground balls to his infielders -- again altered his game plan slightly for the Red Sox, mixing in more sliders and changeups.

But the tweaks didn't take hold, as Wang had slightly more run on his pitches than he wanted. Recording just six of 17 outs on the ground, Wang seemed unable to command the zone, surrendering runs in the first and fifth innings before losing control in the sixth.

"His stuff wasn't as good, as consistent," Torre said. "They're pretty patient, this ballclub. When [Wang] has trouble throwing strikes, a lot of times it's just that his stuff has a lot of movement. He just can't keep it in the strike zone."

Wang was lifted with two outs in the troublesome sixth inning, in which he allowed run-scoring hits to rookie Jacoby Ellsbury and a two-run double to perennial thorn David Ortiz -- hard hits in an inning that also featured a jarring home-plate collision between Jorge Posada and Boston's Eric Hinske, who was called out and left the catcher with a lingering headache that had him sent to Massachusetts General Hospital for precautionary reasons. CT scans taken of Posada's head and neck came back negative.

Posada's friend Jeter expressed little concern, saying that his buddy had a "hard head." Torre deemed the play clean, explaining that Hinske had gone in hard.

"That was just one of those bang-bangers," he said. "We had the infield playing halfway, just hoping we could get a ground ball. We didn't want to play all the way in, because we didn't want to cut down our chances to get an out."

Wang's nine-hit, three-walk performance also featured another potential chapter in the ongoing saga between New York and Boston, one that could have legs as the two teams finalize their 2007 regular-season slate on Sunday. Kevin Youkilis started the sixth-inning rally when one of Wang's 97 pitches inadvertently created a contusion on the first baseman's right wrist.

It was the sixth time in the last two seasons that Youkilis had been drilled by a Yankees pitcher, not including two near-misses by Joba Chamberlain in the teams' last New York meeting.

Both benches were warned by home-plate umpire Gary Cederstrom in the seventh inning, when Beckett came back in and hit Giambi on the right elbow with a pitch -- viewed as retaliation for Wang's drilling of Youkilis earlier in the game, but by the Yankees, not as sound baseball judgment.

"You know what? We didn't hit Youkilis on purpose," Giambi said. "It was a 1-2 pitch, and you've got Papi [on deck] -- like he hasn't done enough damage against us. But I respect it. That's the way I play the game. I don't worry about it."

Boston tacked on three additional runs against the New York bullpen in the seventh, sending 10 men to the plate against five Yankees relievers, who let the game get out of hand. Coco Crisp greeted Brian Bruney with an RBI ground-rule double, and Ellsbury touched Sean Henn for a two-run single before rookie Ross Ohlendorf, making his second Major League appearance, walked in a run.

With just 14 games separating the Yankees from the final outs of the regular season, and just nine regulation innings left head-to-head with Boston, odds would appear to be overwhelming that New York's best chance of continuing its string of postseason appearances lies within the Wild Card.

Still, the Yankees don't appear ready to concede the division until the laws of mathematics insist they must.

"We're trying to win every day," Jeter said. "That's the approach we have to have. A couple weeks from now, we'll see what happens."