After an off-season that was widely reviewed as a failure, the Yankees will take to the field tomorrow attempting to prove their detractors wrong. Yes, they didn’t land Cliff Lee and yes, they enter the season with big question mark hanging over their rotation. But the fact remains that this is still a pretty good ballclub. more ›

The Yankees play the Texas Rangers in a do-or-die Game 6 of the ALCS tonight at 8 p.m. The Rangers lead the series 3-2, led by the dominant pitching of potential future Yank Cliff Lee. But the Yanks, led by the hot bat of Robinson Cano, are hoping to sweep the last two games in Arlington, Texas; the last time they made a successful comeback was in 1996, when they were down 2-0 against the Braves in the World Series. more ›

Texas 7 Yankees 5: If the Yankees are going to win the ALCS, they will have to figure out a way to avoid falling into 5-0 holes. It didn’t cost them Friday, but Saturday it proved insurmountable. For the second straight day the Yankee starter was bad. Phil Hughes ended up surrendering seven runs and ten hits in four innings of work. The Yankees never really threatened and they head home with the series tied at 1, but Cliff Lee taking the ball for Texas on Monday. more ›

Phil Hughes in 2010 on the road- almost perfect. Phil Hughes in 2010 at home- ugh. Unfortunately for Hughes and the Yankees, Tuesday’s game was at home and the results were to be expected. Hughes got shelled and the Yankees couldn’t get anything going off of Sean O’Sullivan. more ›

The Yankees won 6-1 over Seattle, thanks to Mark Teixeira's 16th and 17th home runs. The Mets fell to Atlanta, 4-2; R.A. Dickey pitched well until he gave up back-to-back home runs in the seventh. more ›

Yankees 10 Boston 3: There was a ton of good in this game, but also some possibly significant bad. On the good side, New York pounded Josh Beckett and Phil Hughes pitched like an ace as they cruised to an easy win. On the bad side, Robinson Cano had to leave the game after getting plunked on the left knee and Nick Johnson left with an injury to his right wrist. The Yankees will have to wait and see if Cano and Johnson will be ok, but they have gotten their road trip off to a good start. more ›

Yankees 3 Oakland 1: For seven innings Phil Hughes dominated Oakland. Hughes issued a walk in the second and then retired twenty-straight batters before allowing a hit. For the game, Hughes allowed only one other walk and a run while striking out ten. On offense back-to-back triples by A-Rod and Cano got the Yankees on the board with Cano scoring on a Posada groundout. Brett Gardner added a RBI in the ninth to give the Yankees a two-run lead. Mariano Rivera worked around some trouble in the ninth to nail down the save. The Yankees will go for the sweep later this afternoon. more ›

Yesterday Alfredo Aceves took a stumble in the competition to become the Yankees’ fifth starter. Aceves’ bad outing combined with Chad Gaudin’s latest clunker most likely lowers the candidate pool to three pitchers; Hughes, Chamberlain and Mitre. All three have stepped up and made their case, but the Yankees really have only one direction to go in and that is to put Joba Chamberlain in the rotation and Phil Hughes in the minors for now. more ›

The first playoff game at the new stadium was a happy affair as the Yankees defeated the Twins 7-2 on Wednesday night. C.C. Sabathia pitched well, striking out eight and allowing only two runs, one earned, over 6-2/3 innings. Sabathia only struggled in the third when he ran into trouble with two outs. With runners on second and third, Sabathia allowed a single to score a run and then Jorge Posada simply didn’t catch a Sabathia pitch allowing a second run and putting the Twins up 2-0. more ›

The Yankees will face the hottest team in baseball, the Minnesota Twins, in the ALDS starting tonight. Minnesota came back from a three-game deficit with four games to play to tie Detroit and then beat them yesterday in a 12-inning playoff game to earn a trip to the Bronx. more ›

• Yankees 6 Oakland 3: Today’s rain delayed the start of this game to almost 10pm and for awhile it looked like the Yankees had assumed the game was a rainout. Oakland jumped all over an inconsistent C.C. Sabathia for three runs in the first four innings, but Sabathia settled down and the Yankees battled back. Mark Teixeira belted a two-run homer in the fourth and the Yankees added two more runs to take a lead they would never relinquish. Phil Hughes came on in the eighth and pitched two perfect innings to get the first save of his career and put the Yankees 2-1/2 games ahead of idle Boston.

Despite being unable to beat the Red Sox this year (0-8 so far against them), the Yankees are only one game behind them. As they head into the All-Star Break, the Yankees are playing their best baseball of the season, something they will need to continue to do if they are going to bring playoff baseball back to the Bronx. more ›

Texas 4 Yankees 2: It was a big night at the ballpark for the Yankees, but perhaps more for what happened off the field. Before the game New York announced that Chien-Ming Wang will return to the rotation tomorrow and Phil Hughes will head to the bullpen. On the field, the Yankees could not recover from a mediocre start from Andy Pettitte. Pettitte could not find command of his pitches during the game and he walked six and allowed three runs in the first; deficits the Yankees could not overcome. Their loss and the Red Sox win means it is all tied up at the top of the AL East. more ›

• Yankees 11, Rangers 1: When Phil Hughes last pitched in Arlington, Texas, he had a no-hitter through 6 1/3 innings when he left with an injured hamstring. This time around, he allowed three hits and no runs in eight scoreless innings. Alex Rodriguez went 5-for-5 with four RBIs, and the Yankees, looking foolish in red Memorial Day caps, started a seven-game road trip off on the right foot. Johnny Damon had three runs scored and Kevin Cash tripled his hits total for the season by going 3-for-5. Joba Chamberlain will start Tuesday, but Brian Bruney is headed back to the disabled list.
• Mets 5, Nationals 2: Good thing Omar Minaya picked up Gary Sheffield. While Ryan Church alternates from being a punchless outfielder to injured, Sheffield hit a go-ahead three-run homer off Washington starter -- and Long Beach native -- John Lannan in the sixth inning. John Maine pitched six innings of one-run ball, striking out four and and walking three. Ramon Martinez and Carlos Beltran also had RBIs.
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• Mets 10, Pirates 1: A week ago, Mets fans couldn't stop fretting after a disastrous loss to the Phillies. Now their team is in first place and has won six straight games. John Maine pitched six innings of one-run ball and Jose Reyes had three hits and three RBIs. Sandy Alomar Sr. managed the team in lieu of Jerry Manuel, who was suspended for making contact with an umpire on Thursday. The Pirates stink, yes, but the Mets are rolling. The days of worrying about David Wright's clutch hitting -- foolish days to begin with -- are over. Now the Mets can worry about getting quality outings from their starters, their most legitimate concern.

Don’t blame the bullpen. They held the Mets in the game inning after inning, it was the offense that blew this one. Time after time, the Mets couldn’t get the big hit, no more so than the bottom of the ninth. David Murphy led off the inning with a triple, putting the team 90 feet from victory. But, David Wright struck out and after intentional walks to Delgado and Beltran, Ryan Church grounded into a force out at home. Ramon Castro struck out to end the inning and the Mets never threatened again. more ›

But, Santana’s heroics almost went for naught as the Mets were kept off the scoreboard through the first four innings. Luckily, they broke through with a hit off a broken bat from Santana and a key triple from Jose Reyes that drove in three runs. The win and the Phillies’ loss puts New York 1-1/2 games back in the division, but the Brewers also won leaving the Mets a game up in the wild card with five games remaining in the season. more ›

It remained that way as the Rangers failed to convert on two abbreviated 5-on-3 advantages and Pittsburgh kept killing the clock. But, a beautiful pass from Scott Gomez to Ryan Callahan at 12:07 of the second brought the Rangers to within 1 and Jaromir Jagr tied things up less than a minute later. Suddenly, it was 3-3 and the Garden was rocking and the Rangers were a deflection off the goalpost away from taking the lead. And that is where Hollweg committed an asinine penalty, taking a boarding call in the offensive zone. Pittsburgh converted on the ensuing power play and added another goal early in the third period to put away the game and leave the Rangers’ season on life support. more ›

And it was that call to the bullpen that was the Mets’ undoing. Willie Randolph went to Aaron Heilman who walked the bases loaded and gave up a grand slam to Felipe Lopez. The Nationals added three more runs in the seventh off of Jorge Sosa. The Mets mounted a rally in the ninth with Marlon Anderson homering and the first two runners reaching base, but they could not get the tying run out of the on-deck circle. more ›

• Rangers 5 Devils 3: This was an epic clash to end the series. After the Devils jumped out to a 1-0 lead, the Rangers scored the next four goals, taking control of the game and leading 4-1 with about fifteen minutes left in the second period. more ›

The game was a war, with both teams hitting legally and at times illegally, though the refs seemed interested in calling anything. Martin Brodeur and Ryan Callahan had a huge collision in the third period, which Brodeur was lucky to escape from without injury. Sean Avery scored a goal and pissed people off while Brandon Dubinsky had two goals for New York. The teams get two nights off to heal up for Game 4 on Wednesday night. more ›