As the Red Sox were battering the Yankees’ relief pitchers in the middle game of their three-game weekend series at Fenway Park, I sent my son an e-mail.

“Did the Yankees get their relief pitchers,” I asked, “from some Bronx softball league?”

After that game, the Yankees’ relief corps had a 6.68 earned run average, third worst in the American League. The relievers had allowed 67 hits, 12^th most, including a league-high 14 home runs, while pitching 62 innings, fourth most, and facing 283 batters, second most.

In other words, the relievers were working an abundance of innings and creating an abundance of damage.

The Boston bullpen, in contrast had a league-low 2.57 e.r.a. and had permitted 45 hits, fourth fewest, including 4 home runs, second fewest.

The bullpens epitomize the difference in the way the teams have been put together. The Red Sox have done a far better construction job than the Yankees, and the results on the field will demonstrate that view.

Yes, it’s early in the season. A three-game Fenway sweep in April can easily be wiped out through the rest of the season, 23 of the schedule’s 26 weeks, but if the bullpens are any indication, the Yankees may not be good enough to make up for early losses.

When the Yankees reached the end of April last season, they were three games from first place, and in the next five months they got no closer. In the newly designed American League East, as Yogi Berra might have said, it gets late early.

Will the first month determine the outcome of this year’s division race? Who knows? A 10-game winning streak, which the Red Sox compiled with the Yankees’ help, is a contributing factor in any month.

A bad bullpen is a contributing factor at any time, too. The Yankees did not expect to have a bad bullpen.  In fact, they thought they would have a very good bullpen. They saw their bullpen as one of the team’s strengths. Starting pitching was a problem, and the Yankees spent lavishly to solve it.

The Mets had a bullpen problem last year, and they set out last winter to fix it. They did, signing Francisco Rodriguez and trading for J.J. Putz. In the early weeks of the season, the Mets have found that their starters, namely John Maine and Oliver Perez, are creating a problem, but it’s too late to do anything about it, unless they were to sign Pedro Martinez, which at the moment is unlikely.

Besides Mariano Rivera, the cast of relievers the Yankees would choose from included only pitchers who would be names in their own households. Several years ago, in 2002, the Yankees needed a long reliever and leaped at a free agent, signing Steve Karsay for $22.25 million for four years. It was a precedent-setting and absurdly high price to pay for a long reliever.

The Yankees got one healthy season out of Karsay and released him a month into the fourth year. The memory of that experience might have influenced general manager Brian Cashman in his planning for this season, though he seemed to be pleased with the group of relievers he had.

“They’re the same people we had last year when they led the major leagues in strikeouts and were seventh in e.r.a.,” Cashman said. “We had a strong bullpen on paper. But bullpens are volatile. It doesn’t always play out that way. But we believe in these guys. They have quality arms.”

Cashman and his baseball people thought the bullpen was the team’s strength. Mariano Rivera continued to be the magical closer, and Brian Bruney and Jose Veras (at left), they felt,  had demonstrated that they could handle the seventh and eighth innings, freeing Joba Chamblerlain to start.

The Yankees desperately needed to shore up their starting rotation, and Chamberlain would be one of the two by fours. The others would come from the free-agent market, where Cashman expensively placed his emphasis.

That emphasis produced CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, but the errant assessment of the bullpen produced Damaso Marte, Phil Coke, Edwar Ramirez, Jonathan Albaladejo, Veras and Bruney (currently on the disabled list), a collection of no-name relievers with questionable sustainable ability.

It is the only segment of the team that Cashman put together cheaply. The six relievers have a collective salary of $6,661,800, with $5 million of that going to Marte and Bruney. Nine of their teammates earn more individually.

That is not to say that Cashman should have spent more just for the sake of having higher-salaried relievers. Karsay was a bad example of that mind set, and Marte is a current bad example.

Marte, whom the Yankees signed as a minor league free agent eight years earlier, then traded him seven months later, was a free agent last winter, and the Yankees didn’t wait to see what kind of market would develop. They signed the left-handed pitcher to a 3-year, $12 million contract the first day he was eligible to sign with other teams.

The Yankees, it seem, can’t get it right. They either overpay for relievers or go cheap and get ineffective ones.

In The New York Times last month, Tyler Kepner wrote a piece about the Yankees’ relief corps. I don’t think he meant it to be critical of the Yankees, just a recitation of the facts of how they constructed the staff and where the pitchers had been. The headline: “Free-Spending Yankees Use Discount Parts In the Bullpen.”

Of the six relievers expected to join Rivera, Kepner wrote, only Coke had been drafted by the Yankees. “The others came from discount bins.”

The Yankees signed Veras after “two pitching-poor teams let him go.” Ramirez was released twice by the Angels, and he pitched in two independent minor leagues. Bruney was released by the Diamondbacks, who gave his roster spot “to a fading veteran, Kevin Jarvis.” Albaladejo was released by the Pirates, Marte as a minor leaguer by the Mariners, the first team that signed him.

Those are good reasons why the pitchers have come to the Yankees so cheaply, but it doesn’t justify their existence on a team that spends like the Yankees ($201 million payroll) and wants to return to the World Series for the first time since 2003. Cashman might want to read Benjamin Franklin, the wily old general manager of another time, on how “a little neglect may breed great mischief: “for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.”

Some versions have shortened that adage to “for want of a nail a kingdom was lost,” which could apply to the Yankees this season if their relievers continue to set fires instead of putting them out.

The Yankees have two means of rescue from their predicament. Their names are Mark Melancon and Joba Chamberlain.

Melancon, a 24-year-old right-hander, is considered the successor to Rivera. After the debacle with the Red Sox last Saturday, the Yankees summoned Melancon from the minors – prematurely, some felt – and he pitched two scoreless innings against the Red Sox Sunday. He may never go back to the minors.

“He’s only two innings into his major league journey,” Cashman said. “He’s got quality big league stuff. He’s just inexperienced.”

Chamberlain has been at the center of a running debate within and outside the Yankees organization. Should he start or relieve? He was terrific as a reliever the last two months of his first season, 2007, and he was impressive as a starter last year.

The Yankees made the decision to keep him in the rotation this season, and that’s where he is. Will he stay there? Maybe, maybe not.

If Chien-Ming Wang returns to good health and effectiveness and if Phil Hughes pitches well in Wang’s absence, the Yankees would be free to bump Joba to the bullpen, where he would set up Rivera and perhaps make life easier for the other relievers.

The Yankees, however, face one problem in pondering that decision. Chamberlain has not been the same pitcher, especially with his velocity, since he injured his shoulder last August. If he can no longer overpower hitters, can he be as effective out of the bullpen as he was at the start of his major league career?

A decision or even a discussion on Chamberlain’s role is far off. In the meantime, Cashman might want to think about the kingdom and the nail that lost it.

 

This is probably like playing fantasy baseball, which readers of this site know I abhor, but what if the Toronto Blue Jays have finally put it all together and are ready to compete for real in the American League East? Doesn’t that division already have enough serious contenders?

Recent experience tells us not to take the Blue Jays seriously. We have heard one season after another how this is the year the Blue Jays have a chance to crash the Yankees-Red Sox party and then they fade. Last year, without fanfare, the Tampa Bay Rays supplanted the Blue Jays as the interloper in the East, dropping Toronto to an unaccustomed fourth place.

This time around the Blue Jays, with 13 victories in their first 18 games, are off to their best start since 1992, the year they won the first of two successive World Series. They reached the weekend with the best record in the major leagues, and they led the American League in batting average, hits, runs, total bases and fielding percentage. They were third in earned run average and second in home runs.

Are they for real? Can they be a legitimate contender? If they are or can be, what will they be contending for?

At most, a division can have only two playoff teams, the champion and the league wild card. Last year the Yankees learned that brutal fact of division life when the Rays derailed them from the post-season by finishing first while Boston finished second.

How would the division respond to a four-team race?

“I think the division is going to be ugly,” J.P. Ricciardi, the Toronto general manager, said. “Everybody will beat everybody up. It may be the year where the healthiest team survives.”

If the outcome of the division race depends on good health, the Blue Jays could be hurting. “We’ve got a whole rotation on the disabled list,” Ricciardi said. He was not exaggerating. “We have five starters on the disabled list,” he said, being more specific.

The Blue Jays knew in spring training that Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan would open the season on the disabled list. Marcum, who had a 9-7 record in 25 starts last season, underwent Tommy John surgery at the end of last season and is expected to be out until at least sometime in August, if he makes it back this year at all.

McGowan made only 19 starts and had a 6-7 record before a shoulder operation shut him down last July.

Casey Janssen didn’t pitch last year after a season as a starter and one as a reliever and was coming back in spring training until another shoulder injury put him on the disabled list. Jesse Litsch, who had a 13-9 record in 28 starts last season, went on the disabled list two weeks ago with an arm injury.

With all of those starters out of commission, the Blue Jays had openings in their rotation, and Ricky Romero, a rookie left-hander, claimed one of them. He won two of his first three starts and had a 1.71 earned run average before he strained an oblique muscle. He joined Marcum, McGowan, Janssen and Litsch on the disabled list.

Scott Richmond, a native Canadian, was another pitcher who benefited from the rotation vacancies, except he has remained healthy with a 1-0 record and 3.48 e.r.a. in two starts.

David Purcey, who had a 3-6 record in 12 starts last season, has avoided injury through four starts; Brian Tallet was brought out of the bullpen for two starts and Brian Burres, who started 22 games for Baltimore last year, was summoned from the minors to start Saturday night.

If you’re trying to keep track, the current starters are Richmond, Purcey, Tallet and Burres, but the best starter – and he’s healthy – is Roy Halladay (above), a two-time 20-game winner, who this season has won three of four starts.

“One nice thing,” Ricciardi said. “We get Doc every fifth day.”

Ricciardi said the Blue Jays are hopeful of getting Marcum (at left) back in the second half of the season, but that recovery would be faster than usual for Tommy John patients. He said they would learn more about McGowan’s status in the next week “when he starts to throw.”

“He may be out for the whole year,” the general manager added. “We’ll know more when he sees Dr. Andrews.” Janssen, Ricciardi said, could be back by mid-May, and Romero should return by mid to late May.

Without a healthy set of starters, the Blue Jays will have trouble keeping up with the Red Sox, the Yankees and the Rays. Even with healthy starters, they may not find their task easy. Are the Blue Jays a legitimate contender?

“It’s way too soon to say,” Ricciardi said. “We’re young in a lot of ways. If we sustain something like this through June we’ll know more. Right now we’re going series to series. There’s a lot of stuff we’re going through right now. The mettle will be tested. We haven’t played the East yet.”

While the focus is on the Blue Jays’ pitching because of all of the injuries, the team’s offense has been the league’s most potent. Second baseman Aaron Hill and designated hitter Adam Lind have been the offensive leaders.

Hill, 27, was hitting .373 with a combined 1.025 on-base and slugging percentage. Lind, 25, was hitting .347 with .982 on-base and slugging. Hill was leading the league in total bases with 52, and Lind was tied for eighth with 41.

CAPPS CAPS PIRATES VICTORIES

To see Matt Capps earn his fifth save in Pittsburgh’s 15th game last week may seem a bit incongruous, considering the Pirates’ proclivity for losing. But based on recent history, it will be more important to see what the Pirates do after those first five saves to determine if they will finally have a winning season.

The Pirates have had 16 successive losing seasons, tying them with the Philadelphia Phillies 1933 through 1948 for longest streaks of losing seasons.

The early save success of the Pirates’ closers has not telegraphed how the team will do over the course of the season. In 2007, for example, Salomon Torres gained four saves in the Pirates’ first six games, five in the first 11 games and six in the first 17 games. However, the team’s record in those first 17 games was 7-10, and the Pirates finished the season with a 68-94 record.

Last season Capps had 5 saves in the Pirates’ first 20 games, then picked up No. 6 in the 21^st game. The Pirates’ record was 9-12 at the time, and they finished at 67-95.

BOSTON POPS YANKEES

The heated rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox was renewed in Boston this weekend, but no matter how the games on the field turn out the Red Sox in some ways have it all over the Yankees. One of those ways is the Red Sox participation in cultural and artistic matters, specifically the new compact disc the Red Sox have produced with the Boston Pops, an equally famous Boston institution.

Titled “The Red Sox Album,” the disk features the Pops and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the nine numbers are conducted by Keith Lockhart, who has conducted the Pops longer than Terry Francona has managed the Red Sox.

The album features two John Philip Sousa marches, concluding with “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and incorporating the crack of David Ortiz’s bat seven times in “The National Game;” a suite from the movie, “The Natural;” “Casey at the Bat” and “Sweet Caroline,” a Neil Diamond tune popularized at Fenway Park.

Also on the disk is the Tanglewood Chorus rendition of “God Bless America,” which Yankee Stadium listeners might find a pleasant and welcome change of pace from Ronan Tynan’s version.

UGLY AVERAGE LOOMS FOR LAWRIE

Alex Gordon, Kansas City’s sometime third baseman, is experiencing Yogi Berra’s “déjà vu all over again.” In his rookie season in 2007, Gordon struggled at bat for two and a half months before he reached .200 in his 60^th game June 14. At week’s end, he had played in only 7 games this season and had managed only 2 hits in 21 at-bats for a .095 average.

Gordon, however, was not alone in his struggles. Milton Bradley, the Cubs’ right fielder,  was hitting .043 with 1 hit in 23 at-bats, David Murphy of Texas was hitless in 20 at-bats and Jason Smith of Houston hadn’t had a hit in 17 at-bats.

Catchers in particular were having hitting problems: Jason Kendall, Milwaukee, 6-42, .143; Brian Schneider, Mets, 3-21, .143; Chris Iannetta, Colorado, 5-36, .139;  Gregg Zaun, Baltimore, 5-43, .116; Chris Snyder, Arizona, 3-29, .103; Taylor Teagarden, Texas, 1-15, .067; Matt Treanor, Detroit, 0-13, .000.

But Jed Lowrie (above), Boston’s shortstop, may wind up with the worst start even though he had a hit in 18 at-bats. Lowrie had wrist surgery and may not play again this season so his .056 average could be on his record forever.

SANTANA SEEKS RUNS

The Mets have two distinctly different teams, one that plays when Johan Santana pitches and one that plays when their other starters pitch.

In Santana’s four starts this season,  the Mets have scored 8 runs and allowed 6, averaging a score of 2 runs to 1.5. In the Mets’ other 13 games among their first 17 through Saturday, they have scored 73 runs and given up 71, averaging a score of 5.62 runs for them and 5.46 against.

Perhaps general manager Omar Minaya should devise a scheme to fool the Mets’ hitters into thinking it’s not Santana on the mound when he starts, but it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out it really is their ace. The other team wouldn’t be scoring any runs.

GIVE THAT MAN A CONTRACT

Ned Colletti, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ general manager, is in the last year of a four-year contract, which also includes a mutual option for a fifth year. When a Los Angeles newspaper recently asked Frank McCourt, the team’s owner, if he planned to exercise the option, he lauded Colletti for the job he has done but declined to talk about the option.

Instead McCourt talked about the need to go further than the Dodgers have in recent years and win the World Series. “That is a promise we have made to our fans,” he said.

What can the man possibly be thinking? He should have instantly said of course, we will exercise the option; why wouldn’t we?

Since a previous Dodgers ownership (the Fox Group) foolishly fired Fred Claire in 1998, the Dodgers had a succession of poor choices as general manager. Kevin Malone and Paul DePodesta (McCourt’s first general manager) particularly stood out.

With Colletti, though, the Dodgers finally got it right. They reached the playoffs in two of Colletti’s first three years, winning the National League West title last year, and they are poised to win it again this season.

And for individual achievement, Colletti held his ground in the Manny Ramirez negotiations this past winter and induced Scott Boras, Ramirez’s agent, to blink first.

It would be in McCourt’s best interests to exercise Colletti’s option – or give him a new contract, which would be the more intelligent way to go – because if he should let Colletti go, he would probably bungle the choice for his successor.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

After watching a Mets game on SNY, the Mets’ network, the other day, I kept the television on, and soon the daily program, “Daily News Live,” came on. One of the show’s panelists was Bob Raissman, the Daily News’ media critic.

Now it isn’t unusual for a Daily News reporter or columnist to be on a Daily News television show, but Raissman, as part of his job, is supposed to assess and critique SNY television shows. How does he do that when he appears on one of its shows?

In addition, I was initially told that SNY paid Raissman $200 a show. A Daily News executive corrected that report, saying the newspaper pays its employees who appear on the show.  I sent Raissman an e-mail asking about what seemed to be to be a clear conflict of interest.

“While you obviously work for the Daily News,” I wrote, “your appearance nevertheless appears to raise a journalistically questionable issue: how does someone whose job it is to critique television sports shows appear on one of those shows? Is that not a conflict of interest?”

Raissman did not reply

 

Just when we need George Mitchell, he’s off in the Middle East trying to solve an irresolvable problem. Actually, Mitchell and I were in the Middle East at the same time, and I should have taken advantage of our proximity to ask him what he’s going to do, if anything, about baseball’s latest scandal.

For what Major League Baseball paid him and his law firm for his steroids investigation – $25 million or more – Mitchell can extend his probe and find out who was responsible for putting the new Yankee Stadium on steroids.

I mean home runs are flying into the new stands so frequently that it’s a dangerous place to venture into. It certainly isn’t safe for Yankees’ pitchers, and they play for the home team. With a home like that, who can wait to get on the road?

In the four-game series that opened the new stadium, the Cleveland Indians and the Yankees each slugged 10 home runs. In the corresponding number of games a year ago, the Yankees and their opponents each hit three home runs. The increase has everyone excited and not in a positive way.

The Yankees were so concerned or just plain curious that they hired a second engineering firm to study wind current at the new stadium.

The Yankees did not ignore wind currents. Part of the $1.5 billion cost of the new palace went to an aeronautical engineering firm to make a comprehensive wind study. The new Yankee Stadium faces in the same direction as its predecessor, and the engineering study said right field and center field would play the same way, at least in the summer. None of the engineers expected a major change with balls hit to right field.

Yet long balls have been hit to right field.

The Yankees don’t understand it so they have brought in another engineering firm to study the wind. They seem to be going to a lot if expense to do what we as kids used to do cheaply. We had two ways of checking the wind. Throw a blade of grass into the air and see what the wind does with it. Or wet an index finger and stick it in the air until you feel the wind blowing on the wet side of the finger.

Neither of the methods is likely to tell George Steinbrenner why balls are flying out of Yankee Stadium, but I’ll bet when the younger Steinbrenner was a football coach he walked onto the field before a game and either tossed a blade of grass into the air or stuck a finger in his mouth, then into the air.

But what’s the big deal anyway? At least the guys hitting the home runs aren’t fueled by steroids. We know that because they are tested for steroids. Has anyone tested the stadium for steroids? Don’t ask me how to do that. Ask Gary Wadler, who some day will have his likeness captured in bronze with the words “steroids zealot” etched on the surface.

No one questioned the dropoff in the Yankees’ home run production in the Bronx as they neared the close of the old stadium. They hit 126 in each of two successive seasons, 2004 and 2005. Then they hit 111, 107 and 92.

Now only a few games into the new stadium, theories abound about what is going on. The theories include juiced baseballs. Does that mean just like specially autographed balls are used in the World Series, baseball had balls made especially for the opening of Yankee Stadium and those balls are livelier? Don’t think so.

That the gush of home runs is viewed as a problem is interesting. Just a few years ago fans were excited about the increase in home runs generally, and they didn’t care if the balls flying over stadium fences were getting a chemical boost.

Should it matter now if balls are wind aided? There’s no rule against wind. Wind is not on a list of government-banned substances. Wind is pure and treats all teams and hitters the same. Wind plays no favorites.

At Wrigley Field in Chicago, both the Cubs and their opponents benefit or suffer when the wind is blowing in off the lake or out. It’s just that no one ever expected wind to be a factor in the Bronx. Where does it come from, the Harlem River?

Can you imagine what Babe Ruth could have done with balls hit to right field getting caught in a jet stream? Heavens, he might have hit 60 home runs.

Rather than getting caught up in home runs flying out of Yankee Stadium, the Yankees should be concerned about the pitchers who are throwing the baseballs that are flying out of Yankee Stadium. They should be concerned about the 23 hits and 23 runs Chien-Ming Wang has allowed in 6 innings.

Those are scary numbers, unfit for human consumption. Having signed CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, the Yankees thought they had solved the pitching problems that have plagued them in recent seasons. They did not think Wang would have such problems returning from a foot injury that reduced his season to 15 starts last year.

The Yankees are not taking Wang’s start lightly and simply shrugging it off. They are skipping his next scheduled start and having him go to Tampa instead for remedial work.

Theories abound for Wang’s problems, too, among them the release point in his delivery is higher than it used to be, affecting his ability to throw his good sinker, and his foot has prevented him from doing enough running to get his legs sufficiently strong to throw with the same velocity he used to throw.

If the Yankees can figure out what Wang’s problem is, they should be able to fix it. They have enough pitching coaches to deal with Wang. Fixing the home run issue is something else. They have engineers to deal with that matter, but a solution is not necessarily imminent.