BlackAmericans.com

Scott Kazmir pitched confidently with his fastball, spotting it at the knees on the outside corner or firing it high in the zone, daring the Yankees to hit it.

A home run protested by the Tampa Bay Rays was the 549th of Rodriguez’s career, and it punctuated a victory, the Yankees’ third win in three games this month.

It is unlikely, but not impossible that the Yankees will make the playoffs, especially if the teams plays the way it did at Tropicana Field on Tuesday night.

With 38 games to play the Yankees face a difficult, but not insurmountable, task in trying to assure themselves a postseason berth.

On Wednesday, Jorge Posada was the designated hitter for the fourth time in five games, a reduced role that left him unsatisfied.

For the second time in three starts for his new team, Sidney Ponson pitched a gem for six innings, as the Yankees won their fourth in a row.

The Rays, the best current team in the American League, do not have a position starter in the All-Star Game and has just two players on the roster over all.

It looked so good on the season schedule — four straight dates in early July, BOS@NYY. Mark it down. Save the date. Be there. Why, then, did it feel so anticlimactic Thursday night?

For the fourth consecutive game, a Rays starter yet to celebrate a 27th birthday stymied the Yankees, and with Thursday’s loss New York dropped to last in the A.L. East.

The Yankees offense, which has scored only four runs in three games, did what it had to do to help Mike Mussina to a win in the fifth start in a row.