Has there ever been a quieter week in Yankee baseball than the one that wrapped up on Sunday?
They had scheduled days off on Monday and Thursday and a rain-out on Friday, leaving them to play just four games in seven days. The Yankees won three of them and they've won five of their last six, although you're forgiven if the snail-like pace of this season has made it hard to keep track of the results.
As anyone who follows the Yankees knows, a quiet week for them is a noisy week for everybody else so it isn't like we have nothing to discuss on a Monday morning. Here are all the things we learned while the Yankees spent the weekend in Yankee Stadium South, a.k.a. Camden Yards.
1. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez really did not get along with one another. Okay, that's not really something we learned, but the Post's Sunday look at Ian O'Connor's forthcoming book about the Captain did bring back all the old animosity between the former friends turned reluctant teammates.
All hatchets seem to have been buried at this point, but the look back at the icy days of 2006 did remind us that Jeter doesn't always put the most politic face on things. And it also reminded us that Joe Torre's outer image as a man who kept the peace wasn't particularly deserved.
2. That doesn't mean the trip down memory lane didn't teach us anything new. It is now impossible to avoid the fact that Brian Cashman is living out a real-life remake of Ricky Gervais's movie "The Invention of Lying."
The big difference is that Cashman isn't the one liar in a world full of truth but an honest man in a sea of obfuscation. He told O'Connor that part of his pitch to CC Sabathia in 2009 was that the Yankees clubhouse was broken by the Jeter/A-Rod spat and that he needed Sabathia to help put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
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Cashman keeps speaking his mind about things usually kept under wraps which is either a bid for a mammoth book deal or a Costanza-esque attempt to get fired. Either way, streak on Bodysuit Man!
3. Mariano Rivera is having one of those stretches where it looks like the end is right around the corner. He's blown two straight saves and needed a brilliant catch by Brett Gardner just to get out of the eighth inning on Sunday.
The fact that he was in for the eighth is a bone of contention for some, but you get the feeling those same people would be killing Joe Girardi for letting David Robertson lose a game if he hadn't gone to Mo earlier than usual. No 41-year-old player is going to avoid questions about being over the hill, but Rivera deserves a longer rope after years of navigating his way around rough spots like this.
4. Russell Martin is making everyone forget about Jesus Montero. Two more homers on Saturday to go with customarily strong work behind the plate for the early leader in the race for best free agent acquisition of the year.
5. Freddy Garcia's gas tank is a bit fuller than anyone expected. It's now two straight sparklers for the veteran righthander and a lot less reason for everyone to panic about the state of the Yankees pitching staff.
