ALMOST DID IT AGAIN
The Mariners let the Yankees make it interesting, but a 7-2 deficit in the ninth is too big a mountain to climb, even against a bad Mariners club and a tiring Cliff Lee. At the risk of seeming hypercritical (although that’s an official part of my job description, and yours as fans) given that it’s not exactly shameful to lose to Cliff Lee -- some days you’re just not going to get the bear, so just tip your cap and, as Casey Stengel would have said, try to get out gracefully -- but the game might have at least been competitive if not for a Coffee Joe moment in the sixth inning.

Let me say in advance that you can debate this one; it’s not as clear-cut a miss as was the decision to let A.J. Burnett complete his journey to the century of the Earth

FLABBERGASTED

Give Joe Girardi 10 points for pinch-hitting Jorge Posada for Curtis Granderson against tough lefty Hong-Chih Kuo, who coming into Saturday’s game had held left-handed hitters to a .000 batting average (0-for-24). Deduct 50 points for failing to pinch-hit for A.J. Burnett with runners on first and third and one out in the top of the fourth inning trailing the Dodgers 5-4. Burnett, in the process of being pounded for the fifth consecutive start, had nothing more to prove on Saturday -- he wasn’t better, despite much ballyhooed bravado after successful sideline and bullpen sessions -- and Girardi had nothing to prove to him; letting Burnett stay in so as to convey a message of confidence in him proved to be an oddly timed and foolhardy gesture. A real message of confidence

A brief entry for now, fellow seekers of wisdom and truth, as I take a few moments to myself between hospital visits. My father has had one surgery and got through, has another more minor procedure scheduled for this evening, but assuming all goes well he has received a stay of further surgery and will, I think-I hope-I wish, be released within a few days. He will not be entering the decathlon now or in the future, but he should be around to watch it, and at this stage that is something to be grateful for.

Speaking of gratitude, I am most appreciative of the Fates, or Bud Selig (who, after all, was one of the Fates during his youth in ancient Greece) for arranging a most compelling baseball season in this difficult season for my family. Every division has a compelling race, with the AL East

You’ve probably read by now that longtime Yankees trainer Gene Monahan is battling a serious illness and will miss his first Spring Training since the early 1960s. Over at the LoHud blog, Sam Borden wrote, “Every baseball reporter has a story about the time they got sick or the time they stabbed themselves with a pen or the time they got a bloody nose in the clubhouse, and Monahan is a great guy who was always there with a band-aid or a Tylenol.”

I have a story like that. About five years ago, I went up to the Stadium to do some interviews. My pass was mislaid, and I spent about an hour outside the press gate in the midday sun while the Yankees tried to locate the guy who could resolve the problem. It was a terrifically hot day. I didn’t realize it, but I was becoming