As Monday morning became Monday afternoon and then Monday night, the Yankees had an uncomfortable feeling about their negotiations with Cliff Lee. The Yankees had offered the free-agent pitcher a contract that could have been worth about $150 million across seven years last Friday and were waiting for a response. Some Yankees executives were concerned about a mystery team that had joined them and the Rangers in pursuing Lee. 

Before Monday night turned into Tuesday morning, the Yankees discovered that their concerns about a third team wooing Lee were valid. Lee spurned the Yankees and the Rangers to sign a five-year deal with the Phillies for a reported $120 million. Lee bypassed millions from the Yankees to return to the Phillies, a team he helped power to the World Series in 2009.

SAN FRANCISCO –- The Yankees wanted to face Cliff Lee one last time in 2010. Seeing Lee would have meant there would be a Game 7 against the Texas Rangers in the American League Championship Series. Seeing Lee would have meant the Yankees were one conquest away from the World Series.

Of course, the Yankees never faced Lee again. The Yankees sputtered in Game 6 and saw their season disappear. Looking more fatigued than ferocious against the Rangers, the Yankees kept getting smacked and jabbed by the feistier team. Lee’s services weren’t needed a second time in the series.   

Now the Yankees will have a chance to see Lee’s next postseason start from a distance, if they watch it at all. The Yankees can study Lee in Game 1 of the World Series against Tim Lincecum

The afternoon turned grayer and chillier at Yankee Stadium, but the kid kept swinging, kept extending batting practice by one more session. Swing after gorgeous swing, the batter kept socking baseballs over the right field fence and kept smiling and begging for more pitches. He wanted to keep another day of baseball alive.

The player was Robinson Cano. The scene unfolded during Sunday’s workout at the Stadium. After almost all of the Yankees returned to the clubhouse, Cano wanted to keep playing, so Kevin Long, the batting coach, parked himself behind a screen for the famous Home Run Drill and flipped dozens of underhanded pitches to Cano.

Cano got to keep playing. That is what the Yankees are trying to do in the American League Championship Series right now: keep playing. They are

Marcus Thames has faced Cliff Lee 36 times in his career. By Sunday afternoon, Thames had analyzed the videotape of every one of those at-bats, searching for some clues about how to hit the supposedly unhittable postseason pitcher.

Thames studied the pitches he missed, the pitches he fouled off and the pitches he didn’t swing at, rewinding and fast-forwarding through his dates with Lee. Eventually, Thames discovered a pattern, a sliver of information that he hopes will help him in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Monday night.

“In every at-bat I had, I usually had one pitch to hit,” Thames said. “Even in the at-bats where I struck out against him, I had a pitch and missed it. You can’t miss that pitch.”

Thames has seven hits, including