Is it too early in the season to get on tilt? I don’t think so.

Up until Joe Girardi took out Phil Hughes with two outs in the sixth inning, I was feeling good. Then Boone Logan (who wasn’t good enough to make the team out of spring training but was now being asked to pitch in a one-run game) was called upon to be the “lefty specialist” for the day and retire Luke Scott. Six pitches later, Scott was on first base, and four hitters and a pitching change later and the Orioles had put three runs on the board and suddenly led 4-2. Phil Hughes’ gutsy 5 2/3 inning of work over about two hours was erased in about two minutes.

That’s how things have gone for the Yankees over the last five games. Joe Girardi has been putting out fires with gasoline, and any button he pushes seems to be the wrong one. The Yankees are supposed to get into other teams’ bullpens and put up crooked numbers, not the other way around.

So why has the bullpen become a minefield to Mariano? Maybe it’s the Baseballs Gods making up for Joe Girardi getting three innings of one-hit relief from Chan Ho Park at Fenway Park in the third game of the season. Because let’s be honest, nearly every out in those three innings was a home run. The bullpen has reverted back to its old ways and the only guy I currently trust to get the job done is Mariano, and he never gets to pitch. I feel like the only time I have seen Mariano Rivera this season was when the President Obama acknowledged him on Monday.

Before Tuesday’s game in Baltimore the Yankees were 12-6. Now they are 12-7, which isn’t all that different except they have lost four of five. The Orioles had to win a home game at some point this season, and Kevin Millwood is good veteran pitcher, so I can understand only getting two runs off him in the first 5 2/3 innings. But to not score again until the ninth when the Orioles brought in a recent Triple-A call-up to audition to be their closer? That’s hard to digest. And what makes it even harder is that the Yankees had the heart of their order up against Jim Johnson in the eighth inning, and all they got was a single from Robinson Cano, the only guy who seems to be hitting during this team-wide slide.

This is Jim Johnson we’re talking about. JIM JOHNSON! Aside from Chris Ray and Arthur Rhodes, there is no reliever I like to see coming into a game more than Jim Johnson. Jim Johnson means runs and a lot of them. There are two things I do when Jim Johnson enters a game: (1) Laugh and (2) Get comfortable for what is sure to be a 20-minute inning and a possible bat-around inning. But Johnson retired Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada to work around the Cano single in what was easily the best inning of his career.

When the Yankees were 11-3 everyone was getting a kick out of the fact that the team was winning every game despite the fact that Nick Johnson and Mark Teixeira weren’t hitting and that Javier Vazquez wasn’t pitching. But at some point the players carrying the club were going to slide as well, and you just hoped by then the already slumping players would be out of their funks. Well, that hasn’t happened.

This isn’t an attempt a reverse jinx. At least I don’t think it is. Considering my reverse jinx of Javier Vazquez got him a win in Oakland and then a beatdown in Anaheim and a public beating from Curt Schilling, and my reverse jinx of Nick Johnson got him his first in 18 at-bats and then a place on the bench with a bad back, I think it’s time to stay away from the reverse jinxes for a little. But we’re 19 games into the season and the Yankees are enduring their first slide of the season, so while it might be time to move away from the reverse jinxes, it’s a good time to start pointing fingers.

Javier Vazquez
The Yankees have lost seven games. Javier has lost three of those. He is single-handedly responsible for 43 percent of the Yankees’ losses. So yeah, I’d say it’s OK to point a finger at him. The only thing keeping me from turning my back on Javier is that Curt Schilling had to go run his mouth about Vazquez’s performance. I was pulling for Vazquez to do well before, now I am going to try to will him to do well in spite of Schilling. Vazquez has a big start on Friday night at home, coming off a disastrous loss, facing his old team and his old manager who called him a coward. Right now Ozzie Guillen is smiling and telling the world “I told you so” about Vazquez’s abilities in the American League. Javier has a chance to pull off the trifecta on Friday night: shut up the Yankee Stadium boos, Ozzie and Curt all on the same night.

Nick Johnson
Like the sun coming up in the morning and setting at night, Nick Johnson had a stiff back over the weekend. Yawn… I still believe that sometime in the near future Nick Johnson is going to go off and just start raking at an unbelievable rate. But that’s only because he has no other option but to now. Nick is hitting .135 with one hit in his last 23 at-bats. Yes, he has 10 walks over that time, but he also has scored just two runs in his last 10 games. He came here to be the ultimate No. 2 hitter and table setter, and he has been setting the table to some degree, but now it’s time to swing the bat as well. But some of Nick’s problems are due to …

Mark Teixeira
When Nick Johnson gets on base he usually doesn’t score, and that is because Mark Teixeira likes April as much as I like the Mets. I have been waiting for May just as long as Tex, but come on. At what point does this mega slump become a concern. I’m not going to say I’m concerned just yet since I don’t think there is any way that Tex doesn’t have similar numbers to last year, but I don’t think I can pick on Nick Johnson for not hitting and not include Tex. I sit up at night and pray that these hard-hit outs and walks are a sign that he is coming out of his funk. We all know he is a bona fide slow starter and eventually will play to the back of his baseball card, and if you didn’t know that, Michael Kay will remind you. But if the rest of the team is going to slump, it’s time Tex stepped up. He has had enough time to slump, and it’s time to give someone else a chance.

David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain
Robertson needs to be the most important arm in the bullpen after Mariano and Joba. Actually you could make the case that he needs to be the most important arm after Mariano given Joba’s recent struggles. I am a huge David Robertson fan, and when he was working out of bases-loaded no-out jams in the postseason like David Copperfield or David Blaine, he helped solidify himself in my mind and gain my trust and confidence in big spots. Maybe he hasn’t found his groove yet this season, but Robertson has allowed six runs and 10 hits in five innings. His strikeouts are still there, but Robertson needs to be a guarantee when he comes in because there are too many other question marks in the ‘pen.

We have seen glimpses of Reliever Joba but Starter Joba has been making his fair share of appearances this season as well. I am 100-percent sure that Kendry Morales doesn’t go deep on Friday night if the Joba from the “Joba Mania” days is on the mound. And I know that Hideki Matsui wouldn’t have singled off Joba before Morales came to the plate. Maybe I need to accept the fact that Joba Chamberlain won’t be the Joba Chamberlain from 2007 and the beginning of 2008? But I don’t want to accept that and don’t want to admit it either. All I can do is hope old Joba comes back to us and puts an end to all my worries.

I might be creating an all-new All-Animosity Team in the very near future, or at least adding a new member. Kevin Youkilis has held down first base on the team for a while now, but a new form of evil has developed on the West Coast in the form of Kendry Morales.

The Yankees lost their first series of the season over the weekend because of Kendry Morales’ bat. The implosions of A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez changed the momentum in both losses, but it was Morales who put the finishing touch on the Yankees twice in the late innings.

Maybe the Angels were going to win those games anyways. It’s likely if it wasn’t Morales on Friday night, it would have been someone else, and who’s to say the Yankees would have even scored a fifth run on Sunday if they were able to hold the deficit to 5-4? I’m not saying that the Yankees were going to win either of those games, all I’m saying is Joe Girardi left the door open for second-guessing and gave any sports talk shows in need of material a week’s worth of ammunition.

I can let Friday slide because Joba Chamberlain was on the mound and if you can’t trust him, then there is going to be a serious problem with the pecking order in the bullpen this summer. Sure, Girardi could have turned Morales around in that game and made him hit from the right side – his weaker side. We’ll chalk that one up as Joba Chamberlain just not getting the job done.

But after watching Sunday’s events unfold, I thought it was Groundhog’s Day.

Joe Girardi is a matchup machine and I’m surprised he doesn’t change pitchers in the middle of at-bats depending on certain hitters’ numbers in certain counts against certain pitchers. He has a matchup or answer (not always the right answer) for every situation, and no matter what a unique situation calls for, he will always resort to the numbers. So when he decided that on April 25, 2010 he was going to go against his trusty notebook for the first time in his managerial career, it didn’t make any sense.

Why did Joe Girardi put aside the pure numbers for the first time, and why did it end with “Damaso Marte” trending higher than “Justin Bieber” on Twitter? (That actually happened). Let’s pick it up in the sixth inning on Sunday…

With the Angels leading 5-3 in the sixth, the sweet stroke of Robinson Cano found Scott Kazmir again for a solo shot to cut the lead to 5-4. In the seventh, Alfredo Aceves retires Maicer Izturis on a line out to Cano. Aceves is pitching for the first time in 8 days and has retired all five batters he has faced on just 15 pitches. But with one out in the inning and Bobby Abreu due up, Joe Girardi calls on the lefty Damaso Marte to go after the lefty.

There are two Damaso Martes. There is the Damaso Marte that is lights out and makes you wonder how anyone ever gets a hit off of him, and there is the Damaso Marte that could stand on the mound all day and not throw a strike once. There is no middle ground for Marte. He can’t enter a game without his best stuff and battle through to get the job done. Whoever created the old cliché “you either have it or you don’t” was certainly talking about Damaso Marte. When he has it, it’s a thing of beauty. And when he doesn’t, I’d rather watch YouTube videos of the old Stadium getting demolished. We saw Marte No. 2 on Sunday.

When Marte is on, you can land a plane in center field or have the stadium PA system start playing Eddie Van Halen’s “Eruption” in the middle of Marte’s windup and it won’t faze him. But when things don’t go according to plan, he gets the look of a lost child in a department store. The key to handling Marte, or at least what I believe to be the key, is to quickly identify which Marte you have on a given day, and then make a decision off that. Don’t leave him out there and hope he finds a rhythm because that isn’t Damaso Marte.

Marte gets behind Abreu 2-0 before walking him on five pitches (all fastballs), as Abreu never takes the bat off his shoulder. Then, after getting ahead of Torii Hunter 0-1, he drills him to put two on with one out and Hideki Matsui due up. At this point, it’s evident that Marte No. 2 is in the game. He has thrown just two strikes in seven pitches and has walked a batter and hit a batter.

The age-old rule that says you have a lefty face a lefty doesn’t apply to Hideki Matsui. Matsui is 4-for-12 (.333) against Marte, but Girardi sticks with him anyways. Marte gets Matsui to hit a grounder to A-Rod and A-Rod steps on third to force Abreu out. Now, Hunter is on second and Matsui is on first with two outs and Kendry Morales due up.

Here are two things we know about the potential matchup of Kendry Morales vs. Damaso Marte at the time:

1. Kendry Morales is hotter than the sun. He is already 2-for-2 with a walk in the game, and in the previous five games he is 10-for-19 (.526) with two home runs and seven RBIs, including the bomb he hit off Joba on Saturday. Girardi’s notes on him should say: DO NOT LET THIS MAN SWING THE BAT. DO NOT GIVE HIM A PITCH TO HIT. WALK HIM. WALK HIM. WALK HIM.

2. Damaso Marte is pitching like Sean Henn. He has walked a batter, hit a batter and was fortunate Matsui wasn’t able to pull back his half-hearted swing and instead induced a ground out. He has thrown nine pitches and six of them have been out of the zone, and one of them nearly put Torii Hunter on the DL. Marte is doing his best to tell Girardi he doesn’t have it, and Girardi seems to finally realize it.

Or so we all thought.

Girardi calls for an intentional walk of Morales with David Robertson warming up to face Juan Rivera. So, Marte throws an intentional ball to Francisco Cervelli. 1-0. Then, for reasons unknown, Girardi changes his mind and decides to have Marte pitch to Morales. Girardi goes against the unwritten rule (maybe Dallas Braden can fill him in on what an unwritten rule is) of going against your first instinct. Girardi had picked “A” and now he had erased it for “B” even though he had his notes right in front of him telling him to choose “A.” The same notes he has based every other decision of his managerial career on.

On the 1-0, pitch Marte misses way outside and Hunter steals third base creating a recipe for disaster given the man on the mound. There are now runners on the corners, Marte has thrown eight of 11 pitches for balls and is behind the Angels’ hottest and arguably best hitter 2-0 with runners on the corners. Hunter just stole third base with Marte not paying attention to him. The “lost child in the department store” look has now taken over his face, and the entire setup of the at-bat and the inning has completely changed on one pitch. Having lost all control of the situation and visibly rattled, Marte misses the outside corner on the 2-0, and is now just one pitch from loading the bases for Rivera, which was the original plan anyways.

At this point, Girardi might as well have intentionally walked Morales. If the idea was to pitch around Morales in the first place, Marte had already done that, getting behind Morales 3-0. If Girardi was originally worried about moving a runner to third base with an intentional walk, he doesn’t have to worry anymore since Hunter stole his way there.

So on the 3-0, Cervelli calls for a pitch to be just outside the zone, but with Marte No. 2 on the mound, he misses his spot completely. When Marte is going like this, he can’t even throw a ball when he needs to and instead throws an 89 mph meatball down the heart of the plate. Morales, sitting patiently and given the green light, unloads on the present from Marte and hammers it over the wall for a three-run bomb to blow the doors open on the Yankees.

Friday night wasn’t as bad since it’s hard to say Girardi shouldn’t have used Joba there, and even if it was statistically wrong to let Morales hit from the left side on Friday, he proved on Sunday that he has no problem dropping bombs from either side. Sunday, however, wasn’t so simple since Girardi telegraphed his initial instinct to intentionally walk Morales and let Robertson face Rivera with two outs. By displaying his original thought to the world, he had already created an alternate ending for a potential disaster. If Plan B failed, Girardi had unlocked the door for second-guessing and criticism. And once it did fail, the media and fans just had to open the door he had unlocked.

So the Yankees lost their first series of the season, and two games in which they led. But the team is 12-6 (statistically have won each series sine the sweep of the Rangers and loss to Angels cancel out), and have the 3-16 Orioles next with Phil Hughes, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett lined up. It’s hard to complain.

I’m just happy the Yankees don’t face the Angels again this season, unless they meet in October, and no games against the Angels means no more Kendry Morales. No more Kendry Morales means less times Joe Girardi has to make a tough decision, and that’s a good thing.

I forgot what it felt like for the Yankees to come out of the gate in April like Secretariat and just have their way with the rest of the American League. Well, that feeling is back.

After six seasons (60 seasons in Yankee years) of bad starts, the Yankees have made a seamless transition from the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2010. The offseason feels as though it was just one long off-day rather than a four-month layoff, and 2010 has felt like an extension of 2009 and I like it … I LIKE IT A LOT (Lloyd Christmas voice). I’m not about to say that the 2010 Yankees are better than the 2009 Yankees because that won’t be determined until the decorative bunting returns to the Bronx, but as of right now, it looks like getting to October won’t be a problem.

In the first two and a half weeks of the season, there has been 11 wins, a .733 winning percentage, five series win in five tries, to near no-hitters and a triple play. It’s almost as though the 2010 season has a script to make the potential end-of-the-year championship DVD as Hollywood-like as possible.

This Yankees team has the “We play today, we win today, dassit” attitude that Mariano Duncan implemented and that the 2009 Yankees didn’t find until late May (at the earliest). The difference? There isn’t an injured Chien-Ming Wang or up-and-down Joba Chamberlain in the rotation, and the bullpen isn’t still waiting for the Phil Hughes Bridge to be built to Mariano. The Yankees entered the season with a pitching staff that has limited flaws, and the only real question was Javier Vazquez, but he finally answered some of those questions on Tuesday, even if they weren’t the convincing answers we were looking for.

On Tuesday I wrote about Javier Vazquez’s needed to get into the win column and contribute to the team’s success in some way to avoid more boo birds at the Stadium at the end of the month. Vazquez responded with a so-so performance, but it was good enough for a W against the surprising A’s, and at least it bought him some time to stay out of the way of headlines and criticism until his next start on Sunday against the Angels.

But the real issue with Vazquez, one that he might not be able to shed, is that I don’t trust him, and I don’t know any Yankees fan that does. There is no question that the ability is there for Vazquez to be successful, I’m just not that sure if he is cut out for this whole pitching in the American League thing. If he finished the year with 17-plus wins and an impressive ERA in the AL East, would he gain my trust? I’m not sure, but I hope we at least get to the point where I have to make that decision.

Vazquez isn’t the only Yankee that suffers from my lack of trust, and if you couldn’t guess the other one, it’s Nick Johnson.

I am at a constant divide with Nick Johnson. Part of me loves his on-base percentage that hovers around .400 and the other part of me thinks that $5.5 million could have been spent on something else. I don’t know if I am supposed to classify it as a love-hate relationship or frustration or a combination of the two and other synonymous words for annoying, but like Vazquez in the rotation, Nick Johnson is the farthest thing from trustworthy in the lineup.

Plenty of my sabermetric friends who read that last paragraph probably just threw up, as did sabermetricians around the world (including those that built the 2010 run prevention Red Sox), but there is more to evaluating Nick Johnson than on-base percentage, which I am certainly an advocate of. What’s the sabermetric stat for someone who has one hit since two Tuesdays ago? Do I think that Nick Johnson is capable of hitting .300, making this early season slump forgetful and being the “R” in a lot of Mark Texeira and Alex Rodriguez’s RBIs? Yes. But I also know that my TV remote is only a few more called third strikes with runners in scoring position from no longer being safe.

Now, am I ready to purchase www.benchnickjohnson.com (which is available) and start a movement to sit No. 26 next to No. 28? Not yet, but don’t think that thought hasn’t crossed my mind. Part of the reason I am writing this is because my reverse jinx of calling out Javier Vazquez out on Tuesday worked, so why not try the same with Johnson on the day the Yankees begin a three-game set against the now red-hot Angels at Angels Stadium. I figure if my words can get Javier his first win in three starts, maybe they can get Nick his first hit in his last 19 at-bats.

To be fair, if Johnson was enduring this slump during say Games 91 through 105, rather than Games 1 through 15, it would be a side note in a Yankees notebook column somewhere. But because it is the beginning of the year and because of who he is replacing on the roster, his early season slump is now the one negative on a team that is trying bury the Red Sox and separate themselves from the Rays.

When Johnson hit that home run in the first inning of the first home game, I thought he was going to become the short porch’s new best friend, a void that Johnny Damon left. Instead he has become the best friend of opposing pitcher’s and the electric chair for rallies.

Obviously I want Nick Johnson to do well and I want to like him, but he needs to give me a reason to, and right now, coming out to “Party in the USA” is the only thing to like about him. The common theme about the Yankees right now is “Hey, they are 11-3 and Nick Johnson and Mark Teixeira aren’t even hitting yet.” But at some point the people responsible for the 11 wins won’t be hitting either and Nick Johnson will be asked to carry the club for a series or two. (I don’t mention Teixeira here because I don’t think anyone is truly worried about him).

Let’s hope this attempt at a second reverse jinx in four days works. Let’s hope that Nick Johnson tears it up against the Angels this weekend and the Yankees win their sixth straight series to open the season. Let’s hope Nick Johnson finally shows us why Brian Cashman was devastated to let him go the first time and eager to bring him back a second time. Let’s hope the only thing Yankees fans have to boo when the team returns home are the players on opposing teams.

I hate when the Yankees have off days, especially when they are running on all cylinders and playing like they might never lose again. But without Yankees baseball on Monday, I got a chance to watch the Mets begin a stretch of games that will ultimately determine whether or not Jerry Manuel will have to file for unemployment, as well the debut of the Mets’ chosen one: Ike Davis.

The first round of the Survivor-like battle for immunity between Jerry Manuel and Lou Piniella went to Manuel, as Ike Davis made a seamless transition to the bigs by sending a message to Daniel Murphy that he either needs to learn a new position or find a new line of work. Like a veteran, Davis let a changeup makes it way outside the zone against Randy Wells in the second inning before picking up his first hit in majors in the same at-bat. And then against left-hander Sean Marshall, Davis jumped out of the way of two epic breaking balls before picking up his second career hit and first career RBI. In one night, Davis basically matched Mike Jacobs’ numbers through the first two weeks of the season, and instilled some hope and confidence into Mets fans.

I am as far away from being a Mets fan or liking the Mets as I am from becoming a member of Red Sox Nation, but for some reason I like Ike Davis. This will probably change by Friday since Mets fans will likely start debating if Davis is better than Mark Teixeira, but until then, I’m an Ike Davis fan.

Why is this a big deal? Because I’m not a fan of any Met, but there is something about Davis that makes him a likeable player and personality even though he is part of a cast of unlikable characters. I’m not going to go pick up a “Davis 29” shirt today, I’m just saying that I am pulling for him to do well.

For at least one night, Davis helped remedy the Mets’ problems at first base and he gave a fan base that is ready to jump ship a reason to stay onboard a little longer. In a season where conflict has found the Mets like a season of The O.C., Davis has emerged as the one bright light capable of providing some relief for Mets fans and an alternative to the liquor cabinet for the time being.

On the other side of town – the winning side – the Yankees’ are currently harboring the anti-Ike Davis. While the Mets have found their one flicker of hope on a team of turmoil, the Yankees have one thorn in the side of their plans to run away and hide in the AL East.

The Yankees have played 12 games this season, and at least every person on the roster has helped contribute to the Yankees’ nine wins except for Javier Vazquez. For a guy who was expected to flirt with a 20-win season in the Bronx in his second go-around with the Bombers, the second verse has started the same way the first one ended.

When the Yankees traded for Vazquez, there were three questions that he needed to answer during his second chance in pinstripes:

1. Could his success in the NL translate to success in the AL?

2. Could he leave the past (2004) in the past?

3. Could he handle the pressure of pitching in New York this time since he couldn’t the first time?

So far we’re 0-for-3 if you’re scoring at home.

Yankees fans spent the winter believing in a changed Vazquez, a pitcher who was supposed to be much different than the man who helped contribute to the biggest stain in franchise history. Instead Vazquez’s two starts have been an extension of the 2004, while the rest of the team tries to extend the 2009 season.

If you were to play the word association game with “Javier Vazquez,” the first thing that comes to mind is Game 7, but 2004 would also be an acceptable answer. Will there ever be a day when I hear “Javier Vazquez” and don’t immediately think of his ill-fated attempt to wiggle out of a bases-loaded jam in Game 7? I don’t think so. But it doesn’t mean he can’t begin to rewrite the story of his time with the Yankees.

I have been torn on whether or not is it fair to get on Vazquez after just two starts or roughly 6 percent of what will be his regular season body of work for the year. Part of me thinks it’s a bit insane to expect perfection in baseball and the other part of me thinks that Vazquez needs to do something to prove he won’t be a glaring hole in the rotation between Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes. The difference between Vazquez failing in the Bronx and getting booed and a big-name free agent failing and getting booed is that Vazquez has a history in New York. And the only thing to judge him by is his one year in New York, which everyone is trying to put in the back of their minds, but he keeps bringing it up to the front.

The thing that Vazquez enthusiasts and non-Yankees fans don’t understand is that the only body of work that matters for evaluating Vazquez is what he has done with the Yankees. No one in the Bronx is impressed by what he did with the Expos, Diamondbacks, White Sox or Braves, or how he dominated the National League in 2009. So when he gets lit up by a limping Angels team and outpitched by Joel Pineiro’s sinker at home, no one is going to be forgiving because he won 15 games for the Braves last season, simply because no one cares. Yankees fans are going to judge him based on how he performs in New York, and if his performance deserves some April Bronx cheer, so be it. It’s deserved.

For anyone else in baseball on any other team in baseball, their third start of the season in April would be exactly that. But after laying a pair of eggs against the Rays and Angels, and being the only unproductive piece of the Yankees so far, Vazquez’s starts against the A’s and Angels are getting the attention of October starts. No one is worried about Mark Teixeira getting a hit once a week or Nick Johnson taking called third strikes like a hobby (though that’s getting annoying), but everyone is worried about Javier Vazquez because he has done nothing in the past to prove he can bounce back from adversity.

There will be a sense of urgency in each of Vazquez’s two road starts in order to get him right before the Yankees return home, because the closer the Yankees get to returning home and the farther Vazquez is removed from being who he was last year, the louder the boos will be in the Bronx. If Vazquez is going to be bad against the A’s, he better be outstanding against the Angels. If he ends up back in New York still winless at the end of the month, he better be on the disabled list because the last place he is going to want to be in the world is on the mound at Yankee Stadium pitching for his first win of the season after a month of action.

At 9-3 with series wins over the Red Sox, Rays, Angels and Rangers, there should be little to nothing to complain about with the Yankees and their best start to the season in seven years. Tight now Javier Vazquez is the “little” something to complain about, but he can change that on the West Coast, 3,000 miles away from where one pitch from over five years ago still defines his Yankees career.

It might only be his third start of the year, but it’s time Javier Vazquez proves his worth to Yankees fans. There is just no way he can return home without having already done so.