As Brett Cecil mastered the Yankees for the fourth time this year, the Yankee game lacked any drama after Phil Hughes served up a two-run gopher ball (already his second of the day) in the third inning. As the Bombers failed to mount a serious challenge in a 7-3 loss, Yankee fans watching the scoreboard were treated to a roller-coaster ride as Tampa and Boston played hot potato with the leads in their games with Baltimore and Chicago.

As the Yankees went quietly, Tampa was putting up a four spot on the Orioles in the sixth to overcome a three-run deficit. Luckily, the recently defiant Orioles answered back with four of their own in the bottom of the same inning. After Tampa scratched another two runs in the seventh, the Orioles held on tightly to the slim remaining margin. They sealed the win in impressive style as newly minted closer Koji Uehara made short work of the top of the Rays order, whiffing MVP candidate Evan Longoria to end it.

And that was nothing compared to what was going on in Boston. The Red Sox led 2-1 until Daniel Bard’s throwing error in the seventh gave Chicago a 3-2 lead. Boston struck back immediately to reclaim a 4-3 lead courtesy of a Victor Martinez two-run blast. After an insurance run in the eighth, Papelbon needed three outs to make up a game on both the Yanks and Rays. He only could get two. Eight white socks crossed the plate and Chicago ended up with a sweet comeback victory.

These happily wild endgames turned the Yankee loss into a minor annoyance, or possibly to the truly enlightened, a mere afterthought. Hughes was bad. Though he only allowed seven hits in six innings, the hits were all loud (six for extra bases) and the Jays hurt him with every kind of pitch. Hill doubled on a terrible curve and homered on a flubbed cutter. Wells homered on misplaced fastball. Buck touched up another bad cutter and Snider doubled on an ineffective change (pitch identification courtesy of mlb.com’s Gameday). When he needed an out, he didn’t know where to turn, and he mostly came up small.

The velocity charts on Fan Graphs don’t show a lot of deterioration on Phil’s offerings over the course of the year, but pitches that blew past bats in April and May are finding wood as the summer drags out. He is less precise with his location, less effective overall.

But the Jays are a clubbing squad. He avoided the walks, got five K’s and mixed in the change up a little bit more. And he lasted six innings. I don’t think Hughes has many big performances left in him this year, but I’m not going to forget the great start to the year either. Hope he contributes what he can down the stretch, and comes back stronger next year.

The Yankees should be overjoyed that they mustered three runs and eleven base runners against Brett Cecil. That’s now seven measly runs in 28 Cecil-pitched innings. And good news for Brett, I think if he repeats this domination again next year, the Yankees are legally obligated to give him 82.5 million dollars.

Next up are the Orioles. The Yankees should beat on them like the bad team that they are – the 51-86 Bizarro Yankees. But us fans should temper our expectations with the sobering facts that Showalter has guided them to a 19-13 record since he took the helm and they are coming off a very nice 9-7 stretch against the Rangers, Angels, White Sox, Red Sox and Rays. Gotta come to play to win this next series.