Lots of milestones:

Pettitte allowed three hits over 7 1/3 innings to earn his 250th career victory, leading the Yankees to a 3-1 win over the Seattle Mariners. The 47th pitcher in major league history to reach that milestone, he will turn 41 on June 15. But what happened just as the game ended meant even more to him. His first-born son, Josh Pettitte, a right-hand pitcher for Deer Park (Texas) High School, was drafted by the Yankees in the 37th round in the Major League Baseball draft.
. . . ...

Boz pays homage to the gritty, gutsy, scrappy, first place 2013 underdog Yankees:

Perhaps for the first time in their history, the Yankees now epitomize exactly the kind of team that always used to try to beat them: a group of inspired-by-adversity, too-old-or-too-young, one-last-chance players who band together to prove that baseball is a team game, not just an aggregation of talent and fat contracts.

Put a few all-star seasons, such as Cano’s 31 RBI, Kiroda’s 1.99 ERA and Rivera’s 16 ...

Schu scanned through video and found film of Harper hitting. He arranged clips of Harper and Ruth side-by-side on the monitor and stopped at the moment each hitter’s bat connected with a pitch. In each still picture, he saw a stiff front leg, an uncoiling torso and a back foot lifting off the ground. “Wow,” he thought. “That’s identical.”

“They’ve got that exact same swing at contact point,” Schu said later.

The Kid may need to put on some weight.

RTFA. Lots of video & ...

The Washington Nationals are putting third baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the 15-day disabled list because of a strained left hamstring and promoting prized prospect Anthony Rendon from Double-A for his big league debut.

Earlier than the Nationals would prefer, but it worked out OK for that Harper kid.

Is Harper better than Joe Hardy?

Let’s imagine what Harper, who had the best overall season of any teenager in big league history last year, might do if he has, say, one of the best 20 seasons of any 20-year-old.
. . .
Most projections for Harper put him into the wrong category: all ballplayers. Compared to everybody, anyone’s chances of being superb look dim. But what if we compare Harper to a more accurate peer group: No. 1 overall draft picks taken out of high school that played power ...