“Bruney's our eighth-inning guy."

Joe Girardi repeated that phrase several times this week in being questioned about replacing Phil Hughes, who needed just nine pitches to set down the Mariners in the seventh inning, with Brian Bruney in the eighth Tuesday night.

That has changed.

In two straight games -- including today -- Girardi looked elsewhere in the eighth and that's going to continue in the coming weeks.

“We need to get [Bruney] going and we need to get him right and we’ll get him right but Hughes is throwing the ball real well right now,” Girardi said.

Not that Bruney is getting banished to irrelevance.

We’re going to pick some innings and they’re still going to be important innings and get his stuff right and get his location right." Girardi said of Bruney's suddenly undefined role. "This is a guy that really missed about two months and in a sense you could almost say he’s going through spring training again."

Girardi also can't ignore what Hughes has done from the bullpen.

“I see him come out of that bullpen with a lot of confidence,” Girardi said of Hughes. “You look at the pitches today – down and away, down and away, 95, 96 [mph]; location’s very good; curveball’s very good; just a lot of confidence.”

Bruney didn't complain afterward.

"I’m just going to go out there and throw when I’m called upon," Bruney said. "Everybody’s caught up in what inning...it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t. We’re getting W’s and the team’s playing well. What are you going to complain about?"

He continued.

"Like I said, as long as we’re getting W’s, I really don’t care, honestly," Bruney said. "I’ve said that 100 times. We’re winning games, we’re playing well. I’m sure there’s going to be situations where I have to get somebody out and it’s going to be a big spot and I’ll be ready for it. Really, there’s one role – Mariano’s the closer. We have five starters, then we have six guys that fill in whenever. I happened to be coming in the eighth inning for a while but things change. I’m not bent out of shape over it, I promise you that. Like I said, I’m here to win."

Said Hughes: "It really doesn’t matter if it’s the fourth inning, or eighth inning or whatever it is,” Hughes said. “We’re all down there basically to bridge the gap between the starter and Mariano. Obviously, someone needs to pitch the eighth and get valuable outs in the eighth, and any one of us could do that.”

It's interesting to discuss, but the whole "eighth-inning" specialist thing is overdone anyway. For over 100 years, baseball survived without some of these things, using simple formulas such as if a reliever came in in the fifth, sixth, seventh inning or whatever and was hot and getting people out, he stayed in. It's the reason Hughes should have stayed in the other night and the reason if Bruney comes in next week in the sixth or seventh inning and blows away hitters with ease, he should probably stay in, too. But that's another topic for another day.

Anyway, another standout game today from A.J. Burnett, who improved to 3-1 with a 0.99 ERA (three earned runs in 27 1/3 innings) over his four starts since lasting only 2 2/3 innings that night in Boston. For Burnett, it's all about the fastball, which was at 96 early and 95 late and consistently over the plate for strikes.

“Fastball command,” Burnett said. “When I get ahead with that, I’m able to use the hook and then everything else, but it all starts with the No. 1”

Which is breeding huge amounts of confidence, something Burnett didn't have earlier in the season.

“When you’re clicking on pitches, you don’t really think about anything,” Burnett said. “It’s just all confidence out there. I’m going to go out and get strike one, and if I get ahead, I’m going to put you away.”

And with that, have a great holiday weekend. I'm off Saturday and Sunday and will be flying to Minnesota Monday. But there will still be plenty of coverage here of the remainder of the series against the Blue Jays so please check back.

The pitching matchups the rest of the series, all 1:05 games:

Saturday: Chien-Ming Wang (1-6, 10.06) vs. Roy Halladay (10-2, 2.56)
Sunday: Joba Chamberlain (4-2, 3.89) vs. Scott Richmond (6-5, 3.69)
Monday: Andy Pettitte (8-3, 4.25) vs. Ricky Romero (6-3, 2.85)

After he was knocked out in the third inning at Fenway Park in early June, A.J. Burnett vowed to improve. Has he ever. Burnett scattered six hits over seven innings to win for the third time in four starts, and the Yankees opened the long holiday weekend with a 4-2 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday.

Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous "Luckiest man on the face of the earth speech." MLB will honor the anniversary by reciting the speech prior to every game on Saturday's schedule.

Here's a clip of the real thing:

Gooooooooooooooooooood afternoon everybody (Chris Russo impression). If you turned on YES this afternoon, you're probably a little surprised, no "Mike and the Mad Dog" (the duo broke up over a year ago), but not even "Mike'd Up." It's Yankees baseball, a rare treat on a Friday afternoon.

The reason for the afternoon game is obvious, the good Yankees want to get home snug in their beds early for some rest on Boss's Birthday Eve. George Steinbrenner turns 79 tomorrow (also our nation turns 233).

Last night's game ended just over 13 hours before the start of this one, but on the bright side, the Yankees won't have to dwell too long on that loss. A.J. Burnett (6-4, 3.94 ERA) takes the hill for the Yanks, fresh off his best start of the season, a one-hitter against the Mets last weekend. The Blue Jays will turn to Brian Tallet (5-5, 4.47). Tallet's lost three of his last four. Toronto beat Tampa on Wednesday to snap a four game losing streak, and the Jays sit four games behind the Yanks.

Will the Jays build a new winning streak and hand the Yanks a second straight loss? Or will the Bombers deliver the Boss an early birthday present? We'll find out this afternoon in the Bronx.

Be back before first pitch to get this started.
-Mark Macyk