The Yankees arrived in Chicago and seemed to have forgotten their bats. They were shutdown yesterday by the Chicago Cubs in a game that didn’t even last three hours. They hope to bounce back today against Cubs starter Ryan Dempster. AJ Burnett has a 3-0 record against the Cubs – he pitched in the National League with the Florida Marlins from 1999-2005 – but his ERA is above 4 which means today could be interesting. The Yankees hope Burnett will continue he’s winning ways and get the club back on track this afternoon.

Yesterday’s big story was Chicago’s Doug Davis who was 0-5 coming into yesterday’s start. Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News writes about the Yankees <a href="A team 12 games under .500 and a pitcher who had yet to win this year proved the worst possible combination for the Yankees.

Wallace Matthews of ESPN New York writes about Doug Davis’ offspeed pitches and how they stymied the Yankees’ bats.

Tom Ginetti of the Chicago Sun Times writes that Cubs manager Mike Quade doesn’t expect his club to be .500. Quade thinks it’s better to concentrate on playing good baseball instead.

‘‘That’s the oldest thing in baseball, to ‘get back to .500.’ ’’ he said. ‘‘But we just took three out of four from a very good team [the Milwaukee Brewers], and we did it because we played good baseball. We took advantage of some of their mistakes, but just play good baseball every day. See what happens hitting-wise, and let’s not give four outs in an inning.’’

A Minor Glance

It wasn’t a good day for the organization from top to bottom. The only team who didn’t lose – the Single A Tampa Yankees – was off for their All Star Break.

The Low A Charleston Riverdogs lost to the Hickory Crawdads 10-2

The Short Season A Staten Island Yankees opened their season with a loss to the Brooklyn Cyclones 5-3.

The Double A Trenton Thunder mimicked the big club’s dilemma of being beaten by a team well under .500 but in their game, the Thunder were done in by an awful pitching performance from their starter and the Binghamton Mets were able to capitalize. Manny Banuelos gave up five runs in the fourth and was chased from the game. Trenton answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the fifth but couldn’t complete the comeback and the Mets pulled away winning the game 10-4.

The Triple A Scranton Yankees were clipped by the Columbus Clippers 6-5. Scranton was down 6-0 early and nearly completed the comeback in the eighth inning but they fell ultimately short. Former Yankee Shelley Duncan contributed to the win for Columbus – he started the scoring with a first inning RBI double. Their record is now 35-30, while the Clippers improved to an International League best 46-22.