"Joe Girardi is no pacifist. He fumes when Yankee players get plunked, even when he knows it isn't intentional. So you kept thinking that somebody was going to pay for Mark Teixeira getting drilled in the knee and knocked out of a big game against the Red Sox Tuesday night.

And when David Ortiz punctuated a moon-shot home run with a showy bat flip in the fifth inning in giving the Sox a 6-1 lead, well, I would have bet the ranch that fireworks were coming at some point.

I mean, I know everybody loves Big Papi, but he showed up a kid pitcher, Hector Noesi, in a way that usually demands retaliation at some point.

Girardi all but said as much after the game.

"I didn't really care for it," he said. "I don't know if he was upset that Noesi came inside, but I've got a young kid on the mound.

"David is a guy who has always played the game hard, the right way. My reaction is more protecting our young kid. That's what I'm going to do."

Those sounded like fighting words, but nothing came of it Tuesday night as the Yankees went about losing, 6-4, their sixth loss in seven games to the Red Sox this season.

Maybe it would have been different had a veteran pitcher finished up at some point. But Noesi saved the Yankee bullpen by going six strong innings in relief of an overmatched Freddy Garcia."