The Yanks lost another one last night – this time to Yu Darvish and the Rangers – but all the media was talking about, once you left the sunny Ken Singleton on YES and turned to ESPN, was Ryan Braun’s plea deal for a 65-game suspension. Universal reaction was that A-Rod is next, that the evidence against him is far more damning and that he, unlike Braun, won’t go quietly. Poor Girardi. He looked exhausted in his post-game presser, not only from having to fly to Texas in the wee hours after the Red Sox game, but from having to answer questions about Biogenesis and PEDs.

The game itself was yet another source of frustration. Nova wasn’t especially sharp, but he pitched well enough to win. Chris Stewart, who’ll never been an All-Star catcher, has nevertheless been so impressive with his recent defense and last night he made great throws to second even though most of the calls when against him. The guy does give it everything he has.

Ichiro leapt for a ball in right field and crashed into the wall, making the catch, and I marveled at his acrobatic skill and athleticism. Gardner had another zillion-pitch at bat. So it’s not as if the players aren’t trying. Rumors that former Yankee Soriano is joining the team from the Cubs is moderately interesting – the idea is to bring on some home run power – but he’s not the same Sori that he was all those years ago.

Mostly, last night was about Braun and, by extension, A-Rod. The fear among the Yankees and MLB is that A-Rod will fight a suspension, fight the accusations against him, keep this thing going and going and going. Much more preferable would be for him to accept his punishment and go away. Until that happens, the cloud will be overhanging…………And then there’s Cervelli. Oy.