Bobby Valentine and Johan Santana merged in my mind this week, Santana as a victim of bad journalism, Valentine as a victim of his self-generated personal publicity machine.

Last week, within a couple of days of the Florida Marlins’ dismissal of Fredi Gonzalez as their manager, the Web site SI.com reported that Valentine would replace him. Foxsports.com and others joined in, and it quickly became a foregone conclusion that the job belonged to Valentine.

That’s the way the Valentine publicity machine operates. He feeds information to his band of favorite reporters, and they do his bidding. In this instance, however, he and they were premature, and reports, again led by SI.com, emerged early this week that Valentine was no longer a candidate for the job.

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In a two-week stretch of the interleague schedule (through Friday), eight games were decided by a 1-0 score. The eighth game was a no-hitter that Edwin Jackson pitched for the Diamondbacks against the Rays last Friday night. It was the second no-hitter among 25 1-0 games this season.

The Mariners defeated the Reds by that score twice in three days during the interleague stretch. The Blue Jays lost a pair of 1-0 decisions. So did the Nationals four days apart, one of them Stephen Strasburg’s first major league loss.

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The Yankees seem to have figured it out finally. Three years after their aborted effort to add Phil Hughes to their starting rotation and a year after they assigned him to the bullpen, he is in the rotation and has the best record of any pitcher in the rotation.

In fact, he has the best winning percentage among American League starters and is tied for the most wins with 10. Yet his road to this juncture has been filled with potholes.

The Yankees have guessed right and wrong with Hughes, but considering developments with the team and the pitcher, they have been more right than wrong, which means they have been more lucky than good.

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