Around the Horn: Girardi, Sabathia, Warning track…

It hasn’t been long since the Yankees’ season ended, but the team is already in offseason mode. Here are some recent stories:

• Mark Feinsand reports that the Yankees and Joe Girardi have agreed to a three-year contract worth $9 million which would put the incumbent Yankee skipper back at the helm. I know a lot of people claim to dislike Girardi, but is there really anyone else you’d rather be the Yankees’ manager? I’m very happy that Joe will be back.
• Along the topic of coaches, Dave Eiland has been let go. His contract was up anyway, so you can get away without calling this a firing, but it sure seems like one.  Brian Cashman said the “letting go” of Eiland was all the GM’s decision and it was “private”. It will be interesting to see who the new pitching coach will be. If the Yankees don’t stay internal I could see Curt Young or Rick Kranitz taking over the position.
• Yankee fans received some surprising news yesterday when they heard that CC Sabathia would undergo surgery on his right knee. The recovery period is expected to be anywhere from three to six weeks and the Yankees’ ace should be entirely ready for spring training. While this surgery may not be a big deal, it is interesting to wonder if this is the reason CC did not pitch up to expectations during the playoffs.
• You may very well remember Lance Berkman’s recent slip on the warning track of Yankee stadium. Well it turns out that this was not a freak accident, and in fact the warning track at Yankee Stadium is overly dangerous. Mike Axisa of RAB covered the issue last week.
• Unsurprisingly, the Yankees turned down the options to retain Lance Berkman, Kerry Wood, and Nick Johnson. I would still expect them to make an attempt to sign Kerry Wood who was excellent in his brief stint with the Yankees.

In case you are wondering, which I am pretty sure you are not, I’m supporting the San Francisco Giants in this year’s World Series, mostly because I love Matt Cain. Plus they had Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard perform at a game recently, which is pretty awesome.

CC Hits The Battlefield

Thanks to Zell’s Pinstripe Blog I recently stumbled upon this gem of a video with CC Sabathia starring in a commercial for the video game “Battlefield Bad Company 2”. Check it out if you want to laugh.

There is also a commercial for the video game “Modern Warfare 2” with Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels in it. It contains some foul language so I won’t post it here on this family website, haha! But, if you are interested you can find it by searching for “Modern Warfare 2 Cole Hamels” on Youtube.

CC comes close to a no-no

CC Sabathia came extremely close to a no-hitter this afternoon, but with two outs in the eight inning Sabathia gave up a single to former teamate Kelly Shoppach. Nevertheless, CC was absolutely great today and the offense was pretty good too scoring 10 runs. Let’s not forget the defense either. A-Rod, Teixeira, and Cano all made outstanding plays which at the time kept CC’s no-hitter intact. Overall, it was a great game.

Your Opinion

Joe Girardi said after the game that Shoppach was the last batter CC was going to face even if he got him out. I for one don’t believe this. Sabathia threw 111 pitches today, assuming he could have gotten through the 8th with those 111 pitches, how could you not let him go one more inning? What do you think, was Girardi really going to take CC out after the Shoppach at bat no matter what?

Game 5: Yankees at Rays

After looking pretty bad last night in a loss to the Rays, the Yankees send out this lineup via Chad Jennings to face RHP Wade Davis…

SS Derek Jeter

DH Nick Johnson

1B Mark Teixeira – I think he’ll get his first hit today

3B Alex Rodriguez

2B Robinson Cano

RF Nick Swisher

CF Curtis Granderson

LF Brett Garnder

C Francisco Cervelli

LHP CC Sabathia

Checking up on former Yankees beards

Joseph Pawlikowski of RAB has a nice little run down of the beards of former Yankees.

MSG’s The Line-Up

Has anyone here seen this show? From my understanding they pick the best player in New York history at ever position. I’ve never seen it but it sounds interesting.

Game 1: Yankees at Red Sox

Opening Night is finally here. It will be great to see the Yankees play a meaningful game after a long offseason. The Yankees will be in Boston tonight as they take on their biggest rival in a game that will surely be overblown by the media. Anyway, here is the projected starting lineup for the Yankees…

SS Derek Jeter

DH Nick Johnson

1B Mark Teixeira

3B Alex Rodriguez

2B Robinson Cano

C Jorge Posada

CF Curtis Granderson

RF Nick Swisher

LF Brett Gardner

SP CC Sabathia

Time/TV: 8:05 p.m., YES/ESPN2

Weather: Mostly sunny, 65º F via The Weather Channel.

Injury Updates: Alfredo Aceves and Nick Johnson should be good to go for tonight, there haven’t been many updates regarding Damaso Marte so he is questionable.

P.S. The reason I used my projected lineup is because I won’t have a computer available to blog with later, but I wanted to do a game post.

Yankees move onto the ALCS

As you already know, the Yankees swept the Twins in the ALDS and now are preparing to play the Angels (who swept to Red Sox in the ALDS) in the ALCS. Game 1 doesn’t start until Friday so here are a few questions you can look at and discuss until Friday comes along:

• Are the Yankees going to use 3 or 4 starters in the ALCS? Well it looks like they are strongly leaning to going with 3 starters, which would put CC Sabathia on short rest for game 4 and a possible game 7, but it would also allow the Yankees to keep Joba and Gaudin in the bullpen. More from Sam Borden…
• Will the Yankees make any roster adjustments? Well, there hasn’t been much said about the subject but if the decision was mine to make, I think I would take Damaso Marte off the roster in favor of Brian Bruney or Freddy Guzman.
• Will the Yankees use Joba for the 8th and Hughes for the 7th? I personally don’t understand how this has been brought up. Joba has pitched in a grand total of 2.2 innings coming out of the bullpen in all of 2009. Should he really be considered higher up in the pecking order than someone who has been there for over half a season? I don’t think so. When asked about Hughes, Girardi responded, “I’m not concerned about Hughsie.”

Game 138 and 139: Rays at Yankees

Today, Labor Day, which looks to be a very nice day, the Yankees will play a day night double header against the Rays. I’m really looking forward to it because it means twice as much Yankee baseball as usual. Hopefully the Yankees can win the first game, which would take the pressure off AJ Burnett in the second game, plus it is rare for a team to win both games of a double header. Anyway, here are the lineups via Pete Abe:

Game 1 – 1:05pm

SS Derek Jeter

RF Nick Swisher

1B Mark Teixeira

3B Alex Rodriguez

2B Robinson Cano

C Jorge Posada

DH Eric Hinske

LF Melky Cabrera

CF Brett Gardner – Welcome back!

And on the mound, CC Sabathia

Game 2 – 7:05pm

TBA

The boys are back in town

Brett Gardner is back with the big team, and Shelley Duncan will be too according to Pete Abe Duncan has been recalled.

A couple videos to pass the time

Sorry for the shortage of posts lately, with the summer ending and school starting I’ve been a bit busy lately, hopefully when things settle down I’ll be able to provide regular posts.

Game 133: Yankees at Orioles

Tonight with their ace on the hill the Yankees look for the sweep of the Baltimore Orioles. Here is the starting lineup via Pete Abe:

SS Derek Jeter

LF Johnny Damon

1B Nick Swisher – You are used to see “Mark Teixeira” in this spot, right? Don’t worry, supposedly Mark is just getting a day off.

3B Alex Rodriguez

DH Hideki Matsui

2B Robinson Cano

CF Melky Cabrera

RF Eric Hinske

C Jose Molina – It has become blatantly obvious that Jose is CC’s personal catcher, yet many such as Pete Abe keep denying it and just say that Posada is just getting a day off and it happens to occur when CC is pitching.

And on the mound, the aforementioned CC Sabathia

Notes:

• In case you are wondering, River Ave Blues says that September call up, Mike Dunn, is wearing number 31.
• A-Rod may not need 2nd hip surgery. I’m not a doctor by any stretch of the imagination, so my opinion on this is “whatever the doctor says.” I’ve seen a few people argue that if he doesn’t get the 2nd surgery he may never be 100%, which seems plausible to me, but most people are saying that if there is you can avoid going under the knife, you should because no surgery is 100% guaranteed to work, especially hip surgery. That sounds even more plausible to me.
• To me safety always comes first, but it may not always be the most stylish option!

Game 124: Yankees at Red Sox

Tonight’s game is the final game of this series, and happens to be a rubber match. All I can hope for is that tonight’s game is better than yesterday’s game. Here is the starting lineup via Peter Abraham:

SS Derek Jeter

LF Johnny Damon – After the way Damon has played left field this year, I shouldn’t be happy to see him out there, but I am because he is still better than Eric Hinske

1B Mark Teixeira

3B Alex Rodriguez

DH Hideki Matsui

RF Nick Swisher

2B Robinson Cano

CF Melky Cabrera

C Jose Molina

And on the mound, CC Sabathia

“Why can’t we be friends?”

In yesterday’s game it was pretty clear that AJ Burnett and Jorge Posada where not on the same page. Peter Abraham seems to think the blame should go to Burnett, while I disagree, here is what Pete Abe had to say:

By no means do I think Posada and Burnett work particularly well together because they don’t. But when asked about pitch selection, Posada put it well.

“I just make suggestions,” he said. “It’s up to the pitcher to throw the pitch he wants. He’s the guy in charge.”

Look at Burnett’s history. This is a stubborn guy who tends to blow up at times and let games get away from him. That is who he is. He kept saying after the game how good he thought his curveball was. From what I saw, the Red Sox were hammering that pitch, just like they have all season.

Burnett’s a two-pitch guy with an occasional change-up. It’s not like any catcher has a lot to pick from.

Burnett may be a stubborn guy, but that is a good thing because you don’t want an indecisive pitcher on the mound for you. Posada on the other hand, can not be stubborn, which I think he is. If Burnett has his mind made up on a curveball, and Posada calls for a fastball and convinces Burnett to throw a fastball, Burnett is not going to throw that fastball with great confidence, which usually means it won’t be a good pitch. Obviously something needs to be fixed between these two guys. If I were Girardi, I would have them both sit down and discuss a game plan for how they are going to work together in the future, and Burnett should be in charge. The last thing Yankee fans want to see is Jose Molina catching game 2 of a playoff series because Burnett and Posada don’t get along. How do you feel about this? Do you think it is Burnett’s fault, Posada’s fault, or both? Please comment.

Comedic relief

Game 115: Yankees at Mariners

Nothing like staying past your bedtime to watch west coast baseball, right? Tonight the Yankees send out a lineup that happens to be missing two of their regulars that I figured would not play, and I discussed in the previous post. Take a guess right now of the two guys who aren’t playing. Okay, did you guess?  If you guessed that Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada were the two guys not playing tonight, you are correct. I guess it wasn’t really a hard guess, haha! Anyway, here is the rest of the lineup via Pete Abe that will oppose Ian Snell at 10:10 pm eastern time:

SS Derek Jeter

LF Johnny Damon

1B Mark Teixeira

DH Hideki Matsui

RF Nick Swisher

2B Robinson Cano

CF Melky Cabrera

3B Jerry Hairston Jr.

C Jose Molina

And on the mound, Carsten Charles Sabathia

The Michael Kay Drinking Game

Andrew Fletcher of Scott Proctor’s Arm just came out with an updated drinking game that pays tribute to Michael Kay. It’s worth a look, especially if you need a laugh.

Arroyo taking a big risk

Bronson Arroyo of the Reds recently spoke out about how he takes pills, vitamins, and/or drugs not approved by MLB. It is not clear  or not these supplements that he takes are banned or just not approved. But, I for one am shocked that he would take the risk of actually saying something like this, unless he knew that he does not take any banned supplements. Here’s the rest of the story.