Last night the Yankees defeated Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays, and the Red Sox lost to the Rays in 13 innings. Tonight the Yankees look to take the final game of this short 2 game series in Toronto before they head back home to face the Red Sox. Here’s the starting lineup (which by the looks of it, it seems like Girardi is resting some guys for the Boston series) via Peter Abraham:
SS Derek Jeter
LF Johnny Damon
1B Mark Teixeira
DH Alex Rodriguez
RF Nick Swisher
2B Robinson Cano
CF Melky Cabrera
3B Jerry Hairston Jr.
C Jose Molina
And on the mound, Sergio Mitre
Welcome Back Anthony, goodbye Cody
RHP Anthony Claggett has been recalled from Scranton, I assume this is because the Yankees don’t really trust Mitre and they want another bullpen arm. You may remember Claggett from his one day in the bigs back on April 18th when he allowed 8 runs in 1.2 innings…let’s just hope that doesn’t happen again. And to make room for Claggett Cody Ransom was designated for assignment. I know there will be many people glad to hear that! However, regarding Claggett, I can’t imagine he will be here for long. The Yankees could send Claggett down tomorrow and call up another position player (Ramiro Pena?).
Tonight the Yankees defeated the Braves by the score of 8 to 4. While it may look like an ordinary win, it was not quite. Through 5 innings the Yankees did not have a single base runner, and it looked like another night of losing to Cy Young. However, the story changed in the 6th inning. Brett Gardner led off the inning with a walk (the Yankees first base runner), then he got called out on a pick off on first. Joe Girardi immediately came out to argue. Gardner was clearly safe as seen on the replays, but from Girardi’s view he probably couldn’t really tell. Still, Girardi gave the first base umpire his money’s worth and was ejected. Seeing the manager ejected always seems to get a team fired up. Anyway, the next batter was Francisco Cervelli who hit a solo home run to tie the game at one (his first career home run). From there on almost everything went the Yankee’s way. They went on to score two more runs in the 6th, one in the 7th, two in the 8th, and then 2 in the 9th.
On the pitching side things also went well for the Yanks. Joba Chamberlain went 6.1 innings allowing 3 runs, 2 earned. Phil Coke came in to finish the 7th after Joba got in a bit of trouble. Then Bruney came into the 8th inning and right from the get go he didn’t look right, to me his fastball wasn’t there. Bruney allowed a run and could not finish the 8th after getting 2 outs. Enter sandman who stroke out the first batter he faced to end the 8th. Mo actually batted in the top of the ninth, he came up with the bases loaded and two outs and he actually hit a hard liner to center. In the bottom of the 9th Mo was smoking. He faced three batters, and struck out all three. So for the night Mo faced a total of 4 batters and stuck them all out. Vintage Mariano. So the Yankees won the game 8 to 4.
Side Notes
The Yankees held a closed door meeting after last night’s game. Supposedly it was basically a pep talk. Jeter and Teixeira were the two guys to step up and talk during the meeting.
Brian Cashman unexpectedly was in Atlanta tonight. He also had a little closed door meeting in Girardi’s office with Nick Swisher and Girardi himself. The original lineup posted tonight had Swisher on the bench and Melky in right field. After that little meeting with Cashman, Swisher was in the lineup and Melky was on the bench. The Yankees did not really comment on the situation, so we’re just left to speculate. All I could think off would be that Cashman and Girardi wanted to let Swisher know what the situation would be once Xavier Nady returns (which should be soon, he actually played right field tonight for Scranton). Maybe they told Swisher that he would become a bench player once Nady comes back. I really don’t know, but I would think there was more to Brian Cashman being with the Yankees on the road than just to tell Swisher something. But you know the Yankees, they are quite secretive.
Cody Ransom is back with the team, Angel Berroa was DFA’d.
Jose Veras was traded to the Indians for “cash considerations.”
The Yankees have played their last two series against the Nationals, and the Marlins. They have lost both series, going 2-4. The Yankees have not looked very good lately, and surprisingly it’s more their hitting than their pitching that has looked bad. For the most part the Yankees pitching has been pretty good, minus some bullpen appearances (cough…Brett Tomko…cough) and CC Sabathia who had to leave Sunday’s game in the second inning. The good thing about baseball is that there are many games left in the season, and the Yankees still have time to get back on track. Tonight, they look to do just that as they send the following lineup via PeteAbe out to face Tommy Hanson, the highly touted Braves prospect who has looked good in his first 3 major league games (4.08 ERA):
SS Derek Jeter
RF Nick Swisher
1B Mark Teixeira
2B Robinson Cano
C Jorge Posada
LF Melky Cabrera
CF Brett Gardner
RHP Chien-Ming Wang
Chien-Ming Wang looks to go out and solidify his rotation spot after a fairly good outing last time out against the Nationals in which he would have only given up 1 run if it wasn't for a bad play by Ramiro Pena, and a blown call by the first base umpire. Oh well, no need for excuses. "Go get em Chien-Ming!"
Damon still day-today
Johnny is on the bench today still nursing that pain in his calf. He is day-to-day and can pinch hit tonight if necessary.
CC still in question
After being removed from Sunday’s game in the 2nd inning, CC took yesterday off, today he received treatment, and tomorrow he will throw a bullpen session. At first he was said to have “left biceps tendinitis” now it’s being called a sore arm. When asked whether or not he thought this was a result of throwing 253 innings last year, CC said, “No, that’s not it, It could be the 120 pitches this year.” To me that is code for, “Yeah Joe has been using me a bit too much this year, and I feel that is the reason why I have this issue right now.” Take it as you want, but if the extra pitches towards the end of his pitched games this season is the reason CC has this “sore arm”, then Joe Girardi has seemingly made two mistakes in handling prized players (Alex not getting days off, and now CC). However, it is not right for me to point fingers, because nobody except for the Yankees themselves know why CC has a “sore arm.”
Give us a break
On Sunday, the Marlins had a mistake with their lineup and defensive positioning. The Yankees played the rest of the game in protest. If the protest was won the Yankees would have been able to replay the game from the point where the Marlins made the mistake. However, as expected MLB denied the Yankees protest.
Thanks to River Ave Blues, I just discovered a great baseball website. The name of the site is Flip Flop Fly Ball, and it is run by Craig Robinson. What he basically does is create infographs relating to interesting baseball information. It is a great site, and a must read for all baseball fans.
Cody Ransom will be back
Cody will be back with the big club tomorrow according to PeteAbe. Either Berroa will be DFA or Pena optioned down. I really hope Berroa gets the axe, I feel like I have something against him that I was born with. It’s weird.
Batting Stances Guy
Whether you have heard of him or not, the batting stances guy is a dude who mimics hundreds of ballplayers’ batting stances. In my opinion, he is funny to watch, but he kind of over-exaggerates players’ stances, which I guess he means to do. Anyway, the other day I saw a video of him doing the 2009 Yankees batting stances, and I thought I’d share it with you.
By the way, 161st Street is on Twitter
However, I will not be posting excessively like some people do. I just plan on having automatic “tweets” whenever I create a new blog post. So, the real reason 161st Street is on Twitter is to make the blog more accessible to people who are on Twitter very often. Here’s the link, in case you are a “Twitter” or whatever a user of Twitter is called.
Sorry for not posting a new edition of “Off Day Musings”. I did not have computer access yesterday.
Wang has weakness in the adductor muscles of both his hips. Dr. Mark Lindsay, who is working with ARod in Tampa, was the one who discovered Wang’s hip weakness. Supposedly, the weakness is a kinetic effect of Wang’s lisfranc fracture suffered last year. When Brian Cashman was asked when can Wang be expected to rejoin the big league team, he responded, “I don’t know, I know it’s a minimum of 10 days to two weeks of physical therapy on the hips, and the fact that he’s a pitcher, after that, who knows?” Cashman said. “He’ll be able to throw to some degree, I believe, while that’s going on. The main issue is to get those hips taken care of and get him back on line, because they’ve gotten off line.” Thankfully Wang’s ailment will not require anything drastic, just physical rehab. David Robertson has been recalled to take Wang’s 25 man roster spot.
Cody Ransom, on the other hand, could have a more serious injury. He suffered a right quadriceps injury when he was sliding into second base on a steal last night. For now I would assume Ramiro Pena will take over at third base, but according to Cashman the Yankees will have another infielder up by today’s game. I am guessing that would be Angel Berroa, however I personally would like to see Pena start at third for now.
Brian Bruney, who according to Joe Girardy has a “cranky elbow”, was not in Boston last night, rather he was in New York for examinations. For now all we can do is hope.
The Yankees have not announced who will take Wang’s spot in the rotation but I would be shocked if Phil Hughes did not take that spot. I would look for Hughes to get at least 4, maybe 5 starts before Wang comes back.
It looks like we are going to see Mark Melancon come up as well to replace Brian Bruney who is on the DL. Nothing else on this yet. If Bruney was put on the 15 day DL then someone would have had to been DFA to make room for him, if Bruney was put on the 60 day DL then there would be no DFA. Let’s hope for the first situation.
161st Street 