Cervelli headed back to NY, Romine may join team tomorrow

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Update (12:22am): Via Bryan Hoch, Cervelli is headed back to New York and is unlikely to rejoin the team on the road trip. It sounds like Austin Romine will join the team tomorrow. If he does, a 40-man roster move will have to be made.

Original Post (6:26pm): Frankie Cervelli stood his ground and was involved in not one, but two collisions at home plate on Thursday, but he hasn’t been in the lineup since. After being a late scratch last night, Cervelli was again scratched from tonight’s starting lineup because of concussion symptoms according to Marc Carig.

Concussions are no joke, so expect Frankie to sit out until he’s 100% ready to go. That means we might see Jesus Montero start a game behind the plate sooner than expected. Joe Girardi spoke about Montero’s unfamiliarity with the pitching staff, but he did catch Ivan Nova in Triple-A last season and has caught Freddy Garcia both in the bullpen and during his rehab assignment a few weeks ago. We’ll see what happens there, but the important thing is that Cervelli gets healthy. The brain is nothing to mess with.

No offense, no win: Yanks drop fourth straight

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Do I hear four? Yes, I do hear four losses in a row. Let’s recap…

  • Once again, the Yankees offense didn’t bother to show up. The picked up just four hits and not a single walk, and over their last 25 innings they’ve scored exactly one run (Jesus Montero‘s solo homer on Friday) and had just four batters get beyond first base. Four! Dan Haren is the first pitcher to throw a first complete game shutout against New York this season, and I don’t think he even broke a sweat. It was a thorough dismantling of a team of a team that couldn’t bring someone home if they were a high school quarterback in their dad’s BMW.
  • CC Sabathia wasn’t great or even good (13 baserunners in six innings), but one run in six innings is a very winnable game. He needs to get back to being on a normal five-day schedule very soon because he just hasn’t been right since this whole six-man rotation thing started. I can totally see Sabathia being the kind of guy that thrives on too much work rather than not enough.
  • Best part of the game was easily Jorge Posada‘s return to catching. Russell Martin suffered a bruised right thumb courtesy of a foul ball and Joe Girardi presumably didn’t want to lose the DH by putting Montero behind the plate, so in same Posada. Sure enough, he threw out the first (and only) baserunner that attempted to steal. For a guy that hadn’t caught a competitive inning in eleven months, he didn’t look half bad.
  • The Rays walked off with a win against the Red Sox, so the lead in the wildcard shrunk to seven games while the lead in the division remained at 2.5 games with 18 to play. Here’s the box score, here’s the FanGraphs stuff, and here’s the standings.

Good news: Martin’s x-rays came back negative, but Montero will catch Sunday as the regular backstop gets a few days to rest his bruised digit. Meanwhile, the Yankees will try to salvage the series when Freddy Garcia gets the ball against Ervin Santana at 3:35pm ET.

Martin leaves game after taking foul tip to right hand

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Update (11:28pm): It’s being called a bruised right thumb right now, and Martin is being taken for x-rays. Cross your fingers.

Original Post (9:57pm): Russell Martin left tonight’s game after taking a foul ball to his right (bare) hand. They bandaged him up, but Martin was unable to throw the ball back to the pitcher during the before-inning warm-ups, so he was lifted. Jorge Posada took over behind the plate, his first catching action of the season. We’ll update the post with more as it comes.

SI tops Brooklyn to advance to NYPL Finals

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Short Season Staten Island (1-0 win over Brooklyn) SI wins the best-of-three series two games to one, advancing to the Championship Series against Auburn … that series starts tomorrow
Mason Williams, CF: 1 for 4, 1 K, 1 SB
Cito Culver, SS: 0 for 3, 1 BB
Ben Gamel, RF: 0 for 4, 2 K
Tyler Austin, 3B: 2 for 3, 1 R, 2 2B, 1 K, 2 E (throwing, fielding) – had a huge series at the plate, but three errors in the field
Reymond Nunez, 1B: 1 for 3, 1 3B, 1 RBI, 1 K – tripled in Austin for the game’s only run
Casey Stevenson, DH: 0 for 3, 2 K
Zach Wilson, LF: 0 for 3 – Cody Grice took over for defense late in the game
Angelo Gumbs, 2B: 0 for 2, 1 BB, 1 CS – got picked off first … first start of the series
Nick McCoy, C: 0 for 2, 1 K
Will Oliver, RHP: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 10 K, 1 WP, 6-3 GB/FB – huge outing in the deciding game … career high in strikeouts had been eight, set in his first start of this season
Phil Wetherell, RHP: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 1 HB, 3-2 GB/FB
Branden Pinder, RHP: 1 IP, zeroes, 1 K, 1-0 GB/FB – closes it out yet again … SI always seems to have a dominant closer

Triple-A Scranton, Double-A Trenton, High-A Tampa, and Low-A Charleston all failed to qualify to the postseason. The Rookie GCL Yankees have already won their league title.

Game 144: Will the offense show up?

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(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The Yankees are in a collective offensive funk at the moment. They’ve scored just one run in their last 16 innings, and that was Jesus Montero‘s solo homer last night. Aside from that, they’ve managed just two hits (both singles), four walks, and one hit batsman since Alfredo Simon left after the four inning of Thursday’s game. No runner has even made it past first base. These things happen over the course of the season, so hopefully the Yankees will bust out of it tonight. Here’s the starting nine…

Derek Jeter, SS
Curtis Granderson, CF
Mark Teixeira, 1B
Robinson Cano, 2B
Jesus Montero, DH
Eric Chavez, 3B
Russell Martin, C
Eduardo Nunez, RF – first career start in the outfield, majors or minors
Brett Gardner, LF

CC Sabathia, SP

The game starts a little after 9pm ET and can be seen on YES locally or MLB Network nationally.

Andruw Jones will have knee drained before playoffs

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The hits just keep on coming. Marc Carig reports that Andruw Jones has been playing with a small tear in his left knee all season long, and the outfielder plans on having it drained before the postseason. He’s already had it drained several times this summer. The knee hasn’t bothered him at the plate (.363 wOBA overall and .399 vs. LHP), but I have to imagine it’s slowed him down a bit in the field. Not that Jones has been bad defensively, but you know what I mean.

Saturday Night Open Thread

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We’ve got some time to kill before the Yankees try to end their three-game losing streak against the Angels tonight, so here’s an open thread to help keep everyone busy. There’s a plethora of college football on, making me wish I actually following the sport. Oh well. Anything goes here, talk about whatever your heart desires.