Pretty solid win for the Yankees today, who have won just six of their last 16 games but also three of their last four. Glass half full or glass half empty? Your choice. Either way, here is tonight’s open thread. The ESPN Sunday Night Game is in St. Louis for Brewers-Cardinals (Estrada vs. Lohse), plus the Olympics are on and there’s an NFL Preseason Game being played for you folks with the NFL Network. Talk about those games or anything else here.
Update: Pettitte’s x-ray shows good progress
4:35pm: Following today’s game, Joe Girardi said the x-ray showed that the leg/ankle were healing well. “He’s better, he’s definitely better,” said manager Joe Girardi. Pettitte is still a ways off from getting back up on a mound, but this is obviously good news.
11:00am: Via Meredith Marakovits, left-hander Andy Pettitte will have his fractured left ankle x-rayed today to see how things are healing. He did say he’s feeling much better of late, so that’s good news. Andy suffered a bit of a setback about a week ago after doing a little too much work while the team was out in Oakland. Hopefully things are going well and he can return to the club in early-September — he’s going to need a few tune-up type starts before diving into a potential postseason series.
Gardner may be able to rejoin Yankees in September
Brett Gardner had surgery to remove inflamed tissue and shave down bone spurs in his right elbow late last month, but there’s a chance he could rejoin the Yankees as a pinch-runner/defensive specialist when the rosters expand in September. “If there’s a way he can help us, we’ll definitely use him,” said Joe Girardi today. “If there’s certain things that he can’t do and it’s during the month of August, then you’re kind of limited and you limit your roster. But with an expanded roster, if he can help us, we’ll definitely use him, if it doesn’t jeopardize him getting back next year.”
The Yankees have used guys like Greg Golson and Freddy Guzman as their pinch-runner/defensive replacement late in the season in recent years, and if Gardner can’t return in September that responsibility could fall onto the shoulders of Melky Mesa. He was just promoted to Triple-A and homered in his third game yesterday. Mesa’s already on the 40-man roster, so it’ll be interesting to see if he gets the nod if needed.
Game 107: The End of the Homestand
The Yankees have won just five of their last 15 games and seven of those losses have been decided by just one run. Two others were decided by just two runs. It’s one thing to get dominated by Felix Hernandez, that’s going to happened throughout the course of the season, but some of the other losses were games the Yankees really should have won. A win this afternoon would give them a tolerable 4-5 homestand before heading out on a seven-game road trip. Here’s the lineup…
CF Curtis Granderson
SS Derek Jeter
2B Robinson Cano
1B Mark Teixeira
DH Raul Ibanez
RF Nick Swisher
LF Ichiro Suzuki
3B Jayson Nix
C Chris Stewart
RHP Freddy Garcia
Today’s game starts a little after 1pm ET and can be seen on YES. Enjoy.
Domination: Felix blanks Yanks in 1-0 loss
Source: FanGraphs
There really isn’t much you can say about Saturday afternoon’s loss to the Mariners. Felix Hernandez is a great pitcher and sometimes he’s going to be so good that you’re only going to get two hits in nine innings. I was at the game and the only thing that bothered me was his strikeout total: six. If I’m going to watch the Yanks get manhandled like that in person, at least rack up 15, 16, 17 strikeouts or something like that. Rude of him to only whiff six.
Hiroki Kuroda was pretty awesome on the other side and was saddled with the tough luck loss. The bullpen was great, Ichiro Suzuki extended his exactly-one-hit streak to eleven games, and that’s that. MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs the advanced stats, and ESPN the updated standings. The Orioles beat the Rays, so the lead in the division remains seven in the loss column. Also, this happened. Every day that ticks off the calendar without anyone gaining ground is almost as good as a win. Freddy Garcia and Hisashi Iwakuma will meet in the rubber game on Sunday afternoon.
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Sorry folks, no minor league update tonight. I will, however, link you to the box scores: Triple-A, Double-A, High-A, Low-A, Short Season, Rookie GCL.
Saturday Night Open Thread
Ty Hensley made his second professional appearance this afternoon, striking out five in two innings for the Rookie Level GCL Yankees. Here’s the box score if you want to check out the full details. The high school right-hander from Oklahoma signed for below-slot because of “abnormalities” in his shoulder, but apparently they aren’t anything serious enough to keep him off the mound. Check out the Yankees on Demand feature above (here’s the link if the embed doesn’t work for whatever reason) as well as this interview with Hensley over at Yankees Fans Unite. He spoke about those “abnormalities” with some detail.
Once you’ve done that, use this as your open thread for the evening. MLB Network is airing a game tonight, though the teams you see depend on where you live. The Mets are playing the Padres a little later on as well (Hefner vs. Volquez). Talk about those games or anything else here. Go nuts.
Update: Yankees did not place a claim for Cliff Lee
August 4th: Via Danny Knobler, the Yankees did not put in a claim on Lee. Not all that surprising, but c’mon, a man can dream.
August 3rd: Via Jon Heyman and Jon Morosi, Lee has been claimed off trade waivers by the Dodgers. Because the Yankees are in the AL with the second best record in the league, every team other than the Rangers was ahead of them on the waiver totem pole.
August 2nd: Via Jeff Passan, the Phillies have placed left-hander Cliff Lee on revocable trade waivers. This is completely routine, literally hundreds of players will be placed on trade waivers this month. If a player is claimed, he can only be traded to the team that claims him. If he goes unclaimed, he can be traded anywhere.
As Matt Gelb explains, the Phillies were open to trading Lee prior to the deadline but were unwilling to eat any of the ~$95M left on his contract, and they wanted top prospects in return. The Yankees won’t place a claim because they won’t risk having that financial obligation foisted on them, but us fans can dream of a scenario in which they acquire Lee just by absorbing his contract and not giving up any prospects, high-end or otherwise. It would throw a massive wrench into the 2014 payroll plan, but man … that rotation.