River Avenue Blues

Exhibition Game Thread: One Final Tune-Up

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New Stadium at nightAh finally, the last day of meaningless baseball. The only thing on the line today is the utility infielder job, but I think that’s already been decided and just hasn’t been announced. After the game the team will get ready for their season opener on Monday afternoon, when they’ll be in Camden to take on the improving Orioles.

The New Stadium looked amazing last night, now we get to see how she looks during the day. As Ben mentioned this morning, the two of us will be there to soak it all in. Well, hopefully the weather cooperates and we won’t have to soak anything in, literally. I’ll be wandering around beforehand, but I’ll settle in to my seat (Section 420B, Row 5, Seat 9) about a half-hour before first pitch. Stop by and say hi.

AJ Burnett is starting and will be relieved by Andy Pettitte. I’m guessing we’ll see Phil Coke and Damaso Marte if any extra arms are needed since they didn’t throw yesterday. Head on over to LoHud for the lineup. Enjoy the game folks.

Photo Credit: Eric Thayer, Reuters

San Fran likes Nady

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Via MLBTR, Jon Heyman has a tiny little blurb about the Giants being interesting in bringing Xavier Nady back to the Bay Area at some point. It isn’t clear if Heyman means they’re interested in trading for the X-man during the season, or pursuing him when he’s a free agent next winter. Nady, who grew up about two hours south of San Francisco and starred at Cal-Berkeley, fits their need for a power bat that can fill in at first base and the corner outfield spots. Given his contract status, the Yanks shouldn’t expect much for Nady in a mid-season trade, and would probably maximize their return by offering him arbitration after the year and taking the compensation draft pick(s).

Meet (most of) RAB at Yankee Stadium today

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We couldn’t let the opening weekend at the new Yankee Stadium go by without heading up to the Bronx to check out the new digs. While Joe is out of town this weekend, Mike and I are heading up to Yankee Stadium this afternoon to scope out the scene. While we’ll be wandering the halls before the game, we’d like to invite any RAB reader who’s coming to the stadium today to find us once the game starts. We’ll be sitting all the way up in the Grandstand in section 420B. We’re in row 5, seats 8 and 9. Come find us.

Bombers draw first new stadium blood

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The Yankees played a game in the Bronx last night. They were wearing their pinstriped home uniforms. They took the field first, received a lot of applause, hit some home runs and won. Sounds good, right?

For all that is right in Yankee Universe, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that I was watching the Yanks play a home game in someone else’s stadium. The frieze looks great; the Great Hall looks, well, great; and Michael Kay called the stadium “majestic” every half inning. It will take a little while to get used to this new stadium as the home park for our New York Yankees.

That said, Yankee fans couldn’t have asked for a better debut. The team blasted three home runs with Robinson Cano hitting the first one out. Derek Jeter knocked out the first Yankee hit in the new stadium, and while Chien-Ming Wang wasn’t brilliant, he did enough to nail down what should be the first of many Yankee wins on the north side of 161st St.

For the Yankees, Friday night was nothing but a tune up. They left Florida with the best record in the Grapefruit League and came north to test run the new stadium. The team responded in kind. They knocked out 13 hits — including two doubles and three home runs — and plated seven as they downed the Cubs 7-4.

If we bothered to look closer, we might see a few things that weren’t so encouraging. Chien-Ming Wang was off. He threw just 43 of 71 pitches for strikes, and he induced seven ground balls to five fly outs. He was missing up with his sinker, and the Cubs weren’t getting good swings.

Of course, Wang’s line would have looked a lot better if not for a “past a diving Jeter” play. With two outs and two on in the top of the second, Wang got a ground ball that could have been an out. Jeter ranged to his left, dove and missed it. Two runs scored, and Wang used five more pitches to get through the inning. Jeter’s defensive short-comings aren’t always that obvious, but tonight, we saw exactly how his lack of range can impact an inning.

To be fair, Jeter the leadoff hitter, came to bat three times and was on base three times. He scored a run and did all we could ask offensively. He’s hitting nearly .400 since returning from the WBC and remains a top offensive threat at the top of a potent Yankee lineup. That defense though will always be a problem.

Anyway, enough with the negative digs at Derek. Tonight was a night to ring in the stadium and a new era in baseball history. While the Y.M.C.A. made a rather unfortunate debut at the new Yankee Stadium, everything else was as planned. Here’s to many more of those victories when they count.

Corona returned by Mariners

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Following up on yesterday’s post, the Yankees officially welcomed Reegie Corona back from the Mariners today. After hitting .281-.311-.386 in 57 at-bats this spring, Corona was assigned to Double-A Trenton, where he played last year. All of the players the Yanks lost in the Rule 5 Draft this year have been accounted for, as Corona, Zack Kroenke and Ivan Nova returned to the Yanks while Jason Jones will remain with the Twins after a trade.

Exhibition Game Thread: Test Runnin’

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Chien-Ming WangBaseball in New York is finally back. It’s been six long months since the city last hosted a game featuring big leaguers, and even though tonight’s game is just an exhibition, who cares? It’s baseball in New York.

The star of the show will undoubtedly be the New Stadium, which will experience the tender lovin’ of a Major League game for the first time tonight, even though the game doesn’t count. The weatherman says to expect some showers throughout the evening, but the baseball gods have a way of taking care of these things. Remember, the final game at the Old Stadium was threatened by rain, but come first pitch there was nothing but blue skies and sunshine.

Lou Piniella and his Chicago Baby Bears will help christen the new place in what amounts to nothing more than a test run of all the services and neat little features. Between tonight and tomorrow the bigwigs will get an idea of what needs to be improved before the season starts, and then while the Yanks are on the road the next two weeks, that stuff will be taken care of. Beautiful, ain’t it?

Here’s the starting nine:

Jeter, SS
Damon, LF
Teixeira, 1B
Matsui, DH
Posada, C
Cano, 2B
Nady, RF
Ransom, 3B
Gardner, CF

On the mound is number forty, Chien-Ming Wang.

Both YES and the MLB Network will be carrying the game; first pitch is scheduled for 7:15. Enjoy folks.

Note: Long-time RAB reader and commentor Arman Tamzarian asked us to pass this along (no, that’s not his real name):

I’m a Program Manager with Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco. I’m running a half marathon to raise money for the program, and am looking for sponsorship help. Larkin Street has been working with homeless youth for the past 25 years in San Francisco. Larkin Street not only works with youth ages 12-25 around housing, but has a whole division teaching resume building, interview skills, job retention, and getting youth jobs. Larkin Street works to move youth out of the system and into independence.

You can find his sponsorship page here, and you can also find more info about Larkin St. here. Even if it’s just a couple bucks, please consider helping out.

Photo Credit: Flickr user matt.hintsa

Sprucing up the neighborhood

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For now, the weather is holding in New York City, and the Yankees may just get to play that first game at the new stadium in a few hours after all. Meanwhile, City Room, the Metro-focused New York Times blog, checked in with an interesting piece on the efforts to cleanup the neighborhood before the stadium opens today.

Here’s how Matthew Warren described it:

Inside the stadium, workers cleaned and polished metal railings. Outside, landscapers planted bushes and trees. City park workers picked up trash, painted benches and spread grass seed in nearby parks. Power washers were sent out to remove graffiti from neighboring buildings. Workers put down lines of fresh white paint on the crosswalks, and even a nearby McDonald’s was undergoing renovation.

“Now for opening day, there’s a little bit more of a rush to get things clean,” said a parks department worker enrolled in a job training program, who was painting park benches green at Macombs Dam Park. “I’m not sure when the last time they were painted was.”

While it’s a good idea for the South Bronx to put its best face forward for the debut of the new home of the Yankees, it shouldn’t take a new stadium for the city to clean up a dirty neighborhood. Mike and I are heading up to the Bronx tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have a full report and lots of pictures after the game then.