River Avenue Blues

Game 39: Hit a home run; bat clean-up; get rained out

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I’m pretty sure that Joe Girardi is now messing with us.

On a day when it’s supposed to rain for all eternity in Detroit, the Yankees’ manager has installed Derek Jeter in the cleanup spot for the second time in his career. The last time Jeter, who has just one home run on the season, hit in the four spot was on July 10, 1999 when the Yanks lost a heartbreaker to the Mets. Mariano Rivera gave up two runs in the bottom of the 9th to blow the save, and Jeter went 0 for 4 with a walk.

It probably won’t matter much though because the tarp’s on the field, and reports from Detroit say that the game will be long delayed if it’s played at all. The Yanks could be, depending upon the outcome out of Scranton today, been saved from a Kei Igawa start.

Here’s your lineup:

Damon LF
Cabrera CF
Abreu DH
Jeter SS
Giambi 1B
Duncan RF
Cano 2B
Molina C
Gonzalez 3B

Pettitte P

*** YANKEES-TIGERS RAINED OUT***
The Yankees and Tigers are rained out today. The Yankees are not scheduled to return to Detroit but could land in Detroit on a mutual off day. According to the YES Network, the next four starters are Andy Pettitte, Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina and Darrell Rasner. The Yanks will skip Kei Igawa’s Wednesday start and deal with Friday when the time is right.

But there’s some bad news too: The Scranton game was postponed. So Ian Kennedy’s scheduled start will be pushed back a day, and he wouldn’t be ready to pitch on Friday. Fate, it seems, is trying to hand the Yankees another Kei Igawa outing. The Mets would go to town on Igawa though. I shudder to think of the possibilities.

Now get off the computer, and go spend some time with your mothers. It is, after all, Mother’s Day.

Update by Mike (1:35): Not only was Triple-A Scranton rained out, as Ben mentioned above, but Double-A Trenton was also washed out. High-A Tampa and Low-A Charleston both have scheduled off days, so no DotF today.

Tell your mom I said hi. (kidding)

Olbermann loves the new Yankee Stadium

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For your Sunday morning viewing pleasure, may I present to you Keith Olbermann? The MSNBC pundit took a break from politics to discuss baseball this week. In particular, he got a super-secret tour of the new stadium construction site, and as you’ll see, he’s very excited about the new Yankee Stadium. Enjoy the video, and the hat tip on this one goes out to Bugs and Cranks.

The injuries are starting to mount

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The big league team isn’t the only one being ransacked by injuries, the Low-A Charleston River Dogs are also fighting the injury bug, with Abe Almonte and Wady Rufino being the latest to hit the DL. The Yankees are extremely insecure about releasing injury info about their prospects, but I’ll wrap up the Charleston DL crew for you anyway:

Lower Body Injury: CF Abe Almonte, 1B/3B Brandon Laird, C Austin Romine, and 3B Bradley Suttle
Upper Body Injury: RHP Jairo Heredia, RHP Adam Olbrychowski, and RHP Ryan Zink

As you can see, the Charleston trainers need to alter their conditioning routines so that they do a better job of targeting the upper and lower body. Why can’t they just say, “hey, this guy pulled his hammy,” or “hey, so-and-so’s shoulder is barking.” Is that so difficult? Keeping the injury a secret won’t make it go away.

Triple-A Scranton (5-1 loss to Indianapolis)
Brett Gardner & Bernie Castro: both 0 for 2 – Gardner scored a run, walked twice, was caught stealing & threw a runner out at first from CF … Castro walked once & swiped a bag
Jason Lane: 1 for 3, 1 RBI, 1 CS, 1 HBP
Eric Duncan & Cody Ransom: Both 0 for 4 – Ransom K’ed twice
Greg Porter & Justin Christian: all 1 for 4 – Porter K’ed twice
JD Closser: 2 for 3, 1 PB, 1 E (throwing)
Dan Giese: 7 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, 9-4 GB/FB – 66 of 94 pitches were strikes (70.2%) … in 36.1 IP as a starter, he’s allowed 26 hits, 4 earned runs, 8 walks and struck out 30
David Robertson: 1 IP, 1 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 0-2 GB/FB – only 13 of his 26 pitches were strikes … pitching against guys with big league experience for the first time can be a bit of a rude awakening, he’ll get over the shell shock soon enough

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Yanks reach .500 again but Betemit goes down

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So that was a good one to win, eh? Darrell Rasner continues to impress; the offense continues to plate runs — although Robinson Cano should have taken a strike with the bases loaded and one out in the first before hacking away; Mariano continues to just get outs. He’s a machine. The only damper on the game was Wilson Betemit’s injury. The Former Attorney General will be back in the Bronx in no time.

Meanwhile, while the Yanks need to call up Alberto Gonzalez so they have a backup infielder, the Yanks once again find themselves in a situation where they could call up Ian Kennedy early and juggle the rotation to have him start against Tampa. They could dispatch Kei Igawa to AAA and call up Bernie Castro or Nick Green to backup the infield until A-Rod comes off the DL this week. I know the Yanks want Kennedy to get more work in at AAA, but they can’t really have Igawa make another start, can they?

Game 38: Scoring late in the game

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I heard Paul O’Neill say this, I think, back in 2005. The Yanks were getting blown out by the Sox in Fenway. They scored a few runs in the ninth, though, including an A-Rod bomb, and the score ended up 9-4 or something like that. O’Neill noted that it was a good sign for the next day when a team scored late in a blowout. Something about them showing signs of life.

Not being one for weak anecdotal evidence, I wrote off Paul pretty quickly. But sure enough, they won the next day. So I started taking note of such situations. Every time the Yanks scored in the 9th inning when they were down big, they won the next day. Of course, this is only in the times that I actually made the observation. Clearly, I might have missed a few instances. But in any case, it gives me high hopes for today.

Darrell Rasner takes the mound again. The Tigers are no Mariners, though, so he’ll need to be a bit more on his game to get through this lineup. Jeremy Bonderman is on the other side. He shut us down last time out, even though we had him on the ropes early on, but let him off the hook.

The lineup:

1. Johnny Damon, LF
2. Derek Jeter, SS
3. Bobby Abreu, RF
4. Hideki Matsui, DH
5. Jason Giambi, 1B
6. Melky Cabrera, CF
7. Robinson Cano, 2B
8. Wilson Betemit, 3B
9. Chad Moeller, C

And on the mound, Darrell Rasner.

Chris Britton strains Albaladejo’s elbow

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The neglected bullpen pitcher Chris Britton should rejoin the team today and actually, you know, pitch in some games due to another injury for the Yanks. Jonathan Albaladejo has what the team is calling an elbow strain or sprain and will land on the DL. He’s due for an MRI in New York on Monday, but this could spell the end of the season for Albaladejoa.