Open Thread: March 29th Camp Notes

The Yankees are officially Spring Training champions. They clinched baseball’s best record this spring with their win this afternoon. Neat. The Yankees are now 23-8-1 while the second place Cardinals are 20-8-4. Both teams have two games to play. Aaron Judge had two singles this afternoon and he even stole a base. So did Aaron Hicks, who drew a walk but did not have a hit. Ronald Torreyes doubled and Starlin Castro tripled.

Jordan Montgomery started and was solid again, allowing one run on six hits and a walk in five innings. He struck out four. Folks in attendance tell me Montgomery did give up quite a bit of hard contact, however. Ben Heller tossed two scoreless innings. He’s allowed one run in 13 innings this spring, though he also walked eight. That’s not good. Here is the box score. The game wasn’t televised, so there are no video highlights. Here are the rest of the notes from Spring Training:

• Brian Cashman confirmed the Yankees have made a decision about their fourth starter. They just won’t tell us who it will be yet. As for the fifth starter, they’ll figure that out later. They Yankees will use off-days to skip their fifth starter the first two times through the rotation, and carry an eighth reliever instead. Joe Girardi added Luis Severino is not going to the bullpen. “We have an idea of what we’re going to do with him for the most part,” said the skipper. [Michael Kay, Bryan Hoch]
• Earlier today the Yankees announced Tyler Wade has been sent to minor league camp. That means either Pete Kozma (yup) or Rob Refsnyder (nope) will get Didi Gregorius’ open roster spot. Also, Kyle Higashioka’s locker has been cleaned out, though the Yankees have not yet officially announced he’s been sent out. There are still 34 players in big league camp. [Erik Boland]
• Still no word on the right field job. Girardi acknowledged the Yankees are still considering sending Judge to Triple-A. “He needs to play. That’s the bottom line,” said Girardi. I’m not sure what more Judge needs to do this spring. He’s hitting .345/.406/.569 with a 20.3% strikeout rate. [Hoch]
• The Yankees will play their final Grapefruit League game tomorrow afternoon. Severino is starting and the game will be on MLB.tv.

This is the open thread for the night. MLB Network is showing a spring game on tape delay later tonight and the Knicks are the only local team in action. Not much to see tonight. Talk about anything but religion and politics here. Just don’t be a jerk.

Self-Promotion: I was on Eric Roseberry’s On Baseball Writing podcast, so check that out even though I am the most boring person in the world.