Wrap Up of the day down in Tampa

The Yankees world is pretty quiet these days. Last year it was all about A-rod and his admission of steroids, this year they are world champions and there is just nothing crazy going on right now. This is New York and this is the Yankees so things can change quickly but for right now it is camp quiet and everything is good in the world. Here are some final notes from Yankees camp today. Some of the outfielders filtered in to the clubhouse today to drop their bags off in preperation for next week when they will all report to camp. Randy Winn was there along with Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner and Curtis Granderson. Joe Girardi said that Winn has a lot of experience and is used to being an everyday player. He will be competing for playing time in the corners Girardi said. The Yankees haven't decided if they will keep both Hughes and Chamberlain on the same schedule to line them up for the 5th starter or break them up, we will see how that all shakes out. There are no major injuries and no visa problems right now which is a good thing. Joe Girardi said anywhere between 100-120 games played for Jorge Posada would be good. He is talking about him catching that amount of games. 1,528 fans were in attendance to watch the Yankees first workout at George M. Steinbrenner Field. This was announced by the Yankees.

New York Mets Pre Spring Training Workout

The New York Mets got to work today ahead of the Thursday report day for pitchers and catchers. David Wright, Daniel Murphy, Mike Jacobs, John Maine, Jon Niese, Ryota Igarashi and Hisanori Takahashi. Sandy Koufax was a guest of new minor league field coordinator Terry Collins and Guy Conti. They both once worked for the Dodgers. Here are a couple of pictures from Port St. Lucie, these pictures are courtesy of the NY Daily News and Adam Rubins blog Surfing the Mets. There wasn't much news coming out of today down there but Omar Minaya did say there is competition between Mike Jacobs and Daniel Murphy for first base. I don't know how the Mets could not have Murphy win that job though since there isn't any other spot for him and they really have high hopes for him and have continued to support him.

Yankees announce Spring Training Schedule

The New York Yankees will open their Spring Training schedule March 3rd at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was announced this afternoon by the Yankees. They will play 33 spring training games with 16 at George Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. The Yankees will complete the grapefruit league schedule on April 3rd against their minor league stars. Ticket prices for all of these home games will remain the same for the 2nd consecutive season. The Yankees will play the Phillies 5 times and face every one of their AL East foes except for the Boston Red Sox who they open and close the season with. They have 6 night games, pitchers and catchers will report on Feb 17th and the first workout will be Feb 18th. The first full squad workout will be Feb 24th. The Yankees also today recieved a record postseason share. They divided it up by awarding 46 full shares, 12 1/4 partial shares and 2 cash awards. The total amount they had to divide up was 365,052.73.

Some notes from ALCS Game 2

The victory for the Yankees was their 17th walkoff win of the year, 2nd in the postseason. The Yankees had 3 errors after having none in their first 4 postseason games. The Angels have 5 errors in 2 games in the ALCS. Chone Figgins was 0 for 19 before his rbi hit in the 11th inning last night. Bobby Abreu, Vlad Guerrero and Kendry Morales are 3 for 28 in the series. The Angels will workout this afternoon at Angels Stadium, the Yankees canceled their workout. The pressure is really on the Angels now but the Yankees have had a lot of problems in Anaheim lately. They did win 2 out of 3 in the middle of September there though and that should give them some confidence.

Yankees workout

The Yankees are in the midst of their workout at the New Stadium and their is no game today so no news. I will have something later when everyone posts their reports of the workout. It turned out to be a nice day and it will be interesting to hear what the players say about their new home. I can't wait until I get to the Stadium on Saturday morning, only 2 days away now and only 4 days until opening day.

I'm getting nervous now-Yanks win again

The New York Yankees have now won 8 in a row and 17 of 19. They keep winning and of course some people are saying its because Arod is away LOL. The bottom line is if the Yankees are healthy and they pitch they will win, they have great pitching. I would like them to lose friday, not Saturday when I am there. They won today by a score of 8-5, they were winning 8-2 and one of the minor leaguers I don't know anything about gave up 3 runs in the 9th. CC Sabathia started and gave up 2 runs in 3 2/3 innings giving up 6 hits, he had 1 walk and 5 strikeouts. This was just a tuneup and he said he is ready for Monday when the season starts. Jose Veras pitched 1 1/3 innings, 1 hit, with 1 walk and 1 strikeout. Damaso Marte pitched a perfect inning and s did Brian Bruney who had a strikeout. Bruney has put it together lately after a rough start. Steven Jackson closed out the game getting the one batter out he faced. Mark Teixera was the offensive star going 3-3 with 3rbi. He stated he has loved working with Kevin Long and wished he could start the season tomorrow. He was on Michael Kay today and said they are having so much fun, working hard and they have the attitude if they continue to work hard and stay healthy then no one can beat them, its all up to them. Hideki Matsui was 2-3 with 2 rbi and a walk. He hit a 2 run homerun, Jorge Posada was 1-3. Robinson Cano was 1-2 with a walk, Nick Swisher was 1-1 with a rbi and Cody Ransom was 1-3 with a rbi. The Yankees may be on their way home now, im not sure what time the plane left. They will have a workout tomorrow from 1:10-3:10, gates open at 11:00am. The workout is not open to the public, members of the community and certain season ticket holders got tix for this event, also tomorrow they have the special ceremony with Bernie Williams at the Hard Rock Cafe in the Stadium. Check out the lohud yankees blog with Peter Abraham for reports at http://yankees.lhblogs.com/ I will have my report from the Stadium at some point on Saturday evening.

Day 1 of Camp

I have some notes about the first day of camp thanks to the great beat writer and blog owner Peter Abraham. Hideki Matsui took batting practice for the first time since his knee surgery and looked good. Jorge Posada has been taking BP since December and said his swing is back. He is confident that he will be ready to go for opening day. His focus right now is on learning as much as he can about AJ Burnett and CC Sabathia. If he doesn't catch very many of their games he will be catching their bullpens. Joe Girardi said as he makes up his rotation he wants to seperate the lefties and keep Joba and AJ apart because of their similarities. Because of this the rotation should shape up this way: 1.CC I guess you could also switch AJ and wang. 2.AJ 3.Wang 4.Pettitte 5.Joba Someone asked CC if this is the best rotation he has ever been part of and his response was "Oh yeah." Jose Molina knows the Yanks may need him to catch roughly 50 games therefore he dropped a few pounds. Phil Hughes put on about 10 pounds of muscle. He did attend a athletes performance center in Arizona in the offseason to help avoid injuries this year. Sabathia said part of his success in Milwaukee came from throwing a two seam fastball at the behest of his pitching coach Mike Maddux. "It's a good pitch for him," Posada said. "I thought he had one before because his four seamer runs so much." CC only threw fastballs and changeups today in his bullpen session. He will throw all of his pitches on Monday. A reporter mistakingly asked Girardi if he was "juiced up" watching the first workout before he realized he made a poor choice of words. Everyone laughed when the reporter said sorry poor choice of words. There were no Arod questions for Girardi. The Yankees look to be in good spirits and have a formidable staff here, everyone seems to get along real well also, I really think this is going to be a team more like the late 90s teams.