New York Yankees notes from the Bay area

The New York Yankees haven’t won in Oakland in quite a while; they were swept there these past three games. Last year they were swept in a four game series there. The Yankees pitching is still for the most part doing well but the offense is a different story. The offense is having a very hard time scoring runs; they have a lot of guys who are slumping. The early success of guys like Vernon Wells and Kevin Youkilis has faded away. They look like washed up veterans now. The question now is what do the Yankees do or what can they do??

The Yankees 4-7 hitters on Thursday afternoon/night were 0-28, which are one worse then a no-hitter. They had 12 strikeout with nine of them coming in extra innings. That is as bad as it gets, it sure felt like rock bottom. The Yankees could put David Adams back at third, Youkilis doesn’t appear to be a starter at this point and bench Vernon Wells as well but there are other guys too like Travis Hafner, Cano just started hitting, Teixeira isn’t hitting at all.

The Yankees did have some positive news yesterday believe it or not. Derek Jeter was cleared for full baseball activities. If there are no setbacks you can say he will be back in about six weeks, which is what spring training, is and what he will need to get ready. The Yankees used Adam Warren a lot yesterday and he did a great job. The bad thing about that is he will probably be demoted for it so the Yankees can have a fresh arm in the bullpen for the weekend.

Austin Romine will be playing on Friday night considering that Stewart caught all 18 innings and did take a pretty good pop in the 15th inning on the collision at home plate. Kuroda who everyone forgets about in this game was really good. He became the third Japanese born pitcher to log at least 1000 innings in his career. Girardi used Rivera because he said that Claiborne was throwing too many pitches and had thrown in the previous two games and he didn’t want to overuse him.

It looks like the Yankees will call up Thomas Neal from AAA Scranton and option down David Adams. Neal has been playing very well in AAA. He is hitting very well and this gives them another option for the outfield as Vernon Wells continues to struggle.