Yankees notes as they head to Chicago

s as they head to Chicago


The New York Yankees lost to the San Diego Padres on Sunday evening. They lost two out of three in the series and have not won a series in about a month. They can’t even win two games in a row and they are falling further behind in the wildcard race. It has been a very difficult year, lots of injuries, not so good baseball and now the Alex Rodriguez situation.

Alex Rodriguez played rehab games with the Trenton Thunder on Friday and Saturday, came through them fine and is ready to join the team. Arod of course though is involved with the biogenesis case and is going to be suspended on Monday. The latest on that is that he will be suspended for the rest of this year and all of 2014. He will be able to play though as he appeals. Bud Selig the commissioner of baseball had been threatening to ban him for life and not let him appeal but now sources are saying that he won’t do that. This has been a crazy back and forth between Arod, MLB and the Yankees over the last couple of weeks. It should all come to a head on Monday.

Ivan Nova was sent down to the minor leagues earlier in the year. He had been struggling since the middle of last year. It has seemed to work, as Nova has been great since coming back. In his past 56 1/3 innings he has a 2.08 ERA. He has pitched at least seven innings in his last five starts. Nova says he has been feeling really good and doesn’t remember the last time that he felt this way.

Curtis Granderson is back and it looks like he can help their really struggling offense. Granderson hit a homerun and scored the game winning run on Saturday. Granderson has played in 10 games this season and three of them have been multi-hit games. Jayson Nix had an RBI off the bench, his first this season. The last time he had an RBI in a game he didn’t start was July 25th of last year against Seattle. Derek Jeter was available to pinch hit but Girardi was happy he didn’t have to do that. The plan is for the same on Sunday and then back in the lineup on Monday. Jeter has been diagnosed with a grade one-calf strain. He wasn’t too happy on Sunday. “It’s been terrible” Jeter said. “It’s been like a nightmare. The whole season has been a nightmare. I really don’t know what to tell you. I wish that wasn’t the case and we were sitting here talking about something besides another injury. We’ll see what happens, I have no idea.”

He wants to play through it; of course he doesn’t want to end up on the DL for the third time this season. He has been battling through it for the past week but the Yankees say it is a possibility he goes back on the DL although they don’t really want to do that either. The Yankees will reevaluate him on Monday in Chicago.

Phil Hughes had another bad start on Sunday. He has had a bad year and has lost eight of his past 10 decisions. He has a 5.11 ERA in those starts and has allowed five or more runs in five of them. He said it has been frustrating but he will keep on battling and he has no control over what the Yankees do.

Granderson tied a career high with three walks on Sunday. Austin Romine hit his first major league homerun on Sunday. He was also the only Yankee with a multi-hit game. He is hitting 353 and showing some power since June 21st. His overall season batting average is now up to 213. That is more then twice what it was at the end of May. He has earned more playing time and it will be interesting to see if he gets it.