Game 7: Yankees at Rays (RIP Harry Kalas)

Here is your lineups for todays opening game of a 3 game series with the defending AL champs the Tampa Bay Rays. That still sounds wierd considering how bad they were for so long. Yankees Jeter(ss) Damon(lf) Swisher(1b) Posada(c) Nady(rf) Cano(2b) Matsui(dh) Ransom(3b) Cabrera(cf) Rays Upton(cf) Crawford(lf) Longoria(3b) Pena(1b) Burrell(dh) Navarro(c) Gross(rf) Iwamura(2b) Bartlett(ss) Chien-Ming Wang will try and rebound from his terrible first start, he has had good success in his career against the Rays. He is 5-2 3.74 era in 8 career starts at the Trop. Derek Jeter is 1 for his last 17 and Ransom is 1-20, Melky Cabrera is 9 of his last 43 dating back to last year. Mark Teixera had a MRI today and it was ok, no damage, he expects to be back in the lineup tomorrow. Alex Rodriguez was in Tampa today and did some light jogging, fielded grounders and hit off a tee and from a coach soft tossing to him. He took 78 swings, 36 off of a tee and 42 from a coach tossing it to him. He worked out on the field for 45 minutes and then met the media after. He said he is dedicated solely to baseball now and wants to be like he was in 07, expect him with the earplugs in before games and not talk too much. The bottom line is he has to produce and help the Yankees win a championship then no one cares about anything else. He said the month in Colorado really allowed him to look at things and reevaluate and he knows he has to put the other things to the side and only concentrate on baseball. He said his hip had been bothering him since last June and he can tell now that something was fixed. I expect to see him on the bench and maybe here more from him pregame tonight. Peter Abraham of the Journal News and http://yankees.lhblogs.com/ had a lot of this info on his blog so thanks goes out to him, if you don't already do so make sure you check out his blog, he does a great job. Harry Kalas the longtime phillies announcer passed away today at the age of 73, condolences go out to his family and the Phillies family as that is a great loss to them.

Lineup Change for the Yankees

Mark Teixera was scratched from tonights game with a sore wrist that bothers him when he swings right handed. Nick Swisher will be playing first base and batting third and Johnny Damon will be back in left field batting second. The rest of the lineup remains the same. It looks like their are a couple of more players that took steroids Troy Glaus being the biggest name along with Scott Schoenweis. I will have more on this later when there is more information and confirmation. I hope everyone enjoys the game and I will be back later.

Terrible Tragedy hits the baseball world

UPDATE: I apologize, Nick was pitching for the major league club, he just made his fourth career start last night and was the #3 starter on the team because of the injuries on the staff. This incident happened after the game around 12:30am. A terribly tragedy hit the baseball world this morning. 22 year old Angels pitcher Nick Adenhardt was killed in a car accident. He made his first start of the year in the minors yesterday. His car was struck by a vehicle that ran a red light and it was a hit and run. He was killed with someone else in the Angels organization which no one knows who it is yet. Edwar Ramirez, Jose Molina and Mark Teixera were all with the Angels, Tex didn't play with him but knew of him. They were all shocked by this as I am sure everyone else was also.

End of Exhibition schedule

The Yankees ended their exhibition schedule today with a 10-1 win over the Chicago Cubs. The Yankees were very impressive this spring going 24-10-1. They won 10 in a row to finish and 19 out of their last 21 games. These stats mean absolutely nothing but they are interesting and Joe Girardi seems to like that they have fostered a winning attitude and got used to winning. The Yankees had one of their best exhibition records ever. The bottom line is their pitching was great and if they get that, it will be hard to beat them. The Yankees have also been getting production out of their big guys who were hurt last year, Matsui, Posada and they change the whole linup even without ARod and of course Tex is a huge addition. Robinson Cano looks like he has learned his lesson and should be a huge upgrade over himself from last year. The Yankees 5 man starting rotation was 13-3 with a 3.35 era this spring. They allowed 37 runs in 99 1/3 innings and that is including a couple of bad starts from Joba and CC in the spring and AJ got lit up one start also as well as Wang. The point here is if these guys are taking the ball basically every 5th day they will win a majority of the games they play. Mark Teixera had the highest avg 433 and most hr 5 and rbi 15 on the team this spring. He usually gets off to slow starts but lets hope he keeps this up going into the season, I am sure he feels great and ready to go. Jorge Posada caught in 12 games this spring and gunned down 6 out of 12 runners trying to steal on him, he seems fine. The Yankees just have to keep an eye on him but he should be good to go and he may be the most important guy on this team other then maybe MO. The Yankees get it all started on Monday afternoon at 4:00pm on YES at Baltimore. CC Sabathia takes the mound against Jeremy Guthrie.

Yankees Recap from tampa

The New York Yankees were defeated by the Toronto Blue Jays by a score of 6-2 today in Tampa. Andy Pettitte got his first start of the spring and was scheduled for one inning but felt so good he convinced the coaches to let him face 3 extra batters. He went 1 2/3 innings giving up 1 hit, 0 runs, 1bb and 2ks. Ian Kennedy didn't fare so well going 2 2/3 innings giving up 5 hits and 5 runs with 1 walk and strikeout. Dan Giese went 2 1/3 innings giving up 1 run on 2 hits with 2k's. Jon Albaladejo went 1 inning giving up 1 hit, 0 runs and 2ks and Dave Robertson went 1 perfect inning. On the offensive side Brett Gardner went 2-3 with a hr and 2 rbi and Melky Cabrera went 1-3. Big Tex also went 2-3 and Angel Berroa went 1-2. There were some guys sent to minor league camp as today was the first day of that. Andrew Brackman was assigned to single A Charleston and J.B. Cox, Kanekoa Texiera and George Kontos were all reassigned to minor league camp. Eric Hacker and Wilken De La Rosa were also reassigned. Andy Pettitte said it felt good to get out there finally. Arod has his surgery and everything went well, he is even aleady riding a stationary bike and starting the rehab process which is a great sign. Mariano Rivera had a great bullpen session this morning and is on track. Everything is looking good for the Yankees hurt players and that is a good sign as they will need everyone, the most important thing is the pitching though and everyone has looked good other then Joba but he will get that straightened out and if not watch out for Phil Hughes who has looked great.

Big Tex reports to Camp

Mark Teixera spoke today and I had hoped to post the audio from Peter Abrahams site but I couldn't get it for some reason. I did listen to the audio and here is some of what he said. He said he was a rookie back in Texas and had a one track mind of just trying to stay in the big leagues, he wasn't thinking about steroids. He said of course you did hear some things about it, rumors,whispers. He said his parents were very strict, no drugs, alcohol and he would never do anything like that but he isn't going to judge anyone. He said he doesn't know where the Arod and him not getting along talk came from since they have a good relationship. He said when he first signed in Texas Arod welcomed him with open arms and took him out to dinner, he just wanted to win Big Tex said. He said he is still good friends with Arod and is excited about the upcoming season and will be at the press conference tomorrow. I hope I can get the audio up but that is the important stuff he said.