Grapefruit League Game 18-Yankees at Astros

Here is the lineup and the pitchers for this afternoons game. Brian Hoch the Yankees beat writer for mlb.com and Chad Jennings the beat writer for the Journal News have this information up on their websites. I have some notes also from the Yankees media notes. The Yankees are 8-9 on the spring. Yankees Lineup: Brett Gardner(CF) Nick Johnson(DH) Mark Teixeira(1B) Alex Rodriguez(3B) Robinson Cano(2B) Marcus Thames(LF) Jon Weber(RF) Ramiro Pena(SS) Mike Rivera(C) Alfredo Aceves is making the start and will be followed by Dustin Moseley, Boone Logan and Mark Melancon. John Van Benschoten, Jonathan Ortiz and Craig Heyer are minor leaguers to back them up.

• Nick Johnson leads the team with 3 homeruns and is tied for second in rbi with 6. Robinson Cano leads the team with a 393 batting average, that is for those with a minimum of 25 plate appearances.

• Sergio Mitre and CC Sabathia are tied for the lead in innings pitched with 14. Mitre also leads the team with 14 strikeouts. The Yankees lead the grapefruit league in attendance. Through 9 home games they have attracted 94,030 visitors.

• Nick Swisher has a 7 game hitting streak where he has gone 8-20 which is a 400 average. Jorge Posada has gone 9 for his last 16 which is a 563 batting average. He also has 4 rbi and 5 runs in his last 6 games.

• Robinson Cano has hit safely in 7 of his last 10 games and has mulitple hits in 4 of those games.

New York Yankees first official workout

The New York Yankees completed their first official workout for pitchers and catchers today. It was a quiet day down in Tampa. The only news was that Joe Girardi has decided to lighten the workload of his starting pitchers. This is mainly because they won the World Series and ended it in November which made for a shorter offseason then usual. Joe Girardi said they figured they could ease guys back into it, make sure that they are physically ready for the same type of workload. They have two weeks before they start to play games. Alfredo Aceves, Chad Guadin and Sergio Mitre threw the first bullpen sessions of the spring, they are all competing for the 5th starter spot and bullpen roles. CC Sabathia won't throw his first bullpen until Saturday and he will be in line to start the spring opener on March 3rd followed in order by A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte and Javier Vazquez. Joe Girardi said they will take Posada along slowly although he is feeling good and ready to go. Girardi said ideally he wants him to catch 110-120 games and DH some of the rest. Jorge Posada said whatever days off they want to give him he is fine with it. Bryan Hoch the Yankees beat writer for http://mlb.com said that Joe Girardi talked briefly to the players today. The media wasn't allowed in, he basically said to take it easy, they have 2 weeks before games and stressed communication. He said if you feel anything physically tell the coaches. He stressed I would rather have you miss a couple of days now then a few weeks or months later. There really isn't any other news coming out of Tampa from today, if there is anything later I will be sure to post it but it was a quiet first official day in camp.

Interview with AAA Scranton Yankees Beat Writer

Keep your eye out for my interview with AAA Scranton Wilkes Barre Yankees beat writer Chad Jennings. He does a great job with his blog at http://community.thetimes-tribune.com/blogs/yankees/. I should be posting it later tonight and if not for some reason it will be up tomorrow.