The LoHud Yankees Blog

We just spoke to Andy Pettitte. He admitted his shoulder really bothered him at the end of last season. He also thinks A-Rod needs to be honest to best get through the situation.

Meanwhile we’re waiting on Mr. Sabathia in the dugout.

Jose Molina never got the ball he hit for the final home run at the Stadium.

“I never asked,” he said. “I have the bat and it’s in a special place.”

The Hall of Fame has his spikes.

CC and A.J. are here but we haven’t spoke to them yet.

David Robertson got married on Jan. 30. He and his wife went to Disney World for a week.

Robertson bailed on his honeymoon several times to drive to Tampa and throw bullpens.

“She understood,” he said. “I want to make the team.”

Some other guy is in Mike Mussina’s corner locker.

CC something. Joba is next to him.

Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman know they have a crisis to manage in the wake of the A-Rod scandal. For Girardi, it could be crucial to his job security.

Jorge Posada will be brought along slowly in spring training. This notebook also has info on the center field battle, right field, the arrival of one star pitcher and a dismissed lawsuit for Roger Clemens.

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Being on a beat can be like trying to solve a mystery. You look for clues, file them away and at the end hope it all adds up.

What happens on Feb. 12 doesn’t mean a whole lot. It’ll be five or six months before we know what sort of team the Yankees have.

But yesterday was a good day to mine a few clues about the manager.

Joe Girardi spent roughly 40 minutes talking to print reporters. As I mentioned before, most of the time was spent dissecting the ongoing A-Rod soap opera (which is already tedious). But along the way, Girardi dropped a few hints that those “adjustments” he talked about during the winter may have taken hold.

Girardi was candid about A-Rod, saying he was disappointed in the actions of his star player. He was optimistic everything would work out — as always — but that was tempered with a realistic view of the mess that the Yankees have to deal with.

He also admitted that he drove the players too hard in spring training last season and would back off a little bit. He talked about knowing the American League better and how that would allow him to spend more time with his players and getting a sense of the clubhouse.

Girardi prides himself on preparation. He wants to know exactly what pitch Brian Roberts will chase on a 2-2 count against a right-hander. There is tremendous value in that, but not if it comes at the expense of knowing what makes one of your players tick. Sometimes you need to let the pitching coach do his job.

That’s just an example, of course. But when you talk to people around the team, there’s a sense that Girardi knows he has to build more bridges. Spring training is a good time for that. But the real test won’t come for a long time. We’ll see what happens then.

As for today, pitchers and catchers report for physicals. The clubhouse will be open to the media from 9-12 and I’ll file some reports via the iPhone. No workout today, that comes tomorrow.

Get 10 fans together and you’ll get 10 different opinions about who the best baseball announcer is. But if you watch Yankees games on YES, there’s little question that you’re getting a first-class production.

YES was nominated for 31 New York Emmy Awards earlier today. You can find the complete list here.

What is worthy of mention here is that Bill Boland, Michael Cooney, Glenn Giangrande, Bob Lorenz, and Michael Kay are up for a writing award for the special show YES did, Celebrating the Life of Bobby Murcer.

Those guys, as you probably know, were all close friends of Bobby and hopefully they take home that award.

With all this steroids talk, it was fun to look at the roster page the Yankees hand out in the press box and think about baseball. There are three columns: by position, alphabetical and numerical.

With so many retired numbers, the Yankees have five players wearing numbers in the 90s and seven in the 80s. The last name, numerically, on the list is Kanekoa Texeira. He got No. 94.

Equipment manager Rob Cucuzza left some available numbers on the shelf. No. 6 (Joe Torre), No. 21 (Paul O’Neill), No. 35 (Mike Mussina), No. 51 (Bernie Williams) are not being used. Cucuzza also didn’t give out No. 53. Maybe he thought there was a chance Bobby Abreu would return.

Hopefully nobody tries to claim 21. We don’t need that mess again.

Here is the rest of the Joe Girardi audio from today. This is mostly baseball-related:

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Bill Chuck, who has a spot on the web at Billy-Ball.com, sent along these lists of Yankees superlatives since the start of the 2000 season.

Games: Derek Jeter 1347, Jorge Posada 1191, Bernie Williams 980

AB: Derek Jeter 5488, Jorge Posada 4043, Bernie Williams 3600

Avg. (min 1000 Plate Appearances): Derek Jeter .315, Robinson Cano .303, Alex Rodriguez .303

Runs: Derek Jeter 981, Jorge Posada 626, Bernie Williams 612

Hits: Derek Jeter 1728, Jorge Posada 1142, Bernie Williams 1038

Doubles: Derek Jeter 289, Jorge Posada 263, Bernie Williams 208

Triples: Derek Jeter 26, Robinson Cano 15, Johnny Damon 12

Homers: Jason Giambi 209, Alex Rodriguez 208, Jorge Posada 186

RBI: Jorge Posada 738, Derek Jeter 661, Alex Rodriguez 616

OBP (min 1000 Plate Appearances): Jason Giambi .404, Alex Rodriguez .401, Jorge Posada .388

SLG.: Alex Rodriguez .573, Jason Giambi .521, Gary Sheffield .515

OPS: Alex Rodriguez .974, Jason Giambi .925, Gary Sheffield .898

Walks: Jorge Posada 659, Jason Giambi 619, Derek Jeter 540

Strikeouts: Jorge Posada 955, Derek Jeter 903, Jason Giambi 706

Stolen bases: Derek Jeter 189, Alfonso Soriano 121, Alex Rodriguez 106

Games played by:

Catcher: Jorge Posada 1191, John Flaherty 134, Jose Molina 129

First base: Jason Giambi 897, Tino Martinez 440, Nick Johnson 248

Second base: Robinson Cano 573, Alfonso Soriano 492, Miguel Cairo 257

Third base: Alex Rodriguez 767, Scott Brosius 255, Robin Ventura 230

SS: Derek Jeter 1347, Alberto Gonzalez 40, Erick Almonte 39

OF : Bernie Williams 980, Hideki Matsui 774, Johnny Damon 433

I’m not sure what any of this means, necessarily. But it’s interesting.

I get this question every year, so here are the guest instructors in camp:

Yogi Berra
Billy Connors
Goose Gossage
Ron Guidry
Reggie Jackson
Hector Lopez
Tino Martinez
Stump Merrill
Graig Nettles
Mickey Rivers

We just got done speaking to Joe Girardi and I’ll post the audio in a bit. There were 29 minutes of A-Rod questions. In summation: It be what it be and they’ll do their best to deal with it. Joe thinks he will still have a good season.

Get this: Alex has yet to apologize to his manager.

As to baseball …

Jorge Posada is doing well but won’t catch games until mid-March. He’ll DH until then. The Yankees hope he can catch 100-110 games and he might get some extra time in April depending on his shoulder.

There is less concern for Mariano Rivera. He’ll need only 8-10 innings in the spring to get ready.

With spring training a little longer this year and given what happened with all the injuries last year, they’re going to cut back on all the running they did last season.

They expect either Melky Cabrera or Brett Gardner to play CF. “But a lot can change in Yankeeland,” Girardi said. Johnny Damon returning to center is Plan C at this point.

If the season started today, Xavier Nady is probably in right. But Nick Swisher will get a shot. “We have seven weeks to decide that,” Girardi said.

Hideki Matsui had his knees checked out today and they are fine.

Girardi was very candid in his session, even agreeing that he would not be the manager in 2010 unless the Yankees returned to the playoffs. “I don’t think about that, but you’re probably right,” he said.

UPDATE, 5:20 p.m.: Here is the Girardi audio from this afternoon. These are all the A-Rod questions.

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