The LoHud Yankees Blog

Nick Swisher will ring the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. according to the Yankees.

The market has to go up, right? Either that or Swish will try to talk to every trader, they’ll forget their jobs and we’ll all be lining up for government cheese in a week.

Game time: 1:05 p.m. (on YES)

YANKEES (8-6)
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Posada C
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Matsui DH
Cabrera CF
Ransom 3B

Pitching: LHP CC Sabathia (1-1, 3.57).

Sabathia vs. the Oakland hitters.

PITCHING FOR OAKLAND: LHP Brett Anderson (0-2, 4.85). The rookie has never faced any of the New York hitters. Anderson took the loss but pitched well against the Red Sox last week, allowing two runs on five hits over seven innings. He walked two and struck out five.

Anderson, 21, is one the prospects Oakland received from Arizona for Dan Haren in 2007. He pitched in the Olympics last summer. Anderson has good command, a solid fastball and above-average breaking pitches. The Yankees always seem to have trouble with young pitchers they haven’t seen before and this guy is a good one.

RUNNING ON EMPTY: Oakland hasn’t homered in its last six games. They have three all season, the fewest in the majors.

THE RUNNING MAN: Brett Gardner is 17 for 19 on SBs in his career.

CANO STREAKS ON: Robinson Cano has hit in nine straight and 13 of the 14 games this season. Previously a .237 hitter in April, Cano is at .377 with eight games to go this month.

WE’RE TALKING OBP: Nick Swisher has reached base in 22 of his 53 plate appearances. He is, however, 3 of his last 21 and fallen down to .311.

MO’S THE MAN: Mariano Rivera has a scoreless streak of 12.2 innings dating back to last season.

A FEW RANDOM NOTES: Thanks to my colleague Ernie Palladino for calling in the lineup. … I am not covering the game today. Instead I’m getting an early start on the trip to Boston and will catch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band there tonight. Bruce tore it up in Boston last night, doing a cover of ZZ Top’s I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide. My brother-in-law Dave was texting me all night about the show and loved it. Hopefully we’ll see a good one tonight. I’m hoping he’ll do Kingdom of Days, my favorite song off the new record. … Johnny Damon strongly recommends Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas and Handlebars by Flobots for your iPod.

Thanks for reading, enjoy the game.

UPDATE, 12:26 p.m.: Heard from some folks at the Stadium that Chien-Ming Wang threw another bullpen and it went well. But we’ve heard that before. As Dave Eiland has said several times, he needs to take it into the game.

UPDATE, 3:41 p.m.: Greetings from Exit 5B off 95 North in Rhode Island. I’m at “Rhode Island’s only 24-hour truck stop.” It’s quite a garden spot.

I’ve been listening to John and Suzyn on XM Radio (which sounds so much better than WCBS) and was struck at Joe Girardi’s use of the bullpen.

On a cold, rainy, he let CC get in trouble and give up the lead in the seventh inning despite his being well over 100 pitches. This after a 120+ pitch effort in his previous start. Sure, that says that the Yankees want to get everything they can out of CC. But it also speaks to the lack of trust Girardi has in his bullpen beyond Brian Bruney and Mariano Rivera.

Meanwhile, Jon Albaladejo and Phil Coke were up before Jose Veras and Damaso Marte. Some roles, it seems, have shifted.

It’s 7-7 in the eighth and I’m getting back on the road. Enjoy the rest of the game. Somebody is bound to hit one out sooner or later to break that tie.

Ari, one of our readers, was at the game last night and sent this photo. It’s of the Field level behind home plate during the ninth inning of a two-run game.

Here’s what he wrote:

“The whole front section was sparse at best, with swaths of empty seats. And the Field Level were I was sitting was 1/3 full, maybe. You could hear people talking about it, and if it hadn’t been the first game I attended at the new Yankee Stadium with my father, it would’ve taken away from the experience.”

This has to be embarrassing to the organization and you have to wonder when Hal Steinbrenner will order some action be taken. I’m not sure what the solution is. If those seats are sold, the Yankees need to figure a way to get unused tickets in the hands of those who want to attend games.

If the tickets aren’t sold, then obviously prices need to be cut to a reasonable amount. But having the upper sections full and the lower section a ghost town really sends a bad message.

Brett Gardner told me a funny story last night. After he made that tremendous catch to rob Jason Giambi in the first inning, he was back in the dugout after the inning when Giambi yelled over to him from first base.

The Big G, on the sly, flipped Gardner off. “We were both laughing,” Gardner said.

Gardner singled on the second inning and when he was on first base, Giambi wished him well on the season and told him to play hard as good things would happen.

“It was great for him to say that to me,” Gardner said. “Jason is a really good guy. It means a lot to have a veteran on your side like that.”

Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera teamed up for a win and a record last night.

The Yankees received some welcome news on Xavier Nady. This notebook also has an update on Chien-Ming Wang.

How far does the class warfare extend in Yankee Stadium? All the way to the men’s room.

According to the charmingly titled Fack Youk blog, there are dividers between the urinals in the field level bathrooms but not in the bathrooms elsewhere in the stadium.

It’s astonishing that somebody had a meeting to decide this. But apparently they did.

Somebody needs to investigate the quality of the toilet paper. I’d bet anything the field level seats have two ply and everybody else gets recycled sandpaper.

Meanwhile, I heard an interesting theory from somebody with the Yankees on Tuesday. They claim that many of those empty seats we’re seeing are actually sold, but the ticket-holders are afraid to attend games because they work for troubled businesses and don’t want to be caught living it up on television.

That’s just great. The seats are so extravagant that wealthy people won’t attend because it’ll make them look bad. Maybe the Yankees can provide disguises to these folks. Your bank get bailed out by the feds? Here’s a Joe Girardi mask. Have a good time.

During batting practice today, there were waitresses walking around with huge silver trays of M&Ms, Twizzlers and other treats. Those in the Legends seats get that stuff for free. The girls were standing around looking for people to give the candy out to. It was like bizarro Halloween.

You know what sucks? When I was a kid, I used to implore my dad to get to the game as early as possible so I could run down the aisle to the field and try and get an autograph. I’d get jammed in there with other kids and pray that somebody, anybody, in uniform would sign.

My theory was to go to the visitor’s dugout because there were fewer kids. I got Duane Kuiper, Johnny Grubb and Buddy Bell that way one day. It was like winning the autograph lottery. I remember going back to our seats in the grandstand happy as can be.

That the Yankees won’t allow that is really a shame. Instead you have Richie Rich eating M&Ms and sending his driver over to ask for Jeter’s bat.

Mariano Rivera came into the clubhouse tonight after locking down the save and tried to hand Andy Pettitte the ball as a souvenir of the record they tied tonight. Pettitte has won 57 games Rivera has saved, the same number Bob Welch and Dennis Eckersley had.

“You know what? You keep that one,” Pettitte said. “Hopefully if we’re able to break this thing one day, you let me have the one we break it with.”

As records go, it’s a bit contrived. But what it does speak to is longevity of excellence. Rivera signed with the Yankees in 1990 out of a fishing village in Panama. They found Pettitte a year later at a junior college in Texas. Now here they are in 2009, combining to win a game.

Pettitte has 180 wins as a Yankee and Rivera has saved 57 of them.

“Those two guys have been staples here for a long time,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “They’ve been amazing with what they’ve been able to do and accomplish together. This is kind of special.”

I spent much of the winter on this blog saying the Yankees needed to sign Pettitte. Now he’s 2-0, 2.53 and has given them 21.1 innings in three starts. It was a smart move to keep him and it’ll only look better as the season moves on.

Pettitte didn’t have a good cut fastball tonight and allowed nine hits without a strikeout. But he walked off the mound leading 5-2. Very few teams — if any — have a No. 4 starter like that. With the issues Chien-Ming Wang is having, having Pettitte is huge for this team.

A few other observations from tonight …

• A.J. Burnett is an interesting cat. He downloaded the WordPower application to his iPhone and is learning words and phrases in Chinese so he can talk to Wang in is native tongue.

Before the game, A.J. was trying out his Chinese on Wang, making the pitcher (and the Taiwanese media) laugh. Trust me when I tell you, Wang needed to laugh. This last week has been trying for him.

Kind of shows you what a good teammate Burnett is, something the Yankees really didn’t know too much about before they signed him.

• All of the players got new, hard-sided wheeled luggage tonight. It’s to take on road trips. When you hear the players say that the Yankees are an organization that takes care of their players, this is the kind of thing they’re taking about.

• According to Will Carroll, no position player has ever needed a second Tommy John surgery. So can imagine how relieved Xavier Nady is.

• Every time Brian Cashman or Joe Girardi are asked a specific question about A-Rod’s timetable, they speak in careful generalities. What they’re doing is trying not to raise expectations. But it still sounds like he is well ahead of schedule.

YANKEES (7-6)
Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Posada C
Cano 2B
Swisher RF
Matsui DH
Ransom 3B
Gardner CF

Pitching: LHP Andy Pettitte (1-0, 2.51).

Pettitte vs. the Oakland hitters.

ATHLETICS (5-7)
Sweeney RF
Cabrera SS
The Big G 1B
Holliday LF
Cust DH
Ellis 2B
Chavez 3B
Suzuki C
Davis CF

Pitching: LHP Dana Eveland (0-0, 6.75).

Eveland vs. the New York hitters.

THERE IT GOES: There have been 28 homers in six games at Yankee Stadium, 20 in the four regular-season games.

CLUTCHITUDE: The Yankees are 4 for 32 (.125) with runners in scoring position at home.

MO’S THE MAN, PART 1: Mariano Rivera now has 941 strikeouts, 12th place in team history. He is 74 shy of moving into the top 10.

MO’S THE MAN, PART 2: Going back to last season, Mo has not allowed a run in 12 straight decisions. His line in that stretch: 11.2 innings, 6 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 12 strikeouts.

BRUNEY’S THE MAN, TOO: Brian Bruney has retired 20 straight batters. In his last seven outings, he has pitched 6.2 perfect innings and struck out 12.

SLOWLY BUT SURELY: Mark Teixeira’s last three games: 3 for 9, 2 runs, 2 homers, 4 RBI, 3 walks.

LOTSA SHOTS: The Yankees have homered in seven straight games.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES. WELL, NOT SO MUCH: The Yankees were 6-7 through 13 games last season.

2,000 CLUB: Today will be Johnny Damon’s 2,000th career game. It will be 1,999 for Derek Jeter.

1,000-HIT CLUB: Mark Teixeira needs four hits for 1,000.

GOOD SIGN FOR ANDY: The A’s are 2-5 against lefties and are hitting .202 against them,

WELCOME BACK: Dan Giese was called up by Oakland on Saturday and will be in uniform tonight. He pitched in 20 games for the Yankees last season.

Back with more later.

UPDATE, 4:13 p.m.: Nady thinks he’ll be out 4-6 weeks.

Wang will pitch in Tampa in an extended spring game. He is not on the DL. They’ll evaluate him then.

UPDATE, 6:07 p.m: A few update for you …

Wang will throw an extended spring training game on Thursday. He is set for 100 pitches. How he looks will determine the next move. The options at that point would be to start him in Detroit on Tuesday or put him on the DL.

Total speculation here, but the Yankees appear to be setting him up for a DL stay. Brian Cashman again today talked about Wang’s velocity being a concern and how he wants the team doctor to look into any possibility.

A DL stint would give them 2+ weeks and two or three starts to try and get him fixed. But if Wang pitches well on Thursday, maybe he gets another chance.

Wang is not particularly pleased with being shipped down to Tampa but he realizes there is not much he can say about it.

Meanwhile, the hope is that Xavier Nady will come back as a DH in 5-7 weeks after some rehab games and perhaps eventually as an outfielder. Nobody has given a clear explanation of what is wrong with his elbow. Nady said he has what amounts to a partial tear that can be rehabbed.

But a tear is a tear and with this being his walk year, Nady is putting himself in a risky situation.

Cashman said he hasn’t put much thought into thinking about the ballpark and whether it’s a launching pad. He said he has been told the dimensions are the same but he admits the fences are shorter. There is no question the fences are shorter in right field. You can tell by the naked eye.

Finally, the Big G was behind the cage when the Yankees took BP getting hugs from all his former teammates and coaches. When Cashman came over, Giambi hugged him and lifted him up off the ground six inches or so. I wish I had a photo. Just hilarious.

UPDATE, 7:11 p.m.: Nice ovation for Jason Giambi. Then the Little G took a double away from him with a tremendous catch.

By the way, there are embarrassing — I mean embarrassing — swatches of empty eats here. There’s an entire section of Legends seats down the RF line and a huge empty section on the 200 level.

UPDATE, 7:38 p.m.: Brett Gardner does it again with a two-run single through a drawn-in infield. Then he steals second.

Meanwhile, it’s bad enough that the Yankees play the PC Richard’s whistle after every strikeout. Now they’re playing “Gotta Go To Mo’s” after a stolen base. Can’t there be some segment of this park that isn’t commercialized?

Meanwhile, as I look over the Legends seats, no more than 40 percent of them are full. In the front row between the dugouts, 25 seats are empty. So either those fans didn’t show up or they’re in the restaurant.

UPDATE, 8:12 p.m.: The Yankees are wearing Dana Eveland out. They’ve put 11 runners on base and we’re in the third inning. He’s at 77 pitches.

But it’s only 4-0 as the Yankees have left seven runners on base.

UPDATE, 8:16 p.m.: If you’re looking for a nice place to come read a book or get some quiet time, Yankee Stadium is for you. It’s like a church service in here.

UPDATE, 8:28 p.m.: Because the ball hit Chavez in fair territory, it was dead and the runners could not advance.

UPDATE, 8:57 p.m.: One of Andy Pettitte’s strengths as a pitcher is the ability to put a rough inning behind him. He got knocked around a bit in the fourth and now he has retired seven straight and will cruise into the seventh.

Meanwhile, after watching The Big G stab at balls like a grizzly bear trying to catch a salmon, it’s pretty fun to watch Mark Teixeira play first base. He makes it look pretty easy.

UPDATE, 9:03 p.m.: Johnny Damon out to right in the second deck. No wind needed there. 5-2 Yanks.

UPDATE, 9:21 p.m.: Fog rolling in to left field now. Those vaunted wind currents aren’t doing much to get rid of it.

UPDATE, 9:47 p.m.: Bruney retired 22 straight before allowing that hit.

Via WFAN, Jon Heyman is reporting that Xavier Nady will not need surgery on his elbow and can return after rehab.

Good news for the Yankees. This protects them in the event that Hideki Matsui’s knees keep him from playing later in the season.

No word yet on when Nady might be back. We should find that out later today. Check the game post for updates.

Owen, the official meteorologist of the LoHud Yankees blog, has a post on his blog today that questions the AccuWeather theory that winds are what have caused the home run barrage at the Stadium.

Owen’s point is that the date is inconclusive.