The LoHud Yankees Blog

It’s official, Jorge Posada will be activated tomorrow. No word yet on who is out.

Melky Cabrera showed improvement today and is not headed to the DL at the moment. But he’s out for the Cleveland series.

In terms of the rehab crew:

Posada was 0 for 4 with two walks and Xavier Nady 2 for 5 with a walk and a homer. They faced Toronto prospects in Dunedin. The rest of them — Jose Molina, Cody Ransom and Damaso Marte — worked out in Tampa.

If you’re a Twitter person, you can follow me at PeteAbe.

There will be links to every blog post and occasional other “Tweets” from the clubhouse and press box. In terms of news, everything will remain here on the blog.

Twitter is simply an adjunct to the blog, hopefully a way to get other people interested and involved with what we have going on.

I have 876 Twitter followers. Jon Heyman of SI has 3,748. I need to catch up.

Meanwhile you can find Nick Swisher on there and media types like Sweeny Murti, Ken Davidoff, Joel Sherman and Peter King. These are good times to be a sports fan who wants instant information. It’s out there, you just need to access it.

If anybody has any ideas about the blog, please e-mail. We’re always looking to make this better.

Jorge Posada played six inning in an extended spring training game today in Dunedin, Fla., then said he was scheduled to fly to Cleveland to meet up with the Yankees.

Posada has been out since May 5 with a right hamstring tear. He was hitting .312 with five homers and 20 RBI.

So now you’re looking at:

Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Posada C
Cano 2B
Matsui DH
Swisher RF
Gardner CF

The Yankees usually stay in the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Cleveland, an elegant establishment befitting their lofty status as America’s most beloved and revered sports franchise.

But the Yankees, who have a large traveling party, were unceremoniously booted out this weekend. A Saudi Arabian princess is in Cleveland to have surgery at the famed Cleveland Clinic and booked up the entire hotel to accommodate her retinue of handlers. She wanted 90 — that’s right, 90 — rooms. And you thought Vincent Chase had an entourage.

The Ritz was able to find space for the Orlando Magic, who are here for the NBA playoffs. But there was no room for the Yankees. So as Dwight Howard and the oil billionaires chill in the Ritz, the Yankees are elsewhere, mostly park benches, bus stations and youth hostels.

Lots of e-mails yesterday about Joba Chamberlain. Because of his rocky outing on Tuesday night, assorted people went into a panic and decided he needed to go back to the bullpen.

This would be like saying that because you caught a cold, you need to call Dr. Kevorkian. Even Sweeny Murti caved in. Shame on you, Sweeny. Next time pour a Diet Coke over Mike’s head and tell him to pipe down.

I get that the Yankees need bullpen help. But Joba has a 3.25 ERA in 21 career starts and is averaging 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings. CC Sabathia has a 3.65 ERA as a starter and averages 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings. Lets make him a reliever. He throws hard. I bet he would be good at it.

Joba has a chance to be one of the best starters in the game, not simply one of the best starters on the Yankees. He’s 23. You need to give him every chance in the world to accomplish this.

Great starters don’t just float down from baseball heaven one day. They are developed, they make mistakes and learn from them, they gain experience. Joba needs to learn to pitch to contact in certain situations and not waste two-strike pitches. His warm-up routine needs work and he’s not great holding runners on.

But that all comes in time. And when it all does … holy cow. Starting pitching is the key to winning baseball, period. Learn it, live it, love it.

Yes, the Yankees need relief help. Thats why you have a general manager. Go get Huston Street or somebody else. Give David Robertson and/or Mark Melancon a chance. But don’t throw away another year of development for Chamberlain. Don’t start the clock again.

Joba needs to throw 150+ innings this season. He’s going to take his lumps from time to time. But the finished product will be one you can treasure for years.

You know who would have been a heck of a pitcher in the eighth inning? Roy Halladay. But the Blue Jays weren’t stupid. They nurtured him and lived through the growing pains and now they have a true ace.

Stop begging the Yankees to be stupid. It makes no sense.

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Sam Borden weighs in on the matter over on SNY.TV.

Now that the Yankees are tied for first place, it seems like a perfect time to do another live video chat.

So be here tomorrow at 11 a.m. with your questions and I’ll get to as many as I can. Go to lohud.com/protalklive.

The chat is sponsored by Friedrich Air Conditioning. Hey, a newspaper making money with the interet. It’s the greatest thing ever. So be here tomorrow at 11 and help save journalism.

Greetings from the Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson International Airport here in Dallas. We’re waiting on a flight to Cleveland.

Not much to report since last night. The Yankees have today off and most of the players scattered to their homes. But several of the fellas will be in Cleveland tonight to see the Cavaliers play the Magic. CC Sabathia, Nick Swisher, Phil Hughes and probably a few others will be in the house to witness LeBron.

Fortunately, a buddy of mine was able to score two seats. It should be a good time, or at least as good a time as you can have in Cleveland.

Meanwhile, while I appreciate the e-mails, the idea that Chien-Ming Wang would be a good set-up man makes little sense. He pitches to contact and gives up a lot of groundballs. That’s not a good recipe for late-inning success in close games. He also needs a fairly lengthy amount of time to warm and is coming off a foot injury.

It’s May 28, let the season play out. The Yankees will need a starter soon enough and when they do, Wang will be ready. If they do not, that would mean they have one heck of a team. There is no such thing as having too many good starters.

Check the blog for some posts later on today and there will be a live video chat tomorrow at 11 a.m.

The Yankees have played 24 games on the road and hit 32 home runs. They have played 23 games at home and hit 45 home runs. The Yankees are averaging 1.96 homers at home and 1.33 on the road.

Last season, they averaged 1.13 homers at home and 1.08 home runs on the road. The difference was four home runs. This year, so far, the difference is 13. It’ll be 50 by the end of the year at the pace the team is on. And that’s without knowing what will happen in the Bronx once the weather gets warmer and the old Stadium comes down.

Once again, it seems to fair to ask, will anybody take responsibility for this?

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Meanwhile, Hit Tracker is a great site to keep up with home runs. According to their stats, Yankee Stadium is producing 3.78 homers a game. Rangers Ballpark and Citizens Bank Park are at 3.00.

Wow.

This diagram shows how many right-field cheapies there have been.

Friday: LHP Andy Pettitte (4-1, 4.30) vs. LHP Cliff Lee (2-5, 3.04) 7:05 p.m. YES

Saturday: LHP CC Sabathia (4-3, 3.42) vs. RHP Fausto Carmona (2-4, 6.42) 7:05 p.m. YES

Sunday: RHP Phil Hughes (3-2, 5.16) vs. RHP Carl Pavano (4-4, 6.10) 12:40 p.m. YES/TBS

Monday: RHP Joba Chamberlain (2-1 3.70) vs. TBA, 7:05 p.m. YES/ESPN

A.J. Burnett finally won a game and Chien-Ming Wang finally got some outs as the Yankees moved into a tie for first place by beating the Rangers.

Jorge Posada is on the way. This notebook also has updates on Melky Cabrera, Brian Bruney, Xavier Nady and Jose Molina.

Nick Swisher was the king of all he surveyed in April Now he’s in a wretched slump.