The LoHud Yankees Blog

It’s 11 right now as Gritty Gutty Brett Gardner singled, stole second, moved up on a grounder by Captain Intangibles and scored on a single by Francisco Cervelli in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Blue Jays.

The Red Sox are tied with the Angels at Fenway Park. Who are you rooting for?

Who knows what will happen in the weeks to come? But the Yankees have sure been an entertaining team to watch this season. What a great job by YES capturing the scene tonight, too, as Francisco ran to right field with his joyous teammates in hot pursuit.

YANKEES (93-53)
Jeter SS
Hairston LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Swisher RF
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Molina C

Pitching: RHP Chad Gaudin (1-0, 3.42 with Yankees).

BLUE JAYS (66-79)
Scutaro SS
Hill 2B
Lind DH
Wells CF
Overbay 1B
Encarnacion 3B
Barajas C
Bautista RF
Snider LF

Pitching: LHP Brian Tallet (7-9, 5.26).

TIME/TV: 7:05, YES.

STATE OF THE ‘STRIPES: The Yankees have actually lost three of their last five games. They lead the Red Sox by 6.5 games in the AL East and the Angels by six in the race for home-field advantage. The magic number remains at 12.

HANGING CHAD: With Andy Pettitte resting a “fatigued” left shoulder, Chad Gaudin gets the ball for the Yankees. He has pitched well since being acquired from the Padres for a bag of rocks. Gaudin has allowed 23 hits in 23.2 innings and struck out 22. The 15 walks are an issue. His last appearance came on Sept. 8 and it was a solid as he allowed one run in six innings against Tampa Bay.

The Yankees are 3-0 in his starts and Gaudin has an ERA of 2.57 in those games.

NO LACK OF TALLET: The Yankees will be seeing Tallet for the fifth time this season, the fourth time as a starter. He has a 5.00 ERA against the Yankees. Tallet allowed five runs on eight hits in five innings against the Yankees on Sept. 6.

MILESTONE WATCH FOR MO: That Mariano Rivera dude needs one strikeout for 1,000. Mo has pitched once since Sept. 8 and four times all month.

SWISHALICIOUS: Nick Swisher is 11 of 31 on the homestand with 10 runs scored, six extra-base hits and four RBI along with five walks.

TRIPLE TIMES TWO FOR TEX: Mark Teixeira has had a triple in each of the last two games. His previous three-bagger had come on Aug. of 2007. That’s baseball, you just can’t figure it.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN: The Yankees are 6-3 on a homestand that ends today. The team is off tomorrow then starts a three-game series in Seattle on Friday.

THANKS: To my Journal News colleague Mike Dougherty for calling in the lineup. He’s covering the game for me tonight. I’ll check in later perhaps. Or perhaps not.

UPDATE, 4:50 p.m.: So much for the night off. According to the Daily News, Posada got four games and a $3,000 fine, which is pretty much what was expected. Jesse Carlson got the same.

No word on appeals yet. But Posada should take his four games and come back Monday in Anaheim. Fighting it means the process gets delayed and he could miss games against Boston later in the month.

UPDATE, 5:22 p.m.: Word now is that Shelley Duncan will get three games for his role in the brawl. He was, as you would expect, an active participant. There also will be assorted fines.

You have to hand it to Shelley. He has been in the majors parts of three seasons and been suspended twice.

UPDATE, 5:51 p.m.: The MLB justice system is impossible to understand. Anyway, Posada and Carlson apparently have three games — apparently on the condition of not appealing. It starts tonight. Barajas was fined $1,000. Gaston confirmed the Carslon suspension.

The problem with all this is that there are no rules. It’s up to Bob Watson. The appeals process also has flexibility. It could take a month, it could take 10 minutes.

Bottom line: Posada can’t play until Sunday.

UPDATE, 6:53 p.m.: More on the suspensions:

Posada and Carlson were initially given four games without pay and a $3,000 fine. Both appealed and it was reduced to three days with pay and the fine. They start serving tonight. Posada wasn’t going to play tonight anyway and he has a stiff neck from the fight.

Meanwhile, Rod Barajas got a $1,000 fine. Shelley Duncan got three games and a fine. Edwar “The Terminator” Raimrez was fined as was an apparently feisty Kevin Long.

Joe Girardi, meanwhile, came to the defense of John McDonald.

“There’s been some reports that John McDonald gave me my little thing on my eye and that is totally incorrect. John McDonald is a local kid that is a good man. From watching the tape. I didn’t see John McDonald touch me, and he actually sought me out today and we talked about it. He was quite disturbed that his name was mentioned in that sort of situation. He’s a peacemaker, he’s a local kid and I just want to clarify that.

“I got elbowed by one of my own players that I won’t disclose because it was an accident trying to pull someone off, so I don’t want John McDonald to have a bad name because this is a good man.”

One of his own players? No wonder Joe was so ripped last night.

UPDATE, 7:40 p.m.: Ian Kennedy is pitching tonight for Scranton in the IL Finals. You can watch the game live by clicking on the video link at www.swbyankees.com. Good luck to Ian as he continues his comeback.

UPDATE, 8:24 p.m.: Ian Kennedy pitched three perfect innings tonight, striking out six. Now Ian can go to Instructional League and the Arizona Fall League and build up more innings.

Ian is a good guy and had a potentially dangerous condition. It’s nice to see him back and pitching like he is capable.

The crack research team here at the LHYB just determined that Yankee pitchers have hit Toronto batters eight times in five games this month. The Blue Jays have hit the Yankees twice.

In retrospect, Posada was lucky he got a waist-high, off-speed pitch behind him and not a fastball at his noggin.

It’ll be interesting to see whether there is any carry-over tonight. I would suspect not. Joe Girardi made it very clear to his team last night that he was not pleased with the course of events.

General Joe is generally a man of peace, but he has had a rough week. He snapped on Marty Foster over the weekend and yesterday got smacked on the left side of his head during the brawl. His inadvertent assailant was John McDonald, who was trying to pull somebody off the pile and caught Joe instead,

Johnny Mac, who grew up a Yankees fan and is a genuinely good guy, was horrified later on to find out what had happened.

Meanwhile, we wait for word from MLB on any suspensions. Posada might need Jackie Chiles to get out of this one.

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Kristin, a publicist with good timing, sends word that Jorge’s foundation is having an on-line auction that ends tomorrow.

You can get a glove signed by Jorge, Yogi Berra and Joe Girardi or some World Series tickets.

All proceeds benefit The Jorge Posada Foundation, started by Jorge & Laura Posada and dedicated to benefiting children and families struggling with Craniosynostosis, a condition affecting the brain and skull development of infants.

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Back later with the game post. I have some pre-road trip things to do. Such as pack.

UPDATE, 1:52 p.m.: Listening to Mike Francesa on WFAN here in New York. Some fans are losing their minds over the brawl.

Why in the world would you want Jeter or A-Rod in a fight? Honestly, you would want that? Alex had his hip socket operated on. He protects himself in walk-off celebrations. You want him wrestling with some September call-up from the Blue Jays?

Too many fans think it’s about being macho. It’s about being smart. That’s how you win.

Apparently the awarding of wrestling championship belts in locker rooms is all the rage when it comes to motivation.

As you know, the Yankees award a belt to the player of the game as determined by Johnny “Vince McMahon” Damon and a small committee of judges.

Heard today that the Patriots do the same thing, awarding a belt to the defensive player who grades out the highest. I wonder if confirmed Yankees fan Tom Brady was somehow involved in that?

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Speaking of the championship belt, the Yankees are auctioning off the original belt they used this season. It was signed by the team and the money raised will go to the HOPE Week participants at Camp Sundown, a year-round camp in upstate New York for children suffering from Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), a rare genetic disease which causes the body to be unable to repair cells damaged by UV light.

A.J. Burnett organized this effort. Here is the direct link to the auction.

The high bid so far is $2,650. If you’re one of the financial guys downtown reading this blog instead of working, I bet you can do better than that. I’ve seen the belt, it’s a pretty cool collectible.

Hal McCoy, a legend in my business who is soon to retire, wrote this terrific piece on his relationship with Aaron Boone.

The Reds are having Hal McCoy Day to honor him today. Hal has covered the team for 37 years but cutbacks at his paper, the Dayton Daily News, are leading to his retirement. This is a very fun job, but these are hard times for a lot of people in the industry.

The Yankees work in mysterious ways. Consider this:

The team decided that 97 percent of their full-season ticket packages for next season would remain at the same price or below what they cost this season. Ostensibly, this is good, positive news, right?

Care to guess what time they released that news to the media? At 11:07 p.m. on Tuesday, literally minutes after the team engaged in a benches-clearing brawl with Toronto. That virtually assured nobody would notice. By the way, the team is off tomorrow.

At any rate, here is the full release:

NEW YORK YANKEES ANNOUNCE 2010 FULL-SEASON TICKET PRICING; PRICES FOR 97 PERCENT OF TICKETS TO REMAIN THE SAME OR DECREASE

The Yankees today announced 2010 full-season ticket license pricing for regular season games at Yankee Stadium. Prices for 97 percent of tickets will either remain the same or decrease.

Of the 50,086 seats in the Stadium, prices for 41,928 tickets (84 percent) will remain the same from 2009, while 6,454 tickets (13 percent) will see a decrease in price. There are 1,704 tickets (three percent) that will have an increase in price.

“At the beginning of the season I said that we would look into our ticket prices and review them at the end of the year to see where changes needed to be made,” said New York Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner. “We have had a great opening year. Over 90 percent of our inventory has been sold, and we are leading Major League Baseball in attendance. This plan reflects the changes we believe are appropriate. We will continue to review the ticket policy on a year-by-year basis.”

A total of 3,400 Field Level seats currently priced at $325 as part of full-season licenses will drop to $250 or $235 each next season, depending on their specific location. Additionally, all 1,208 Suite seats in the Delta Sky360° Suite will see a decrease in price, as will 1,846 of 1,894 Suite seats (97 percent) in the Legends Suite. The balance of the Legends Suite seats will have no price change.

All Field Level seats not in the aforementioned locations will remain at their current prices. Additionally, non-Suite tickets in the Bleachers, Grandstand and Terrace levels will see no change in price in the 2010 season.

In the Main Level, 10,111 seat locations will see no increase. The remaining 1,704 seats in Sections 216-217 and 223-224 currently priced at $100 will be $125 next season. These mark the only increases for 2010.

A date is yet to be determined for the on-sale of 2010 season tickets.

Here is the chart they sent along. I reproduced it as best I could:

Now keep in mind that this release deals with season tickets, not single-game sales.

Jorge Posada faces suspension for his role in a benches-clearing brawl last night against the Jays.

Andy Pettitte will skip a start to rest his aching shoulder. This notebook also has updates on the 2010 schedule and ticket prices.

Mark Feinsand blogged about the brawl.

So did Tyler Kepner.

Good stuff from both of those guys. And I’m not just saying that because we’re friends. OK, maybe I am. But read them anyway.

I realize this is largely a waste of time because fans will see what they want to see. I’m the same way with my teams. But I’m stubborn, so here goes:

Jesse Carlson is a two-bit middle reliever on a fourth-place team, a 28-year-old guy who has been with four organizations. No matter where he stands or what he says or anything else, Jorge Posada needs to avoid confrontation. Give Carlson a dirty look. Don’t give MLB a reason to suspend you.

At one point in the brawl, I saw CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett wrestling with assorted Jays and Mark Teixeira having his shoulders pulled back and even Derek Jeter getting agitated. The Yankees are an old and fragile team already, risking injury because Posada is mad at the likes of Jesse Carlson is not worth losing the World Series.

The Yankees lead baseball in hit batters, which is fine. Pitchers have every right to pitch inside. But if you’re going to play it that way, you have to expect retaliation from time to time. That is how the game has been played for 100 years.

Carlson threw a waist-high off-speed pitch that was several feet behind Posada. He didn’t throw at his head. That should have been the end of it, as Joe Girardi said. It wasn’t, and now we’ll hear what Bob Watson has to say about it.

Girardi was pretty ripped after the game. It doesn’t make a manager look good when these things happen.

Some folks asked, so here is the Posada audio:

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Joe Girardi was not real thrilled with his team and held a meeting after the game to tell them that.

“We’ve already had a discussion,” he said. “I told them there is a lot at stake here and we can’t afford to get anyone hurt or lose anyone or get people suspended. We can’t do that.”

This is a team with a chance to win the World Series and you have a bunch of key players in a melee on the field. With the expanded rosters, you had 67 players out there. It doesn’t take much for somebody to wrench their shoulder or break their hand throwing a punch.

Jorge Posada figures to be suspended and don’t be surprised if it’s five games. MLB will not take kindly to him throwing a forearm at Jesse Carlson.

“As he ran past Carlson, he gave him a little shove with his elbow. It was very unsportsmanlike. The pitcher wasn’t looking for anything like that and he ran past him, didn’t say anything and just gave him a shove with his elbow. It was very unsportsmanlike. It was cheap shot,” umpire Jim Joyce said.

Posada seemed to know he made a mistake, too, based on his tone after the game. He seemed embarrassed, saying he had not set a good example for his children.

“It’s something that shouldn’t happen, you know? You’ve got to carry the weight and hopefully we can end it tonight. … It’s hard to compose yourself,” he said. “I don’t want my kids to see that. Hopefully they won’t.”

Meanwhile, umpire Derryl Cousins had to leave the game because some idiot fan threw a full bottle of soda at him and hit him in the knee.

This is not going to go down as a real proud night for the Yankees. After Mark Melancon drilled Aaron Hill, it’s customary to expect retaliation. Every team does it, including the Yankees. Toronto did it the right way, throwing behind Posada instead of at him.

“I had hoped it ended there,” Girardi said.

But it did not. Posada’s emotion and fire has helped make him a great player. But that got the better of him this time.