The LoHud Yankees Blog

Jorge Posada is one of those people who usually makes it easy to tell what he’s thinking or feeling. Unlike his buddy, Derek Jeter, Posada isn’t afraid to show when he’s disappointed. It’s just who he is.

Last night, Posada was frustrated. One game into the season obviously isn’t a time to be calling teammates out or getting too worked up about anything, really, but it was obvious in talking to Posada that he felt at least a little bit of exasperation over the Yankees coughing up a big lead when their ace, CC Sabathia, was on the mound.

I don’t know if the edge in Posada’s voice will come over well on the audio and this was far from “Angry Jorge.” That said, Posada’s short, clipped answers when he’s asked about the pitchers (particularly the relievers) certainly felt indicative of frustration when listening to them live. Check out the clip below.

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For what it’s worth, Posada said the passed ball from Damaso Marte was NOT a cross-up (even if it looked that way) but was just symbolic of how wild Marte was. At the very least, Posada could be happy with his offensive start to the season – 3-for-4 with a homer, although he admitted that when he made contact on the home run ball he “thought it was going foul.”

The Yankees dropped their season opener against the Red Sox last night. They scored early and came back in the middle, but in the end Boston had the bats to win it.

Sam wrote that Joe Girardi is becoming more comfortable as the leader of a team that’s expected to win them all.

The good news is that the Yankees are healthy again. The notebook also has items on the possibility of using Marcus Thames on Tuesday and the potential to stick with Nick Johnson and Jorge Posada throughout the first several games of the season. Robinson Cano hit some balls hard last night, and the Yankees plan to stick with him in the No. 5 spot even if he gets off to a slow start.

CC Sabathia expects big things of himself, and he seemed to expect most of the blame for tonight’s Opening Day loss to the Red Sox. The Yankees had a four-run lead with their ace on the mound, but it fell apart in the second half.

“I think I had good stuff, I just nibbled too much,” Sabathia said. “Early in the game I was still strike one, right there. Later in the game I’m trying to throw down and away and I’m missing down. I just think I nibbled a little too much and got behind and got in hitters counts. It’s a tough lineup to try to pitch to when you’re in hitters counts.”

Much was made of the Red Sox concentration on defense this winter, but this is certainly not a bad lineup. Sabathia said both Mike Cameron and Marco Scutaro had singles off changeups in the fifth inning. He said the Red Sox were patient, forcing him to throw strikes in good hitters counts. Sabathia tried to walk a line between being aggressive and fooling hitters with his stuff.

“It’s a fine line and today I definitely screwed it up,” Sabathia said. “Just trying to make pitches and try to trick the guys instead of just coming right after them with a four run lead.”

Obviously a lot of the blame has to fall on the bullpen. Not a single reliever got through the game without allowing a run to score, but Joe Girardi said he couldn’t make too big of a deal out of one bad game. “Even if they’d thrown all zeros, we can’t make too much of it,” he said. Bottom line, the Yankees seem to have this game won when they were up four runs with their ace on the mound.

“Something about this field, it always seems like the game’s not over with,” Derek Jeter said. “They battled. They were down 5-1, CC was rolling along, and then their bats woke up.”

Here’s the Sabathia audio. It’s a little noisy in the beginning but gets better.

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YANKEES
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Johnson DH
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Nick Swisher RF
Brett Gardner LF

LHP CC Sabathia (19-8, 3.37 in 2009)
Career vs. Red Sox

RED SOX
Jacoby Ellsbury LF
Dustin Pedroia 2B
Victor Martinez C
Kevin Youkilis 1B
David Ortiz DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
J.D. Drew RF
Mike Cameron CF
Marco Scutaro SS

RHP Josh Beckett (17-6, 3.86 in 2009)
Career vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 8:05 p.m./YES Network and ESPN2

WEATHER: Take the weather in Tampa and ship it north. It’s a really nice night here in Boston with no chance of rain. A great way to open the season.

UMPIRES: HP Joe West, 1B Angel Hernandez, 2B Paul Schrieber, 3B Rob Drake

NOT THEIR FIRST TIME: The Yankees are 18-10-1 in 29 previous Opening Day games against Boston. The one tie was in 1910 because of darkness. The Yankees haven’t opened a season at Fenway since 1985, which is also the last time the Red Sox beat the Yankees in a season opener.

ON HOLIDAY: The Yankees have played at Fenway Park on Easter one other time in the past 50 years (a 5-4 Yankees loss in 2001). The Yankees have also opened on Easter one other time in the past 50 years (swept in a doubleheader against the White Sox in 1982).

WITHIN REACH: Jorge Posada needs one doubles to tie Billy Dickey (343) for eighth place on the Yankees all-time doubles list… Alex Rodriguez needs one home run to pass Mark McGwire for sole possession of eighth place on baseball’s all-time home run list with 584… A four-hit day would give Rodriguez 1,000 hits as a Yankee.

UPDATE, 8:21 p.m.: Curtis Granderson’s first game as a Yankee in Fenway Park, he records the Yankees first out on a fly ball to center.

UPDATE, 8:33 p.m.: Hip hip!

UPDATE, 8:35 p.m.: And now Granderson. It’s 2-0 Yankees on back-to-back homers. By the way, that was Posada’s fourth opening day homer, the most on the current Yankees roster. It was Granderson’s second.

UPDATE, 8:43 p.m.: Not sure what you’ll make of this stat, but Granderson is the first Yankee to homer in his first at-bat with the team since Cody Ransom in 2008.

UPDATE, 8:53 p.m.: The entire crowd and probably half of the press box — including me — thought Beltre’s sac fly was on its way out of the park.

UPDATE, 8:56 p.m.: Elias says Posada and Granderson are the first Yankees to go back-to-back on Opening Day since Dave Winfield and Steve Kemp in 1983. They hit theirs off Gaylord Perry.

UPDATE, 9:01 p.m.: Is the Finger Tip Touch going to be a thing between Granderson and Swisher? He’s the AP shot of the post-homer celebration.

UPDATE, 9:10 p.m.: Did Rodriguez just redeem himself for that double play ball in the top of the inning? Miiiight have been safe, but let’s ignore that fact. As Sam just said, tie goes to the Yankees.

UPDATE, 9:32 p.m.: Didn’t the Red Sox focus on defense this offseason? I’m not sure throwing to second with Gardner at third was the smartest move.

UPDATE, 9:51 p.m.: Lefty out of the bullpen to face Granderson. First of many.

UPDATE, 9:56 p.m.: The left-on-left worked. And it will probably work again at some point.

UPDATE, 10:09: Gardner doesn’t have the strongest arm in the world, but he’s usually pretty accurate. That was not his best work. It’s now 5-2 Yankees and the past three Red Sox have connected for two-out hits.

UPDATE, 10:11 p.m.: Situations like that, it’s nice to have Sabathia on the mound. That was a nice pitch to get Ellsbury and get out of the jam.

UPDATE, 10:27 p.m.: After that lead-off walk to Pedroia, Dave Robertson is getting loose in the Yankees pen.

UPDATE, 10:32 p.m.: Credit Nick Swisher with the Kevin Youkilis triple. It would have been a two-run double anyway, but it certainly looked worse to see the ball roll to the fence like that. Things have gotten dicey.

UPDATE, 10:34 p.m.: Nice job by Cano to make sure Youkilis wouldn’t score. I wonder if a younger second baseman might have panicked and thrown home, or forgotten about the runner altogether and thrown to first too early. Here comes Robertson.

UPDATE, 10:50 p.m.: The moral of this game might be that it’s always nice to have a really good defensive team, but it is also very nice to have a very good offensive team.

UPDATE, 11:04 p.m.: Chan Ho Park was unhitable this spring. The spring is clearly over.

UPDATE, 11:15 p.m.: Might have been a cross up there, but Posada still got a glove on the ball. Losing a lead on a passed ball is a pretty brutal way to go.

UPDATE, 12:01 a.m.: There’s your game. Started exactly the way the Yankees would have wanted, but the bullpen gave it up and the Red Sox had enough offense to get the 9-7 win.

With the first pitch less than two hours away, the Yankees are on the field at Fenway Park, going through stretches and waiting for their turn to take batting practice. The stadium is playing a Jay-Z song right now.

For almost all of the Yankees, this is familiar ground. Even most of the new guys have been here with the Yankees in the past. Javier Vazquez has done it. Nick Johnson has done it. Marcus Thames never played in Fenway with the Yankees, but he came up in the organization and certainly experienced at least a little bit of the rivalry.

For Curtis Granderson, it will be something entirely new.

“I could sit in Joe (Torre’s) office as a coach and have an idea of what it was like to manage the New York Yankees, but you really don’t know exactly what it’s like until you go through it,” Joe Girardi said. “Those guys have probably seen many times the Yankees and Red Sox play, but until you actually go through it, it’s probably a little different than what you imagined.”

Here’s Girardi’s pregame media session.

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• Nick Johnson is in the lineup and Girardi expects him to stay there, but he’s going to check with him against after batting practice to make sure his knee still feels fine.

• Cervelli will run today and Girardi called him “catchable” for tonight’s game. Cervelli called himself, “better than yesterday.”

• With a lead, who would pitch the eighth inning tonight? “It’s going to depend on where they are in their lineup tonight,” Girardi said. He would like a definite setup man to emerge, but said that remains up for grabs.

• Because there are so many days off early in the season, Girardi said he plans to keep Nick Johnson and Jorge Posada in the lineup without needing to give them games off to rest.

• Girardi has not settled on a lineup against lefty Jon Lester on Tuesday, but it’s at least possible Marcus Thames could be there. “He’s had a lot of success in his career against left-handers,” Girardi said. “We have not made a lineup for Tuesday, but that was one of the reasons we went and go thim because of his success against left-handers.”

• Alfredo Aceves is fine and available out of the bullpen. Girardi said he will have to check with Damaso Marte after he plays catch to make sure he’s available to pitch.

• Girardi got a pregame phone call from Yogi Berra. “He said, ‘I’ll be watching,’” Girardi said.

UPDATE, 7:12 p.m.: Throwing out the first pitch tonight is World Series Game 2 and Game 6 losing pitcher Pedro Martinez.

UPDATE, 7:16 p.m.: Among those taking batting practice with the Red Sox was rapper Dr. Dre, who apparently hit one off the wall at some point. The AP has a shot of him in uniform.

After finishing BP, Sam saw him wearing massive headphone with Red Sox logos while watching the Red Sox take BP. His jersey number was 808.

That’s an Associated Press shot of Alex Rodriguez during pregame warm ups.

Nick Johnson and Jorge Posada are healthy enough to play, leaving the Yankees lineup exactly as expected for today’s season opener.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Johnson DH
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada C
Curtis Granderson CF
Nick Swisher RF
Brett Gardner LF

Sorry for the brief delay getting the lineup posted. Neither Sam nor I could get our phones to connect from the clubhouse.

Spring training has clearly ended. The press box at Fenway Park is steadily filling with button-up shirts and more than a few suits. Not a single pair of shorts to be found.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is the weather. Another beautiful day with literally more blimps (1) than clouds (0) in the sky.

The clubhouse opens in half an hour. That’s when I’m hoping to have lineups and injury updates. Until then, sit tight. First pitch is almost here.

My little sister lives in Boston, and so for the first time in almost 10 years, I’m enjoying Easter lunch with family. I’ll be leaving for Fenway in a few hours.

For those looking for a Yankees fix on the off day, I’ll be doing a video chat from my sister’s living room on Monday. The chat will start at 1 p.m.

If you’re celebrating Easter, I hope you’re able to spend it with family. Either way, I hope you’ve picked a comfortable place to enjoy the game tonight. I’ll see you then.

Happy Opening Day, everyone!

While packing my suitcase last night, I was watching a terrific documentary from 1988 called “U2: Rattle & Hum” which features a slew of live performances including a fantastic one of (my favorite U2 song) “Pride (In The Name of Love).” In a sort of weird coincidence, that song delves into the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., which happened 42 years ago today.

Anyway, I mention this because I’m riding Amtrak up to Boston now and going through some reader emails, many of which include questions (or criticisms) about the MLB schedule. Some people, it seems, are curious why the Yankees are a) playing the Red Sox on Opening Day; and b) also ending the season against Boston, while not playing them at all for a few months in the middle of the summer.

Unfortunately, the story I did on the MLB schedule for our baseball preview section seems to have not made the web, but gist of it is that a ton of factors go into which teams play where and when, and this year a massive tour by U2 was one of the biggest factors in scheduling. According to Katy Feeney, the VP in charge of scheduling for MLB, most stadium concerts require a set-up and break-down of just a few days; the U2 tour this summer requires a (kind of ridiculous) 10-day window around each date. “And each place they play affects so many more teams than you might realize,” Feeney said. “It’s a huge trickle-down.”

One of the tour stops is in Toronto, meaning that all AL East teams were affected even more. Add in football conflicts in Baltimore, Boston Marathon conflicts in Beantown and the fact that the Yankees usually are home in early September (since the Mets are on the road during the tennis U.S. Open) and the scheduling becomes a lot harder than you might think. “In general, we try to open and close within the division,” Feeney said, “and that means sometimes the Yankees are going to play the Red Sox.”

Also, for those who are wondering, the league does NOT set specific game-times; that’s up to the respective teams (though ESPN and the networks does have some say on nights they have rights). So, if you’re upset about the Yankees and Red Sox not playing any day games during the opening series, you can (mostly) blame the Sox. For everything else having to do with the schedule, just blame Bono and the Edge.

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Despite the flooding in Rhode Island that has caused trains to take a longer route up to Boston, I’ve already seen more than a couple of Yankees fans on my train headed up to the Hub. It’s a beautiful day and should be a great night for baseball, so be sure to check back early and often this afternoon for updates from both Chad and me.

Welcome to Opening Day.

The defending champion Yankees are once again the team to beat, with the rest of baseball trying to close the gap and take back the World Series.

Sam wrote that having the Yankees on top is a familiar feeling in baseball.

The Yankees have a new center fielder, and he’ll be playing one of the most storied positions in the history of game. But playing center field at Yankee Stadium it was never Curtis Granderson’s dream.

The Yankees and Red Sox each have built powerful rotations. One through five, these rotations are built to win, and they’re built to compete with one another.

When the Yankees finally broke camp on Saturday, it was with their team finally feeling healthy and with no major surprises on the roster.

As the season gets underway tonight at Fenway, the Yankees have five questions to answer between now and the postseason.

That’s another Associated Press photo of Derek Jeter.