The LoHud Yankees Blog

Curtis Granderson just might be the most important player on the Yankees roster. Actually, he might be the most important player on any roster. That’s what this stat suggests, anyway:

The Yankees are 24-2 when Granderson drives in a run.

According to Elias, the record of 23-2 heading into last night’s game was the best record of any major league team in games in which one particular player had an RBI. I have to assume that was still the best such record after last night’s win.

Truth is, I doubt that stat proves anything other than the fact RBIs are good and some stats are strange, but a productive Granderson is clearly good for the Yankees. Until the ninth inning, Granderson’s at-bats were by far the most interesting thing about last night’s game. It was his first test with altered mechanics, and he was terrific.

“If we didn’t get anything going good today, I would continue working on it tomorrow one way or another,” he said after the game. “It’s still a work in progress.”

Here’s Granderson speaking after the game. He seems to think most of this is not a big deal, and that’s probably a good thing, but I think a big-name player trying to alter his mechanics – beyond the normal tweaks and adjustments – this late into the season is kind of fascinating.

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Between every inning CC Sabathia pitches, he drinks a cup of Gatorade and a bottle of water. That’s the case regardless of the weather, which led to an obvious question after tonight’s game. How many times does the big guy pee in the course of a game?

“A lot,” he said, and he was laughing.

Tonight in Kansas City, the heat index at first pitch was 106 degrees. The Royals pulled their center fielder after four innings because of heat exhaustion, and Joe Girardi pulled Nick Swisher in the ninth because he was worried Swisher was on the verge of cramping.

Sabathia said he began hydrating yesterday in preparation for this start. Between innings, he sat beneath the stands with a fan blowing, and of course he was drinking a ton of liquids. With two outs in the ninth, Girardi didn’t like the matchup of Sabathia against Willie Bloomquist — he’s a career .357 hitter against Sabathia and already had two hits — but he also didn’t like the big man laboring any longer.

“We don’t want to wear this big guy down,” Girardi said. “… It’s a tough call, but that’s what I get paid to do.”

Sabathia said he likes pitching in the heat. He feels like he gets loose easier, doesn’t have to work as hard to throw hard. He said he could have stayed in the game, but he also said he worn out when it was over.

“That’s Joe’s job to judge when I’m done,” he said. “And I think he did a good job.”

Here’s Sabathia after the game.

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And here’s Dave Robertson.

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• Mariano Rivera was not available tonight, but Robertson didn’t know that until he was told to get lose in the eighth inning. Obviously the ninth didn’t go as smoothly as he would have liked, but he picked up his second career save when he struck out Jason Kendall to strand the tying run at third. “That’s the hardest out I’ve had to get in a long time,” he said.

• For the first time in his career, Sabathia has 15 wins through 25 starts. Is he thinking about 20 wins? “I try to stay away form personal goals to be honest,” he said. “I’d rather win a World Series than win 20 games and win a Cy Young.”

• Curtis Granderson’s new swing was very effective tonight. He had two hits, a walk and an RBI. “I just felt comfortable,” he said. “I felt like I was able to see the ball. Felt like I wasn’t up there contemplating too much where I was at or where I was standing. Those are good baby steps.”

• Chad Guadin was getting loose in the ninth inning, but Girardi said that was strictly for Gaudin to get some work. The game was Robertson’s no matter what.

• If Rivera were available, Girardi said he “probably” would have started the ninth inning.

• Girardi said he had no plans of pulling Swisher until he noticed him laboring late in the game. “He just looked like he was exhausted,” Girardi said.

• Before being pulled, Swisher had three hits for the 12th time this season.

Associated Press photos of Sabathia and Robertson with Francisco Cervelli

It got dicey in the end, but there was more good than bad in tonight’s 4-3 Yankees win in Kansas City. CC Sabathia nearly pitched his first complete game since April 22, the Yankees picked up a half game in the American League East and Curtis Granderson’s new hitting mechanics had an impressive debut. Granderson went 2-for-3 with a walk, an RBI and his first extra-base hit against a lefty since June 1. Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher and Austin Kearns also had multiple hits, with Kearns going deep.

Associated Press photo of Sabathia

YANKEES (70-43)
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Marcus Thames DH
Austin Kearns LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Francisco Cervelli C

LHP CC Sabathia (14-5, 3.14)
Sabathia vs. Royals

ROYALS (47-67)
Gregor Blanco CF
Jason Kendall C
Billy Butler 1B
Kila Ka’aihue DH
Yuniesky Betancourt SS
Alex Gordon LF
Mike Aviles 2B
Mitch Maier RF
Willie Bloomquist 3B

LHP Bruce Chen (7-5, 4.44)
Chen vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 8:10 p.m. / YES Network

UMPIRES: HP Gary Cederstrom, 1B Ed Hickox, 2B Fieldin Culbreth, 3B Mike Muchlinski

WEATHER: It’s Missouri. It’s hot and it’s humid. Just like I remember it.

NOT WHAT YOU EXPECT: None of the current Royals has ever hit a home run off CC Sabathia, but oddly enough, they’ve hit for a pretty solid average against the big lefty. As a group, the current Royals have a .289 career average against Sabathia and three guys with the most at-bats — Bloomquist, Butler and Kendall — have individual averages of .320, .360 and .381.

EXACTLY WHAT YOU EXPECT: As a group, the current Yankees have a career batting line of .309/.378/.612 against Bruce Chen. Mark Teixeira is coming back at the right time. He’s 9-for-14 with six home run against Chen. That’s a 2.071 slugging percentage.

THREE AWAY: Kerry Wood needs three strikeouts to reach 1,500 for his career.

MORE MILESTONES FOR THE CAPTAIN: With three hits last night, Derek Jeter passed Mel Ott for 38th place on baseball’s all-time hits list. According to Elias, Jeter now has the most hits for any player while playing for a New York team. He needs one more hit to tie Frankie Frisch for 37th all-time.

UPDATE, 9:05 p.m.: Sorry for the lack of updates until now. I’ve been wrapping up early stories for the paper, finally eating dinner and talking to Jason Zillo about hope week. In that time, Curtis Granderson got an RBI single in his first at-bat and Mark Teixeira had a sac fly.

Now Austin Kearns has gone deep, and Granderson has doubled in his second AB. Th Yankees are up 3-0 and Kevin Long is clearly a genius.

UPDATE, 9:18 p.m.: Back-to-back two-out hits have put the Royals on the board. Pretty good throw by Granderson, but he couldn’t beat Gordon to the plate. It’s a 3-1 Yankees lead.

UPDATE, 9:35 p.m.: After botching it the first time, the Royals got a second time to turn a double play and got it done this time. It’s still a 3-1 lead.

UPDATE, 9:37 p.m.: Royals center fielder Gregor Blanco left the game with heat exhaustion and dehydration. He’s expected to play tomorrow.

UPDATE, 10:10 p.m.: Yankees take advantage of an error to build their lead to 4-1. If Sabathia doesn’t pitch a complete game, I’ll be surprised.

UPDATE, 10:42 p.m.: Sabathia is at 100 pitches after eight innings.

It was around noon when Joe Girardi called Andy Pettitte to ask about today’s simulated game in Tampa.

“He was like, ‘I didn’t do it,’” Girardi said.

The setback sounds about as minor as it could be. Pettitte stood up from his couch yesterday and felt some tightness around his hip flexor. He played catch today and will try to throw his simulated game tomorrow. A one-day delay doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. As long as this is the extent of it, the setback is pretty much a non-issue.

“Same leg (as the groin injury),” Girardi said. “Is it related? I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you if it’s related or not related, but it’s not in the groin… We’d love to have him back as soon as possible, but it is what it is and you have to deal with it. If you have to push it back a couple of days, you push it back. The last thing you want is a real big setback.”

—

Curtis Granderson is in the lineup for the first time since make some mechanical changes with his swing. “Honestly you probably won’t even notice much of a difference with it,” he said.

Most of the changes are minor, all focusing on eliminating some of his movement leading into his load. The swing itself, he said, is the same. The changes are all about his setup.

“They’re pretty subtle,” Girardi said. “He actually used it the other day (when he hit off the bench on Tuesday) and no one said a word.”

Here’s Granderson talking this afternoon about the changes.

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• Girardi wants Jorge Posada to catch the next two games. That’s why Posada’s not in the lineup tonight. “I’m not going to catch Jorge four days in a row,” he said. Basically, Posada was going to take off one of the first three days in Kansas City. Girardi chose today.

• Alfredo Aceves is scheduled to throw two innings or 35 pitches tomorrow in Trenton. “I would think that we would look at another (rehab outing), but we’ll see,” Girardi said. “Sometimes things are based on need too.”

• Mark Teixeira flew in this morning. He said he actually got quite a bit of sleep because the hospital staff was so helpful. His wife and baby boy are both healthy. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I missed my child’s birth or anything happened,” Teixeira said. “There was no question in my mind. I talked to Joe and Cash months ago and said, this is the deal. This is what’s going to happen. If it happens to be when we’re on the road, I might need to miss a couple of games. They were obviously great about it.”

• Teixeira watched last night’s game from the hospital. “It was kind of one eye on the game and one eye on Leigh and the baby,” he said. “I wasn’t screaming at the television or anything like that.”

• One last Teixeira note: This was the first time he had to miss a game for the birth of a baby. His first son was born during spring training. His daughter was born during the playoffs, when he wasn’t playing. Teixeira said he’s glad he hasn’t been forced to make a similar decision during a playoff series. “I’m glad I didn’t have to answer that question,” he said.

• Although they once again dodged Zack Greinke, Girardi said he doesn’t look at that as good luck for the Yankees. “Any pitcher any night can put a good start on you,” he said. Fair enough, but seriously… it’s a pretty lucky situation for the Yankees. Eight games against Kansas City without facing their best player is a positive.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Marcus Thames DH
Austin Kearns LF
Curtis Granderson CF
Francisco Cervelli C

Based on the clubhouse, if this game were to start right now, it would be the Kansas City Royals vs. A.J. Burnett, Mark Teixeira and assorted members of the New York media.

What hitting coach Kevin Long called a “total reformation of the swing” is not quite that drastic according to Curtis Granderson. After two days spent tweaking his mechanics, Granderson could return to the Yankees lineup tonight with a different look. Just how different depends on who you ask.

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it big changes,” Granderson said. “It’s just trying to simply things. Everything I’ve done up to this point is just trying to get to the point I want (to make contact)… and there’s always some moving parts before it. We’re just trying to eliminate some of those moving parts.”

I’m sure the changes are minor — slightly different stance, hands held a little differently — but those can be significant parts of a player’s swing. It’s probably a good thing that Granderson sees this as a minor alteration rather than a radical change. He said he would have felt comfortable at the plate last night.

“I’ve made changes throughout my whole career,” he said. “I’ve been an unorthodox hitter. I’ve been a very routine and picture-perfect hitter as far as what everyone else is doing. And everything in between. Whenever someone says to make a change, I’ve always been a very adaptive player.”

A few quick links from downtown Kansas City…

• I landed in KC only to find an email from MLB announcing the official sale of the Rangers to a group led by Nolan Ryan. This is not a surprise, just an official announcement of something already known. Here’s the Dallas Morning News blog entry.

• I’m sure you’ve already seen this story — there was already buzz about it in the press box before the end of last night’s game — but Francisco Rodriguez has been arrested and suspended after getting into a fight with his father in law at Citi Field last night.

• Some brief Red Sox updates are in this notebook: Dustin Pedroia is scheduled to return from the DL next week, Mike Cameron has been taking batting practice and Jarrod Saltalamacchia has been called up.

• Bad news for the Braves: Chipper Jones is out for the year.

Associated Press photo of Granderson with Jorge Posada

Tonight
LHP CC Sabathia (14-5, 3.14)
vs.
LHP Bruce Chen (7-5, 4.44)
8:10 p.m., YES Network

Friday
RHP Dustin Moseley (2-1, 3.86)
vs.
RHP Kyle Davies (5-7, 5.21)
8:10 p.m., YES Network

Saturday
RHP Phil Hughes (13-5, 3.92)
vs.
RHP Sean O’Sullivan (1-3, 5.05)
7:10 p.m., YES Network

Sunday
RHP A.J. Burnett (9-9, 4.87)
vs.
RHP Brian Bannister (7-11, 5.95)
2:10 p.m., YES Network

For the second time this season, the Yankees will play a four-game series against the Royals and miss Zack Greinke. Without facing Grienke, the Yankees won’t face a single Royals starter with an ERA below 4.44, and only one with an ERA below 5.00.

Last night seemed to belong on last year’s schedule. The Yankees haven’t had many emotional wins like that one this season, but last night had it all: Winning against two dominant pitchers, rallying in the late innings, chipping away until finally a big hit and of course the three straight outs against three great hitters by the great Mariano Rivera.

“We have not had as many walk-off wins this year, there’s no doubt about it,” Joe Girardi said. “But we still have 70 wins. The big thing is that you win games, but those walk-off wins can be great momentum builders.”

The Yankees got some production from the bottom of the order, and they got some huge hits from fill-in No. 3 hitter Marcus Thames. After a night like that, though, you can’t forget about Sergio Mitre and Kerry Wood. They never let the night get out of hand. It was very nearly out of hand, but as the Yankees cut the lead with a run here and two runs there, Mitre and Wood kept the Rangers from pulling away.

It was a big win — an emotional win — and I don’t remember the music ever playing louder in the clubhouse after the game.

“We are capable to do this and tonight we showed it,” Rivera said. “I have seen it for many years, not only this year or last year or the year before. We had the opportunity to chip in, chip in and in the end we scored two or three, and we were back in the game.”