The LoHud Yankees Blog

Hope this works, I tried to post a picture of the lineup hanging in the dugout.

Before the Yankees and Red Sox play in front of a packed house tonight, the New York writers will play the Boston writers in front of about a dozen friends and family this morning at Yankee Stadium. It’s the second game of our two-game home-and-away series. New York won the season opener at Fenway.

The way I understand it, there was no Yankee Stadium game last season, so this will be our first game at the new place.

Some of our regulars can’t make it, including starting pitcher Tyler Kepner. So Bryan Hoch is taking the mound for New York. He’s a crafty left-hander with good fastball movement and a curve he can throw for strikes. I caught his bullpen session in Cleveland and walked away impressed.

Sam played right field in our first game, and I played some second. Haven’t seen a lineup yet for today’s game, but you can bet we’re taking this thing seriously. Hoch has made it his mission to win this thing.

Is it just me, or was this a slower off day than usual? The trade deadline has come and gone, Alex Rodriguez has his 600th home run, everyone is well aware of where the Yankees sit in the standings and a Red Sox-Yankees series needs no additional hype. It’s been a quiet day, in a good way.

Not such a quiet day for the Red Sox.

Kevin Youkilis is out for the year. The team announced that Youkilis will have surgery to repair his thumb tomorrow. He’s expected to be back in time for spring training. The news came one day after Jacoby Ellsbury was activated from the disabled list, and three days after Mike Cameron was placed back on the DL with a lower abdominal strain.

Without Youkilis, Cameron or Dustin Pedroia, here’s the lineup Boston is using the night before coming to the Bronx: Ellsbury CF, Scutaro SS, Ortiz DH, Martinez C, Drew RF, Beltre 3B, Lowell 1B, Kalish LF, Hall 2B. The Yankees could see something similar this weekend.

Some other notes.

• Tim Redding, who had been arguably Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s best starting pitcher, has accepted a contract offer to play in Korea. I’m not sure he had pitched his way past Ivan Nova for a call-up, but he had a 0.69 WHIP during the month of July. That’s insane. Just like Donnie Collins predicted, Kei Igawa was moved into the rotation to fill Redding’s spot. Also, Amaury Sanit is back from his suspension.

• Speaking of guys who used to play for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre: Cody Ransom has been designated for assignment by the Phillies and Chad Tracy has signed with the Marlins.

• The Royals have designated Jose Guillen. He’s a right-handed hitting outfielder, but if the Yankees had any interest, I imagine they easily could have traded for him instead of Austin Kearns.

• Adam Dunn has been claimed off waivers. Jon Paul Morosi writes that the claiming team is unknown, but I find it hard to believe he could have slipped all the way to the Yankees.

• Someone finally owns the Texas Rangers, and it’s not Mark Cuban.

• When rounded — like it will be in every statistical listing ever — Mariano Rivera now has a 1.00 career WHIP. Russell Kahn marvels at that number over at Mr. Blogtober. … By the way, Russell calls that post the first of a 954-part series. If I ever claim to have a 954-part series in the works, feel free to smack me right in the head.

Associated Press photo of Alex Rodriguez. Why a picture of Alex Rodriguez at the top of this post? I have no idea, but he looks like he’s 12 years old in that picture. I think that’s why I went with it.

Congratulations to CC Sabathia and his wife, Amber, who today welcomed their fourth child. According to the Yankees, the Sabathia’s newest son, Carter Charles Sabathia, was born at 5:44 p.m. He entered this world at 5-foot-10, 205 pounds.

Actually, if you want to believe the Yankees, little CC was considerably shorter than five feet and weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces. But give him time.

It was on July 17, right after the all-star break, that the Yankees put Damaso Marte on the disabled list and recalled Boone Logan from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Logan had not been especially impressive in his previous big league stints. His 3.93 ERA looked good enough, but he had 12 walks in 18.1 innings and opponents were hitting .286 against him.

This time around, Logan has walked one batter in 6.1 innings. He’s limited opponents to a .130 average, and he hasn’t allowed a hit in his past five outings. Instead of being a mix of lefty specialist and long man, he’s been trusted in the exact situations Marte would have handled.

“He’s just doing what we talked about in spring training,” Dave Eiland said. “He’s staying taller, throwing downhill, getting good angle on his pitches. he’s throwing the ball well, and he’s gaining a lot of confidence. that’s as big a thing as anything. The mechanical adjustments we started making in spring training, he’s finally starting to get it and repeat it. It’s paying off for him right now.”

The Yankees bullpen has been an up-and-down experience this season, but they might have a good one heading into the final two months.

Logan is pitching well, Mariano Rivera is Mariano Rivera, Dave Robertson hasn’t allowed a run since July 2 and even Joba Chamberlain has been good for the past week (consistency has to start somewhere). In adding Kerry Wood to the mix, Brian Cashman was able to trade for a potential impact pitcher without giving up anything of significance. He was also able to bite the bullet on the Chan Ho Park debacle, while giving his remaining salary to those eager Pittsburgh Pirates.

Long relief hasn’t been much of a problem, and that situation will surely only improve when Andy Pettitte comes off the disabled list, and if/when Alfredo Aceves is healthy again. Some mix of Aceves, Dustin Moseley, Sergio Mitre, Chad Guadin and — maybe, just maybe — Ivan Nova, give the Yankees plenty of two- and three-inning options.

Plus, Marte is still out there waiting to help against lefties.

Might not have said this a month ago, but there’s actually quite a bit to feel good about in the Yankees bullpen. No drastic makeover necessary, just a tweak here and some improvement there.

The Yankees are back in first place by a half game after the Rays lost in the ninth inning this afternoon. Unless you count Opening Day, tomorrow will be the first time the Yankees have been in first place going into a game against the Red Sox this season.

The Yankees and Red Sox last played against one another on May 18. On that day…

• The Yankees starting lineup had Brett Gardner in center field, Randy Winn in left field and Marcus Thames in right field (against a right-handed starter). Curtis Granderson was on the disabled list at the time, and Nick Swisher was dealing with a sore biceps. Nick Johnson had gone on the DL 10 days earlier, so Juan Miranda was starting at DH.

• Before the game, Jorge Posada talked about his sore right foot and was hopeful he would be in the starting lineup the next night. “It just feels funny walking on it,” he said. Two days later, he would go on the DL with a hairline fracture.

• Considerable rain fell before the game, and just before the first pitch, Greg Golson was optioned to make room for Mark Melancon. For many reasons, that move will not be happening this time.

• The Red Sox used four hitters – Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Jonathan Van Every and Jeremy Hermida — who are no longer on their active roster.

• Mariano Rivera blew the save and took the loss because of two unearned runs (Thames made an error in right). It remains Rivera’s only loss of the year. His line since then: 27.1 IP, 13 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 25 K. He’s 3-0 with 15 saves and a 0.66 ERA.

• The Yankees fell to three games back in the division. At the time, it was their largest division deficit of the year. Five days later they would be six games back. A month later, tied for the division lead.  A month after that, in first place by three games.

Friday
RHP Javier Vazquez (9-7, 4.61)
vs.
RHP Clay Buchholz (11-5, 2.59)
7:05 p.m., YES Network

Saturday
LHP CC Sabathia (13-5, 3.19)
vs.
RHP John Lackey (10-6, 4.48)
4:10 p.m., FOX

Sunday
RHP A.J. Burnett (9-9, 4.93)
vs.
RHP Josh Beckett (3-1, 5.70)
8:05 p.m., ESPN

Monday
RHP Dustin Moseley (1-1, 4.13)
vs.
LHP Jon Lester (11-7, 3.07)
2:05 p.m., YES Network

The Yankees official site and yesterday’s media notes list Monday’s starter as TBA, but Joe Girardi has said the team will stay on rotation through the Red Sox series, which should leave Dustin Moseley to pitch the finale. Because of today’s off day, they could go with Phil Hughes on normal rest.

Four hits yesterday gave Derek Jeter 2,872 for his career. His next hit will match the career total of Babe Ruth.

What must it feel like to match Babe Ruth?

Jeter’s been hitting lately. He’s a .300 hitter in his past 10 games, and he’s hit .305 since the all-star break. Because this is Jeter — the guy who’s about to pass Babe Ruth, for crying out loud! — the bad numbers have really stood out, but it’s not as if hitting has escaped him all season.

His on-base percentage has been consistently down, but when Jeter’s hit, he’s hit for pretty typical power. On June 6, he was a .300 hitter for the year. From that date until the all-star break, Jeter hit just .220 with nine RBI. That’s bad for any player, much less a guy who’s one hit away from Ruth.

He seems to have found it a little bit since the break. Now he needs one hit to move into a tie for 39th on baseball’s all-time hits list. Jeter already owns the Yankees hit record, but Ruth had 355 hits with Boston. The next former Yankee who Jeter will pass is Wade Boggs, who ranks 25th all-time with 3,010 hits, 702 of them with New York.

Associated Press photo. Thanks to Joshua for the email.

Alex Rodriguez has his 600th home run. He hit in a Yankees win at home, just like he said he wanted. From a writer’s perspective, he picked a good time to do it: Early in a day game that ended without any other massive event to squeeze into the first few paragraphs. See, he really does work better with the media these days.

Of course, there was also this little fact about yesterday’s game: It moved the Yankees back into a tie at the top of the American League East.

That division lead might go back and forth a few more times before the end of September. The Yankees have scored the most runs in the American League. The Rays have allowed the fewest. These are the two best teams in baseball, so get comfortable.

One minor thing going on with the Rays that the Yankees can relate to…

This week, Tampa Bay promoted 31-year-old Dan Johnson from Triple-A Durham. He’s been in the lineup the past two games, his 12th and 13th major league games since 2007.

The Yankees and the Rays have experienced similar designated hitter issues this season. Tampa was counting on Pat Burrell, but he flopped (which wasn’t totally unexpected). The Yankees were counting on Nick Johnson, but he got hurt (also not totally unexpected).

The Yankees have dealt with Johnson’s injury by giving Marcus Thames regular starts, rotating some of their position regulars at DH and trading for Lance Berkman. The Rays have dealt with Burrell’s dismissal by calling up and eventually releasing Hank Blalock, giving 183 at-bats to .257/.315/.388 hitter Willy Aybar and by promoting Johnson, who was leading the International League in home runs and RBI.

Try something new to see if it sticks. It’s that time of the year.

Associated Press photo. Speaking of which, our online gallery has more pictures of A-Rod’s homer.

A-Rod was lucky he hit No. 600 where he hit it. A 23-year-old security guard, Frankie Babilonia, retrieved it from the netting over Monument Park. He returned the ball, and Rodriguez presented him with an autographed bat at the postgame press conference.

What would you have done if you had been him? Kept that ball potentially  worth six figures or turned it over? It probably wouldn’t have boded well for his job if he had kept it. But Babilonia knew what he had to do right from the flight of the ball.

“I was like, ‘Wow, there goes the ball. I’ve got to get it and return it to him,’ ” Babilonia said. ”That’s what I did.”

Rodriguez was happy and relieved to get it over with. He admitted he had been pressing. He had ironically hit No. 500 at the old Stadium three years ago today.

“So much has changed for me,” Rodriguez said. “My place in that clubhouse, I think that’s the No. 1 thing that has changed, my relationship with my teammates, the way I try to go about my business, especially the last two years. We’re about winning. We’re about checking your ego at the door.”

So can he catch Barry Bonds at 762? Rodriguez is the youngest to reach 600 at 35 years and 8 days old, but his homer pace has slowed this year with just 17 so far.

“I think that if he stays healthy, he can get to 700,” Toronto manager Cito Gaston said. “I think that he’s 35 years old now. I don’t know if he’ll pass Hank (Aaron) or Bonds.”

“It took me three years to the day to hit 100, so that’s really not even on my radar right now,” Rodriguez said. “That’s something we can revisit in two or three years and see where we’re at. But the journey’s what’s fun.” …

Turns out, Phil Hughes was pitching with a cold. Between that and the heat, he was just trying to battle through. He said he got away with some mistakes while allowing just one run, four hits and two walks in 5 1/3 in the 5-1 win. His record is now 13-4. …

Joba Chamberlain threw a scoreless seventh, his fourth straight scoreless outing. He said he has made a mechanical adjustment. Joe Girardi likes the look of his fastball and slider now.

That’s it for tonight. After an off-day Thursday, the Yankees begin a four-game series here on Friday against the Red Sox. It’s Javier Vazquez vs. Clay Buchholz.