Pregame notes: Cashman with the Yankees in Baltimore
Posted by: Chad Jennings - Posted in Notes on Sep 17, 2010 
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A lot going on pregame, which is why the note took some time. There was no huge news coming out of the Yankees clubhouse, just a lot of tracking down reaction to the manager situation in Los Angeles and checking on various bumps and bruises on the roster.
And then there was Brian Cashman. The Yankees general manager doesn’t come around all that often on the road, but he’s with the team in Baltimore having watched them lose eight of the past 10. Would he be here if the team had won eight of 10?
“Probably not,” he said. “My style, quite frankly, is out of sight out of mind unless we start to struggle. When we start to struggle, then you’ll see a little bit more of me… This is just to engage them and our staff. We’re fine. I honestly think we’re fine. It happens to be Baltimore. It’s a three or four-hour drive (from New York). I went to high school and college just down the block in D.C. There are a lot of reasons that I’m here. We’re struggling so it’s good for me to be around it.”
His assessment of the past week and a half or so…
“I feel that Joe’s done a lot of good things here in the last week,” Cashman said. “He had to make some tough choices with some guys dealing with some ailments. You can either push the medal to the metal and ask them to give a little more despite the ailments because of who we’re playing right now or because of where we’re positioned. The bigger picture is the ultimate goal of trying to become a world champion. Back off and give the Swishers and the Gardners the time necessary. Don’t overtax the bullpen. Hopefully still win your games because there’s a lot of talent here.
“Obviously the winning side didn’t work out here in this most recent stretch, but it’s September 17 and we’re a lot healthier today than is you asked me where we were on September 12. I think we’re healthier and in a better position to repeat going into tonight’s game than we were at any time last week. I think we’ll be better for it in the long run, even though short-term pain…”
It was at that moment that Cashman paused for a just a second, as if searching for the right word.
“Sucks,” he said.
• Andy Pettitte is with the team and ready to go on Sunday. He threw a bullpen yesterday, came through it fine and said he feels healthy and excited to get back on a big league mound.
• Nick Swisher is available to pinch hit. “We had Swish hit today,” Joe Girardi said. “He felt fine, so he’s available to me as a pinch hitter. We had him run the bases, and he’s still not 100 percent running the bases, so what I don’t want to do is I don’t want to go backwards again where we don’t have him for four or five days. He is a lot closer, though.”
• Girardi said the staff could see Swisher still dragging his left leg a little bit while he’s running.
• Brett Gardner took early batting practice and came through it with no problems. He’s more or less back to 100 percent.
• Romulo Sanchez is here. He could go more than one inning, but he wrapped up the Triple-A season in the bullpen and Girardi said the Yankees see him more as a short guy than a long man.
• Girardi said Jorge Posada will certainly catch tomorrow, and it sounds possible that he’ll catch Sunday’s day game after the night game. “I’ll talk to him about the next two games, to see what we do Saturday and Sunday,” Girardi said. “We want to get him back there, that’s for sure.”
• The Yankees are on rotation for the Tampa Bay series. Girardi said he’ll go with Ivan Nova in the opener, then Phil Hughes, A.J. Burnett and CC Sabathia.
• This is the first time I remember Dustin Moseley being listed once again as a reliever on the Yankees lineup card. Throughout the Tampa and Texas series, Moseley was still listed among the starter, unavailable out of the bullpen. Today he was listed in the pen.
Cash is all the inspiration the Yankees need; when they look at this little balding guy, how can they not want to do well?
Sucks? Well, that’s appropriate, Cash – no sense trying to pretend the last week and a half has done anything but suck.
That’s good news on Swish; I guesss we’ll just have to be patient. I hope he can take BP so he doesn’t go completely cold.
What can I say about Andy? This guy has been missed.
Yankees, just don’t get swept.
(But I know you will anyway.)
Here’s is what makes no sense with the “personal catcher” thing… If aj pitched well when he had said personal catcher I wouldn’t argue..but he really doesn’t pitch that great so I see no reason to weaken lineup…if he was lights out then fine..but would he really pitch worse with jorge
I once dined and dashed at Ruby Tuesday.
The service sucks there.
Way too kind regarding Girardi. The man’s been bumbling and fumbling moves for two weeks. Again, the sweat stains tell the story.
” You can either push the medal to the metal”.
I believe that’s pedal to the medal.
In America we take our medals seriously and don’t push them to the metal.
This is the first time I remember Dustin Moseley being listed once again as a reliever on the Yankees lineup card. Throughout the Tampa and Texas series, Moseley was still listed among the starter, unavailable out of the bullpen. Today he was listed in the pen.
—
It looks like Nova has earned the 5th starter spot, for now at least.
As Mick crooned . . . “Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday . . .” Please go.
At the Yankees’ “official” website, it is reported that Chad Huffman is now a Cleveland Indian.
Claimed on waivers.
I mean “Pedal to the metal” . Man. What a dumb typo. Oh well. I suck.
“It looks like Nova has earned the 5th starter spot, for now at least.”
Actually, no one’s earned it. And the #4 guy pitching tonight has earned jacksquat as well.
Ruby Tuesday has a pretty good salad bar but the rest of the food is just so so and they are terrible at making sports predictions.
Blake-
I prefer “Fridays”. The menu is better and Yanks always win on Friday, right ?
I agree with the personal catcher thing too. AJ sucks with Cervelli catching him so I don’t see why it would be different with Posada catching him. I see why they use Cervelli for Nova, they’ve worked together before and are comfortable working together so I have no problem with that, and Jorge can’t catch everyday unfortunately but I don’t think AJ should get his own catcher just cause he wants one.
Cashman shows up and all of a sudden everyone is healthy. Girardi knows there’s no more coddling and losing once his boss is annoyed enough to meet them on the road.
MTU,
Yea I like Fridays a lot…I responded to you before in the other thread.
Ruby Tuesday has excellent service. I just recently went there, and not too long after I left, I called up and spoke to the Ruby Tuesday manager about a server of theirs – a Red Sox fan – and apparently he was new there, so they fired him for my fake story.
Well, I cant be 100% certain that the guy was a Red Sox fan, but he looked like one, so I was 93.6% certain.
Jeter: “What did I do? The ball hit the bat and he told me to go to first. How is that cheating? I don’t understand.”
___
I dont get this at all. Ortiz gets caught with steroids and baseball stands with him. Jeter goes to first base, and he is a cheater?
I know people joke about bias against the yankees, but if this doesnt seal the deal, i dont know what will.
Betsy,
First of all I don’t think Hughes will be on a short leash. Second of all, even if he is WHO CARES? You can’t afford to waste roster space on a guy who MIGHT be needed IF your two other long guys got blown out.
Why would you possibly pack a Plan E when you could use it for another lefty or a bench player?
ALDS
CC
AP
Hughes
CC
AP
ALCS & WS
CC
AP
HUGHES
CC
AJ
AP
CC
If you need to use 4 long relievers in a series you have big problems.
You need to understand that in the playoffs, AJ and Hughes are getting 1 start per series.
Blake-
Congratulations. Do you have a position picked out for him yet ?
Seriously. All the best. Is that your 2nd or 3rd ?
I’m in Minneapolis this weekend.
Had a tour of Target Field. Absolutely beautiful.
They hit all the marks with the ballpark.
It’s also starting to get chilly here.
October night baseball is going to be very interesting if it’s cooling down already here.
They had one of the warmest summers on record.
I don’t think they are getting lucky with a warm Fall.
I expect the parka sales to be brisk for the post-season.
Cashman shows up and all of a sudden everyone is healthy. Girardi knows there’s no more coddling and losing once his boss is annoyed enough to meet them on the road.
__
Not true. Casham decreed this morning that they WOULD be resting the starters because being healthy is first priority. That is Cashman, not Girardi.
SJ-
Montana had snow today so consider yourself lucky.
MTU,
2nd…both excited and scared to death.
Blake-
Why scared ?
I still don’t get why they’d build an outdoor park in Minneapolis, but oh well…………
Yanks are fine every team goes to a little struggle from time to time. Cashman really doesn’t need to be in baltimore. They will sweep or at least take 2 of 3 from baltimore.
Really Jerkface? Obviously if you need that many long relievers you’re in trouble, but IMO, the Yankees can not assume they are getting good performances from their back end starters, so they need to come prepared. It sucks, but that’s what happens when half your staff is so iffy.
“Ruby Tuesday has excellent service.”
———————————–
I ordered buffalo wings and after the waiter brought them over, he disappeared for the rest of my meal. As you know when you eat buffalo wings you get thirsty so a refill was much needed. So I left him a “nice” note and left.
Probably a Red Sox fan who wanted to watch me suffer
MTU,
Cause our other little wild man is hard enough to handle
So is Sweeny Murti doing the game on the radio or just the pregame? I love listening to his reports on WFAN, though he’s not quite the dynamic type to pair with Sterling. But I’m excited to hear him get a shot, assuming he’ll actually fill in for Suzyn during the game.
Really Jerkface? Obviously if you need that many long relievers you’re in trouble, but IMO, the Yankees can not assume they are getting good performances from their back end starters, so they need to come prepared. It sucks, but that’s what happens when half your staff is so iffy.
–
Yea come prepared, so tell me why they need more than 2 long relievers if only 2 of their starters are risks? And if you don’t use a long reliever he is available for use if anyone else sucks.
You don’t bring backup for every starter.
I hate Sweeney Murti, so I’m glad I don’t have the radio on.
No mention of Javy Vazquez in recent days. It’s enough to wonder if he’ll have a “phantom injury” for the postseason.
Blake-
Whew ! You had me concerned. Think of it this way you need sons to take over the buisness, and to become ballplayers, right ?
I don’t stick around for the the Twilight Zone known as game threads so I’ll catch you later.
Jerkface, if you take your starters out very early in the game, when it’s still within reach, how long are you going with, say a Nova or a Javy………presuming, of course, that either of them pitch well. If they don’t, it’s on to the next long man…………who is then unavailable for the next game.
Paco, Suzyn takes off for the Jewish holy days. She will probably be back tomorrow or Sunday.
Yeah, I know she’s taking off the time for the holidays, just interested in who was going to fill in (Tino, it turns out).
Just unbelievable. They have the pitcher at 50 pitches after two innings. The Orioles have a bad bullpen. So they go out in 7 pitches. They are at 2 and 8 in the last ten. This is team baseball? Two flyballs and a rollover. Just pathetic. 60 mil right there of talent. Argh. Pass the porch climber.