The LoHud Yankees Blog

YANKEES (86-51)
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Marcus Thames LF
Jorge Posada DH
Francisco Cervelli C
Brett Gardner CF

RHP A.J. Burnett (10-12, 5.15)
Burnett vs. Orioles

ORIOLES (51-86)
Brian Roberts 2B
Felix Pie LF
Nick Markakis RF
Luke Scott DH
Matt Wieters C
Ty Wigginton 1B
Corey Patterson CF
Cesar Izturis SS
Josh Bell 3B

LHP Brian Matusz (7-12, 4.72)
Matusz vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 1:05 p.m. / YES Network

UMPIRES: HP Laz Diaz, 1B Wally Bell, 2B John Hirschbeck, 3B James Hoye

WEATHER: Another good day for a day game. Temperatures in the 70s without a cloud in sight.

HAPPY HOLIDAY: Since 1961, the Yankees are 33-26 on Labor Day. They swept a Labor Day double header against Tampa Bay last year, and the last time they played the Orioles on Labor Day was 1992 when the Yankees won 6-2 at Camden Yards. That was a 13-inning game.

GOOD MATCHUP: The Yankees first two starters this series are A.J. Burnett and CC Sabathia, who are 24-4 in their careers against the Orioles.

BAD MATCHUP: Nick Swisher is returning to the lineup just in time to face Brian Matusz. Swisher is 0-for-12 with one walk in his career against the young Orioles lefty.

ABOUT A.J.: Burnett has allowed a .362 opponents batting average in the first inning this season. From the second inning on, he’s allowed a .265 average… Burnett has allowed a major league leading 34 stolen bases in 157.1 innings this season. According to Elias, that’s the highest total by a Yankee since Roger Clemens allowed 34 in 220.1 innings in 2001… Burnett went winless in August but won his first start of September. According to Elias, Burnett is winless in his past 13 August starts dating back to 2008.

JUST AN OBSERVATION: Yesterday, the Yankees starting outfield was Brett Gardner, Curtis Granderson and Greg Golson, which very easily could have been the fastest outfield in baseball this season. Today the starting outfield is Gardner surrounded by banged-up Nick Swisher and heckuva-hitter Marcus Thames. I’m just sayin.

UPDATE, 1:15 p.m.: A 1-2-3 first inning for A.J. Burnett. That seems like a good sign.

UPDATE, 1:52 p.m.: Brett Gardner nearly made a great catch. Instead the ball fell for a double, and two batters later, a double play drove that run in for a 1-0 Orioles lead in the third inning.

UPDATE, 2:16 p.m.: The Yankees still haven’t scored, but A.J. Burnett is through four innings with only one run on two hits. He’s been plenty good enough.

UPDATE, 2:17 p.m.: Scratch that. Alex Rodriguez is back, and he just homered to tie the game at 1.

UPDATE, 2:30 p.m.: RBI single by Brian Roberts the Orioles the lead again at 2-1. Still, so far this game is on the offense. Burnett has been perfectly fine.

UPDATE, 2:56 p.m.: Burnett’s been able to limit the damage, which is the reason he’s been alright today. But for the third time, he has the first two batters of an inning on base in the top of the sixth.

UPDATE, 3:04 p.m.: One run on a sacrifice fly. Burnett continues to keep the damage to a minimum, and he’s made some big pitches, but he has the Yankees in a 3-1 hole.

UPDATE, 3:12 p.m.: After Rodriguez got his 100th RBI of the season on a sac fly, Teixeira did a nice job on the bases, getting pretty far off third base just in case a blooper from Cano fell. It did fall, Teixeira scored and the Yankees have tied the game at 3.

UPDATE, 3:19 p.m.: Burnett is back out for the seventh. Joba Chamberlain is up in the bullpen. Curtis Granderson is playing center, Brett Gardner has shifted to left and Marcus Thames is out of the game.

UPDATE, 3:26 p.m.: Another lead-off man on base, another run off A.J. Burnett. He hasn’t had one of those big innings when he gets absolutely crushed, but his start has become less and less solid as it’s continued. He’s now allowed a run in three straight innings.

UPDATE, 3:36 p.m.: Greg Golson is here for his speed. Getting thrown out trying to steal second, that’s not part of the plan.

UPDATE, 3:57 p.m.: Boone Logan gets in trouble, Dave Robertson gets out of it and the Yankees have two innings to score at least one run. Still down 4-3.

No one at the ballpark is used to this. The Yankees are about to play their fifth day game in a row, and every morning has felt just a little bit odd. I’ve seriously had three conversations about what day it is. When the writers walked into the press conference room to meet with Joe Girardi, someone joked about the whole room needing coffee and Girardi suddenly walked out of the room.

He returned with a coffee maker. Seriously. The Yankees manager brought coffee to the writers this morning. We’ve reached that point.

There really wasn’t much to discuss when the actual press conference started. At the time, Girardi was waiting to talk to Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez before posting his lineup. At this point, though, it seems both Swisher and Rodriguez came through their pregame workouts without any problems.

So far, they’re both still in the lineup.

Rodriguez said he felt good as he walked out of the clubhouse to the field earlier this morning, and Swisher said the same when he came back into the clubhouse after running. Something could change between now and first pitch, but right now there’s no indication that a lineup change is coming.

• Andy Pettitte threw only a very light bullpen this morning. Roughly 20 pitches, not at 100 percent intensity, with the catcher setup in front of home plate. Pretty standard stuff for a light bullpen day. He felt fine afterward.

• The plan is 65 pitches or four innings for Pettitte on Wednesday. “We’ll see how it goes,” Girardi said. “I kind of anticipate that it would probably be two rehab starts, but if it’s one, it’s one.”

• Why would Pettitte need two rehab appearances when Girardi previously said he would be OK with Pettitte throwing only 75 pitches in his first game back? “If he gets to 65 (in the rehab start), then the area of concern the next time is 65 to 80,” Girardi said. “So if he’s at 75, then you know he should be fine all the way up to 75, and then you start to get a little bit worried if he gets fatigued (beyond 75 pitches).”

• Girardi on Colin Curtis: “With some of the injuries we have, we just thought we could use another outfielder. It just gives us flexibility.”

• Swisher said the knee injury feels like tightness, like his knee doesn’t want to go when he tells it to go. That’s why he was worried and didn’t want to push it, but now that he knows there’s no structural damage, he feels ready to play. “If we can deal with the pain, we can deal with playing,” he said.

• Rotation questions have become pretty standard recently: “Right now we’re on turn,” Girardi said. “Everyone is going to get an extra day here because of the off day on Thursday.”

• Austin Kearns said his injury is really just wear and tear. There wasn’t one incident that caused it, and he seems to think it’s not a big deal. He has it pretty lightly wrapped.

• With Curtis called up, Justin Christian has been promoted to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Taylor Grote has been promoted to Trenton.

Associated Press picture from yesterday of Derek Jeter with Reggie Jackson

Nick Swisher just walked outside to test his left knee, but the Yankees must be optimistic that he’ll feel good.

Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Marcus Thames LF
Jorge Posada DH
Francisco Cervelli C
Brett Gardner CF

Joe Girardi just announced that Andy Pettitte will make a rehab start with Double-A Trenton on Wednesday. That’s assuming his bullpen goes as expected this morning.

Girardi said he expects Pettitte to make two rehab starts before rejoining the active roster, but it’s possible Pettitte will need just one.

Colin Curtis just walked in the Yankees clubhouse. He’ll give the team some added outfield depth while Nick Swisher and Austin Kearns are dealing with nagging injuries.

Ever since the first wave of September call-ups, there has been one locker left empty on the right side of the Yankees clubhouse.

This morning, there is one Yankees bag, one Scranton/Wilkes-Barre bag and a bat bag in that locker. There’s no player in the locker, but I have to think that spot is about to belong to Colin Curtis. He was pulled from last nights Triple-A game, not long after the Yankees had to use banged up Austin Kearns in right field.

By the way, still no lineup. Nick Swisher was one of just two players in the clubhouse when it opened to the media. Greg Golson was the other.

Monday
RHP A.J. Burnett (10-12, 5.15)
vs.
LHP Brian Matusz(7-12, 4.72)
1:05 p.m., YES Network

Tuesday
LHP CC Sabathia (19-5, 3.02)
vs.
RHP Jake Arrieta (4-6, 5.11)
7:05 p.m., YES Network

Wednesday
RHP Ivan Nova (1-0, 2.89)
vs.
RHP Brad Bergesen (6-10, 5.47)
1:05 p.m., YES Network

Ahead in the count 0-2, Phil Hughes threw the two pitches that changed everything about today’s game.

In the first inning he threw a fastball to Vernon Wells. Hughes wanted it away, but it ran back over the plate and Wells hit it for a two-run home run. “That’s kind of the worst pitch you can make,” Hughes said.

In the third inning, Hughes threw a cutter up to Aaron Hill. It didn’t do much, and certainly didn’t get out of the zone, and Hill hit it for another two-run home run. “I was rushing. I was trying to slide step and my arm just didn’t catch up, and it spun over the plate,” Hughes said.

Afterward, both Hughes and Joe Girardi said the problem with those pitches was location, and that’s impossible to deny, but Hughes also admitted that he’s leaned heavily on his fastball and cutter this season. He said he might have been willing to go offspeed in those situations had he been more confident in his curveball or changeup.

“That’s kind of been the Achilles heel for me a little bit this year,” he said. “I do like to throw my fastball, and I feel like I have a good fastball, (but) sometimes guys get geared up for it too much when you’re constantly the same speed. Even my cutter isn’t that much of a speed differential. Getting my curveball going to where it needs to be and incorporating my changeup is a big part of my game. I’m certainly not going to throw those pitches an outrageous amount, but just getting them to where they’re consistent and I can go to them when I need to, that would be a big step for me.”

Hughes said he actually had a good changeup today. He couldn’t remember throwing it more in any start this season. His curveball got better, but after hanging one for a double in the first inning, he was hesitant to go back to it against Wells. Overall, Hughes said, his stuff was much better today than in his previous two starts, he just wanted a few pitches back.

“I had a couple of bad pitches, three or four mistakes,” Hughes said. “If I can just limit that and make my pitch, I feel like today could have gone a lot different.”

Win or lose, Hughes is terrific to talk to after his starts. He’s one of the best at assessing his own performance, what he’s done right, what he’s done wrong and what he needs to improve. Today was a prime example.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• Both Hughes and Girardi once again said fatigue doesn’t seem to be an issue with Hughes’ recent struggles. “That’s the million-dollar question that I’m probably going to be asked for a while,” Girardi said. “I thought his velocity was better than it has been the last couple of starts, which makes me think he feels pretty good. If he makes a couple of 0-2 pitches, he pitches pretty well.”

• Girardi on Hughes: “At times he can become one speed. We’ve seen that where it’s mostly fastball-cutter. Today he threw his curveball and changeup. Today he just made mistakes. He got ahead, and then he made a couple of mistakes, and that’s what hurt him.”

• In his first game back from a calf injury, Rodriguez was tested on an infield single. “It felt pretty good,” he said. “Definitely a sigh of relief.”

• Hughes had allowed just two 0-2 home runs in his career before today.

• Greg Golson made his third career start and got his first extra-base hit

• Ramiro Pena has a career-high seven-game hitting streak. He has a hit in 10 of his past 13 starts, batting .310 in those games.

• Brett Gardner has now walked in 10 straight games in which he has a plate appearance. According to Elias, that’s the longest streak in the majors since Nick Johnson did it in 13 games straight back in 2009. Elias also says it’s the longest streak for Yankee since Jorge Posada had a 13-game streak in 2004.

• This was the second outing in a row in which Jonathan Albaladejo has hit the first batter he faced.

• Heads up in Scranton: Colin Curtis was just pulled in the middle of an inning. That could be for a call-up to give the Yankees another outfielder.

• One more reminder about our daily online Yankees photo gallery.

Associated Press photos of Hughes and Rodriguez.

Alex Rodriguez
Tested on an infield single, Rodriguez said he was running at 80 to 85 percent, but felt pain-free throughout. “You always have a little hesitation,” he said. “You really don’t want to bust it 100 percent until you get some games under you, but I felt pretty good out there.”

Both Rodriguez and Joe Girardi said they’ll have to wait until the morning to say for sure whether A-Rod will play in tomorrow’s game. Girardi stressed that there were no setbacks, but they want to make certain. “I have to wake up, see how I feel and hopefully get in there again,” Rodriguez said.

Robinson Cano
Not injured. Girardi wanted to give him a full day off, and stuck with that even through a string of late-inning pinch hitters. “I was giving him a day off,” Girardi said. “I had him to pinch hit in the ninth if we needed him there.”

Nick Swisher
Had an MRI this morning. The test came back clean — no breaks, no torn tissue — but it did show some deep inflammation. “My knee’s not that big, so I don’t know how deep it could be,” Swisher said.

It’s that inflammation that’s causing problems when Swisher runs. It doesn’t hurt when he hits or side steps, and obviously he was considered healthy enough to pinch hit this afternoon. Swisher said the MRI made him feel much more comfortable because now he knows there’s no structural damage that might become worse. “It’s time to fight through some pain,” he said.

Austin Kearns
Apparently the injury is not actually in his thumb, it’s more in the pointer finger of his right hand. Whatever it is, it wasn’t enough to keep him from playing right field today, but it might have been enough to keep him from hitting had his turn ever come to the plate. “It would have been difficult for him to hit,” Girardi said. “I just would have had to check with him before he went up there.”

Andy Pettitte
Any official plans for a rehab assignment will have to wait until tomorrow. Girardi said he’s talked to the training staff and Brian Cashman, but that was a brief conversation and he wants things set in stone before making an announcement.

Pettitte indicated pregame that he’s “holding pretty firm” to the idea of making a rehab start on Wednesday. It’s worth noting that Double-A Trenton clinched the division last night and will be playing at home on Wednesday. Just a guess, but that seems like a pretty good fit.

Snapping a season-high eight-game winning streak, the Yankees lost 7-3 in their series finale against the Blue Jays this afternoon. Starter Phil Hughes seemed to solve the walks problem that plagued his past two outings, but he once again had trouble putting hitters away. Hughes allowed three home runs, two of them on 0-2 pitches. Every Yankees starting position player reached base, but they managed only scattered run production, never scoring more than one run in an inning.

Associated Press photo of Hughes