The LoHud Yankees Blog

I’m heading down to the field now to watch today’s sim game.

It looks like Dustin Moseley will be the “starter.” He’s getting loose right now, while Francisco Cervelli, Austin Kearns, Greg Golson and Ramiro Pena stand around the cage. There’s a screen behind the mound, and Dave Eiland is standing behind it. The cage is pulled back so that it’s not directly around the hitter. It’s more of a protective barrier for the extra hitters and coaches.

There are no fielders. I assume, like in a normal sim game, one of the coaches will simply determine whether a batted ball would have been a hit or an out.

UPDATE, 12:11 p.m.: Moseley faced all four hitters then sat down. Now Mitre is pitching. I’m guessing that was considered one inning. This is exactly like spring training.

Rob Thomson just walked by and talked about the weather. Dave Robertson is watching from the Yankees dugout. Kerry Wood, Joba Chamberlain and Boone Logan are standing around in the outfield. Joe Girardi is watching from behind the cage.

The Yankees will begin discussions tonight to determine whether they need to make any roster changes heading into the American League Championship Series. No change is going to be drastic. Alex Rodriguez isn’t going to be bumped from the cleanup spot, and Mariano Rivera isn’t going to be replaced in the ninth inning.

These three minor changes, though, might be worth considering.

Long reliever
With A.J. Burnett back in the rotation, the Yankees will probably have room for only one true long man. Sergio Mitre is good for maybe three innings, but Girardi showed last year that he likes to have a guy stretched out well beyond 50 pitches just in case. Dustin Moseley was basically that guy for the division series, and he did the most during the season to earn the spot.

If the Yankees play Texas, Moseley might be a no-brainer. He has good career numbers against that lineup, and he made that strong spot start in Arlington earlier this season. Against Tampa Bay, though, Moseley hasn’t had quite the same success. It’s not a huge sample size, but the Rays have hit .483/.529/.931 against him as a team. If the Yankees can risk Ivan Nova pitching in relief, he might be a better option. Both of his starts against the Rays went very well for four or five innings before falling apart. As a group, the Rays have hit .231 against him.

Second lefty
If the Yankees weren’t going to carry a second lefty against the left-heavy Twins, why would they carry one against the Rangers or Rays? My guess is that they won’t, but Royce Ring’s numbers are compelling against both teams.

No one on either the Rays or the Rangers has ever gotten a hit off him. Six different Rays are a total of 0-for-5 with a walk and two strikeouts. All of those plate appearances came this year. The two strikeouts were both lefties who have done damage to the Yankees this season: Dan Johnson and Matt Joyce. The Rangers sample size is even larger. Six different Rangers are a combined 0-for-8 with a walk and a strikeout. The walk was to a righty. Josh Hamilton and David Murphy are a combined 0-for-3. Also in Ring’s favor: Neither Chad Gaudin nor Sergio Mitre has particularly good numbers against either team.

Pinch runner
There’s been at least one stolen base in each of the first four games of the Rays-Rangers series. Rangers backup catcher Matt Treanor threw out roughly 28 percent of base-runners this season, but every other catcher involved — Bengie Molina, Kelly Shoppach and John Jaso — was at 23 percent or lower. Shoppach threw out 17 percent, which is down near Jorge Posada territory.

As a team, the Twins ranked fourth in the American League at throwing out base runners (more than 31 percent). The Rangers were third from the bottom. The Rays were ninth overall, but would have been much lower if not for Dioner Navarro who didn’t make their first-round playoff roster. Stolen bases could be a real weakness for these teams, but the Yankees left their best pinch-running base-stealer — Eduardo Nunez — off the roster for the division series. Greg Golson and Ramiro Pena can run, but Nunez would be the Yankees best bet if they wanted a new set of legs for Posada or Nick Swisher or Mark Teixeira late in a game.

At this point, I don’t think anyone was counting on Damaso Marte helping the Yankees at all this postseason, but Brian Cashman’s announcement today that surgery seems likely further solidified the importance of Boone Logan.

“We love his arm,” Cashman said. “We’ve always liked his ability. I can’t tell you we were counting on it, but there’s power in numbers. That’s why in some of the deals that we did where we lost left-handed pitching, we demanded that we have him in part of that deal with Atlanta. Thankfully we got him. He’s done a terrific job.”

Logan was the other guy in the Javier Vazquez trade. Vazquez was the big name, Melky Cabrera was the proven major leaguer, Arodys Vizcaino was the top prospect and Mike Dunn was the young lefty on the verge.

Logan was the guy with some big league time, some big league stuff and no big league guarantee. Out of spring training, he seemed as likely to be stuck in Triple-A as play a significant role down the stretch. Then Marte went down with his sore shoulder, and Logan emerged as a different sort of pitcher than the one the Yankees saw off and on in the first half. He struck out 25 and allowed 14 hits in 21.2 regular-season innings after the all-star break. He found a spot right alongside Joba Chamberlain, Dave Robertson and Kerry Wood* to form the Yankees newest bridge to Mariano Rivera.

“Obviously we need him now more than ever,” Cashman said. “He’s been doing the job for a long time.”

* If you haven’t seen it, check out Kim Jones interview with the Yankees four-man setup crew.

This afternoon, Brian Cashman left a little bit of wiggle room on the Yankees using A.J. Burnett as their fourth starter, but he didn’t leave much.

“In this next round, the schedule dictates that we’ll have four starters,” Cashman said.

Does that mean Burnett will be the fourth?

“Yeah, that’s what I believe would be the case,” he said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, but yeah.”

A few minutes later in a 25-minute conference call, Cashmen went just a bit further: “We’re going to have our meetings, but if we have to go with a four-man rotation, it will be A.J. Burnett.”

It never seemed especially likely that the Yankees would ask both Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes to pitch on short rest. Pettitte is a barely a month removed from a groin injury, and Hughes has never thrown this many innings this deep into a season. Burnett is erratic, but he’s also the most proven of the Yankees fourth-starter options.

“I think every game we play is a ‘hold your breath’ thing,” Cashman said. “Whether it’s Game 1 of the Division Series with a guy like CC – the first five innings against the Twins in Game 1 with our ace on the mound was a struggle – or Game 2 with Andy Pettitte. How is he going to be health-wise? That was a question mark, not knowing what you’re going to be dealing with. Phil Hughes, his first postseason official start.

“… I’ve seen A.J. Burnett succeed and obviously I’ve seen him struggle. I know what he’s capable of just like I knew what Phil Hughes was capable of. We saw that. It’s just another question yet to be answered.”

• Damaso Marte’s rehab has been stopped in Tampa. He’ll travel back to New York to have his sore left shoulder checked by Dr. Ahmad. “That could involve surgery,” Cashman said. “It most likely will. He’s attempted to come back but it just hasn’t worked out. That was the conservative route that’s been done, so now we’ll have to do the more aggressive route, which is the invasive side of it.”

• Cashman said it’s too early to know how this might affect Marte next year. “Within a week, we’ll have some information,” he said.

• The Yankees staff will meet tomorrow to discuss any possible roster changes, but those probably won’t be announced until Wednesday at the earliest. They want to know who they’re facing first. Cashman said roster changes are “certainly possible.”

• Will Pettitte pitch Game 2? “All of those things will be discussed when we get together as a staff.”

• Will Francisco Cervelli catch Burnett, and could that lead to a third catcher being on the roster? “We haven’t had any of the roster meetings so all of that stuff is premature right now.”

• The Yankees will have five days between games. “Sometimes it’s good to go five games (in the division series) and keep firing on all cylinders like that series is going to be,” Cashman said. “There will be certain guys it will benefit, and there will be certain guys I’m sure it will be too long. I’d rather be in this situation than not.”

• As you might expect, Cashman said he doesn’t care who wins tomorrow’s game between the Rays and Rangers, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be hoping for a certain outcome. “I’ll root for an extra-inning game,” he said. “Let it go 21 innings if it has to.”

Associated Press photos of Burnett and Marte. I thought it was important to find a Marte picture. I wasn’t sure anyone would remember what he looks like.

The Yankees will play simulated games at the stadium on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“You’re going to see all of these guys that didn’t have a chance to get it going in the division series,” Brian Cashman said.

For tomorrow’s game, that means six pitchers facing four batters: Joba Chamberlain, Sergio Mitre, Dustin Moseley, Boone Logan, Dave Robertson and Kerry Wood will pitch to Francisco Cervelli, Greg Golson, Austin Kearns and Ramiro Pena.

Chamberlain, Mitre and Moseley didn’t pitch in the ALDS. Logan, Robertson and Wood did pitch, but they’re all short relievers who were probably on schedule to throw some sort of side session anyway.

I have no idea if the regulars will be playing field like an intrasquad game, or if this will be like a normal sim game with no one in the field and results determined by a coach. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

The team hasn’t announced who will be pitching or playing in Wednesday’s game. A.J. Burnett might make some sense, but that’s pure speculation.

Brian Cashman just announced that the Yankees are planning to go with a four-man rotation in the American League Championship Series, no matter who they’re playing in the next round.

Cashman said the Yankees will meet tomorrow to discuss the roster, but he expects A.J. Burnett to be the fourth starter.

I’m working on some off day stories and realized I have some extra audio from inside the Yankees clubhouse after Saturday’s game. The odd thing about postgame interviews after a clinching win is that there’s so much moving around. Get someone you need, stick around long enough to get the comment you want, then start looking for the next guy. It’s much more frantic than a regular-season clubhouse.

Derek Jeter: “Definitely enjoy this for a couple of days I guess and then get ready for the next round. But this definitely feels good.”

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Alex Rodriguez: “I knew that our starting pitching would be there for us, and it was nice that they showed up.”

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Nick Swisher: “We feel good. We’ve got ourselves in a good spot. Couple of days to maybe relax, have a great couple of workouts, and then we’ll figure out who we’re playing the next round.”

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Mark Teixiera needed 10 words to sum up the Yankees division series: “We showed how good we are when everything lines up,” he said.

More than 24 hours after the Yankees clinching win in Game 3, absolutely nothing has changed, and that’s not a bad thing for the Yankees. They seem to have made all the changes they need.

After that rocky month of September, the Yankees played pretty good baseball in those three games against the Twins. Their rotation went well beyond CC Sabathia, the bullpen was reliable in the late innings and their lineup was nine-hitters deep.

“Everybody that was saying that stuff in September is probably singing a different tune right now,” Nick Swisher said. “We’ve got to feel good about that. We flipped the switch when we needed to, and we need to keep that thing turned on for the rest of this postseason.”

What made the difference? Maybe making sure everyone was healthy really did pay off. Or maybe Andy Pettitte just needed a little more time to shake off the rust. Or maybe it was just a matter of a bunch of veterans turning it on when they had to.

“There’s a lot of experience in that room,” Joe Girardi said. “Our guys have been through a lot of games like this. You think about as many playoff games as these guys have played in, you know they know how to prepare. You know that they’re not going to get too high or too low based on one game, one at-bat. And I think that really helps our guys because of the preparation and the experience.”

Even most of the new guys in the Yankees clubhouse have postseason experience. Curtis Granderson, Marcus Thames and Lance Berkman have played in a World Series. Kerry Wood has been a postseason ace and a postseason reliever.

And of course, there are the guys like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera who have done this time and time again.

“You can’t go wrong following those guys,” Swisher said. “Those guys are winners. I think winning is an attitude. When you come over here, you experience everything this organization has to offer. Winning comes along with it.”

Associated Press photo

There is no Most Valuable Player award in the Division Series, which might have been a good thing in the Yankees-Twins series. Ten different Yankees had an at-bat in this series, and every one of them had an RBI. The only one who didn’t score a run — oddly enough — was leadoff man Derek Jeter, who had four hits and stole a bag.

“That just goes to show you how deep this lineup is,” Nick Swisher said.

Who was your MVP of the Division Series?

Curtis Granderson
.455, 3 RBI, 1 2B, 1 3B
Had a hit in all three games, two of them started by a lefty. Also stole a base, scored twice and hit a go-ahead triple in Game 1.

Phil Hughes
7 innings, 0.00 ERA, won the clincher
Pitched in one game, but it was the biggest of the series and he was easily the most dominant of the Yankees three starters. Led the Yankees with six strikeouts.

Mariano Rivera
3.1 innings, 0.00 ERA, 2 saves
Rivera and Kerry Wood were the only pitchers to appear in all three games. Rivera got the final out of each one, and picked up the save in both games in Minneapolis.

Dave Robertson
.2 innings, 0.00 ERA, 4 inherited runners stranded
Easily the biggest reach of this group, but you could make the case that Robertson got the biggest out in two of the three games. He struck out Jim Thome to strand two runners in the first game — the tying run was on base – and he got Delmon Young to fly out with the bases loaded last night.

Nick Swisher
.333, 2 2B, 1 HR
Only had one RBI, but led the Yankees with three extra-base hits and matched Robinson Cano with three runs scored.

Mark Teixeira
.308, 3 RBI, 1 HR
A lot like Granderson. Both had a hit in all three games and tied for the team lead with three RBI. Teixeira’s home run put the Yankees in front for good in the opener.

The Yankees still don’t know who they’ll face in the next round of the playoffs.

With a solid start from rookie Wade Davis, two doubles and a home run from Evan Longoria, and a four scoreless innings from the bullpen, the Rays beat the Rangers 5-2 this afternoon to force a Game 5 in their American League Division Series.

That series will shift to Tampa Bay on Tuesday. That’s where and when the Yankees will find out what’s next.

The good news for the Yankees: Both the Rays and Rangers are scheduled to start their aces in Game 5. The Rays are going with David Price and the Rangers are starting Cliff Lee, assignments that will significantly impact the pitching matchup for Game 1 of the ALCS, whoever the opponent might be.