The LoHud Yankees Blog

Forgot to mention this earlier, but I went to chat with Lance Pendleton earlier today, mostly just to find out what he ended up keeping as souvenirs from Friday’s major league debut (I’ve always thought it was interesting what guys choose as keepsakes).

As it turned out, Pendleton kept the ball from his first strikeout and “a few lineup cards,” he said, before mentioning that he’s currently keeping them all in his car. He added that he literally had to turn off his phone because he was getting so many calls and texts from “coaches, friends, neighbors, teammates, aunts, uncles, you name it.”

When I asked if his family was able to see his debut in person, Pendleton laughed. His wife was able to watch it live from one of the suites at the Stadium, but his 16-month-old son, David, was (thankfully) peacefully asleep in the family room downstairs while he was pitching.

When did little David wake up? “The entire ride back to New Jersey,” Pendleton said. “The traffic was pretty bad and (he is) teething so he had a little fever and was pretty miserable. He cried the whole time.”

As I mentioned earlier, the Yankees are offering fans with paid tickets a chance to exchange them for another home game because of the lousy weather today. Here’s the announcement:

YANKEES REWARD TODAY’S FANS WITH FREE TICKET OFFER

Recognizing today’s inclement weather conditions, the New York Yankees announced that they are rewarding all fans with valid tickets for today’s game against the Texas Rangers with a free ticket offer.

Fans may redeem their valid April 16, 2011, tickets — regardless of whether they were used to attend today’s game — for a free Grandstand Level or Terrace Level ticket at Yankee Stadium for another game this season, subject to availability.

Alternatively, fans may choose to use today’s valid tickets as a coupon for 50 percent off the purchase price of a ticket in any other non-Suite or Club seating location to another game this season, subject to availability.

This free ticket and coupon offer does not include remaining premium games (the Old-Timers’ Day game and all home games played against the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets).

Please note that the Yankees can only accept tickets with valid bar codes for the April 16, 2011, game.

Tickets can be redeemed or presented as a coupon at Yankee Stadium Ticket Windows only starting Monday, April 18, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. (open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., Sunday from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., and until two (2) hours after the scheduled start time of any regularly scheduled home game).

Not surprisingly, there was plenty of praise for Freddy Garcia in the postgame clubhouse. A quick sampling:

Joe Girardi: “He did a great job of keeping them off-balance. … Freddy is a competitor. He knows how to pitch.”

Larry Rothschild: “He didn’t buckle a bit.”

Nick Swisher: “Nobody up in here is surprised or anything. This guy is a professional.”

Mark Teixeira: “Freddy was great – that’s a good-hitting team and he shut them down.”

The common theme from everyone was about how Garcia got through his six shutout innings. In a season where velocity has been the buzzword around the Yankees pitchers, Garcia was all about precision and location. His fastball is in the mid-to-high 80s most of the time and he struck out just one hitter. His success doesn’t hinge on avoiding contact; it hinges on avoiding solid contact.

“I’ve got five pitches,” Garcia said. “Sometimes I don’t pitch much to the scouting report. I don’t throw hard anymore. … (so) I learn to pitch. Good pitchers when they don’t have good stuff, they go out and compete.”

Alex Rodriguez – see the previous post for more on him – likened Garcia to David Cone, and not just because Garcia is wearing No. 36, too. Cone, A-Rod said, had a knack for getting weak contact from hitters and that’s exactly how Garcia got through the Rangers today. “He knows how to run away from the barrel (of the bat),” A-Rod said.

• Phil Hughes took yesterday and today off and will throw long-toss tomorrow and Monday, according to pitching coach Larry Rothschild. The idea, Rothschild said, is to “tire (the arm) out and build it back up.” Hughes will then do long-toss again on Thursday’s off-day.

• Rafael Soriano nearly gave the game away in the eighth inning, allowing two runs, three hits and a walk. He also watched closely as Adrian Beltre’s would-be three-run homer drifted just foul beyond the right-field foul pole. It’s the second poor outing Soriano has had at Yankee Stadium this season and both have come when the weather was brutal. “He hasn’t pitched the best on the colder days,” Girardi said. “Is there something to that? Maybe.”

• Mark Teixeira hit a two-run homer and drove in another run with a sac fly. All five of his home runs have come in the first three innings of the game, so Teixeira was asked if he has a theory on why that might be. His thought? He’s warmer then. “By the middle innings, you can’t feel your hands or feet,” he said.

• Mariano Rivera saved his sixth game, the earliest in a season he’s reached that mark. In typical Mariano fashion, he couldn’t care less. “I don’t think about those things,” he said. “The most important thing is that we win.”

• Congratulations to Gustavo “Gus” Molina (Girardi actually called him that in postgame, by the way). By starting today, he became the last player in the majors who has been active since Opening Day to get into a game. Can’t imagine there’s a trophy for that, but good for him anyway. He went 0-for-3 but got kudos from Girardi and Garcia for calling a strong game.

• Think it’s been cold at Yankee Stadium this year? You’re not wrong. The average gametime temp at home games this year is 49.9 degrees. Today it was 46 but I can vouch that it felt at least 10 degrees colder than that. “I’m not going to lie – that’s cold,” Freddy Garcia said. Darn right. It was so cold, in fact, that the Yankees are offering fans with tickets to today’s game the opportunity to exchange them for a future game. Exchanges must be made at ticket windows at the Stadium and don’t include premium games (meaning ones against the Mets or Red Sox, plus Old-Timers’ Day).

When Eric Chavez went to third base in the top of the seventh, there was a murmur in the stands and the press box. What was wrong with Alex Rodriguez?

Turns out, A-Rod has “stiffness” in his lower back and oblique. He said he felt some a “little knot” before the game and “it got a little worse as the game went on.” He said he didn’t aggravate it making the diving stop on Elvis Andrus’s grounder in the third and actually felt it more on his swings. He finished the day 0-for-2 with a walk.

Asked how he feels about playing tomorrow, Rodriguez said he’d have to see how he felt when he woke up this morning. “I don’t have that crystal ball,” he said.

Joe Girardi, however, has always been cautious with injuries and since the Yankees have an off-day Monday, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him sit Rodriguez tomorrow and give him two full days of rest.

“If he’s stiff tomorrow, he probably won’t play,” Girardi said.

Joe Girardi said before the game that he didn’t know what to expect from Freddy Garcia after such a long layoff but Garcia showed hardly any rust at all. The veteran righty threw six shutout innings in his first start of the season and the Yankees beat the Rangers, 5-2, to even the three-game series.

Mark Teixeira hit a two-run homer for the Yankees and added a sac fly, while Robinson Cano also homered and Andruw Jones and Nick Swisher had two hits apiece.

Joba Chamberlain worked the seventh, Rafael Soriano narrowly avoided disaster in the eighth (Adrian Beltre saw a would-be three-run homer go just foul) and Mariano Rivera finished off the win in the ninth for the Yankees on a brutally cold and windy day at the Stadium.

Back with more from the clubhouse in a bit.

YANKEES (7-5)
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Andruw Jones LF
Jorge Posada DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Gustavo Molina C

RHP Freddy Garcia (0-0, 9.00 ERA)
Garcia vs. Rangers

RANGERS (10-3)
Ian Kinsler 2B
Elvis Andrus SS
Michael Young DH
Adrian Beltre 3B
Nelson Cruz RF
David Murphy LF
Yorvit Torrealba C
Mitch Moreland 1B
Julio Borbon CF

LHP Derek Holland (2-0, 2.25)
Holland vs. Yankees

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

WEATHER: Cold, windy and rain is on the way. Let’s play two!

UMPIRES: HP Lance Barksdale, 1B Fieldin Culbreth, 2B Adrian Johnson, 3B Gary Cederstrom

TWIN KILLINGS: The six double plays that the Yankees grounded into on Friday night tied the all-time AL mark and set a franchise record. I also thought it was interesting that each of the first through sixth hitters in the lineup grounded into one apiece.

HOT ROD: Alex Rodriguez is on the AL leaderboard in almost every major category: Second in batting average, first in runs, tied fourth in home runs, first in OBP, and first in slugging percentage. He’s reached base in all 11 games in which he’s played this season.

BULLY PEN: Yankees relievers have held opponents to three earned runs over the last 20 innings pitched and have posted a combined 3.26 ERA this season.

UPDATE, 1:21 p.m.: That’s Teixeira’s fifth of the season on a 3-2 pitch and it’s 2-0 Yankees. Nice for Freddy to get a lead to work with.

UPDATE, 1:25 p.m.: To steal a line from my buddy Anthony McCarron, Cano must still think it’s last night – he grounds into a DP to end the first at 2-0 Yankees.

UPDATE, 1:38 p.m.: Nice weave out of trouble for Garcia, who put the first two men on in the second inning but worked out of it. Still 2-0.

UPDATE, 1:51 p.m.: Pretty nice dive by A-Rod there on Andrus. It’s interesting to see how many more balls he gets to with his hip healthy now.

UPDATE, 2:01 p.m.: Walk from Jeter, double from Swish and sac fly from Teixeira sends Freddy back to the mound with a 3-0 lead.

UPDATE, 2:34 p.m.: Good news? We’re through 4 1/2 innings and it’s an official game. Bad news? It’s still raining.

UPDATE, 3:08 p.m.: Joba does his job and now it’s on to Soriano in the three-man Yankee bullpen relay. The rain has let up a bit here now. Looks like we’ll get all nine in today.

UPDATE, 2:47 p.m.: Garcia has absolutely done his job and more – six shutout innings and Joba warming in the pen to start the Yankees relief train.

UPDATE, 3:22 p.m. Getting a little hairy here as Rafael Soriano is struggling. After a double, walk and two singles (the last an infield nubber by Michael Young), it’s 3-2 with two on and one out for the Rangers.

UPDATE, 3:25 p.m.: Wow, big escape for Soriano. Adrian Beltre missed a three-run home run by about five feet, then grounded into an inning-ending double play to let the Yankees off the hook. They’re clinging to a 3-2 lead with three outs left to get. Mariano up next.

UPDATE, 3:33 p.m.: Funny how this game works sometimes: Beltre’s ball just misses the foul pole and, minutes later, Cano bangs one off it to give the Yankees a 5-2 lead. Mo with a big cushion now.

If questions about Derek Jeter were No. 1 on Joe Girardi’s list of things he was tired of talking about then questions about Russell Martin and how often he was playing was rivaling Phil Hughes-related queries for No. 2. That’s why Girardi laughed when Kim Jones asked him this morning if he expected big headlines since Martin was finally getting a day off.

“It’s been a question that’s been asked a lot,” Girardi said through a smile. “He’ll be back in their tomorrow.”

Up until today, Martin was the only player to catch every inning in the major leagues though he was supposed to have a day off earlier but the Yankees were rained out that night. Girardi said he hasn’t seen any indications from Martin that he’s tired, and the former Dodger has gotten off to a decent start with a .262 average and three home runs.

“For me, physically, he’s still very strong,” Girardi said. “I have seen no signs of fatigue.”

Martin’s replacement, Gustavo Molina (I like to call him “Gus”), will be playing his first game this season and will be catching a pitcher, Freddy Garcia, who is also making his first start. “I’m sure (Molina’s) a little anxious,” Girardi said.

• In terms of what to expect from Garcia, it’s pretty hard to say. Remember, the last time he started was March 29 so we’re talking 18 days since he last did any extended throwing in a game (he did have one relief appearance). Garcia was stretched out, obviously, at the end of spring training, but Girardi admitted it’s hard to know what to anticipate from him in terms of pitch count with such a long layoff.

• No word on the rotation for next week. Girardi said he wants to see how everyone comes through the weekend before committing to anything. Obviously CC Sabathia goes tomorrow night against Texas and I’d think A.J. Burnett will start Tuesday in Toronto. After that? Anyone’s guess.

• One pitcher who has no idea when he’s pitching is Bartolo Colon. He’s taking Phil Hughes’s spot with Hughes on the DL but said he doesn’t know when he’ll make his first start. Asked if he thought he should have been given a rotation spot out of spring training, Colon said (through a translator), “I thought about that but the more important thing for me was to make the team.”

• Sabathia was briefly wearing Knicks shorts in the clubhouse this morning. I mentioned to him that I was pessimistic about the Knicks’ chances against the Celtics in their playoff series and he agreed that Boston will probably knock them out. I have Celtics in five, I told him. “I got them in six,” he said.

Jeter SS
Swisher RF
Teixeira 1b
Rodriguez 3b
Cano 2b
Jones LF
Posada DH
Granderson CF
Molina C

Pitching: Garcia

When reporters first gathered around his locker yesterday, Freddy Garcia seemed a little annoyed. He said there was nothing new for him to say. His first start had been rained out, then it had been pushed back, and he didn’t have much to say about it.

Finally, someone asked if Garcia had looked at the forecast for today. That’s when he started laughing.

“It’s supposed to rain,” he said.

If things go as planned, Garcia will make his first Yankees start this afternoon. He hasn’t started a game since March 29 in spring training. He hasn’t started a major league game since September 29 with the White Sox. At 34 years old, though, Garcia’s been around and he said he’s not nervous to make his first start in pinstripes.

“I’ve been doing my stuff and throwing my bullpens and getting ready for tomorrow,” he said. “That’s all, man. That’s why I’m here, to pitch.”

Associated Press photo

The back of the Yankees rotation took on more significance today. Phil Hughes is out of the mix for at least two weeks, and the Yankees can’t use CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett every game.

Freddy Garcia gets his first start tomorrow, and Bartolo Colon will get a start in the coming day, but Ivan Nova is the guy who left spring training as the Yankees No. 4. He’s the young guy with some upside beyond simply holding down the fort for a month or two. Ideally, Nova is the guy to step up and show the Yankees something more than he showed tonight.

“I know I can pitch, and I can throw strikes,” Nova said. “This is just a bad moment that I have and I just have to keep my head up and keep working hard trying to go back to where I was in spring training… I can’t throw strikes with my fastball right now, and I depend a lot on my fastball. When I don’t have command, especially of my fastball, I don’t pitch too good when that happens.”

Command is what crushed Nova tonight. He made some good pitches in the early innings, but he got only one out and allowed four base runners — two walks, a hit and a hit batter — in the three-run fifth that made the difference. Granted, Dave Robertson’s wild pitches contributed to that inning, but the Yankees pitching in this game hinged on Nova, and for the second start in a row he lasted just 4.1 innings.

It was a start similar to some of last year’s Nova outings. He was OK for a while, but eventually the wheels fell off. Even if the result was the same, manager Joe Girardi said the cause was different.

“I didn’t think tonight was anything like what we saw last year,” Girardi said. “I think tonight was command. The free base runners that he gave up is what got him into trouble, and that’s not something he did a lot of last year.”

Nova was terrific in spring training, and he was pretty good in his season debut. Since then, he’s struggled. Maybe these are the natural ups and downs of a 24-year-old rookie, but the Yankees need him now.

“We do need to get some distance,” Girardi said. “It has to come from different starters. We have to get them all to where they can get there for us.”

Here’s Nova’s postgame interview.

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Command was Nova’s problem. It was Lance Pendleton’s strength.

“Impressed,” Girardi said. “He threw strikes. He threw strikes with all his pitches tonight.”

Pendleton got to New York around 6:15. He struck out the first batter he faced, then went on to pitch three hitless innings in a terrific big league debut. There’s a lot of pitching in this organization, and Pendleton’s hardly the biggest name, but he put himself on the radar last season and tonight showed why he was the choice to fill a long-relief role in the bullpen.

“I don’t know what I was envisioning,” Pendleton said. “I’ve got a wife and son and I was more flustered getting them setup and here. We’ve got a dog, getting him somewhere in Scranton to take care of him, probably all worked to my favor that I didn’t have an opportunity to think too much. I couldn’t have written it up any better than this other than I wish we had won. But if we were winning, I might not have pitched.”

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• Three innings from Pendleton means he won’t be available for a while, but Girardi said Hector Noesi is available for 100 pitches out of the bullpen, so he doesn’t need to make a move. “I don’t have any plans of making a move right now,” Girardi said.

• The Yankees tied an American League record by grounding into six double plays, all of them against Rangers starter Matt Harrison. It’s a franchise record, and six different batters grounded into the double plays. “It was amazing to watch pressure get put on him, but he made all of his pitches down from his fastball to his slider to his changeup,” Curtis Granderson said.

• Speaking of Granderson, all three of his home runs this season are against left-handers. He said that’s a product of last year’s mechanical changes, which helps his timing against lefties. “Now it seems that, no matter what they happen to be doing, at least I’m down and ready to hit the baseball,” he said. “That’s it. It’s not going to go ahead and be positive all the time, but as long as I’m ready to hit the baseball I’ve got a chance.”

• Granderson hit a total of four home runs against left-handed pitchers last season.

• One of the walks and two of the wild pitches in that game-changing fifth inning were charged to Robertson. “You make some wild pitches, it just compounds the problem,” Girardi said.

• When the media got into the clubhouse several minutes after the game, Larry Rothschild was still at Nova’s locker. Nova said the message was one of confidence, telling him to keep his head up and keep working. “We just have to keep watching the video and find out something,” Nova said.

• Pendleton is following the little-used road that Dave Robertson took to New York: He’ll join the Yankees big league roster without having ever been invited to big league spring training.

• Pedro Feliciano was moved to the 60-day disabled list to make room for Pendleton on the 40-man.

• For whatever it’s worth, Nova said the weather didn’t affect him.

• My old friend Mike Ashmore caught up with Kevin Millwood in Trenton, where Millwood is making a Double-A start on Sunday. “(The arm strength) still probably has a little ways to go,” Millwood said. “But it’s definitely closer than it was when I got here.”

Associated Press photos