The LoHud Yankees Blog

The numbers really tell the story of Rafael Soriano. There are the three years and $35 million the Yankees gave him this offseason, there are the 45 saves he had last season, and then there are the numbers he’s put up in his first month in pinstripes.

Tonight’s blown eighth inning gave Soriano his first blown save in a home game since 2007, ending a streak of 38 converted opportunities. He has allowed eight walks and nine earned runs through 11 appearances.

Last year he allowed 14 walks and 12 earned runs through 64 appearances.

“It’s not been easy for me,” Soriano said. “I’ve tried to figure out how to do the same that I did last year. I’ve been struggling right now, but I’ll take it, forget all that tonight, come back tomorrow and find out.”

The Yankees said all the things you would expect, and frankly, there’s not much else they can say.

Joe Girardi said he’s going to stick with Soriano in the eighth inning, which he has to do. It would be a complete knee-jerk reaction to dump him from that role less than a month into the season.

Alex Rodriguez said he still thinks Soriano is not a guy anyone wants to face in the late innings of a tight ball game, and it’s true that Soriano was throwing harder tonight than he has all season.

“I’ve faced Sori and that’s not a guy you really want to be facing with the game on the line,” Rodriguez said. “There’s an adjustment period. There’s a huge adjustment going from the ninth to the eighth. He’s working on his routine and I think he’s going to be just fine. We’re going to sit right by him and support him.”

Soriano brought up his slow start in 2007, when he had a 7.36 ERA through eight appearances and turned things around for a typically dominant season. It seems to be a fair comparison, but Soriano allowed a hit in only two of those first eight appearances in ’07. It just happened that he allowed three runs each time he allowed even one hit.

“I feel fine,” he said. “I feel comfortable with the team and everything. A bad day. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Even with Soriano’s bungled eighth inning, the Yankees would have won this game if not for Brent Lillibridge making two terrific catches in the ninth. They were the last two outs of the game, one leaping catch at the wall to rob Alex Rodriguez of a double, and one diving catch on a low line drive to rob Robinson Cano of the game-winner.

“The kid was the difference in the game,” Girardi said.

With one out and two on, Rodriguez said he was thinking double when he drove the ball to right. With Eduardo Nunez pinch running at first, Rodriguez said he thought both runs might score. Instead, Lillibridge made the grab. Next up was Cano, and if Lillibridge had missed on his dive, the ball would have shot past him, letting the tying and winning runs score easily.

“You’ve got to be damn sure you make that play,” Nick Swisher said. “Because if not, the game’s over.”

Said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen: “When Alex hit the first one I said, here we go again. The last guy that I wanted to see in that situation was Cano. When you look at the lineup that’s going to be due up in the last inning, you know you have to bring your best bullets. The ball bounced our way tonight. That’s just the way the way the baseball is. Baseball is so crazy.”

Here’s Girardi’s postgame.

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• Girardi said after the game that there was nothing new to report on Phil Hughes. He’ll go for his second round of tests on Wednesday and we’ll do the same dance all over again.

• Nice start from Ivan Nova. With 10 days between starts — and one short relief appearance thrown in there — Nova was at his best, showing improved fastball command a pitching a career-high 6.1 innings. “I was focused and confident,” he said. “I was more aggressive.”

• The curveball was a big pitch for Nova, and he said he started leaning on that more than his slider. Mostly, he said it was the fact he was aggressive that made him most happy and made the biggest difference.

• Cano has homered in three of his last four games at Yankee Stadium. Brett Gardner has homered in two of his past four games overall.

• The Yankees have managed seven hits the past two nights. Both Phil Humber and Gavin Floyd seem to have kept them offbalance with offspeed pitches. Floyd has a terrific curveball, and it was working tonight.

• Girardi on the offense: “I would love to say that this offense was going to get 10 to 12 hits every night, but there’s not an offense in America that’s going to do that. There’s going to be times when you just don’t swing the bat as well as others. Sometimes it will make sense. Sometimes it won’t make sense. We ran into two guys that have thrown the ball extremely well and we haven’t necessarily swung the bats well, but I’ll take our chances with this offense on a daily basis.”

• Rodriguez failed to reach base for the first time this season.

• Speaking of the first time: This was the first time the Yankees had ever lost a game in which Brett Gardner hit a home run.

• After being rained out yesterday with Tampa, Francisco Cervelli made a rehab appearance for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre tonight. Girardi indicated pregame that the Yankees want him to catch back-to-back games before they consider activating him from the disabled list.

• From the Yankees PR department, the Yankees have scored 61.3 percent of their runs on home runs this season.

• The Yankees became the last team in MLB to lose back-to-back games this season.

Associated Press photos

For the second night in a row, the Yankees wasted a strong outing by their own starter and were largely shutdown by the White Sox starter. Ivan Nova walked off the mound in the seventh inning with a 2-1 lead and a standing ovation, but Rafael Soriano gave up a two-run home run in the eighth and the White Sox beat the Yankees 3-2. The Yankees were held to just four hits, and the only hits that kept them from a second straight shutout were solo home runs by Robinson Cano and Brett Gardner.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (12-7)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez 3B
Brett Gardner LF
Gustavo Molina C

RHP Ivan Nova (1-2, 7.63)
Nova vs. White Sox

WHITE SOX (9-14)
Juan Pierre LF
Alexei Ramirez SS
Carlos Quentin RF
Paul Konerko 1B
Adam Dunn DH
Alex Rios CF
A.J. Pierzynski C
Gordon Beckham 2B
Brent Morel 3B

RHP Gavin Floyd (2-1, 4.00)
Floyd vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 7:05 p.m., MY9 / MLB Network

WEATHER: The weather just keeps getting better. Tonight is better than last night. Hoping the trend continues.

UMPIRES: HP Greg Gibson, 1B Todd Tichenor, 2B Gerry Davis, 3B Sam Holbrook

COMING BACK: The Yankees are 18-4 in games immediately following shutout losses since ht start of 2008.

BEATING THE CENTRAL: The Yankees have no lost any of their past 10 series against American League Central teams. That goes back to May of last year. In that span they are 9-0-1 in series against the Central. The Yankees are 27-16 in games against the Central since the start of 2010.

FIVE SHY: Robinson Cano’s 13-game hitting streak ended last night. He was five games away from his career-high. During the streak he hit .345 with six doubles, three home runs and 12 RBI.

UPDATE, 7:25 p.m.: Sharp first two innings from Ivan Nova, who seems to be keeping his fastball down for soft ground balls. The only base runner he’s allowed was thrown out trying to steal.

UPDATE, 7:30 p.m.: Towering home run by Cano. It’s 1-0 Yankees.

UPDATE, 8:08 p.m.: So far so good for Nova, but he’s out for the fifth, and that inning always seems to be tricky for him. It’s still just a 1-0 game, so this could be a big inning.

UPDATE, 8:25 p.m.: Odd top of the fifth for the Yankees and an unexpected bottom half. The Yankees seemed to retire Alex Rios twice — Granderson nearly made a nice catch, then Molina seemed to throw him out stealing before Cano dropped the ball — but he ultimately came around to score.

In the bottom half, it was Gardner of all people who went deep to put the Yankees back in front 2-1.

UPDATE, 8:50 p.m.: Nova did his job, and after a one-out walk in the seventh, Dave Robertson is coming in from the bullpen. Nova was at 92 pitches and it’s the 8-9 hitters coming to the plate, but I actually like the decision by Girardi. It’s a one-run game, and Soriano-Rivera are almost certainly going to handle the eighth and ninth no matter what happens here. Make the safe decision here, then put the game in the hands of the late-inning guys. Nova gets a much deserved standing ovation, and there’s no risk of him suddenly imploding (which isn’t, you know, out of the question with him).

UPDATE, 9:19 p.m.: Well there goes that. Soriano gives up a two-run bomb and now the White Sox are in front 3-2 in the eighth. The feeling in this stadium just took a significant turn, as you can imagine.

Phil Hughes spent four hours at the doctor’s office today. He had an MRI on his shoulder, an MRI on his elbow and a few vascular tests. He’s scheduled to go back for a second round of tests tomorrow.

“If they find something, they find something,” Hughes said. “I’m just anxious to figure out what’s going on. I talked to the doctor this morning and (they) basically want to get as many tests done as possible so we can paint a clear picture of exactly what’s going on. As much information as we can gather, basically. The more the better.”

Hughes said his arm does not bother him in his day-to-day life. It doesn’t bother him when he’s loading groceries or anything like that, and he’s able to life weights like normal. Then again, he said the weight lifting could be testing only the larger muscles and “masking” an issue with a smaller muscle. It’s possible, and that’s why he’s doing so many tests. He said all of his symptoms are things he’s felt in the past, they’ve just lingered longer than ever before.

Joe Girardi said he never saw anything last season to suggest Hughes’ workload was having a negative impact, but certainly it’s possible that it’s affecting him now. Based on what Hughes has experienced and said, the Yankees have done all the things they know to do. Now they’re looking for medical issues.

“I think you just don’t want to give guys MRIs just to give them MRIs,” Girardi said. “They say you should only have so many MRIs per year. I don’t want him walking around like Spiderman, every time you feel something you go get an MRI. I think you have to be careful… Because he had no pain, we didn’t feel the need.”

Hughes kept answering questions in waves, but here’s early chunk of his pregame interview(s).

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• Girardi said he came into this home stand having decided to give Alex Rodriguez a DH day either yesterday or today. It happened to be today. “We had a long day Sunday, night game last night, so I thought I would just DH him and get Chavy in there for a day,” Girardi said. “Russell caught three days in a row, so I thought I’d get Molina in there.”

• Girardi said he’s not considering this a make-or-break start for Ivan Nova. Kevin Millwood is looming in Triple-A, but Girardi said Nova is not pitching for his job. He did acknowledge, though, that Nova might be thinking that way. “It’s not how I’m thinking, but I’ve been a young player, and I know that feeling,” Girardi said. “Sometimes it’s tough, but you have to fight that, and you have to be able to put that aside when you go out.”

• Francisco Cervelli was rained out last night and he’s scheduled to catch for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre tonight. The Yankees still want him to catch back-to-back games before they activate him from the disabled list.

• Girardi on Jorge Posada’s struggles: “It just seems like he’s kind of in between. At times he’s late on the fastball and he’s early on the offspeed, and it seems like when he makes contact, he’s made some pretty good contact.”

• Colin Curtis was back in the clubhouse today. He has the most elaborate sling/brace I’ve ever seen wrapped around his right arm and shoulder. He said he has to wear it when he sleeps. Doctors discovered a significant labrum tear. That’s what was repaired during surgery. He won’t be able to do anything for a few months, but he said he should be ready well in time for spring training next year. Still, bad break for a good guy. He’s staying in New York doing some rehab work.

• Good news and bad news in Trenton: Dellin Betances is about to come off the disabled list and start later this week, but Graham Stoneburner is going on the disabled list with a neck issue.

WHITE SOX
Juan Pierre LF
Alexei Ramirez SS
Carlos Quentin RF
Paul Konerko 1B
Adam Dunn DH
Alex Rios CF
A.J. Pierzynski C
Gordon Beckham 2B
Brent Morel 3B

Associated Press photo of Rodriguez

Phil Hughes had two MRIs and some
vascular tests this morning, but he hasn’t heard any results. He’s scheduled for more tests tomorrow as the Yankees try to rule out everything or find out something.

About 15 minutes ago, Jorge Posada, Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones and Nick Swisher went onto the field with Kevin Long for a little early batting practice. Looked like A.J. Burnett in the outfield doing some long toss with bullpen catcher Roman Rodriguez.

Here’s the lineup. Gustavo Molina and Eric Chavez are starting.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez 3B
Brett Gardner LF
Gustavo Molina C

Last night, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees won on a walk-off home run by center fielder Justin Maxwell.

It was Maxwell’s fifth home run of the season, and all of those homers have come in his past nine games. Five of his past six hits have been home runs, including each of his past four hits. The last time Maxwell had a hit that wasn’t a home run was April 17 when he singled in the fifth inning, having already homered in the second.

Maxwell split last season between Triple-A and the big leagues, and in 66 Triple-A games he hit six homers. Seventeen games into this season, he’s one away from that total.

A few other upper-level minor league notes while we’re waiting for tonight’s game.

• Keep an eye on David Phelps. In his past two starts Phelps has gone 13.1 innings with three earned runs, nine hits and 12 strikeouts. He allowed one run through seven innings last night.

• The Triple-A Yankees are activating catcher P.J. Pilittere after sending Dan Brewer down to Double-A. Brewer was hitting, but he wasn’t getting many at-bats. Pilittere gives the Yankees an extra catcher, and they might need it for a few days. Jesus Montero was hit by a foul ball … below the below … and might need a few days off. He skipped last night’s game.

• Reliever Ryan Pope opened the season on the Triple-A disabled list, but he made an appearance for High-A Tampa over the weekend, a sign that he could be on his way to finally joining Scranton’s bullpen. Of course, the Yankees are going to have to find a spot for him, and right now that Triple-A bullpen is pitching pretty well. They already have to open one spot for Mark Prior when he comes back from his mild groin injury.

Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci helped push the idea of innings limits pitchers into the mainstream. Call it whatever you like — the Verducci Effect, the Year After Effect, the Rule of 30 — but it’s become widely accepted that young pitchers who experience a significant workload increase are at risk of a season like Phil Hughes is having right now.

When Verducci singled out 11 pitchers who might be at risk this year, Hughes was the sixth name on the list. Verducci called him “lower-risk” because of his age (nearly 25) and his size (6-foot-5 and well over 200 pounds), but Hughes made the cut after a significant innings bump last season. So did Ivan Nova, by the way.

Now Hughes is going for an MRI even though he feels perfectly healthy. The Yankees have to send him for medical tests because they can’t figure out what else might be wrong with him.

“Usually if a guy says he has pain you go for MRIs,” Joe Girardi said. “He just said he felt like it was dead and there wasn’t a lot coming out. We figured that maybe he needed to be built up. We put him on a program, and now that the program didn’t seem to work, then we go get an MRI. He still says he’s not experiencing pain.”

It could be that Hughes’ problems are little more than last year’s workload catching up to him. And he might not be alone.

The first three names on Verducci’s list heading into this season were Madison Bumgarner, Alex Sanabia and Mat Latos.

Bumgarner’s velocity has been just fine — higher than last year according to FanGraphs — but he has a 7.79 ERA through four starts for the Giants. Sanabia is on the Triple-A disabled list and has yet to pitch for the Marlins. Latos has a 5.94 ERA and has seen a slight dip in his velocity for the Padres.

Travis Wood, Brett Cecil and Nova have also struggled after having their names on Verducci’s list. David Price, Brandon Beachy, Gio Gonzalez and Dillon Gee were on the list and have pitched well.

“I’ve seen a lot of young pitchers that have thrown a lot of innings a year before and not come back quite with the same velocity,” Girardi said. “I think Cecil went through it. I can’t tell you exactly what’s going on with Cecil in Toronto, but here’s a guy that we had as hard as 92-93 and you weren’t seeing that (when the Yankees faced him last week), and he just got sent down. Guys have taken steps backward after being extended, more innings that they’re accustomed to doing, but as I said, there is a level of concern (with Hughes) because everything seemed to be going in the right direction and it kind of halted a little bit today.”

Of the names on Verducci’s list, the Cecil comparison seems to be the best one to match next to Hughes. They’re the same age and saw a pretty similar increase last season. Cecil was optioned to Triple-A after the Yankees knocked him around on Wednesday. Here are two paragraphs from the MLB.com story about Cecil’s demotion.

The 24-year-old has been suffering from a loss of velocity on his fastball. Cecil is used to throwing from 90-94 mph, but during Spring Training and the early stages of the 2011 season, he was consistently clocked in the mid-to-high 80s.

That loss of velocity caused him to overthrow the ball at times in an effort to increase speed. That led to his pitches being elevated in the zone and success for opposing hitters quickly followed.

It reads like a Hughes story. Just like the Yankees coaching staff when talking about Hughes, the Blue Jays coaching staff has been quoting talking a lot about control and confidence, but the velocity issue lingers. Toronto ultimately decided to option Cecil rather than put him on the disabled list. The Yankees considered doing the same with Hughes.

It could be that today’s MRI will show some sort of damage to Hughes’ shoulder, or it could be that Hughes is simply feeling the impact of 2010, just like a lot of other young pitchers.

Associated Press photos

Innings kept going by, and hitter after hitter kept coming back to the Yankees dugout without a hit.

“With this offense you feel like you can still score runs,” Joe Girardi said. “If you get them early you get them early, if you get them late, you get them late.”

The Yankees didn’t get them, and two runs were too many to beat the White Sox. Granted, when a team gets shutout and nearly no-hit, everything else seems secondary, but it’s worth looking at each of the White Sox runs.

Fourth inning, leadoff double
Run scored two batters later after back-to-back routine ground balls

The play that mattered was the leadoff double to Carlos Quentin. Charging from center field, Curtis Granderson tried to make a diving catch. The ball got past him, turning a single into a double. Based on the way the inning played out, the run wouldn’t have scored without that free base.

“The only thing that could have been different would have been if I would have caught it, then he would have been off the bases,” Granderson said. “That would have been the only way guaranteeing he wasn’t going to come around to score. Early in the game, I like taking the risk. You look at that time and go, OK, we’re going to have some more opportunities to score offensively.”

Said Burnett: “It’s an aggressive play. I’d rather our guys be aggressive out there than not. Nine out of 10 times, he comes in and catches that ball. We’ve all seen it. If I make a few pitches after that, maybe it’s a different story.”

Burnett’s wrong about making pitches — he got nothing but routine outs after the double — and I’m sure he was trying just not to push the blame. That said, I actually tend to agree with Granderson. I think it’s worth taking a shot on that ball.

Ninth inning, leadoff single
Run scored two batters later after a fielder’s choice, stolen base and RBI single

Play that mattered was the leadoff single, a routine popup that landed just behind the mound. Rafael Soriano pointed to it but never went after it. Derek Jeter charged, but couldn’t get there. It’s not unusual for a pitcher to defer to infielders on a play like that, and both Jeter and Russell Martin called it a ball that just happened to be hit to the right spot. Martin said it was, “just high enough for the pitcher to think an infielder was going to get there.”

“I don’t think Jeet could have got to it,” Girardi said. “I don’t think (Alex Rodriguez) could have. We encourage our pitchers to go after it, and sometimes pitchers just don’t. It’s on the other side of the ball. It’s a pretty well placed soft popup. Sori is probably the only guy that could have got it, and I’m not sure he would have got it either.”

Said Soriano: “You think that I could catch that? I don’t think so. I thought somebody would be there. I thought Jeter or Alex was going to catch it. It happens. We’ll be fine. Come back and get the ground ball double play. I’m fine with that.”

To me, that play is on Soriano. I have little doubt he could have gotten there. I get that pitchers are used to giving that play to their infielders, but at some point you’d think Soriano would attempt to make a play.

• Phil Hughes said he passed a strength test with Dr. Ahmad, but obviously the Yankees have to check him out at this point. “The (strengthening) program didn’t seem to work,” Girardi said. “Then we go get an MRI. He still says he’s not experiencing pain.”

• Martin said Burnett “battled” most of the night, and Burnett called it a “grind.” His fastball had good life and he was able to spot it, but Burnett didn’t seem overly pleased with his changeup and curveball. Still, he gave the Yankees eight good innings. Burnett said he was especially happy to finally work deep into a game. “I’m getting there,” he said. “I’m definitely taking big steps forward.”

• Wouldn’t be a Burnett start without him praising Martin’s work behind the plate. “He blocks everything, which makes me want to throw (the curveball) again,” Burnett said. “I told him, ‘If you block one, I’m going to throw one five feet shorter to see how good you are.’ He’s good back there. He keeps me in the game, he knows my personality and it’s fun to watch him back there.”

• Granderson said he went to Burnett after the fourth-inning double and said he was going to try to score a run for him to get that one back. “I just couldn’t get myself around,” Granderson said.

• The Yankees said all the things you’d probably expect about Phil Humber. He mixed pitches. Kept hitters off balance. Stayed ahead in the count. “The way he threw today, even if we faced him before, it was a tough day,” Jeter said. “You tip your hat to him. He didn’t fall behind too many guys. We had a couple of guys on there, but he was getting a lot of ground balls, especially when he needed it.”

• Girardi said Soriano was 93-94 mph with his fastball, and this was the first time Girardi could remember seeing Soriano at 94 this season. Girardi was happy with how well Soriano pitched. Soriano said he felt fine.

• Robinson Cano’s 13-game hitting streak came to an end, but Rodriguez has now reached base in all 16 games he’s played this season. He’s hit safely in 12 of them.

• This was the third time the Yankees had been held to three hits or less at the current Yankee Stadium. They didn’t reach third base tonight and certainly didn’t hit a home run.

• It wasn’t brought up at all postgame — because it ultimately didn’t matter much — but Girardi used three-fourths of his bench at once in the eighth inning. He pinch hit Andruw Jones for Brett Gardner, then hit Eric Chavez for Jones, then pinch ran Eduardo Nunez for Chavez. The White Sox had switched from a left-handed reliever to a right-handed reliever after Jones entered the game, which is why Girardi turned to Chavez without Jones actually getting an at-bat. Nunez played left field in the ninth.

• Mariano Rivera? “I wouldn’t have used him,” Girardi said.

Associated Press photos

After seeing Dr. Ahmad tonight, Phil Hughes will go for an MRI tomorrow. Joe Girardi said the doctor didn’t find anything that led to the test, but the Yankees want to check on Hughes after the strengthening program didn’t work.

“It’s just to see what’s going on,” Girardi said.

It was Kansas City all over again. A.J. Burnett allowed one run through eight innings tonight, but Phil Humber carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning, and the White Sox beat the Yankees 2-0 in the first game of this four-game series. It was reminiscent of last August when Burnett allowed one run through eight innings against the Royals and was beaten by another largely forgotten former first-round pick, Bryan Bullington, who carried a no-hitter into the fifth. Burnett was outstanding, but the Yankees stranded runners in scoring position in the seventh and eighth. Rafael Soriano returned from sore back but allowed a run after letting a leadoff single drop just inches from the mound.

Associated Press photo