The LoHud Yankees Blog

A.J. Burnett said he didn’t even remember the play, but Alex Rodriguez and Brett Gardner remembered it in great detail. Before Shelley Duncan even got to the plate in the seventh inning, and certainly before Austin Kearns went deep, the Yankees had a chance to catch a foul popup along the left-field line.

It would have been the final out. It dropped between Gardner and Rodriguez.

“I didn’t remember it until you said it,” Burnett said. “It’s on me. I’ve got to stay aggressive. Walks kill you. That’s the bottom line.”

Fair enough. Walks were a significant problem in that seventh inning, and Burnett said the walks bothered him even more than the three-run homer. But Gardner and Rodriguez were still reliving the play they both nearly made, but didn’t.

Gardner: “I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get to it. I wasn’t sure if Alex was going to be able to get to it. It was kind of one of those right in between us, and I called for it at the very last minute when I realized I could probably dive for it and catch it, but it was too late for him to get out of the way and give me room to be able to completely lay out for it. I kind of went in sideways instead of laying out headfirst for it. I didn’t want to lay out into his knees or ankles or wherever I was going to hit him. Short-armed it a little bit and just didn’t get to it.”

Rodriguez: “Maybe if I get a better jump on that ball, maybe I make that play. Maybe make it a little easier on him. Bottom line, I gotta catch that ball or get a better jump next time. For him to lose a game in that type of situation, it’s not good.”

Gardner did a good job of going into detail about the play, so here’s his audio.

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And here’s Burnett.

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• Derek Jeter said he felt fine after tonight’s. He’s expecting to play tomorrow, but Joe Girardi said he’ll have to wait until tomorrow to decide. “I was nervous at the beginning,” Jeter said. “It was almost like Opening Day again when you haven’t played in a while. As the game went on, I felt a lot better.”

• Jeter went 0-for-4 in his first game back. “If you don’t get hits, then it’s (bad) timing,” Jeter said. “If you do, they say you’re well-rested. I felt better as the game went on. I felt good in my last at-bat, a pretty good slider that I hit up the middle. I didn’t feel that bad. Obviously you play every day for a reason, but I felt better as the game went on.”

• No tests are scheduled for Mariano Rivera. He doesn’t remember ever feeling this sort of soreness, and he said it wasn’t bothering him during Sunday’s blown save. “When I’m pitching I don’t feel anything,” he said. “It’s after.”

• Burnett said he’s trying to stay positive after each of his starts this season, but it’s obvious that the two seventh-inning walks really bothered him. “I don’t have to worry about that (home run),” he said. “The two walks, when you put guys on, that allowed the inning to happen… They were both 3-2 heaters and they were up a little bit. I’m not going to be nitpicking. I went out there with my best stuff and I can walk away with that.”

• Burnett was amused to find out that Gameday listed his fastballs as cutters tonight. He said he was going to start bragging to Rivera about throwing 94-mph cutters deep into the game.

• Kind of a strange moment early when Burnett got into it a little bit with home plate umpire Mike Estabrook. It started with Burnett asking where a called ball missed the zone, but Estabrook though Burnett was trying to show him up. “I think my hands going up kind of did that,” Burnett said. “I just asked him where it was, but I can do that without throwing my hands up. The first-base umpire helped me out a little bit there and calmed me down, but that’s baseball. Hands stay down and I ask and maybe it doesn’t draw the attention that it drew.”

• Wouldn’t be a Burnett start without him finding a way to speak highly of Russell Martin. “I was able to find my hook here and there and mix in my changeup to lefties,” he said. “That was still a big pitch for me tonight, and I think I kept them off balance with that. (Martin)’s getting to where he knows what I want to do on every pitch.”

• How much was Girardi counting on Burnett tonight? “My bullpen was short tonight,” Girardi said. “I needed him to get through the seventh, and I was going to let him possibly go into the eighth.”

• With Rivera out of the mix, Dave Robertson was the closer for the night.

• Sounds like the shadows were a bit of an issue in the early innings. A few players said they were an issue, but Girardi said he didn’t hear anyone talking about the shadows after at-bats. Everyone seemed to be giving more credit to Josh Tomlin and Burnett rather than placing blame on the shadows.

• Girardi on the decision to option Dickerson: “Just because we were short on pitching. We were trying to give Nuney a couple days, another 48 hours, so we felt like we had to send Dickerson down. Dickerson has played extremely well for us.”

• Nick Swisher’s seventh-inning double seemed huge at the time. He’s hitting .305 with 18 runs, nine doubles, eight homers and 28 RBI in his past 35 games.

• Curtis Granderson hit his 23rd home run… Robinson Cano has an eight-game hitting streak… Mark Teixeira has a five-game hitting streak after breaking up Tomlin’s no-hitter with a leadoff single in the seventh.

• Cano on whether he can win the Home Run Derby: “Why not? Of course. The best thing is to be there, so once you’re there, you never know.”

Associated Press photos

Mariano Rivera was not available tonight because of soreness in his right elbow. He initially felt it after last night’s game, and it lingered today.

“I’m not concerned about it, I can tell you that,” Rivera said. “I’m not concerned at all, just things that happened.”

Rivera soreness is in the muscle. Joe Girardi said it’s basically at the bottom of his triceps. Rivera is hopeful that he’ll be available to pitch tomorrow.

Luis Ayala was also unavailable tonight because he’d pitched three out of the past four days. Girardi said he might have changed his seventh-inning strategy if he had a full bullpen available. It seems the pitching situation might also have affected the Yankees decision to option Chris Dickerson. They didn’t want to send out Ramiro Pena because Eduardo Nunez’s hamsting is still a little sore, and they didn’t want to lose a pitcher because the bullpen was down two arms.

Here’s Rivera.

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In a single inning, the Yankees broke up a no-hitter, took a two-run lead, then blew the game. A.J. Burnett gave up a three-run home run to Austin Kearns in the seventh inning, opening the door to a 6-3 Yankees loss in Derek Jeter’s return to the lineup. Jeter was 0-for-4, and the entire Yankees team was being no-hit until the seventh, when they took a short-lived 2-0 lead. The big blow came from former Yankees outfielder Kearns, who hit a two-out, go-ahead homer.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (50-32)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

RHP AJ Burnett (8-6, 4.05)
Burnett vs. Indians

INDIANS (
Michael Brantley LF
Asdrubal Cabrera SS
Travis Hafner DH
Carlos Santana C
Grady Sizemore CF
Orlando Cabrera 2B
Lonnie Chisenhall 3B
Shelley Duncan 1B
Austin Kearns RF

RHP Josh Tomlin (9-4, 3.86)
Tomlin vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 6:35 p.m., YES Network and MLB Network

WEATHER: If you’re in Cleveland for the holiday and hoping to have a little BBQ, maybe a beverage or two, watch a baseball game and check out some fireworks, today might honestly be the perfect day. It’s gorgeous outside.

UMPIRES: HP Mike Estabrook, 1B Jeff Nelson, 2B Marty Foster, 3B Bill Welke

FIREWORKS: The Yankees are 28-27 when playing on the Fourth of July in the expansion era. They’ve won their past two games on the holiday. Last time they played the Indians on July 4 it was 2006 and the Yankees lost 19-1. Obviously A.J. Burnett would like to avoid a repeat.

REMEMBERING THE BOSS: George Steinbrenner was born on July 4, 1930. In his time as the Yankees owner, the franchise won 11 pennants and seven World Series, which was more than any other team in baseball. The Yankees also had an MLB-best .566 winning percentage under Steinbrenner.

YOU TOO, JOHN: Also, a happy birthday wish to radio man John Sterling, who was also born on Independence Day.

TRIPLE TRIPLE: The Yankees have three different players — Curtis Granderson, Brett Gardner and Robinson Cano — who have at least five triples this season. It’s only the third time since 1979 that the Yankees have had three different players reach five triples in a season. It happened in 2007 (Cabrera, Cano, Abreu) and in 1999 (Jeter, B. Williams, Ledee).

UPDATE, 7:37 p.m.: I’ve been writing a lot about Jeter, but there hasn’t been much to see in the game except for Burnett and Tomlin battling through four scoreless innings. There’s been one hit — a first-inning single by Asdrubal Cabrera — and obviously neither team has taken any sort of control of the game.

UPDATE, 7:53 p.m.: Shelley strikes out and the game’s still scoreless heading into the sixth.

UPDATE, 8:17 p.m.: Nick Swisher’s found his groove again, and his RBI double has given the Yankees a 2-0 lead in the seventh inning. They were being no-hit when his inning started.

UPDATE, 8:39 p.m.: Third hit Burnett has allowed tonight is a two-out, RBI single by Shelley Duncan in the seventh. He’s pulled the Yankees within 2-1.

And now Austin Kearns has put them in front 4-2 with a three run homer to right.

UPDATE, 9:01 p.m.: Granderson goes deep to pull within one. If they’re going to tie this thing, the Yankees are going to have to do it in the ninth.

It’s been a fairly hectic day, as you can probably imagine. Probably the highlight of the Derek Jeter pregame press conference came when someone mentioned that Jeter played pretty well immediately after his previous DL stint. The question wasn’t even finished and Jeter kind of shook his head.

“Damn,” he muttered.

As you probably know, Jeter hates the idea of being jinxed. It’s kind of a running joke between him and the media, so the very notion of someone telling him he played well the last time he came off the disabled list, naturally made Jeter believe he’d just been jinxed into a slow start this time.

Same thing when asked if he felt close to 3,000 hits now that he’s playing again and only six away.

“I don’t even want to say,” he said. Because it felt close before I got hurt and it’s been three weeks. Three weeks between hits. It doesn’t really right now, because my focus has been on getting back and rehabbing, so I haven’t really been focusing on the number of hits. At this moment, no, it doesn’t feel close.”

And maybe that’s a good thing. The milestone is pretty far from Jeter’s mind right now.

“It’s been kind of weird,” he said. “To be quite honest, now I just want to go out and play. I’m not going to be thinking about it today. I don’t like to jinx myself, but hopefully if I get a few hits one of these days, then I’ll think about it when I get a little bit closer. At this point, I just want to go out and play a game because I haven’t played in a while.”

Here’s Jeter.

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UPDATE, 6:17 p.m.: Chris Dickerson has been optioned to Triple-A.

• Joe Girardi said he hasn’t decided whether Jeter will play all three of these games. He’ll check with Jeter after each game and make a decision day-by-day depending on how Jeter feels.

• Will getting 3,000 hits at home factor into Jeter’s playing time? “I want him to get to 3,000 as soon as he can,” Girardi said. “I’m going to manage him more from a physical standpoint than the 3,000 hits standpoint.”

• Robinson Cano confirmed that he’ll participate in the Home Run Derby. David Ortiz asked him to do it, and Cano said yes. Girardi said he has no problem with Cano participating.

• Still no player move for Jeter, but Girardi said pregame that Eduardo Nunez is available off the bench. The hamstring, though, is still a mild concern. Girardi said he’ll be “still cautious” about the way he uses Nunez.

• Girardi indicated that Ivan Nova will make his first Triple-A start on Thursday instead of Wednesday. “We’re going to give him an extra day because he has to travel,” Girardi said.

• Speaking of Triple-A: Jesus Montero was a late scratch from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre lineup. He has a back/side issue.

• Just a reminder, tonight’s first pitch is at 6:35 p.m. Kind of an unusual start time.

INDIANS
Michael Brantley LF
Asdrubal Cabrera SS
Travis Hafner DH
Carlos Santana C
Grady Sizemore CF
Orlando Cabrera 2B
Lonnie Chisenhall 3B
Shelley Duncan 1B
Austin Kearns RF

Associated Press photos

Just survived a physical assault by Shelley Duncan. At one point, both of my feet were off the ground and I feared for my life.

As for the Yankees, they are waiting to announce a player move for Derek Jeter.

Joe Girardi said Eduardo Nunez’s hamstring injury is not serious enough for him to land on the disabled list, but it “could” impact the move. Basically, it sounds like they’re going to wait until after batting practice to decide how Nunez is feeling.

My guess is, if Nunez is good to go, Ramiro Pena will be optioned. If he needs a day or two, the Yankees will option a pitcher and keep Pena active until they need a roster spot for Phil Hughes. They’re currently carrying an extra pitcher.

Eduardo Nunez and Ramiro Pena are both listed on the bench. In other words, the Yankees haven’t announced a move to activate Jeter. They have 26 players listed right now.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jorge Posada DH
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

Tonight
RHP AJ Burnett (8-6, 4.05)
vs.
RHP Josh Tomlin (9-4, 3.86)
6:35 p.m., YES Network / MLB Network

Tuesday
LHP CC Sabathia (11-4, 3.05)
vs.
RHP Carlos Carrasco (8-4, 3.54)
7:05 p.m., YES Network

Wednesday
RHP Phil Hughes (0-1, 13.94)
vs.
RHP Justin Masterson (6-6, 2.85)
7:05 p.m., YES Network / ESPN

While I’m flying to Cleveland to meet up with the replenished Yankees, we’re going to start this day with a letter and an announcement from a good friend of the blog, Ron, who’s arranged some of the LoHud Yankees Blog outings in the past and is organizing another for late this month. Here are the details. I’m going to do my best to be there. Hope a lot of you can come out to my old stomping grounds in NEPA.

As always, a huge thanks to Ron. Here’s his invitation…

—

For those interested, I’m happy to again organize the LoHud Yankees Blog group outing for 2011 to see a Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees game later this summer at PNC Field, just off I-81 in Moosic, PA. In 2008 and 2009 we had over 80 blog readers, family and friends attend the outing each year. I think those who attended would agree it was a great time! I was late getting organized in 2010 and we were unable to get together.

The 2011 LoHud Yankees Blog outing will be held on Saturday, July 23, 2011 at 7:05 PM when the SWB Yankees will take on the Syracuse Chiefs, AAA affiliate of the Washington Nationals. There will also be post-game fireworks that night, which from much personal experience I can say are very good. For those interested, the series with Syracuse is part of a four-game homestand beginning Friday at 7:05 PM through Monday at 7:05 PM including a 1:05 PM Sunday start. You can contact the SWB Yankees box office at (570) 969-BALL (2255) for additional tickets.

For those who are unfamiliar, PNC Field is about 60 miles from Binghamton, 100 miles from Newark, 110 miles from Philadelphia, 120 miles from NYC and 130 miles from State College.

The group venue for this year’s outing will be the Third Base Party Box. The cost per person — including game ticket and all you can eat hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, soda, water, beans/pasta salad and an SWB Yankees cap and program — is approximately $32 – $35.

At this point I’m uncertain if Chad Jennings will be able to attend, but hopefully he can join us.

I’d ask anyone interested in the outing to e-mail me AS SOON AS POSSIBLE at yankslifer@yahoo.com with number of tickets you’re interested in. I’ll invoice those interested through PayPal which has worked well in the past.

In prior years, a number of people from New York, New Jersey, Maryland and even Virginia came to the outing. Later, via e-mail, I’ll provide driving directions and links to hotels and restaurants in the area for those attending.

Thanks to Chad for posting this.

Ron

The Yankees just sent an email confirming that Derek Jeter is on his way to Cleveland after completing his rehab assignment in Trenton.

Jeter went 1-for-2 with a walk, a strikeout and a bunt single. He ran from first to third in the first inning. In the field, Jeter handled five chances in the field, including two double plays. He also had a throwing error.

Mike Ashmore has video of the postgame press conference.

Associated Press photo