The LoHud Yankees Blog

YANKEES (74-47)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher DH
Andruw Jones RF
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Francisco Cervelli C
Brett Gardner LF

LHP CC Sabathia (16-7, 2.93)
Sabathia vs. Twins

TWINS (54-68)
Ben Revere CF
Trevor Plouffe 2B
Joe Mauer RF
Justin Morneau 1B
Jim Thome DH
Danny Valencia 3B
Rene Tosoni LF
Tsuyoshi Nishioka SS
Drew Butera C

LHP Brian Duensing (8-11, 4.53)
Duensing vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 8:10 p.m., MY9

WEATHER: Beautiful night at the best ballpark in the American League.

UMPIRES: HP Brian O’Nora, 1B Jim Wolf, 2B D.J. Reyburn, 3B Ron Kulpa

WIN SOME, LOSE SOME: The Yankees are 20-20 in series openers this season. They have gone 28-12 in the second game of series.

TWIN KILLING: CC Sabathia Is undefeated in his last eight regular-season and postseason starts against the Twins, going 7-0 with a 1.46 ERA since August of 2007.

WELL PLAYED: Joe Mauer is making his first career start in right field.

NOT SO WELL PLAYED: In the Twins lineup, only three players — Mauer, Thome and Revere — are hitting better than .244. Thome and Revere are hitting below .260.

UPDATE, 8:36 p.m.: Whatever happens with this home run call, Sabathia’s been hit pretty hard in this first inning.

UPDATE, 8:48 p.m.: Not sure why Gardenhire argued until he was ejected. I thought the replay looked like the Morneau home run was foul. The umpires got the call right, Sabathia got out of the first inning, and the game is still scoreless.

UPDATE, 9:11 p.m.:Trying to write three newspaper stories and play blog babysitter at the same time makes me fall behind a little bit.

Sabathia hasn’t looked good this game. He’s being knocked around a little bit, and the Twins took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the second. The Yankees, though, answered with Mark Teixeira’s two-run homer in the third. It’s now 3-2.

UPDATE, 9:38 p.m.: It’s a little less exciting now that Eduardo Nunez usually makes all of his throws.

UPDATE, 9:48 p.m.: Back-to-back Yankees homers in the fifth. Nick Swisher’s two-run shot came first, but it’s Andruw Jones’ solo job that raised eyebrows. He just went into the third deck. That was a monster. It’s 6-2 Yankees.

UPDATE, 10:35 p.m.: Sabathia seemed to have settled in for a while there, but now he’s getting hit again in the seventh. The Twins have scored one run in the inning, and they’ve now loaded the bases on Eduardo Nunez’s error.

Alex Rodriguez is in the clubhouse and on the field, but he won’t be in the lineup until Saturday at the earliest.

“We’re shooting for this weekend, trying to be optimistic about that,” he said. “The one thing that I’m lacking the most is first-step quickness and defense, and opening up my gait and really trying to make good turns going home to second or first to third. Today we did a little bit of that, and tomorrow we’ll have another session.”

The knee feels fine, but it’s a matter of conditioning. That’s why Rodriguez is here instead of continuing a minor league rehab assignment.

“If I felt like hitting was the one thing I felt most behind, it would probably be most productive to be down either in Tampa or Scranton getting a bunch of at-bats,” Rodriguez said. “But this is a situation that’s a little bit rare where conditioning is the most important thing and fielding is the most important thing, and those are things I can do here with our staff.”

Those pregame drills at third base were fairly intense, and Rodriguez went through two different conditioning sessions with strength coach Dana Cavalea. He ran this afternoon — “Opened up my gait as much as I have post-op,” Rodriguez said — and he was planning to doing a spinning session on a weight room bike after his media session.

Joe Girardi didn’t go into detail, but it’s clear that he’s mapped out a loose plan for how to use Rodriguez through the first week or so. It will probably include semi-regular DH games, gradually giving him more and more time in the field.

When he gets back in the lineup, Rodriguez expects to show the kind of power that was missing in the two or three weeks before he went on the DL.

“I’m able to lean back on my swing,” he said. “Kevin (Long) and I worked today, and every swing hurt a lot before going on the DL, so therefore I had to get off my back side and really jump out to the front side and really become more of a handsy hitter. In order to hit for power, you always have to lean back, and that’s the feeling I feel like I’m getting back to.”

Here’s Rodriguez.

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Girardi was obviously frustrated and disappointed to learn that he was right and the umpires were wrong last night. He should have protested the game, but he trusted that the umpires — both crew chief Dana DeMuth and home plate umpire Chad Fairchild — knew the Kansas City ground rules better than he did.

“When two separate umpires on two different accounts tell you that, ‘No, that’s what we said, it’s a home run,’ I believe them,” Girardi said. “Maybe I don’t need to be so trustworthy next time.”

Girardi said he told the umpires that Mick Kelleher had been told the opposite — that a ball like Butler’s shouldn’t be a home run — but both umpires told him that they had clarified the rule after talking to Kelleher. Girardi said he won’t be so hesitant to question a similar situation in the future.

“I’ll be protesting every night,” he said.

Here’s Girardi.

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• Freddy Garcia’s attempt to finally throw a splitfinger was pushed back yet again. At this point, it seems that starting on Sunday is a serious question, and Girardi said it’s entirely possible that Garcia could land on the disabled list. With the move retroactive, Garcia could be activated early next week.

• Phil Hughes starts tomorrow and A.J. Burnett on Saturday. Ivan Nova will start Sunday if Garcia can’t make that start.

• Nick Swisher is just getting a half day off at designated hitter. He’s not hurt.

• Joba Chamberlain is with the Yankees during this series. He showed up because he started a weight lifting program today. “It feels really good,” he said. Everything is on schedule for Chamberlain, and he thinks he could begin throwing, “in a couple of weeks.”

• By the way, Chamberlain had two stomach surgeries this summer. He had his appendix out, and just a couple days later he was still hurting, and doctors discovering infection. Chamberlain was in the hospital for two weeks with a tube in his right side draining the infection. “I would rather have about 10 Tommy Johns than two stomach surgeries,” Chamberlain said. “That was no fun.”

• Chamberlain really does look a little bit thinner than when he left. He said he’s been able to work out some, and he’s been able to stay active outside. He said he feels terrific. “I’ve been tossing around a 5-year-old,” he said. “So I think that’s probably the best rehab you can do.”

TWINS
Ben Revere CF
Trevor Plouffe 2B
Joe Mauer RF
Justin Morneau 1B
Jim Thome DH
Danny Valencia 3B
Rene Tosoni LF
Tsuyoshi Nishioka SS
Drew Butera C

Associated Press photos

As expected, Alex Rodriguez is not in the lineup or even on the roster tonight against the Twins. He is here, though, and pregame he went through fairly intense fielding drills with Mick Kelleher standing behind him at third base. Rob Thomson basically stood at the plate, took soft tosses from about three feet away, and pulled sharp ground balls and line drives to Rodriguez on the left side of the infield.

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher DH
Andruw Jones RF
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Francisco Cervelli C
Brett Gardner LF

First a very quick reminder that I’m hosting a chat here on the blog tomorrow at noon. I’m sure we’ll be talking a lot about six-man rotations and injured third basemen and Triple-A catchers looking for a September call-up.

I’m sure we’ll also talk about this.

Today, Joe Torre acknowledged that the umpire crew blew the call last night in Kansas City. Billy Butler’s third-inning home run should have been a double, but there’s little the Yankees can do about it now because Joe Girardi did not immediately file a protest. The problem was that crew chief Dana DeMuth believed a small secondary fence was out of play. In fact, a ball has to clear that fence to be considered a home run.

“His interpretation was that the back fence was behind the wall and out of the ballpark,” Torre told The Daily News. “It certainly wasn’t for a lack of doing his job, just a misunderstanding of the rule.”

Tonight
LHP CC Sabathia (16-7, 2.93)
vs.
LHP Brian Duensing (8-11, 4.53)
8:10 p.m. MY9

Friday
RHP Phil Hughes (3-4, 6.55)
vs.
RHP Kevin Slowey (0-0, 4.91)
8:10 p.m., YES Network

Saturday
TBA
vs.
LHP Francisco Liriano (8-9, 5.12)
7:10 p.m., YES Network / MLB Network

Sunday
TBA
vs.
RHP Nick Blackburn (7-10, 4.53)
2:10 p.m., YES Network / TBS

Bartolo Colon has pitched 124.2 innings this season. That’s far more than he’s thrown in any season since 2005, and more than he’s pitched total since 2007.

Colon says he feels as healthy as ever, but he hasn’t been pitching as deep into games lately — in May he pitched a complete game shutout on 103 pitches, last night he needed 99 pitches to get through five — and Joe Girardi acknowledged that the team is at least mildly concerned about Colon’s durability.

“Obviously we’re trying to take precautions and give him extra rest,” Girardi said. “That is something that we’re trying to do. He had the one bad inning that really cost us (last night), but it’s something that we look at, yes.”

Colon dismissed the issue, but he’s thrown more than five innings just once in his past four starts. This from the guy who threw fewer than five innings only once in his first 12 starts.

“I feel very strong right now,” Colon said. “Physically and mentally I try to do my job. I do my best to win the game.”

Associated Press photo

It was first-base coach Mick Kelleher who delivered the Yankees lineup and went over the ground rules before Monday’s series opener here in Kansas City.

“They were pretty explicit and clear, but there was one question that I had,” Kelleher said. “It was about the top rail in left-center field. It was padded, the ball had to leave the ballpark. We talked about that twice… There’s a fence that goes up that’s green, then above the green there’s a little cyclone fence. I said, ‘What’s that?’ They said, ‘It’s clear and open. Above that is a padded rail, so it has to clear the padded rail.’”

During tonight’s game, the Yankees were told the opposite is true, and that ruling by crew chief Dana DeMuth loomed large in a one-run loss.

When Billy Butler drove a ball to left-center in the third inning, the ball clearly went over the main fence, but it didn’t clear a smaller, chain-link fence. The ball bounced back onto the field, but was still ruled a home run. Girardi asked for a review, DeMuth watched the replay and said the ruling stood. Girardi went back for clarification of the rule — he’s not allowed to argue the call at that point — and was told the rule is that the ball has to clear only the first fence. Both DeMuth and home plate umpire Chad Fairchild said the same thing.

“If he’s right, he’s right, and we lost the game,” Girardi said. “If he’s wrong, it’s very unfortunate.”

DeMuth refused to speak to a pool reporter sent to get clarification after the game, but not too long ago — about an hour after the game — what appeared to be the entire umpire crew walked to left-center field to look at the fence.

“That’s not what they told me,” Kelleher said. “That’s not what we covered at home plate. The ball had to leave the ballpark. If it hits that top green thing, that’s not leaving the ballpark. That’s what they explained. There’s a little chain-link cyclone fence that’s maybe a foot or 18 inches, then on top of that is the padded bar. It’s supposed to go over the padded bar. If that wasn’t the case, there would be a yellow line indicating balls over the yellow line, home run. Bam. There you go.”

The yellow line argument might be the best of the night. If there’s an uncertain boundary, it would surely be marked by a yellow line. There’s no yellow line, so it stands to reason that the usual rule — the ball has to leave the field — would be in effect.

Here’s Girardi. He’s not happy.

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• Alex Rodriguez went 1-for-2 with two walks, a strikeout and an RBI single tonight. He said afterward that he won’t be playing tomorrow, and he’s not sure about Friday. Girardi said that his pregame comments are still accurate: Rodriguez will be evaluated tomorrow before the Yankees decide whether to activate him immediately.

• Rodriguez let a ball get through his legs in the first inning, and another ball got past him without being ruled an error. “I really thought I played great defense when the ball wasn’t hit at me,” Rodriguez said.

• A general comment from Rodriguez about how he’s moving: “These were the hardest balls hit at me in five weeks. It’s just a bit of rust. But I really liked my gait tonight, first to third. And I felt like I was running with more aggression, more confidence.”

• A quick word of thanks to Donnie Collins for sending me some of Rodriguez’s postgame comments.

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• Back to tonight’s game in Kansas City: Girardi said he was second guessing himself for not protesting the game, but it was too late to file a protest postgame, and in the heat of the moment, he chose to trust that the umpires knew what they were talking about. “They’re in these parks a lot more than we are and I figured he knew the rules,” Girardi said.

• One other factor in play: Girardi was worried that Mariano Rivera, who was clearly heated in the Yankees dugout, might get tossed if the argument continued any longer. “I was trying to keep some of my players in the game, too,” Girardi said.

• Girardi said he’ll get a rule clarification tomorrow. “You call the Major League office and they’ll know,” Girardi said.

• The home run call looms large, but ultimately the Yankees had their chances to score plenty of runs. They left the bases loaded in the first and last innings, and the heart of the order — Teixeira, Cano and Swisher — struck out to strand two runners in the seventh. “We just weren’t able to get that one big hit tonight to take the lead,” Girardi said. “We had plenty of opportunities.”

• The two home runs in the third inning really cost Bartolo Colon. “I feel good physically,” Colon said. “But I gave up two home runs, and we didn’t win the game.”

• Curtis Granderson hit his team-leading 34th homer of the season, and he’s homered six times in eight games. He’s closing in on Jose Bautista for the Major League lead.

• Jorge Posada turned 40 today. The last Yankees player that was not a pitcher to appear in a game at 40 or older was Lou Piniella in 1984.

• Let’s give the last word on the disputed home run to Gardner, who had a good view of exactly where the ball landed. “I saw it hit the top of the lower pad, go up in the air, and then come back down on the warning track,” Gardner said. “There’s about 8-10 inches of chain-link fence on top of that, then another little pad on top of that. I looked at the replay and sure enough, it did hit that chain-link fence. If that’s not part of the fence, it’s a home run, but then I don’t understand why that little piece of fence is there. It could probably lead to a lot of controversy over the years.”

• Also, check out Marc Carig’s photos of the fence in question. Here’s one. Here’s another.

Associated Press photos

Curtis Granderson and Russell Martin homered, but blown opportunities cost the Yankees in a 5-4 loss tonight in Kansas City. They left the bases loaded in the first inning, the heart of the order — Teixeira, Cano and Swisher — struck out in order to leave runners at first and second in the seventh, and Jorge Posada struck out looking to leave the bases loaded in the ninth. All told, the Yankees were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. They stayed in first place because the Red Sox also lost. Most of the Royals damage came in a four-run third inning when Bartolo Colon allowed two home runs: A three-run shot to Alex Gordon, and a disputed solo homer by Billy Butler. The Butler homer was reviewed and upheld despite multiple arguments by Joe Girardi.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (74-46)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones DH
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 3B
Brett Gardner LF

RHP Bartolo Colon (8-6, 3.31)
Colon vs. Royals

ROYALS (50-73)
Alex Gordon LF
Melky Cabrera CF
Billy Butler DH
Eric Hosmer 1B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Johnny Giavotella 2B
Salvador Perez C
Mike Moustakas 3B
Alcides Escobar SS

LHP Bruce Chen (7-5, 4.15)
Chen vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 8:10 p.m., YES Network

WEATHER: Legitimate Missouri heat most of the day. Not as bad as it could be, but warmer than it’s been the rest of this week.

UMPIRES: HP Chad Fairchild, 1B Doug Eddings, 2B Dana DeMuth, 3B Kerwin Danley

TOO YOUNG: Bartolo Colon has been pitching in the big leagues for a long, long time, but Royals are too young to have much experience against him. The entire Kansas City roster has 30 career at-bats against Colon, and 17 of those belong to injured catcher Jason Kendall.

TOO GOOD: Derek Jeter in his 35 career at-bats against Bruce Chen: .400/.432/.714. Not to be outdone, here’s Mark Teixeira’s career slash line in 16 at-bats against Chen: .563/.556/1.813. Teixeira has six career homers, two doubles and one single against the Royals starter.

SO FAR, SO GOOD: The Yankees are going for their eighth series sweep of the season and fifth on the road. They’ve already passed their sweep total for last year (six). This would be their first series sweep against the Royals since taking a three-game set in 2007 at Kauffman Stadium.

CHAT ON FRIDAY: I always forget to promote these things on the blog! I’m having a chat at noon on Friday. I’ll post a reminder again tomorrow, but be sure to stop by!

UPDATE, 8:29 p.m.: Granderson went deep, but ultimately the Yankees squandered a big scoring opportunity in the first inning.

UPDATE, 8:54 p.m.: Granderson doubles, and the Yankees turned that into a run with Swisher’s RBI single, but another big scoring opportunity was wasted in the third. It’s a 2-0 lead. Could be much larger.

UPDATE, 8:56 p.m.: There’s some of the power you hear about with Moustakas. He just smoked a double off the wall in right-center.

UPDATE, 9:01 p.m.: This is why these Royals are dangerous: It’s a bunch of kids in the lineup, but they can hit. Three-run homer by Gordon, solo shot by Butler and it’s a 4-2 K.C. lead.

UPDATE, 9:39 p.m.: So much for owning Bruce Chen. Teixeira is 0-for-3.

UPDATE, 9:45 p.m.: Rodriguez is finished in Scranton. He went 1-for-2 with a pair of walks and an RBI single in his final at-bat. He played eight innings in the field.

UPDATE, 9:54 p.m.: Another run for the Royals, who are now leading 5-2 and have found a way to do some damage against Colon.

UPDATE, 10:59 p.m.: Yankees have the bases loaded, down 5-3, with one out in the ninth. A chance for some redemption.

Alex Rodriguez admitted last night that he still feels hesitant on that surgically repaired knee. Taking that into account, the Yankees still plan to bring their third baseman to Minnesota, but they might wait a few more days before activating him.

“Our plans right now are still to bring him to Minnesota tomorrow if everything goes OK,” Joe Girardi said. “We may not activate him. We may have him just go through some things for a couple of days and wait a couple of days to activate him. But our plans are for him to come tomorrow, and we could activate him. We’ll see.”

Girardi said Rodriguez will stick with the plan of playing third base tonight, but it’s entirely possible that he’ll initially DH when he’s activated for the big league roster.

“He said he felt good, but he was just tentative,” Girardi said. “And I don’t really think that’s so abnormal because as I said, he ran probably two or three weeks tentative, and you get used to running a certain way. He’s been this way for probably the last eight weeks now, and he has to get that out of his mind.”

Girardi said he’ll wait until Rodriguez goes through some drills with Kevin Long and visits the Yankees training staff before deciding whether to activate Rodriguez tomorrow.

“A couple of days, if you rush, could cost you a couple of weeks,” Girardi said. “You could end up hurting something else. That’s why we want to take a look at him with our own eyes tomorrow and see how far he is away, and see if he’s ready for tomorrow.”

• Freddy Garcia did not throw his splitfinger today, but the Yankees believe there’s a chance he’ll throw it tomorrow. Girardi didn’t rule out using Garcia for Saturday’s start, but it sounds more likely that A.J. Burnett will start that game and Garcia will be bumped back to Sunday.

• The DL isn’t completely ruled out for Garcia: “At this point, if he can’t make his start Sunday, you could definitely do that because it’s two weeks.”

• When Rodriguez is activated, the Yankees plan to drop a pitcher, but they’ll stick with a six-man rotation through the doubleheader in Baltimore. When Rodriguez is activated, the Yankees will carry a six-man bullpen for a few days. “Going to have to,” Girardi said.

• Speaking of a six-man bullpen: Girardi said he could get two to three innings out of Cory Wade and Luis Ayala, and he believes Hector Noesi would be good for about 50 pitches (probably closer to four innings). Distance might be necessary if the bullpen is short-handed for a few days.

• Girardi said he’ll have to check with his late-inning relievers to determine whether they’re available today. Boone Logan, Rafael Soriano, Dave Robertson and Mariano Rivera have all pitched back-to-back games.

ROYALS
Alex Gordon LF
Melky Cabrera CF
Billy Butler DH
Eric Hosmer 1B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Johnny Giavotella 2B
Salvador Perez C
Mike Moustakas 3B
Alcides Escobar SS

Associated Press photos