The LoHud Yankees Blog

The Yankees are still uncertain what’s next for Ivan Nova, but they are committed to giving Phil Hughes another turn in the rotation.

Hughes will start Tuesday night when the Yankees get back to New York.

Joe Girardi said he hasn’t mapped out a rotation beyond that night, and what happens with Nova after tomorrow night remains unclear.

CC Sabathia has been named American League Pitcher of the Month for July, going 4-1 with a 0.92 ERA in the month. He had 50 strikeouts, 13 walks, two complete games and a shutout in 39 innings.

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

This story initially came and went without a ton of attention, but now it seems that MLB is taking a serious look into allegations that Alex Rodriguez participated in illegal, high-stakes poker games.

According to ESPNNewYork, Rodriguez could face suspension because he had been previously warned by the Yankees and the league to control his gambling.

“We’re talking to people involved in the investigation and we’re taking this very seriously,” an MLB executive told ESPNNewYork. “Because he had been warned about this before, I would say a possible suspension would be very much in play.”

Rodriguez allegedly participated in a series of underground poker games with several high-profile celebrities.

Maybe the most unexpected bit of information that I’ll post all year… Nick Swisher is releasing an album. Of all things, it’s a kids album, full of familiar cover songs featuring children as backup vocalists. I love hearing about anyone making music, and even though I’m not sure Swish’s album will ever make my regular rotation, I’m glad he’s doing something fun like this. The guy usually has such a hard time having a good time.

Here’s the press release. Swisher’s album “drops” next week.

New York — World Series Champion and Major League Baseball All-Star Nick Swisher of the New York Yankees will be adding one more credit to his professional resume – recording artist. On August 9th, Swisher will release his first full-length, twelve song kids CD entitled “Believe” through digital outlets. A portion of the proceeds will be going to Swish’s Wishes, Nick’s charitable foundation which is dedicated to enriching lives and lifting the spirits of children who are facing vital health issues.

“I had an absolute blast working on this project, but I couldn’t have done it without having a true pro as my producer, Loren Harriet,” said Swisher. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for all of the talented artists and musicians that performed on this album, but most of all I want to thank the kids. They sound amazing and I’m honored just to have been given this opportunity.”

On “Believe,” Swisher is joined in the recording studio by an all-star band of musicians including drummer Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, Melissa Etheridge), bassist Leland Sklar (James Taylor, Phil Collins), guitarist Tim Pierce (Goo Goo Dolls, Michael Jackson) and keyboardist Matt Rollings (Tim McGraw, Lyle Lovett). Special musical guests playing guitar on the album include former New York Yankee and Latin GRAMMY Nominee, Bernie Williams and San Francisco Giants pitcher, Barry Zito. Also accompanying Nick on the album is a group of talented kids ages eight to thirteen years old who sing backup vocals on each song. Included are kids from the nationally acclaimed music education franchise, “School Of Rock” as well as thirteen-year-old Natalie Prieb, granddaughter of Major League Baseball Commissioner, Bud Selig.

Believe was produced by Loren Harriet, who also helmed Bernie Williams’ two critically acclaimed albums.

From Tom Petty and Bill Withers to the Beatles and Three Dog Night, Swisher brings his fun and energetic personality and voice to some of the most popular and most recognized songs in music. Selecting all the repertoire himself, Swisher’s song list includes the David Bowie classic “Heroes”, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, a tribute to Nick’s hometown of Parkersburg, West Virginia and “Hang On Sloopy”, a shout out to Swish’s alma mater, the Ohio State University.

Believe Track Listing

1. Heroes
2. I Won’t Back Down
3. Where The Green Grass Grows
4. Lean On Me
5. With A Little Help From My Friends
6. Everyday People
7. Proud Mary
8. Take Me Home, Country Roads
9. Joy To The World
10. Hang On Sloopy
11. Jumpin Jack Flash
12. Believe

Associated Press photo

On July 1, Brett Gardner was kept out of the Yankees starting lineup against lefty Jonathon Niese.

Since then, the Yankees have faced eight left-handed starters, and Gardner has started seven of those games. He was back in the lineup last night against John Danks, and for the season, Gardner actually has a higher batting average and on-base percentage against lefties than righties.

“I remember I struggled against lefties earlier in the minor leagues but just tried to do different things to improve on it,” Gardner said. “And the last few years, I feel like I’ve gotten better. Obviously there’s still a lot of room for improvement whether it’s vs. righties or vs. lefties, but I’ve improved on it. Still working on some things as far as my approach and things like that, but it’s definitely good to be in the lineup against them.”

Gardner has gone through a few cold spells, but in the big picture he’s been productive ever since that slow month of April. He’s reaching base regularly, and he’s stealing more often (and more effectively). Andruw Jones is still getting at-bats, but they’re coming at the expense of struggling Jorge Posada, not thriving Gardner.

“I’ve just been choosing to DH Andruw a little bit more,” Girardi said. “I mean, (Gardner’s) numbers are pretty equal, but it was a way to get Andruw going, and Curtis (Granderson) was hitting lefties so hard that it was hard to get Curtis out of the lineup… Even on those days (when Gardner sat), I didn’t necessarly want to, but I wanted to get Andruw going and I thought that was the best way to do it.”

Associated Press photo

The record is kind of an obscure one, but it meant something to Mark Teixeira. He’s now homered from the both sides of the plate in the same game more often than anyone in baseball history. It meant something to Teixeira for several reasons, I’m sure, but this one stands out.

One of the players he passed was Chili Davis. The other was Hall of Famer Eddie Murray.

“I grew up in Baltimore, and Eddie was such a great player,” Teixeira said. “And (Eddie) being a switch hitter, I always messed around as a switch hitter in the backyard. I started playing baseball at a really young age in the backyard — just Wiffle ball — and when I had a few swings right handed, I’d switch over left-handed and try to hit one over the fence left handed. So that record’s pretty special.”

The record was a little bit lost on a night dominated by Phil Hughes. You know what else has been a little bit lost lately? Teixeira is hitting again. He’s been hitting for power all year, but in 20 games since the all-star break he’s batting .305 with six homers and 17 RBI.

It’s not one of those red-hot streaks that jumps out at you, but it’s a positive step for a guy who’s used to being a much more complete hitter than he’s been this season.

“It feels good,” Teixeira said. “It just goes back to me getting ready early. I had a bad stretch there, and Kevin Long and I just said, ‘You’re late.’ Just getting down early, getting ready, and trying to put good swings on the ball.”

Associated Press photo

Things are different now. The change happened early, it was impossible to miss it. It was right there on the scoreboard, in big glowing digits. A 95 mph fastball to strikeout Carlos Quentin and cap an overwhelming first inning. Walking off the mound, Phil Hughes looked over his shoulder and saw the number.

“I knew it was coming out good from the beginning,” he said. “I got some swings and misses early. I knew it was good. I happened to glance up after I got Quentin in the first inning and saw 95, and I just said, ‘Alright, I can work with this.’ This is what normally have and what I can normally do. Once I got that confidence in the first inning, I just took that aggressive mindset and rolled with it.”

There’s a reason you’ve known Hughes’ name since he was a teenager. There’s a reason the Yankees refused to include him in so many trades, and there’s a reason they stuck with him after that disappointing month of April and that uneven return from the disabled list: The guy’s good.

He’s been searching for consistency, and that’s been a concern. At times he’s lacked a true out pitch, and that’s caused some problems. He’s been an absolute disappointment this season, and even he knows it. But tonight was everything that there is to like about Hughes, and it’s the reason that the Yankees will most certainly think twice about bumping him from the rotation.

“We talked about trying to get him back to where he was last year, (and) today was pretty close,” Joe Girardi said. “… We have to talk about this. Maybe we stay at six-man rotation through another time. I don’t know what we’re going to do at this moment, but I’m happy with what I saw tonight, and I really liked it.”

For the past few days, it’s been impossible for Hughes to ignore his situation. Ivan Nova’s locker is literally five feet away from his, and yesterday he spent several minutes answering questions about an unsettled rotation and the possibility of the Yankees making a change. Tonight, it was Hughes who changed. He made his case, and the Yankees took notice.

“It really didn’t even come into my mind, everything that was going on,” he said. “It was more of a personal thing for me. I wanted to pitch well. I knew I could be better than what I had been showing, and that was basically it. I wanted to satisfy myself before everybody else, and I’m pretty satisfied with this one and hopefully it’s something that will continue.”

Here’s Hughes.

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• Mark Teixeira has now homered from both sides of the plate in same game 12 times, more than anyone in baseball history. “There is a lot of failure in this game, there’s no doubt,” Teixeira said. “When you can put your name in the record books for something like this? Being a switch hitter is very tough, and this was a nice night for me.”

• Teixeira also became the fourth Yankee to hit 30 home runs in each of his first three seasons with the Yankees, joining Babe Ruth, Roger Maris and Alex Rodriguez. Feel free to read those three names again. Yowza.

• Back to Hughes for a bit: He was at 65 pitches when the second rain delay came. He actually walked onto the field for the bottom of the seventh, with the rain falling down and the tarp already coming on the field. He joked that he was trying to convince them to let the game continue. “I was hoping they just wouldn’t run me over with the tarp,” he said.

• The fastball wasn’t the only plus for Hughes tonight. He was also very happy with his cutter — a pitch that’s been bothering him lately — and he showed an extremely hard, tight curveball. He struck out Adam Dunn and A.J. PIerzynski with curveballs. The Pierzynski curveball was 82 mph. I double checked with Hughes just to be sure. It really was a curveball at 82.

• Hughes said coming into this game that he wanted to be more aggressive with his fastball, but he said he didn’t necessarily mean to throw nothing but fastballs in the first inning. It just kind of happened that way. “I threw a couple of fastballs in to Pierre and Vizquel, and then I was aggressive with Quentin,” he said. “That’s just the way it went.”

• As much as the velocity obviously stands out — Hughes still hit 94 in the fourth inning — Hughes immediately answered “location of my fastball” when asked what made the biggest difference tonight. It always comes down to command, doesn’t it?

• One last Hughes note on velocity: “I’ve always been a guy where I let it all go,” he said. “Whenever it starts to decline, it declines. I felt like ti was still good enough later on. I wasn’t really checking the scoreboard, but I was just trying to execute pitches and I got a lot of early outs in those middle innings.”

• The Yankees did score six runs in seven innings tonight, so the offense wasn’t exactly slumping. They’ve won five straight and nine of their past 12, and they’re 24-9 against left-handed starters this season.

• Russell Martin homered for the first time since June 29. This was his first road home run since April 23 in Baltimore.

• Other than Teixeira, who had three hits, the only other Yankee with multiple hits was Derek Jeter who singled and doubled in his first two at-bats. Brett Gardner was the only Yankees starter without a hit.

• Even though it was a rain-shortened game, all stats count, even the ones from the top of the seventh inning. The game was delayed 45 minutes at the start, then delayed another 57 minutes before it was called.

• A final word from Hughes: “If I could have picked a way that I wanted to pitch, this would be it.”

Associated Press photos

Tonight’s game has been called because of rain. In the shortened game, Phil Hughes made his case, and it was compelling. With his rotation spot on the line, Hughes fired six shutout innings and showed his best fastball velocity of the year in a 6-0 Yankees win against the White Sox. Russell Martin and Mark Teixeira both homered — Teixeira twice — but it was Hughes who stole the show with a dominant outing that made a strong case that he belongs in the rotation, or at least deserves another start before making a change.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (65-42)
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 Phil Hughes (1-3, 8.24)
Hughes vs. White Sox

WHITE SOX (52-55)
Juan Pierre LF
Omar Vizquel 3B
Carlos Quentin DH
Adam Dunn 1B
Alexi Ramirez SS
A.J. Pierzynski C
Alex Rios CF
Alejandro De Aza RF
Gordon Beckham 2B

LHP John Danks (4-8, 3.79)
Danks vs. Yankees

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

WEATHER: Wind blowing left to right, but that’s not what you notice here today. It’s really hot (heat index well over 100) and the clouds are starting to roll in (good chance of storms tonight).

UMPIRES: HP Ted Barrett, 1B Brian Runge, 2B Marvin Hudson, 3B Tim McClelland

WHAT’S LEFT: The Yankees are 23-9 against left-handed starters this season, and they’ve won 11 of the last 13 – and 18 of their last 20 – against lefties. They are batting .281 against left-handed pitching this season, which is the second-highest in the Majors behind Cincinnati-.290. Their 43 homers off LHP is tied with Arizona for most in the Majors.

PHIL HAS ONE OF THOSE: Yankees starters have combined to account for 52 of the team’s 65 victories this season. That’s 80 percent. It’s the most wins by a starting staff in the Majors this season.

ROAD RELIEF: Yankees relievers in their past six road games: 12.2 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 3 BB, 20 K.

UPDATE, 9:23 p.m.: A guy named Mike just showed up, tried to fix my wireless internet, decided it was broken beyond repair, and gave me a ethernet cord that appears to stretch about 20 feet to the wall behind me. Whatever it is, it’s actually working now.

So, here’s the situation that matters: The Yankees are up 2-0 in the top of the third. They got there because Russell Martin homered in the second and Robinson Cano had an RBI double in the first. Most significant is the fact Phil Hughes’ fastball has been 93-95 through the first two innings, with a lot of 94s and 95s.

UPDATE, 9:28 p.m.: Make that 4-0 Yankees on a two-run homer by Mark Teixeira.

UPDATE, 9:56 p.m.: Hughes is clearly not going to give up his rotation spot without a fight. This has been quite the display through four innings. He’s allowed two hits, walked none and struck out four.

UPDATE, 10:39 p.m.: That’s the 12th time in his career that Mark Teixeira has homered from both sides of the plate in the same game. That’s a new Major League record. He has 31 homers this season. It’s a 5-0 game.

UPDATE, 10:52 p.m.: As soon as the Yankees wrapped up a two-run top of the seventh, the rain started falling and the tarp came immediately onto the field. We’re in a rain delay, and if not for the completely unnecessary rain delay at the beginning of the game, we’d be done by now.

By the way, after a long top of the seventh and now a rain delay, Hughes might be finished. If he is, that’s six scoreless innings, all of them very impressive.

UPDATE, 11:14 p.m.: The rain has finally died down a little, but for a while there, it was raining as hard as I’ve ever seen. Pretty impressive really. The fact that it’s “died down” and is still raining really hard says a lot.

Today’s pregame topic of discussion was pretty much the same as yesterday’s: What happens to Phil Hughes after tonight’s start? What happens if he pitches well? What happens if he struggles? Where would he go if he lost his spot in the rotation?

Joe Girardi’s answer to all of the above was basically the same: Wait and see.

“There’s a lot of things we gotta talk about,” Girardi said. “The best thing that could happen is that he pitches really well, and then we have a tough decision to make in what we’re going to do. There are some different scenarios. (Ivan) Nova really hasn’t pitched out of the bullpen as much, and we’re going to need a starter August 27 when we go to Baltimore, so you want someone built up. There are some things after today and tomorrow we’re going to have to talk about.”

Hughes has been hit-and-miss since he came off the disabled list. He’s had one really good start, one really bad start, and two so-so starts full of ups and downs. Nova was very good in his return from Triple-A, and he’ll get another start on Thursday to further plead his case.

When the Yankees cut their rotation down to five starters, the most obvious changes would involved Hughes to the bullpen or Nova back to Triple-A. Girardi hasn’t said those are his top options, but he does talk a lot about Hughes’ bullpen experience and the Yankees desire to have someone stretched out for that Baltimore double header.

“What I am saying is that you gotta have someone built up,” Girardi said. “Maybe it’s not even someone here to make that start on the 27th. We’re going to do what’s best for everyone involved, what we think is best for people’s futures, what’s best for this team now, and what’s best for this team in the future. I’m not saying one of them would necessarily go down.”

Basically, anything is possible. Both Hughes and Nova seem to know and accept that.

“I thought (Hughes) made some progress his last start,” Girardi said. “But I think his stuff can even get better. He can give us more distance. His curveball wasn’t as sharp in his last start. CC’s slider wasn’t as sharp (last night) as it’s been, but when it’s Phil, we gotta get this guy on a roll, too. He’s had his struggles this year, so more red flags go up. His curveball wasn’t as sharp and we gotta get that going… It’s something that we have to talk about. You watch how he throws tonight, and you just have to talk about it and decide what’s best for everyone involved.”

• Derek Jeter gave his usual, as-expected responses when asked about his finger. He said it’s fine. He didn’t test it before getting to the ball park today. He feels ready to go. You can pretty much fill in the rest.

• The forecast is no good. No good at all. Word is that the Yankees and White Sox would play a regular double header tomorrow if today’s game is rained out (not a split double header). So far, there’s no rain, but the sky is starting to get a little bit dark.

• Has this rotation situation gotten in Hughes’ head? “I haven’t really noticed it,” Girardi said. “But we pay attention to it if a guy’s trying to do something out there. I haven’t really noticed it.”

• Has it been tough to get Rafael Soriano innings since he came back? “It hasn’t been tough,” Girardi said. “We him in on Saturday. It would be a good thing if we needed him tonight. It hasn’t really been tough… We still want to continue to develop the arm strength, he’s had five appearances (counting rehab), but I think more would be beneficial for him.”

• Alex Rodriguez is still on schedule to begin rehab work on Thursday.

• It seems clear that Brett Gardner has lost platoon status and is now playing pretty much every day regardless of lefty/righty. “It is hard to take him out,” Girardi said. “Even on those days (when he used to sit), I didn’t necessarly want, to but I wanted to get Andruw going and I thought that was the best way to do it.

• Manny Banuelos makes his Triple-A debut tonight, and obviously the Yankees will be paying attention. “We’re looking at anyone and everyone who we feel can help us down this last 50 games or whatever we have left,” Girardi said.

WHITE SOX
Juan Pierre LF
Omar Vizquel 3B
Carlos Quentin DH
Adam Dunn 1B
Alexi Ramirez SS
A.J. Pierzynski C
Alex Rios CF
Alejandro De Aza RF
Gordon Beckham 2B

Associated Press photos