The LoHud Yankees Blog

Brett Gardner CF
Eduardo Nunez 2B
Robinson Cano DH
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Nick Swisher RF
Eric Chavez 1B
Russell Martin C
Chris Dickerson LF
Ramiro Pena SS

Austin Romine made his second big league start behind the plate this afternoon, and he caught the first eight innings. He was out there when Bartolo Colon struggled, and he was out there when the Yankees bullpen tossed four scoreless innings to bridge the gap to Mariano Rivera.

But when Rivera entered in the ninth, Russell Martin came off the bench do the catching.

Did Joe Girardi consider sending Jorge Posada out to catch Rivera’s record-tying save? Would he consider it for the record-breaker?

“You think about it,” Girardi said. “We’ve got a one-run game there, and Jorge’s only caught six innings this year. We’ll see.”

Associated Press photo

This didn’t seem like a day to make history. After five innings, it was shaping up to be a low point of an already rocky road trip. Bartolo Colon hadn’t pitched beyond the fourth, Robinson Can had cost the Yankees a run with his base-running blunder, and the Yankees lineup was being shutdown by a 21-year-old kid making his eighth big league start.

Then the bullpen started putting up zeros, and the rejuvenated lineup started hitting home runs, and pretty soon Mariano Rivera was jogging in from the bullpen to tie Trevor Hoffman’s record for career saves.

“It doesn’t depend on myself,” Rivera said. “If my teammates don’t score that many runs, I wouldn’t pitch at all. I have no say about it until I have the opportunity to pitch. I just have to be ready for every situation.”

Of course he was ready. A broken bat. A strikeout. A routine fly ball to end it. The celebration was mild, if it was a celebration at all, and Rivera called it another “ho-hum” save.

“It’s pretty much what Mo’s done his whole career, broken bats and strikeouts,” Joe Girardi said. “… (Save number) 602 is the big one because I think it puts the final stamp on that he’s the greatest closer of all time. I don’t think in this room we have any question, and I don’t want to take anything away from Trevor Hoffman, but when you’ve been around Mo as long as I have, we’ve seen a lot of special things.”

Rivera’s wife and two of his sons are in Toronto. They’re flown here to witness history, just in case it happens. Rivera said he would love to break the record at home, but it’s the nature of his job that Rivera can’t predict when or where it will happen.

“I am uncomfortable,” he said. “I don’t have this much attention at all. I’d like you guys to just leave it alone and be good… Don’t get me wrong, don’t think that I don’t appreciate it, because I do appreciate it. I’m a team player, and whatever happens with me is because my teammates permit it. First God, then my teammates.”

Here’s Rivera.

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• Today’s game-winner was Curtis Granderson’s 40th home run of the season. He’d been struggling since late August, but when the Yankees needed him, Granderson played like an MVP again. “It’s just Grandy,” Girardi said. “That’s what happens. He’s the kind of guy that can carry you on certain days.”

• Of course, the home run that stands out probably belongs to Alex Rodriguez, who went deep in sixth inning for his second hit in his first game back from a week layoff. “When we talked yesterday when I came off the field (after batting practice),” Rodriguez said. “That’s why I was so happy because I haven’t felt that good in a long time. My body feels energized. My knee feels really strong. With that little tape we have in the middle, hopefully it’s not an issue.”

• Rodriguez said he absolutely expects to play tomorrow.

• Rodriguez hit fifth in the Yankees lineup for the first time since September 6, 2006. The run he scored on the homer was the 1,820th of his career, moving him into a tie with Eddie Collins for 14th on baseball’s all-time runs scored list.

• Robinson Cano’s base-running blunder in the fourth seemed very costly for a while. He assumed Colby Rasmus wouldn’t catch Nick Swisher’s fly ball to center — to be fair, I thought the same thing — and he broke from second without looking back. It should have been a sac fly to score Mark Teixeira. It became an inning-ending double play. “I saw him coming and he kind of had his head down,” Teixeira said. “Once he passed me, he’s out or I’m out — one of us is out — and the play is over. It really shouldn’t happen. He knows better, but sometimes you make mistakes and you learn from them.”

• Joe Girardi didn’t have Dave Robertson available, and he wasn’t sure he’d have Rafael Soriano until Soriano warmed up in the bullpen and gave the green light to pitch the eighth. If not Soriano, Girardi was either going to have Hector Noesi pitch a second inning or mix-and-match in the eighth.

• Frankly, it was an impressive showing by the entire bullpen. Scott Proctor, Aaron Laffey, Noesi, Soriano and Rivera threw a scoreless inning apiece to give the Yankees time for a comeback. They allowed a total of one base runner in five innings.

• Soriano has struck out the past six batters hes faced.

• Not such a good outing for Bartolo Colon. “I just didn’t think he used his sinker enough today,” Girardi said. “That’s what I saw was the issue early on. Then he seemed to do better in the third and got in trouble in the fourth. Is he running out of gas? I don’t know. We saw a pretty good start the other day in Anaheim. It’s hard to say.”

• Girardi said Colon was using his sinker away from lefties, but for whatever reason he wasn’t using it inside to lefties.

• The Yankees improved to 40-11 in day games this season.

• Bartolo Colon now has an 8.74 ERA in his three starts at Rogers Centre this season… On the opposite end of the Toronto spectrum, Nick Swisher had a 12-game hitting streak at Rogers Center snapped this afternoon.

• This is the way Phil Hughes explained his back spasms: “It’s happened before,” he said. “It just locks up. It didn’t affect my bullpen at all. I finished it normally, then after that, while I was going to lift, I was walking into the weight room and it just kind of spasmed on me.”

• Hughes has no doubt that he’ll be able to pitch on Tuesday. “I told them I would probably be good to go by Monday, but they didn’t want to chance it,” he said.

• It was brought up to Rivera that some would argue breaking Hoffman’s record will eliminate whatever slight debate there might be about Rivera being he greatest closer of all time. “It doesn’t make me better or worse,” Rivera said. “People are going to say whatever they are going to say, but I feel normal. I have to do my job.”

Associated Press photos

Phil Hughes has been scratched from Monday’s start after experiencing lower back spasms yesterday. A.J. Burnett will start in his place, and Hughes is expected to start Tuesday or Wednesday.

“It was bad yesterday,” Hughes said. “It’s a lot better today.”

The spasms started after Hughes threw a bullpen, and he said something similar happened three years ago, but he was able to make his next start with no problem. He got treatment today and was moving just fine. How do you treat back spasms?

“Sit in a hot tub and sweat to death,” Hughes said.

Bartolo Colon didn’t have it this afternoon, but the Yankees offense picked him up and gave Mariano Rivera the opportunity to pickup career save No. 601 in a 7-6 Yankees win against the Blue Jays. Rivera locked down the win with a scoreless ninth, moving into a tie with Trevor Hoffman for the all-time saves record. Colon lasted just four innings and left the Yankees with a 6-1 deficit, but they came back behind home runs from Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson. Rodriguez was playing his first game in a week, and Granderson had a three-hit day to snap out of a lengthy skid.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (90-59)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Nick Swisher RF
Jesus Montero DH
Brett Gardner LF
Austin Romine C

RHP Bartolo Colon (8-9, 3.55)
Colon vs. Blue Jays

BLUE JAYS (75-75)
Mike McCoy SS
Kelly Johnson 2B
Jose Bautista RF
Adam Lind 1B
David Cooper DH
Colby Rasmus CF
Brett Lawrie 3B
Adam Loewen LF
Jose Molina C

RHP Henderson Alvarez (1-2, 3.09)
Alvarez vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 1:07 p.m., YES Network

WEATHER: It’s starting to get chilly here in Canada, and probably back home in New York as well.

UMPIRES: HP CB Bucknor, 1B Dan Iassogna, 2B Dale Scott, 3B Jerry Meals

KEEPING IT CLOSE: The Yankees have had eight of their past 11 games — including six on this road trip — decided by one run. They are 20-23 overall in one-run contests. Five of their past six losses have come in their opponents’ last at-bat, including four walk-off losses on the current road trip.

COMFORTABLE IN THE DOME: Nick Swisher is batting .385 (10-for-26) at Rogers Centre this season and has hit safely in each of his past 12 games in Toronto dating back to last August.

IT GETS BETTER: The Yankees are 32-16 in the second game of a series in 2011.

MAGIC NUMBER: The Yankees magic number to clinch a playoff spot is six. The magic number to clinch the AL East is 10.

UPDATE, 1:19 p.m.: Base knock in Rodriguez’s first at-bat of the day.

UPDATE, 1:27 p.m.: Three straight Blue Jays hits open the bottom of the second. They’re now up 1-0, still with no outs and runners at second and third.

UPDATE, 1:35 p.m.: You’ve been wanting to see Betances. Maybe this is the day. Colon is getting knocked around here in the second inning. The Blue Jays are up 4-0 and still have a runner at third with two outs.

UPDATE, 1:55 p.m.: So Colon got knocked around in the second, then breezed through the middle of the order in the third.

UPDATE, 2:07 p.m.: Very nice catch by Rasmus, and Cano’s doubled off at second, costing the Yankees a run. They got one that inning, but it’s still a 4-1 Blue Jays lead.

UPDATE, 2:30 p.m.: Colon is finished after four innings. Here’s Proctor with a 6-1 Blue Jays lead in the fifth.

UPDATE, 2:42 p.m.: Rodriguez just smoked a line drive home run to left. It’s his second hit of a game, a three-run shot that pulls the Yankees within 6-5.

UPDATE, 2:57 p.m.: Laffey pitches a scoreless sixth and the Yankees are still within one heading into the final three innings. They’re into the Blue Jays bullpen.

UPDATE, 3:17 p.m.: Granderson breaks out of his slump right when the Yankees needed him. His two-run homer in the seventh as pushed the Yankees into the lead, 7-6.

When Alex Rodriguez came back from knee surgery, he was immediately inserted back into the cleanup spot. This time, coming back from his sprained thumb, Rodriguez is sliding down a spot to fifth in the order.

“It’s more that he’s just missed time,” Joe Girardi said. “Really, he hasn’t played much in the last two months, so I figured we’ll just keep Robbie there for right now, and if Alex gets going, we can adjust our lineup as we see needed.”

Rodriguez plans to play with a ring of tape around the handle of his bat, and that ring will keep his top hand from driving into his sore thumb. He tried it yesterday and liked the results.

“Just to have the authority to get through the zone the way I’m used to is the most important thing,” Rodriguez said. “I think timing takes a little adjustment, but not as bad as the other thing.”

Whether he has that authority through the zone will determine which version of Rodriguez the Yankees have these last two weeks and into the postseason.

“We don’t know what version we’re going to get,” Girardi said. “We might get the version we had at the beginning of the season when he was healthy. If that version is in there, that’s really good.”

• Girardi said it’s “fair to say” he wants CC Sabathia to start Game 1 of the division series, but right now, Sabathia’s not lined up for that game. Getting him on regular rest for Game 1 seems to require that he start next Sunday on short rest, but Girardi said he hasn’t decided what to do with Sabathia leading into the postseason. “We’ve got to see after his next start how he feels,” Girardi said. “You’re asking a hypothetical question and I can’t answer it, because I don’t know where we’re going to be and I don’t know how he’s going to feel after his next start. Let’s just wait and see after he starts on Wednesday, then we’ll look at Friday and Saturday and decide what we’re going to do.”

• Kind of surprising, but Girardi revealed that Sabathia actually asked for an extra day of rest heading into his Sept. 10 start against Anaheim. “I think pitchers prefer to pitch every fifth day, but we’re in a situation where we’ve had some off-days and we’ve had to (give Sabathia extra rest),” Girardi said. “There was a time he asked for an extra day one time, so we gave it to him. We’re just doing the best with what we’ve got.”

• Part of the reason for starting Austin Romine is the fact he faced Toronto starter Henderson Alvarez earlier this season. “Romine saw this kid in Double-A and hit a couple balls hard off him,” Girardi said. “He’s familiar with him.”

• Speaking of Romine, he was studying scouting reports in the clubhouse long before a lot of players arrived at the ballpark. The kid seems to be doing whatever he can to be ready.

• Girardi said Romine’s not necessarily his regular No. 2 catcher. “I’ll look at that individually each day,” Girardi said. As for the possibility of carrying both Romine and Jesus Montero in the postseason, Girardi said, “We’ll worry about that when we get there.”

• Boone Logan was really sharp for a while, but he’s taken a step back recently. “He’s just not quite as sharp,” Girardi said. “He’s making a mistake and they’re hitting it. He threw some really good sliders to Adam Lind (last night), and the one that he hit, he left it up in the middle. Good hitters are going to put that in play and usually hit it hard.”

• With three straight day games, Girardi said he expects some regulars to get time off Sunday and Monday. “I’m going to rest a couple of the guys,” Girardi said. “It is what it is. We’re going to have to give the guys a little bit of rest. It’s not what we want, but our schedule has just been bad.”

BLUE JAYS
Mike McCoy SS
Kelly Johnson 2B
Jose Bautista RF
Adam Lind 1B
David Cooper DH
Colby Rasmus CF
Brett Lawrie 3B
Adam Loewen LF
Jose Molina C

Associated Press photos

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Nick Swisher RF
Jesus Montero DH
Brett Gardner LF
Austin Romine C

The Yankees passed along this announcement from Oklahoma…

OKLAHOMA CITY (Sept. 16, 2011) – Oklahoma Christian University will officially dedicate the new Bobby Murcer Indoor Training Facility on Sept. 23, the latest step in the revival of the school’s baseball program.

OC officials and members of Bobby Murcer’s family will gather to celebrate the opening of the $503,000 facility, named after the Oklahoma City native and New York Yankees player and broadcaster, who died in July 2008 at age 62 after battling brain cancer.

Murcer, a five-time All-Star, was one of Oklahoma’s most famous baseball players. He starred at Southeast High School in Oklahoma City before being drafted by the Yankees. He played briefly for the team during the 1965 and 1966 seasons before spending two years in the U.S. Army. He resumed his Major League Baseball career in 1969 and followed another famous Oklahoman, Mickey Mantle, as the Yankees’ starting center fielder. He played for the Yankees through 1974, then spent two years with the San Francisco Giants and 2½ years with the Chicago Cubs before returning to the Yankees midway through the 1979 season. He played with the Yankees until retiring in June 1983. Throughout his career, he was considered one of the Yankees’ most popular players.

He spent more than two decades as a broadcaster for the Yankees, winning three Emmy Awards for live sports coverage. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2004.

Although he never attended Oklahoma Christian, Murcer had strong ties with many people associated with the university, as he and his wife, Kay, attended Memorial Road Church of Christ, which is located immediately southwest of the OC campus.

OC dropped baseball after the 2001 season and didn’t again field a team in the sport until 2008. As OC prepared to re-launch the baseball program, university leaders asked Murcer to support their efforts, and he agreed to do so. The university scheduled a gala event early in 2008 involving Murcer, which eventually had to be canceled because of his deteriorating health.

Kent Allen, OC’s vice president for alumni relations, is a former minister at the Memorial Road church and a friend of the Murcer family. He wanted to honor Murcer’s memory in a tangible way on the OC campus, and that idea led to the naming of the new baseball indoor practice facility in honor of Murcer.

“We felt like we needed to give honor to whom honor is due,” Allen said. “In the end, he had developed a keen interest in wanting to bring OC baseball back, even better than before. Here’s a man who drove by the university every day, had seen the importance of bringing baseball back to the university, had developed good relationships with so many people on the campus, had lent his name to a fundraising activity and was one of Oklahoma’s favorite sons. It just made sense to name the facility after him.”

Kay Murcer, who lives in Edmond, supported the decision to name the facility after her husband.

“I feel like my roots are here in Oklahoma and I will keep my heels dug in this area,” she said. “I hope one day, maybe one of our grandkids will attend Oklahoma Christian. I couldn’t think of a better way to honor Bobby.”

Chuck White, OC’s baseball coach, said the university is glad to be able to honor Murcer’s memory, because of what Murcer stood for.

“It’s how he handled himself and how he treated other people,” White said. “He was always very gracious, very humble and very engaging. You’d be hard-pressed to find anybody who has a bad word to say about him because he always treated everybody so well. I think that is what drew people to him. He was a very humble individual who never elevated his position because of his profession.”

The Bobby Murcer Indoor Training Facility is located on the northwest corner of the Oklahoma Christian campus, next to Dobson Field, where the Eagles’ baseball team plays its home games. The 12,800-square-foot facility includes 8,000 square feet of workout space, including batting cages. The facility also includes a clubhouse with showers, an athletic training area, a weight training area and laundry facilities.

The lobby of the facility includes photos from Murcer’s playing and broadcasting careers, special wallpaper that depicts various scenes from OC’s baseball history and plaques honoring the 10 Oklahoma Christian players who have received NAIA All-America honors through the years.

At a later date, two seats from old Yankee Stadium – donated by the Yankees – will be displayed in the lobby.

Eighty-seven donors contributed to the project. They will be recognized on a wall in the lobby.

CC Sabathia matched season-highs tonight by allowing 10 hits and four walks. He also matched a season-low by pitching only 5.2 innings.

Since the Yankees went to a six-man rotation at the end of July, Sabathia has made nine starts, seven of them on extra rest. He’s allowed 10 hits in five of those extra-rest starts, something he’d done only once in 23 starts before the six-man rotation became a somewhat permanent situation.

“I don’t think (extra rest has been the problem),” Sabathia said. “I’ve felt great. My arm feels good. My body feels good. It’s just been not executing pitches when I need to. The Lind at-bat, not being able to make the pitch and get out of the inning… Command is the big issue, but my stuff has been there. That’s what’s so frustrating.”

The Lind at-bat was in the fifth, when the Yankees had given Sabathia a 3-1 lead. Sabathia allowed a pair of two-out walks, then he faced Adam Lind with the bases loaded. Lind doubled in all three runs, and when Sabathia loaded the bases again in the sixth, Luis Ayala had to bail him out.

“I still felt good about him getting Lind out,” Girardi said. “Lind hurt us tonight with a couple doubles and a single. I still felt good about it. I thought his stuff was okay, and I thought he’d get him out. He didn’t… I still really believe in (Sabathia). I think he’s going to be great for us and he’ll continue to be great for us. Tonight, he struggled a little bit, but he gave us a chance to win that game. We weren’t able to score after we tied it up 4-4. I still think CC’s going to run off some good starts, I really do.”

Could extra rest be an issue? Sabathia notoriously thrives with less rest rather than more.

“It could,” Girardi said. “He’s going to be on regular rest his next turn, so we’ll get a good chance to see that. That’s just been the way it’s been for us, but we’ll get him on regular rest.”

Actually, to line up Sabathia for Game 1 of the division series, the Yankees might have to pitch him on short rest Sunday against Boston.

“The past couple of starts it’s just been tough, throwing a lot of pitches in a short amount of time. Just frustrating,”

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• After batting practice, Alex Rodriguez explained that he spent the day learning to hit with a ring of tape separating his uninjured top hand and his sore left thumb. He believes he’s allowed to use the taped bat during the game. “We’ve never tried it, but Kevin had me split my hands, and after that it felt really good because I didn’t put any pressure on the thumb,” Rodriguez said. “If it goes well — you know how us baseball players are, we just won’t change — it will definitely alleviate any pain on my thumb, because the only pressure I have is when I press down on the point of contact.”

• Rodriguez took a ton of swings today. He did tee and toss with Kevin Long before batting practice, then he took eight rounds of regular BP, hitting with two different groups.

• Girardi said after the game that he still plans to play Rodriguez tomorrow. Everything he saw in BP makes him think Rodriguez will be ready. “I’d like to pencil his name in there,” Girardi said. “I’d actually like to use a pen.”

• Sabathia’s short-and-sweet explanation of what went wrong on the pitch to Lind: “Just got a ball out over the plate. He put a good swing on it. He had been putting good swings all night and got a pitch he could handle.”

• Sabathia walked Jose Bautista three times. “I didn’t want Bautista to beat me,” Sabathia said. “He’s one of the better hitters in the league, and you never want that guy to beat you in the lineup.”

• The Yankees have lost six of their past nine games, five of their past six loses have come in one-run games.

• Three days ago, Cory Wade had not lost a game since joining the Yankees. He’s now allowed two straight walkoffs, giving up a walkoff homer on Wednesday and Jose Molina’s walkoff single tonight.

• Boone Logan took the loss after allowing a sharp leadoff double in that decisive ninth.

• Until the ninth, the bullpen had been a bright spot for the Yankees. Ayala got Sabathia out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth, Rafael Soriano struck out the side in the seventh and Dave Robertson left the bases loaded in the eighth.

• Eric Chavez hit his second home run of the season… Nick Swisher twice tied the game with two-out hits… Derek Jeter’s 13-game hitting streak ended.

• Brett Gardner stole two bases tonight. He’s been successful in 40 of his past 47 attempts.

Associated Press photos