The LoHud Yankees Blog

Ten points if you predicted this lineup.

Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Robinson Cano DH
Nick Swisher 1B
Eric Chavez 3B
Andruw Jones RF
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 2B

Still no Yankees lineup, but Joe Girardi announced that Mark Teixeira will not play because his right knee is still sore after being hit by a pitch last night.

“He’s still sore today,” Girardi said. “I don’t know if we’ll have him tomorrow. Maybe by the end of the weekend.”

Alex Rodriguez is going through a workout, and the Yankees lineup will depend on how that goes.

Aaron Laffey is in the clubhouse with his name above a locker, so it looks like you can add him to the list of September call-ups.

Jesus Montero could have been here in April. When Francisco Cervelli was on crutches in spring training, the Yankees top prospect became an early favorite to break camp as the team’s backup catcher. But he didn’t earn it. Then he went to Triple-A and put up underwhelming numbers in the first half.

“I think anytime a guy fails in the minor leagues and gets to the other side, I think it’s important,” Joe Girardi said. “I don’t want a player to fail the first time in the big leagues. I want him to have to fight through something to get to where he’s at, whether it was a long slump, or an injury, or whatever it was. I want them to have to really go through a tough experience and have to get to the other side before they get here.”

It’s a familiar idea in the minor leagues. Failure is part of the process, and it’s considered an important part of the process.

“I’m here now,” Montero said. “Now I’m ready. They think I’m ready. I’m not going to tell you three years ago I was ready, because I’m not. But now I’m ready. I want to help the team to win, and that’s it.”

Girardi acknowledged yesterday that Montero could hit his way onto the postseason roster, which means there’s at least a chance that Montero is here to stay. He’s had enough success in the minor leagues, that hitting in the big leagues has been a forgone conclusion, but Kevin Long cautioned that immediate success is not a given.

“The reason I say that is because I don’t think you’re facing Lesters and Prices and we’re about to face Romero,” Long said. “There’s none of those guys in Triple-A. Obviously it helps to have faced and had success against lefties, but these are going to be a little bit different pitchers than he’s accustomed to seeing… Right now, it was more about getting accustomed to your first couple of at-bats in the big leagues.”

So the transition begins, from potential to performance. Montero has another chance to earn his spot. He wasn’t here in April, but he could be here in October.

“There can be a chance,” Montero said. “I’ve just got to do my best over here, talk to everybody, learn from everybody over here on the team. I’ve got to do my best, that’s it.”

Associated Press photo

The conversation came between starts, some time between A.J. Burnett’s nine-run debacle in Baltimore and his got-the-job-done start tonight in Boston.

“When we talked, it was basically me telling him what I’d seen through time,” Larry Rothschild said. “I don’t want to get into details of the conversation. I said, ‘Look, you might not like what I say, but here’s what’s out there. Here’s where I think we have to go.’ And he was great. Really good… I give him a lot of credit for what he did tonight.”

This was the first time since June 29 that Burnett allowed fewer than three runs in a start. He lasted just 5.1 innings, but he made only one critical mistake tonight, and that was the two-run homer to Dustin Pedroia. Other than the first two batters in the fourth, he didn’t let a runner past first base until the sixth.

“I felt pretty comfortable for the most part, new gig and all,” Burnett said. “I was just really relaxed out there tonight and went one pitch at a time. I didn’t miss over the plate a lot. I missed over the plate basically twice, both to Pedroia. My misses were down and even though I was behind on a lot of guys, they weren’t able to square a lot up because of that.”

Burnett’s new “gig” is a slight change to his mechanics. He’s changed where his hands start — both in the windup and out of the stretch — and there’s less of a turn in his delivery.

“Minor changes,” he said. “But major to a guy who’s been pitching the same way for 11 years. I looked at it with an open mind and it felt good… It’s definitely something I can work with. I felt real comfortable out there. I’ve only really been working on that for three days. I’ve been pitching the same way for 11 years, so it’s a big change, but as the game went on I felt more comfortable.”

No sense painting this as the start of a turnaround. It’s one start after two months of disappointment, but it was a glimpse of the reason Burnett got that five-year contract in the first place. He can be a good Major League starter, and the Yankees best-case scenario doesn’t involved finally dumping Burnett to the bullpen. It involves getting Burnett pitching well again.

“We need A.J.,” Russell Martin said. “And I think Larry had a big part in it, just simplifying a couple of the things in his mechanics just to get him consistent in his delivery. And then from there it was just him executing pitches, and we were on the same page for the most part of the game. It was good for him to fill that role against a really good lineup.”

Final word from Rothschild: “The one thing that he’s done is competed all along. Even in the toughest games, the toughest circumstances, he’s competing. That’s a pretty good place to start.”

Here’s Burnett.

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• The Major League debut of Jesus Montero was rather forgettable. The Yankees top hitting prospect went 0-for-4 with a hit by pitch. In his first three at-bats, he ended three innings with a total of six runners left stranded. But still, it was a debut, and four at-bats mean nothing in the course of a career.

“It means a lot for me, for my life,” Montero said. “Thank God I’m here for the first time and the first opportunity that I got to play in the big leagues. It was amazing for me today. After the first at-bat I feel more comfortable and I hit more well. I didn’t get the base hit, but I hope soon.”

• The big base hit, instead, came from the current Yankees catcher. Martin’s two-run double in the seventh turned everything around. Up to that moment, the Yankees had stranded 12 runners in the first six innings. “We just couldn’t seem to get the big hit off of Lester,” Joe Girardi said. “He’s a strikeout guy, so he’s going to sometimes have the bases loaded and get out of it. We got him out early, got him out after five and we were able to capitalize on some scoring chances after we got him out.”

• Terrific at-bat by Andruw Jones to start that seventh inning. His walk came after 14 pitches. Everyone in the clubhouse seemed to mention it at least once. Jones tied a career-high with three walks in the game, something he hadn’t done since 2006.

• Also plenty of talk about the Curtis Granderson catch in the sixth. That was a diving play that saved at least one run, maybe two. Might have been the difference in the game. “The Grandy man,” Burnett said. “He can do it all can’t he?”

• Mark Teixeira has a bruised right knee and he’s day-to-day. No x-rays were taken, and no tests are planned, but Girardi said he’s not sure Teixeira will be able to play tomorrow. Teixeira tried to stay in the game, but after playing defense for a half inning, his knee got stiff. “I couldn’t move,” he said.

• Robinson Cano had his team-leading 43rd multi-hit game.

• Derek Jeter played his 2,405th game, passing Mike Schmidt for the 15th-most games played all with same team. He went 2-for-4 tonight and is hitting .347 since coming off the disabled list.

• Boone Logan struck out the only batter he faced for the fifth time this season, the most such appearances in the American League.

• The Yankees lost eight of nine against the Red Sox in the first half, but since the all-star break, these teams are 3-3 against one another. “We didn’t play very well the first nine games against them,” Girardi said. “They beat us up pretty good, but we’ve pitched a lot better against them and our at-bats have been a lot better.”

• Last word on the Red Sox comes from Martin: “It feels good. I’ve been saying the whole time, I don’t think there’s a team better than the other. Every time we play them it’s one of those things where, the team that plays the best that day is going to win. And today we just played a little bit better than them. It’s going to be like that from here on out. If we see them in the playoffs, it’s going to be the same way.”

Associated Press photos

A.J. Burnett kept the Yankees in it tonight, and after the team stranded 12 runners in the first six innings, Russell Martin finally had the big hit they needed in a 4-2 win against the Red Sox. The win gave the Yankees two of three in this series, and moved them within a half game of first place in the American League East. Martin’s two-run double in the seventh gave the Yankees the lead, and made up for their in ability to hit with runners in scoring position through most of the game. Burnett allowed two runs through 5.1 innings, the first time he allowed fewer than three runs in a game since the end of July.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (81-53)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Jesus Montero DH
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 3B

RHP A.J. Burnett (9-11, 5.31)
Burnett vs. Red Sox

RED SOX (83-52)
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Marco Scutaro SS
Adrian Gonzalez 1B
Dustin Pedroia 2B
David Ortiz DH
Carl Crawford LF
Jed Lowrie 3B
Josh Reddick RF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia C

LHP Jon Lester (14-6, 3.09)
Lester vs. Yankees

TIME/TV: 7:10 p.m., YES Network and MLB Network

WEATHER: It’s been a nice week here in Boston, and the series is wrapping up with a perfectly calm, beautiful night.

UMPIRES: HP Alfonso Marquez, 1B Mark Wegner, 2B Ed Rapuano, 3B Brian O’Nora

ONE-TWO PUNCH: Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson combined to hit .317 (69-for-218) with 51 runs, 15 doubles, 17 homers and 58 RBI in August. Granderson led the Majors in runs (29), tied for first in home runs (10) and tied with Cano for second in RBI (29) for the month.

HIS OLD SELF: Derek Jeter hit .387 (41-for-106) in August, tying Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera for most hits in the Majors during the month. Jeter had fifth-highest August batting average in the Majors, and it was the first time he collected at least 40 hits in a calendar month since August 2009. It was his 14th career 40-hit month. According to Elias, that’s the most such months by a Yankee since Joe DiMaggio, who had 17 months with at least 40 hits.

LEANING LEFT: The Yankees are 28-13 (.683) vs. left-handed starters this season, and they have won nine of their last 14 games against lefties. They are batting a Major League-leading .283 (379-for-1,338) vs. left-handed pitching this season and have hit a Major League-most 59 home runs off LHP.

UPDATE, 7:41 p.m.: One run in that inning, with the bases left loaded and Montero striking out in his first at-bat make the first wildly disappointing for the Yankees. The best thing about it might be this: Jon Lester threw 44 pitches.

UPDATE, 7:59 p.m.: After getting through the first with no real problem, Burnett is now in for the second inning, still with a 1-0 lead after the Yankees left runners at the corners in the top of the second.

UPDATE, 8:16 p.m.: Montero flies to right field to end the third inning. He’s 0-for-2, and if you’re hanging out with anyone who’s currently calling the kid a bust, you should probably find some new friends. Or at least stop talking to them about baseball.

UPDATE, 8:25 p.m.: Burnett is through three. Nothing hit particularly hard off him, either.

UPDATE, 8:45 p.m.: That’s a bomb by Pedroia. He went to straightaway center for his 18th homer of the season — a single-season career high — and the Red Sox are now in front 2-1 in the fourth.

UPDATE, 8:51 p.m.: Burnett retired the next three in a row, but the Red Sox have climbed back in front. Lester is starting the fifth inning at 92 pitches.

UPDATE, 9:01 p.m.: There’s no way Swisher knew how many outs there were, right?

UPDATE, 9:06 p.m.: Another inning-ending out for Montero. This is one of those inevitable baseball moments: Bring a highly touted kid into a game like this for his big league debut, it’s inevitable that he’s going to come up in big spots.

UPDATE, 9:29 p.m.: Teixeira gets worked inside a lot, and he gets hit a lot. That one got him right on the side of the knee.

UPDATE, 9:30 p.m.: Cano’s sharp grounder to third leaves the bases loaded in the sixth. Lots of missed opportunities tonight for the Yankees. So far this game is anyone but Burnett’s fault.

UPDATE, 9:41 p.m.: Looked like Russell Martin really wanted the call on that ball four pitch to David Ortiz. Martin didn’t get it and Burnett is finished, handing the game to Boone Logan with one out and two on in the sixth. It’s still 2-1.

UPDATE, 9:48 p.m.: Logan did his part against Crawford, now it’s Cory Wade to face Jed Lowrie.

UPDATE, 9:51 p.m.: Tremendous diving catch by Granderson. Even when he went into the dive, I still didn’t think he was going to get there. Saved at least a run, and the Yankees are out of the sixth inning, still trailing 2-1.

UPDATE, 10:17 p.m.: The Yankees finally got the big hit they were missing. Russell Martin’s two-run double has given the Yankees a lead in the seventh, and Eric Chavez’s pinch-hit single has increased that lead to 4-2.

UPDATE, 10:59 p.m.: Bruised right knee for Teixeira. He’s day-to-day.

Jesus Montero was leaning against the rail of the Yankees dugout, looking out toward right field. His name is written above his first big league locker, and it’s written into his first big league lineup, an in about an hour, the Yankees top hitting prospect will make his debut.

“I felt like I was dreaming,” Montero said. “Like somebody punched me in the face or something like that. It’s the first time, thank God, it’s amazing for me. This is a great night tonight. I hope I do everything good. I just want to help them to win. I’m here to have fun and to help them win.”

Joe Girardi said there was no hesitation putting him in the lineup. The Yankees have noticed how well Montero’s been hitting lately — especially against lefties — and they wanted to get him in there right away. Pregame, Montero caught Freddy Garcia’s bullpen, and the Yankees want him to keep doing things like that on the side to get acclimated to the pitching staff. Girardi’s still not sure Montero will start a game at catcher, but Girardi was also impressed by video of Montero catching in Triple-A this season.

“It’s just all the things that a catcher has to do,” Girardi said. “All of the things that are involved: Framing, blocking ball, throwing, pitching selection. Those are all things that, he just needed to catch more. He’s young. I mean, he’s really, really young. You don’t see 21-year-old catchers playing every day in the big leagues. You just don’t do it. It was just needing reps, and I thought he improved a lot.”

Girardi left no doubt that, if Montero hits, he could make the postseason roster. This is not a guy called up to get his feet wet or add some depth. Montero is playing for a roster spot, playing for a regular role in this lineup.

“I learned (in spring training) that I have to be patient,” Montero said. “I have to be calm all the time, and I have to slow down everything. It’s the same baseball for me. I’ve got to take it like that, like it’s going to be the same baseball in Triple-A, spring training, Double-A, whatever. Now I’m in the big leagues and I want to help. I want to come to home plate today, have some fun and hit the ball well.”

Major League debut, at Fenway Park, in a Yankees-Red Sox game, in the middle of a heated pennant race. How does a kid like Montero not put pressure on himself, or feel overwhelmed?

“Just go out and be the guy that you are,” Girardi said of his advice to his newest addition. “Don’t try to do too much, just be the guy that you are, and enjoy your first day. This only comes around once. Take in what’s going on around you and enjoy it.”

Here’s Montero.

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• The Yankees are hopeful that Alex Rodriguez will be ready to play tomorrow. “My hope is, yes,” Girardi said. “He’s going to hit some today. And we’ll have a better idea of how it feels.”

• Will Montero DH against right-handers? “That’s something we will decide on a daily basis,” Girardi said.

• The Yankees still have not decided whether to have CC Sabathia start Sunday or take an extra day of rest after his 128-pitch outing on Tuesday. “We’re going to see how CC feels, and we’ll go from there,” Girardi said.

• Raul Valdes is here as a second lefty, but it sounds like he’s pretty low on the depth chart. Girardi said Boone Logan is still clearly the top left-handed option in the pen. “I might even go to a righty before I go to Raul,” Girardi said. “Let’s just see when we get him here and he gets in a situation before we form too much of an opinion.” Reminds me of the Royce Ring call-up last season.

• When the clubhouse was open, the September call-ups in the room were Montero, Scott Proctor, Chris Dickerson and Brandon Laird. The Yankees are expecting Lance Pendleton and Valdes to be here before first pitch.

• If you missed it, the Yankees opened 40-man spots by designating Ryan Pope for assignment and moving Justin Maxwell to the 60-day disabled list. Technically, Maxwell had to be called up to the big leagues before he could be moved to the 60-day.

• Montero said most of his family made the trip to see his big league debut in person.

RED SOX
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Marco Scutaro SS
Adrian Gonzalez 1B
Dustin Pedroia 2B
David Ortiz DH
Carl Crawford LF
Jed Lowrie 3B
Josh Reddick RF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia C

Associated Press photos

Confirmed Mike Ashmore’s report that Ryan Pope has been designated for assignment to open one 40-man spot. Still not sure about the other move, but the Yankees had to open a second roster spot in order to add both Jesus Montero and Scott Proctor.

Lefty Raul Valdes is also listed in the bullpen.

UPDATE, 3:44 p.m.: The Yankees just announced that the second 40-man spot was opened by calling Justin Maxwell up to the big leagues and placing him on the 60-day disabled list (a player has to be on the Major League roster to be on the 60-day).

Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Jesus Montero DH
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 3B

A source has indicated that Lance Pendleton is also getting a September call-up. He’s on his way to Boston and should be here by game time.