The LoHud Yankees Blog

Not convinced they’ll actually play, but just in case…

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

Due to uncertain weather conditions, the Yankees have postponed tonight’s previously scheduled pregame ceremony to honor the 50th anniversary of Roger Maris setting a then-Major League record with 61 home runs in 1961.

The ceremony has been rescheduled for tomorrow.

The Yankees ask that fans take their seats by 3:20 p.m. before tomorrow’s game. Ceremonies will be slated to begin at 3:35 p.m., prior to the Yankees-Red Sox game scheduled to begin at 4:10 p.m.

Tonight
LHP Jon Lester (15-8, 3.15)
vs.
RHP Freddy Garcia (11-8, 3.77)
7:05 p.m., YES Network and MLB Network

Saturday
RHP Tim Wakefield (7-7, 5.08)
vs.
RHP A.J. Burnett (10-11, 5.28)
4:10 p.m., FOX

Sunday
TBA
vs.
RHP Ivan Nova (16-4, 3.62)
1:05 p.m., YES Network / TBS

In the Yankees clubhouse, Dellin Betances shares a locker with Greg Golson. It’s in the far corner of the room, in a row with a lot of the other September call-ups. Last night, Betances stood at that locker and spoke plainly about a Major League debut that didn’t go as planned.

“My heartbeat was pumping so fast,” he said. “But it was great to go out there. Unfortunately I didn’t do my job the way I wanted to. Hopefully I get another chance, and I’m just happy to be in this situation. Just being from New York, it’s a great thing to do, but I know I’ve got a lot of work to do to get where I know I can pitch.”

Both Betances and Andrew Brackman debuted last night. Brackman pitched 1.1 scoreless innings. Betances pitched two-thirds of an inning, allowing two runs on four walks and a hit batter.

“I was telling both of them,” Joe Girardi said. “‘Try to relax and have as much fun as you can.’ It’s not easy, and we’ve all had butterflies. Sometimes you have a successful first outing, and sometimes you don’t, whether you’re a pitcher or a position player. You don’t make too much of it. Try to take it in. The hardest thing for a player to do in that situation is control his emotions. When you’re having a hard time controlling your emotions and relaxing, sometimes things can go wrong.”

Betances admitted that controlling his emotions was difficult, especially in this city, in that stadium.

“It was definitely hard,” he said. “I tried to go out there and do the best I could, and unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I was happy to get the first one out of the way, and a lot of the guys had my back, so that was nice to hear from the Captain and A-Rod and Robinson Cano. A lot of guys came up to me and (said), ‘Just get them next time.’”

Brackman was happy with his fastball, but his curveball wasn’t sharp.

“Each time we went to different cities – Seattle, Anaheim – I envisioned myself running out of the bullpen,” Brackman said. “Once we got home, I was like, it would be great to make (my debut) here at the stadium. No matter how it went — whether it went good, whether it went bad — it was just fun to be out there.”

Here’s Betances.

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And here’s Brackman.

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—

Don’t forget, I’m hosting a chat today at noon. Hope to see you all there!

Associated Press photo

Bartolo Colon hasn’t won a game since the beginning of August. He has a 5.09 ERA with a .298 opponents batting average since the all-star break, and he’s lost his past four decisions.

The lightning might be out of the bottle.

“When we went into this year, we weren’t sure how many innings we could get out of him,” Joe Girardi said. “There is some concern there, so we’ll continue to evaluate as we move forward… It’s location, it’s movement and it’s some velocity, as well. That’s why there are concerns.”

Colon seems baffled. He said he never looks at the scoreboard to see velocity, and the fastball seems to be coming out of his hand the same as it was earlier this season. Girardi, though, said the Yankees reports have his fastball a couple of miles per hour slower. Girardi doesn’t believe Colon is hurt, and Colon himself said he feels just fine.

“I feel the ball coming out of my hand well,” he said. “For some reason (it’s not as good). I don’t see anything different, I just need to continue working hard to go back to the way I was before.”

The Yankees will have CC Sabathia pitch a simulated game on Sunday, lining him up to start Game 1 of the division series. Girardi said the rest of his rotation is TBA. Earlier this season, Colon seemed to be the Yankees second-best starter, and at times he still looks like a viable option, but his past two outing have lasted a total of seven innings.

“When I pitched against Anaheim (two weeks ago), I threw the ball and had the movement on the ball and the velocity,” Colon said. “There’s no question that I’m going to get it back.”

Here’s Girardi’s postgame press conference.

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• Girardi said that no one who came out of tonight’s game was removed because of injury. Colon came out because he was ineffective. Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira were removed because the game was out of hand.

• CC Sabathia on the decision to throw a sim game instead of make another start: “I want to be on five days going into Game 1, so we’ll do it on Sunday… I think it will be fine. I’ll throw the simulated game, probably 45 pitches, then I’ll be ready to go on Friday.”

• Girardi left open the possibility of using only a three-man rotation in the first round. “It’s possible that you could go with three-man because only one guy would have to pitch on short rest,” Girardi said. “Sabathia, of course, said he would have no problem with that.

• Colon’s explanation of why he fell down in the first inning: “The pitch that I threw to Longoria, I threw the ball and I landed on my heel. My cleat got stuck.”

• The Yankees tied their season-high with 14 strikeouts. They had four players strike out at least twice, including Jorge Posada, who matched his career-high with four strikeouts (this was his sixth career game with four Ks).

• The Yankees also matched their season-high with four errors. It was the fourth time they had four errors in a game this season. In the previous four seasons, they had a total of four games with four errors.

• The Yankees used 16 different pitchers during this four-game series. Only Freddy Garcia, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes didn’t pitch.

• Ramiro Pena snapped an 0-for-28 with his sixth-inning single. He had another hit in the seventh. All told, Pena has a hit in two big league games this season, tonight and June 15 in Texas. Both were two-hit games.

• Andrew Brackman and Dellin Betances both made their big league debuts. The last time two Yankees pitchers made their debuts in the same game was April 20, 2004 against the White Sox (Alex Graman and Scott Proctor).

• Yes, Proctor pitched in this game as well. Random.

• Derek Jeter had his first two-error game since June 2, 2007. It was the 14th two-error game of his career.

• Jesus Montero now has a hit in 10 of his first 14 career games. He went 3-for-3 and reached base in each of his five plate appearances.

• Really impressive start for Rays rookie Matt Moore, who was starting a big league game for the first time. “The young man has good stuff,” Girardi said. “Eleven strikeouts in five innings. I think we saw as high as 97, a 3-2 changeup. He’s got outstanding stuff.”

• An ugly game for the Yankees, and Girardi said it’s easier to move on because of what happened yesterday. “We got down a lot,” he said. “Our guys tried to chip away and we had some opportunities, it was just too much.”

Associated Press photos

The Yankees didn’t need a win tonight, and I guess that’s the silver lining after a 15-8 debacle. The Rays knocked Bartolo Colon out of the game after three innings, did plenty of damage against a series of September call-ups and pulled within two games of the Red Sox in the wild-card race. Colon has now had two starts in a row in which he’s pitched four innings or less, and he’s far from the reliable starter he was in the first half. Andruw Jones had a two-run homer and Jesus Montero had a two-run double, but the Yankees were outgunned from the very beginning. Andrew Brackman made a scoreless major-league debut, but Dellin Betances allowed two runs on four walks and a hit batter during his two-thirds of an inning.

Associated Press photo

YANKEES (95-60)
Derek Jeter SS
Eduardo Nunez 2B
Mark Teixeira DH
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Jesus Montero C
Jorge Posada 1B
Brandon Laird 3B
Greg Golson CF

RHP Bartolo Colon (8-9, 3.81)
Colon vs. Rays

RAYS (85-70)
Desmond Jennings LF
B.J. Upton CF
Evan Longoria 3B
Matt Joyce RF
Johnny Damon DH
Ben Zobrist 2B
Casey Kotchman 1B
John Jaso C
Reid Brignac SS

LHP Matt Moore (0-0, 6.23)
Moore vs. Yankees *This is Moore’s debut against the Yankees

TIME/TV: 7:05., YES Network/ESPN

WEATHER: It was pretty warm this afternoon, but it’s getting cool here at the stadium. Temperatures are dipping into the lower 70s and upper 60s.

UMPIRES: HP Fieldin Culbreth, 1B John Hirschbeck, 2B Wally Bell, 3B Scott Barry

SOUNDS NICE, MAKE IT TWICE: The Yankees won both ends of yesterday’s doubleheader, 4-2, marking the first time they won both games of a doubleheader by the same score since July 8, 2000, when they also won both games of a split-stadium, day-night doubleheader against the Mets by a 4-2 score.

CHANCE TO SWEEP: The Yankees will look to complete their 10th series sweep of the season. It would be their second four-game series sweep, they also took one of those in Chicago. Last year the Yankees swept a series only six times, and they are looking for their first sweep of the Rays since taking four games at home in 2009.

GUEST OF HONOR: As part of the team’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, Felipe Payano, the Dominican Republic’s Minister of Sports and Recreation will throw out tonight’s ceremonial first pitch. On Saturday, Emmy Award-winning actress and performer Lucie Arnaz — daughter of Lucille Ball and Cuban-born Desi Arnaz — will get the honor.

UPDATE, 7:18 p.m.: After Colon’s last start, I talked to a scout who was extremely unimpressed with his fastball. Now it looks like the Rays are similarly unimpressed. They’ve scored three first-inning runs, and Colon is looking pretty hitable.

UPDATE, 7:57 p.m.: Safe to say Colon looks nothing like the pitcher who thrived in the first half. He just gave up a two-run homer to Zobrist and the Rays are leading 7-0 in the third inning. There’s already activity in the Yankees bullpen with Scott Proctor up and throwing.

UPDATE, 8:08 p.m.: Here’s Proctor. Colon lasted three innings, they weren’t good innings.

UPDATE, 8:17 p.m.: Second two-run homer of the inning off Proctor and the Rays are up 11-0 in the fourth. Not pretty. Not at all pretty.

UPDATE, 8:34 p.m.: Aaron Laffey pitching. Ramiro Pena replacing Jeter at short. Chris Dickerson replacing Swisher in right. There are no Yankees regulars on the field right now.

UPDATE, 8:49 p.m.: After four and a half innings and three Yankees pitchers, the Rays have a 13-0 lead with 15 hits. They’ve also walked three times and stuck out only twice. Ugly.

UPDATE, 8:54 p.m.: Andrew Brackman warming. That’s worth sticking around.

UPDATE, 8:59 p.m.: This could be interesting — either really good or really bad — as Brackman enters for his big league debut.

UPDATE, 9:07 p.m.: Andruw Jones goes deep, his 12th homer of the season.

UPDATE, 9:25 p.m.: Betances warming in the bullpen.

UPDATE, 10:06 p.m.: Control was an issue for Betances in the minor leagues this season, and it was a problem for him in his Major League debut. Four walks, a hit batter and two runs in two-thirds of an inning.

In terms of real news, there’s more good stuff down in the notes below. In terms of raw entertainment, it didn’t get much better than Russell Martin’s pregame interview this afternoon. There’s obviously a way we’ve all come to expect athletes to respond when asked about opponents, but Martin pulled no punches when asked about the Red Sox.

“Anything to get the Red Sox out would be awesome for me,” he said. “… They are fun to play against just because they have a quality team, and they’re gritty, and they play hard and stuff, but I’d love to see them lose.”

Why?

“Because I hate the Red Sox,” Martin said.

Fair enough. The Yankees could play the role of spoilers down the stretch, but oddly enough, to help eliminate the Red Sox, the Yankees would have to lose against the Rays. Joe Girardi — of course — said he has no preference in the wild card race, and he said he feels no responsibility to either the Rays or the Red Sox.

“Our responsibility is to our club,” he said. “That’s the bottom line. I have to make sure our guys are healthy and rested and ready to go next Friday… Obviously our goal is to get home-field advantage, and the important thing to me about some of these lineups is that we take care of our guys and have them ready to play next Friday. I’ll rotate some days off with some guys and get them a little rest, but I want them sharp and we want home-field advantage.”

And what happens if the Red Sox hang on and meet the Yankees in the American League Championship Series?

“They gave us a hard time all year, but I don’t think we’re scared of them or anything,” Martin said. “We’ll see what happens. If we play them, we play them. We’ll just have to beat them.”

Here’s Martin. The best stuff is a couple of minutes into the interview.

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• Looks like CC Sabathia won’t be getting 20 wins this season. Girardi said today that the Yankees are likely to have Sabathia pitch a simulated game, but not pitch in another regular season game this season. “Do it that way so you can control the environment,” Girardi said. Girardi said he wasn’t sure when that simulated game would be, but Sunday seems to be a possibility. The Yankees prefer a simulated game because they believe it lets Sabathia stay more or less on routine, rather than forcing him into a bullpen situation or a shortened start.

• The Yankees rotation for this weekend:

Friday: Freddy Garcia
Saturday: A.J. Burnett
Sunday: Ivan Nova

• The Yankees are hoping to have Phil Hughes start one of the games in Tampa next week. He’s hoping to throw a bullpen this weekend, and Hughes said he could have pitched at about “90 percent” yesterday, but the Yankees wanted to play it safe.

• The expectation is still that Francisco Cervelli will not be healthy enough to play this postseason. Girardi said that’s part of the reason Jesus Montero is getting a start behind the plate. The Yankees want to see him back there to help them make an informed decision about what to do about a backup catcher in the playoffs.

• Girardi said he expects to have six or seven regular players in the lineup every day, and he doesn’t see any one player as needing significantly more rest than others. “I think they’ll all get about the same amount of time,” Girardi said.

• No special treatment for Alex Rodriguez this last week: “I think since he’s come back this time he’s hit the ball better and he’s been more consistent,” Girardi said. “He’s going to get his at-bats this next week and I really, truly believe he’s going to be ready to go. When next Friday comes around, I truly believe he’ll be ready to go.”

• David Phelps, Adam Warren and Manny Banuelos will join the Yankees tomorrow, but they won’t be in uniform. They’ll just be here for a couple of days to sit in on meetings and see what it’s like at the big league level. It’s a pretty standard thing that the Yankees do with some young players at the end of the year.

Associated Press photos

Derek Jeter SS
Eduardo Nunez 2B
Mark Teixeira DH
Nick Swisher RF
Andruw Jones LF
Jesus Montero C
Jorge Posada 1B
Brandon Laird 3B
Greg Golson CF