The LoHud Yankees Blog

Bartolo Colon again eased concerns about whether he’s going to hold up. The 38-year-old righty has followed two straight bad starts with two straight strong starts. This time, he gave up two runs, eight hits and one walk over seven in the 7-5 win over the A’s. He’s 7-6 with a 3.29 ERA. And this was his first post-All-Star-break win since 2005.

“I thought he looked really good today,” Joe Girardi said. “… I thought he threw the ball well. He gave us distance.”

Colon said his slider was working, and that he had worked hard in the bullpen before the game with pitching coach Larry Rothschild.

David Robertson, on the other hand, wasn’t so good for a change. He said he was irritated with himself after allowing two runs on three doubles and only getting two outs in the eighth. In his defense, it was raining at the time and he had trouble with his grip on the ball. He had yielded just two earned runs in his previous 26 appearances.

“Well now I know that you’re human,” Girardi told him after the game.

“Because he’s been so good for us,” Girardi added. “You haven’t seen him have a blip like that. It’s really strange.”

Mariano Rivera came on for a four-out save. He got the last out in the eighth with two pitches, but he was shaky in the ninth, allowing four straight singles to cut it to 7-5. Only one was a line drive, Josh Willingham’s RBI to left. But then David DeJesus lined to Mark Teixeira for an unassisted double play. And Rivera had extended his major-league record to 15 straight seasons of at least 25 saves.

“I’d be surprised if someone could outdo that record,” Girardi said. “You think of the closers that have come along. That’s one of those records that I don’t think someone will break.”

Rivera isn’t a big stat guy.

“When you play for a team like the New York Yankees, you’re going to have opportunities,” Rivera said. “I try to do my job and help the team as much as I can. Yeah, 25, that’s good. But I just want to win ballgames.”

This was the first time Rivera had given up a run at home this season, having started with 22 straight scoreless appearances, three short of the record.

*Curtis Granderson hit his team-high 27th homer, three less than his career high and three more than last year. It was his 11th homer off a lefty, extending his career high. He made an adjustment in the cage before the game with Kevin Long after going hitless in the first two games of the series.

*Russell Martin showed off his athleticism again, not only leaping for a relay and then tagging out a runner at the plate but also stealing second, setting up a run. He leads all catchers in steals with eight, the third most by a Yankees catcher in the last 50 years. Girardi has the most with 13 in 1996.

*Seattle comes in now for the start of a three-game series. The Mariners have lost a franchise-record 15 in a row. Freddy Garcia and lefty Jason Vargas are Monday night’s starters.

After his 1-2-3, two-K eighth to get the game to Mariano Rivera for a 1-2-3 ninth in Sunday’s 6-4 win over the Rockies, David Robertson had given up only one earned run over his last 18 appearances. That dated to May 17 and included just nine hits allowed and 30 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings. His ERA for the season is a tiny 1.15 over 34 outings. He has fanned 50 in 31 1/3, although he has walked 20.

Robertson has moved up from the sixth and then the seventh after the injuries to the original eighth-inning guy, Rafael Soriano, and then Joba Chamberlain. Soriano could be back after the All-Star break from his elbow inflammation. But following this latest game, Nick Swisher endorsed Robertson for the permanent eighth-inning job.

“I’m not taking credit from anybody, but that’s the spot he should be in,” Swisher said. “He’s proven that. The numbers show that. He’s one of my good buddies. I’m so excited that he’s starting to get a lot of the credit that he deserves.”

I agree with Swisher. I can’t see going back to Soriano for the eighth no matter how much he’s making when Robertson is doing this well, and especially since Soriano wasn’t having a steady season when he went down. He checked out with a 5.40 ERA over 16 appearances.

Your thoughts?

While Joba Chamberlain and Phil Hughes were throwing their first official bullpen of the spring, Andy Pettitte followed the lead of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez. He stayed off the mound on Friday and will wait a few days before he starts his spring training throwing schedule.

“My body’s feeling good,” Pettitte said. “Everything feels good coming into the spring. I feel real good about that.”

Pettitte said the extra workload of the playoffs shouldn’t bother him because the Yankees did a good job of keeping their three-man, postseason rotation well rested at the end of the regular season. He feels fresh, and he was happy to see the team add another durable arm in Javier Vazquez. Those two had never met another until this winter, but they’ve already played golf together.

“You can’t ever have enough pitching, and not only is he a great pitcher, he’s a quality human being,” Pettitte said. “He’s going to be great here.”

• Joe Girardi on whether he’ll carry two lefties in the bullpen: “In a perfect world, you’d like to have two lefties. Last year we went with one lefty most of the time, and we were able to do it. We believe that our right-handers get left-handers out very well. You look at what Robertson did down there getting left-handers out, he was very successful. But in a perfect world, you’d love to have two because it gives you so many more options.”

• What’s the first thing Girardi looks for in his pitchers during spring training? “To me early, I want to see command of the fastball,” he said. “That’s extremely important. And that you pitch inside effectively. That’s important to us with all of our pitchers.”

• Yogi Berra was in the clubhouse this morning.

• Add David Winfree to the list of outfielders who have popped into the clubhouse. I really wish I could have covered him in Scranton. I went to say hello and it turned into a five minute conversation. Very easy to talk to. Also, he’s a big dude. I have absolutely no trouble believing he can hit a few balls out of the park. And he’s really excited about being a Yankee. He talked about the prestige of wearing the pinstripes.

• Greg Golson was also around for a little bit this afternoon. He popped in and out a few days ago, but I wasn’t sure it was him. This time I said hello, and Golson said he has something to prove after two teams sent him elsewhere. He was a lot like Winfree, very easy to talk to, seems to be out to prove himself. This could be a good situation for him because of that spot on the 40-man.

• Kind of a funny line from Girardi, asked if anything jumped out this early in camp: “A lot of good arms in camp. You look at some of the sizes of these guys. Those are some pretty intimidating figures on the mound. I need a step stool to go talk to them.” He didn’t name names, but I’m thinking Jason Hirsh, Andrew Brackman, Grant Duff, Jonathan Albaladejo and Romulo Sanchez.

• Finally met Kyle Higashioka and Jeremy Bleich today. They’ve been around, but I hadn’t said hello. For the record, their names are  pronounce He-ga-she-oh-ka and Bly-sh.

• Pitchers who threw in the bullpen today:
First group: Chamberlain, Garcia, Hughes, Ramirez
Second group: Igawa, Melancon, Logan, Moseley
Third group: McAllister, Nova, Whelan
Fourth group: Bleich, De La Rosa, Mitchell, Noesi

• Like yesterday, I only wrote down the catchers for the first group: Posada caught Chamberlain, Rivera caught Garcia, Montero caught Hughes and Romine caught Ramirez.

• In the picture up top, Girardi and Dave Eiland are on the far left of the group of coaches watching pitchers get loose.