Game 82: Yankees at A's

Yankees
Brett Gardner LF
Derek Jeter SS
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher DH
Curtis Granderson CF
Francisco Cervelli C
Colin Curtis RF

RHP Javier Vazquez

Athletics
Coco Crisp CF
Daric Barton 1B
Ryan Sweeney RF
Kurt Suzuki C
Jack Cust DH
Kevin Kouzmanoff 3B
Gabe Gross LF
Mark Ellis 2B
Cliff Pennington SS
RHP Ben Sheets

Get Off My Mound: The Yankees return to Dallas Braden's mound tonight, but the man from the 203 is on the DL. Thank goodness.
Gardner Leading Off: Brett Gardner is hitting in the leadoff spot with Jeter back in the two-hole. The reason is to split lefties in the lineup.
Send Swish: Although some other candidates may have better numbers, Swish has proven he is one of the best outfielders in the league this season so far, and he deserves the nod. Keep voting.

Read more...

Game 30: Yankees at Red Sox

I still hate Dallas Braden

Lineups via Chad Jennings:

Yankees
Derek Jeter SS
Nick Swisher RF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge Posada DH
Marcus Thames LF
Francisco Cervelli C
Brett Gardner CF
RHP A.J. Burnett

Red Sox
Scutaro SS
Pedroia 2B
Martinez C
Youkilis 1B
Drew RF
Ortiz DH
Beltre 3B
Hermida LF
McDonald CF

Sweep: Yankees go for the sweep and attempt to start the season 5-1 against the Red Sox. A very different start from last years 0-8.
The Italian Stallion: Francisco Cervelli has had a heckuva a week, and even though Posada is back in the lineup, he's DHing which means Cervelli will be behind the plate still getting a chance to play.
Happy Mother's Day: As you may have noticed, the team's around the MLB will be using pink bats to recognize Mother's Day and raise awareness for breast cancer.

Read more...

Can We Make the Pitcher Hit When We Play the A's?

Well Dallas Braden still isn't happy over the fact A-Rod walked over "his mound." He said that something has to happen with A-Rod and that he only plays for the name on his back. He also took a shot at A-Rod's comments, (which had to do with Braden's track record) by saying "I didn't know there was a criteria to play against A-Rod."

Honestly, I wish there was no DH so someone like Burnett can just drill this guy in the ass. This incident happened two weeks ago, get over it. I hope A-Rod crushes a monster 600-foot home run off Braden next time, skip first base and cut across the mound to get to third and spit on it too. And next time you say he only plays for the name on the back keep in mind he just won the World Series and knows what it's all about to be on a championship winning team. So Dallas, have fun trying to crack 10 wins and keeping your ERA below 5.00, meanwhile A-Rod will be on his way to another 30 HR 100 RBI season and crushing bombs in October. So please go join Curt Schilling, and shut up.

Yanks-Sox tomorrow...I'm thinking another gem from Phil "the phenom" Hughes, what about you?

Read more...

Code Breaker

During the game last night, Alex Rodriguez apparently crossed the pitcher's mound on his way back to first after a foul ball. A's pitcher Dallas Braden took offense to A-Rod breaking one of the unwritten rules of baseball, and let the slugger know about it when it happened. After Cano

Image via Wikipedia

grounded into the double play to end the inning, Braden flipped out and started kicking and screaming. A-Rod just waved him off as Braden went to knock stuff over in the A's dugout.

Sure, A-Rod broke the "code" of baseball and I get why Braden would be like, "Hey! Get off my mound!" At least the first time, but I don't really understand the temper tantrum he threw after the inning. I could see Braden doing something like that if A-Rod was stealing signs, but this was a little over the top for something like this. And especially a guy with, as Rodriguez says, "a handful of wins."

On the A-Rod side, people really need to start writing stuff down for him because he's not very good with the "unwritten rule" thing. He slapped the ball from Bronson Arroyo's glove in 2004, did steroids before the official testing, called off the Blue Jays infielder while running the bases in Toronto, and now this. I can see why other people in baseball don't like the guy.

Some other quick things:

• The Yanks turned their first triple play since 1968 in 5-4-3 fashion during the 6th inning of yesterday's game. If you take a look at the video they have on Yankees.com, they have all the different radio and TV calls of the play. I'm not sure if there was editing, but the fact that John Sterling automatically knew it was the first triple play in 40 years was impressive.
• With the team's trip to visit President Barrack Obama at the White House next week, the Yankees released a schedule of events in and around Washington, D.C.
  
• In Fantasy Baseball, my team, A Deuce for the Cuse, is in 6th place out of 12 teams, 137.33 points out of first place. John's team, SwishHawk, is in last place, 196 points behind me. John, however, has channeled his inner Brian Cashman and pulled off 3 trades this week to acquire 7 new players, including Grady Sizemore, John Lackey, Rajai Davis, and Lance Berkman. My team is being powered by Matt Kemp, currently the position player with the most points, and Roy Halladay, currently the pitcher with the most points. Paul Konerko continues to rack up the points and was an absolute steal in the 20th round. Shane Victorino and Chirs Carpenter are holding down the fort for John right now. We should have put a wager on who finishes higher, but I think I'm going to have a tough time talking John into that now.
  

Game vs. Angels starts at 10:05 PM EST with AJ Burnett facing Ervin Santana. Check back for the lineups then.

Read more...