One Foot in the Pile

             A Yankee lineup that already has diminished power compared to last year's roster took a turn for the worst when two of their best sluggers, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira, suffered injuries that will delay their season debuts till May. During the first spring training game of the 2013 season, Granderson took an inside pitch off his right hand which caused him to have to leave the game. X-ray results later on revealed a broken bone in the hand that will require two months of healing before he can return to the team. The only silver lining is that the injury occurred so early in spring that Granderson should only miss April, but without the proper preparation time its a strong likelihood Granderson's bat will struggle out of the gate.



             Mark Teixeira was selected to join Team USA for the MLB Network produced sitcom entitled "2013 World Baseball Classic". Before Teixeira was able to represent his country, he had a wrist sprain which is projected to keep him out of action for about 8-10 weeks - pinning his return for mid-May, at best. GM Brian Cashman's concern has to be Robinson Cano coming out healthy while he currently plays second base for the Dominican Republic squad. The Yankee front office told the media they have broken their traditional rule of not dealing with players or managers in the final years of their contracts by making a substantial to Cano, who is in his final year of his Yankee deal. With the money the Dodgers are throwing around like candy, the Yankee brass is doing everything they can to prevent the best overall second baseman in the game from slipping away via free agency.



             To make up for the loss of Ibanez, who returned to Seattle, Cashman took a chance on the often-injured Travis Hafner. To keep the lefty power hitter healthy, its certain he'll solely be used as a DH so he doesn't pull a groin or something going after fly balls in the outfield. With an outfield that doesn't display much power, and now with Granderson out till May, the Yankees also brought in former Tigers young hopeful Brennan Boesch, recently dumped by Detroit. There were also whispers about the Yanks showing interest in Derek Lee as a short-term solution to Teixeira's absence at first base, but so far those have only proven to be rumors. Another Derek, Derek Jeter, played in his first game since breaking his ankle in the playoffs and attacked the first pitch he saw for a single. Initially Girardi slotted Jeter in as a DH, but a few games later Jeter took the field at his usual shortstop position and so far has shown no ill-effects from the ankle. Jeter claims he'll be good to go by opening day.



             Another long-serving Yankee returning from a season-ending injury, Mariano Rivera, made the announcement Yankee fans have been dreading to think about for years - this will be his final season! Rivera mentioned he wanted to leave after last year had it not been for the freak injury in Kansas City that tore his knee and ended his 2012 season very early. Instead of having an unfair lasting image of the greatest closer of all time being wheeled out on a cart, Rivera vowed to return in 2013. Later that day on which he made the announcement, Rivera saw his first real game action since hurting his knee in May and caused one pop-up and had two strikeouts in an inning of work. Rivera's health will be magnified as a result of losing Soriano to the Washington Nationals. Rivera's backup is officially David Robertson, who struggled last season when he was initially handed the closer's role. Either way, they'll never be another Rivera.



             The full Yankee lineup hasn't been on display yet this spring with Cano playing for the Dominican team, with the Granderson and Teixeira injuries, and with Jeter slowly getting back into the swing of things (not to mention A-Rod gone till after the All-Star break - if he even does come back this season). David Phelps has looked great in his starts so far, but he's likely to assume the role he had last season of middle relief and spot starting in cases of injury to the starting staff. Phil Hughes experienced back pains which has slowed his appearance on a mound this spring, but he's finally started a throwing regiment. Cashman and Girardi have been giving the minor league position players alot of playing time on the big stage, but so far nobody is making a strong case for themselves as a the sure answer for the Granderson-Teixeira losses, which explains the Yanks bringing in Boesch as an outfield candidate.



              It's going to be a long April.....

Coming Back with the Oldies

             After being knocked out of the playoffs by the paws of the Detroit Tigers for a second consecutive year, and hitting historically bad in the process, the Yankees will be back at again with the old squad for a fresh new set of disappointments for a 2013 postseason run.



             With Hal Steinbrenner's $189 million benchmark in mind to avoid paying major luxury taxes down the road, Brian Cashman had to say goodbye to a couple of recent steadies in the lineup who were in their final contract year. Catcher Russell Martin seemed likely to resign again with the club, but wanting more years than the Yanks were willing to offer, Martin bolted to Pittsburgh to reunite with AJ Burnett's awful pitches in the dirt on a three-year deal. Living in fantasy world by thinking the Yankees were going to give him $70 million on a long term deal to be terrible in the playoffs every season, Nick Swisher ended up in Cleveland for the tune of only $54 million. Eric Chavez, after rejuvenating his career by playing two productive seasons for the Yankees, took a three-year deal to play for the Arizona Diamonds, which is closer to his home on the west coast. Cashman didn't even think twice about not asking Andruw Jones to return after doing nothing in the second half of 2012. Jones would fly off and find himself playing baseball in Japan. Raul Ibanez wasn't asked back, despite coming off of the greatest late-season homerun surge in Yankee history!! Last, but not least, Rafael Soriano, who built up his value in 2012 by brilliantly stepping into the Yankee closer role once Rivera went down, opted out of his contract to seek a more lucrative deal. He would shuffle off to the nation's capital for a two-year deal at $28 million to close games for the Washington Nationals.



             With half the clubhouse gone and many holes in the pitching staff and lineup, Cashman went to work retaining the pieces he deemed most salvageable. Starting pitching was a strong point last season, so the GM brought back the guys who helped make it a formidable staff. Andy Pettitte received $12 million reasons to stay from retiring again. After appearing to be headed back to California, Hiroki Kuroda agreed to play another year in NY for $15 million. Although he had a high ERA and was inconsistent, Cashman also worked out a $7 million arbitration deal to retain Phil Hughes. Hoping Ivan Nova's bad second half was a mirage - the starting staff will likely feature CC Sabathia (minus the bone chips he needed taken out of his elbow that plagued his 2012 season) Pettitte, Kuroda, Nova, and Hughes. Both Pettitte and Kuroda hover the forty-year age mark.



             For the bullpen Cashman also locked down one-year arbitration deals with David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain. As promised, Mariano Rivera did agree to return for another season for a one-year deal at $10 million plus incentives. Yankee fans have to pray he doesn't shag fly balls in the outfield anymore before games since the safety net of Soriano is gone.



             When Ichiro joined the Yankees in the middle of last season, it sparked life into his body after the torture of playing in Seattle over the last decade, and the Jeter-Ichiro combo at the top of the lineup became a deadly weapon in Joe Girardi's arsenal. Wanting more than just a one-year deal, Ichiro was able to get the Yanks to up their offer to two years to keep the Japanese import in pinstripes as he continues his quest for 3,000 hits. With a healthy Brett Gardner ready to go in left, Ichiro will slide over in right field while Curtis Granderson stands his ground in center; giving the Yankees perhaps the best defensive outfield in baseball, though losing power with the departure of Swisher. To help bolster the bench and DH spot, Cashman invited the oft-injured Matt Diaz to Spring Training to audition for the role of right-handed slugger, as well as Juan Rivera, who was a good player about ten seasons ago. For catcher, a light-hitting trio of Francisco Cervelli, Chris Stewart, and Austin Romine will battle it out for jobs. There had been some trade rumors concerning Michael Morse from the Nationals to add some much needed power, but so far there's been no significant additions to help offset the power the Yanks have lost and the farm system doesn't contain any real major league-ready hitting. So then that brings the spotlight once again to A-Rod.



              Already with low power numbers before he got injured in 2012, Rodriguez would miss significant time after a pitch from King Felix broke a bone in his left hand. A-Rod did return in time for the postseason, but he had the worst offensive showing imaginable. By the second round Girardi had to bench the one-time 'Best Player in Baseball', and still highest paid, because he couldn't even make basic contact with the ball. There was speculation maybe his hand was never fully recovered, but then things made sense when it was announced he needed off season surgery to repair a torn hip (after having surgery in 2009 to fix the tear in his other hip). At best, A-Rod wouldn't be available till well after the All-Star break, so to fill the void at third base the Yankees dug into the depths of hell and offered a one-year deal at $12 million to bring long-time hated Red Sox foe Kevin Youkilis to join the other side of the rivalry. Youkilis' numbers have been declining in recent years (a theme with several Yankee players), but the only upside is he would turn thirty-four this season, which is "getting younger" compared to what would have been A-Rod's thirty-eight. Once A-Rod would return, him and his recovering hip would likely serve as the steady DH with spot starts at third, while Youkilis could shuffle over to first to spell Teixeira a few games. The plan made sense and all systems were go, but as usual things got more complicated when it came to the subject of A-Rod.



              At first things were a little fishy when Cashman gave an interview that changed the company's line about being confident in A-Rod's return to the lineup in 2013. Then a story from the Miami New Times broke that named Alex Rodriguez with a number of other MLB players who were receiving banned PEDs from a "wellness" clinic in Miami. The worst of it is that the allegations are A-Rod was abusing these substances in 2009, which was the season he had the amazing postseason performance to lead the Yankees to the World Championship. 2009 is also well beyond the 2001-03 seasons A-Rod previously stated he used banned substances when "coming clean" in 2008. Of course A-Rod has denied these allegations, meanwhile the Yankees are trying everything they can behind the scenes to void the rest of his wasteful bloated contract with the built-in moral clauses. With the Baseball Writer's Association of America voting nobody into the Hall of Fame this season, namely Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds with their steroid baggage, Alex Rodriguez can almost certainly guarantee himself no place in Cooperstown with this second PED bust, pending these allegations are true. Either way, it looks like Yankee fans might not have Alex Rodriguez to kick around anymore, or at least during 2013.



             The Toronto Bluejays made huge additions in the offseason and look to replace the Baltimore Orioles as the Yankees' biggest thorn for the AL East. Another Miami (Florida) Marlins player dump after the whole new stadium attraction went bust, yielded the Bluejays great talent such as Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, and Jim Johnson. In addition, Toronto traded for Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, fresh off the 2012 NL Cy Young, and through free agency got Melky Cabrera, who was also named in that PED article along with A-Rod. The Tampa Ray Rays might've gotten a little weaker with the loss of James Shields to Kansas City, and the Orioles wont be catching anyone off guard this time around, which only makes things tougher for them. The Red Sox added Mike Napoli and a few other small pieces, but overall they're still recovering from the train wreck of Bobby Valentine last season. The Yanks might not be hitting as many long balls this time around, and with the likes of Jeter (healed ankle and all), Ichrio, Gardner, Nunez, and now Youkilis, the philosophy might be changing to a grind-it-out-speedster approach to scoring runs after years of people complaining that they rely too much on the homerun ball.



              Through it all, somehow they always find a way to make it to the playoffs.....

Swept into the Trash

             After a grueling five-game first round series against the Orioles, the Yankees had to report to their ballpark the very next night to open the ALCS against the visiting Detroit Tigers. With the Tigers knocking off the A’s in Oakland two nights previously, the visiting team had the luxury of a day off while the team with the best record in the AL, the Yankees, had no time to rest from the divisional round.

            Despite the scheduling gaff, the Yankees had the Tigers right where they wanted them. With Justin Verlander having to pitch Game 5 of the divisional series, he wouldn’t be available until Game 3 against the Yankees, so the Yankees would have the first two games at home against two Tiger pitchers not named Justin Verlander. In addition, with Detroit knocking the Yankees out of the playoffs in 2006 and last season in 2011, revenge had to be fresh on the Bombers mind. The only question that remained was, “Will the Yankees finally be able to wake up with their bats?” With 2012 MVP and Triple-Crown winner Miguel Cabrera in the middle of the Tiger lineup, the Yanks were going to need to score more runs that the pathetic showing they barely slipped by the Orioles with.

             The reason the Yankees wanted Andy Pettitte and his 19 postseason victories back in pinstripes was for games like this in which the Yanks needed to jump ahead in the series before the Verlander monster appears.

             With CC Sabathia already used from his decisive Game 5 against the Orioles, manager Joe Girardi went to the other lefty to get things started. After throwing a scoreless first inning, Pettitte sat on the bench and watched the offense continue to waste opportunities. With two outs, the Yankees managed to load the bases against Doug Fister and looked prime to put some runs on the board early. The struggling Alex Rodriguez came to the plate, and with the home crowd behind him trying to get his bat to wake up, he lined a grounder which sure looked like was going to be a 2-run single, but instead Tiger shortstop Jhonny Peralta made a diving grab and got the force out at second base. It only got worse an inning later, again with two outs and the bases loaded, Cano was at the plate. Cano would smoke a grounder  up the middle which also had 2-run single written all over it, but the ball hit off the pitcher’s mound, then off the pitcher’s glove, to the waiting hands of Peralta who snatched the ball in mid-air and threw a non-hustling Cano out at first. The Yankees were inventing all new ways to not score.

             Both starting pitchers kept the zeroes on the board and the Yankee offense wasn’t able to put any rallies together from there. Pettitte’s pitch count was rising and the Tigers finally got to him in the top of the 6^th. Former Yankee prospect Austin Jackson lead off the inning with a triple. With one out Pettitte walked the dangerous Miguel Cabrera and choose to go after the left-handed hitting Prince Fielder. Instead of a big strikeout or doubleplay, Fielder singled up the middle to bring the first run of the series across the plate. With Cabrera now at second, Delmon Young, who hurt the Yankees with some big homers in last year’s playoffs, knocked in the 2012 MVP with a double and the Tigers now had a 2-0 lead.

 

             Andy Pettitte had to leave after one-out in the 7^th inning with a 2-0 deficit and no help from the offense whatsoever. The Yankee-killer Delmon Young struck again, this time of Pettitte’s replacement Derek Lowe who served up a solo homer to left for a 3-0 Tigers lead. The Tigers added another run to make it 4-0, and although he struggled in the divisional series and it wasn’t a save situation, Jim Leyland allowed Jose Valverde to pitch the bottom of the 9^th, and this turned out to be the most exciting bottom half of an inning the Yankees would experience throughout their entire 2012 playoff run.

             Valverde and his over-the-top celebratory antics have bothered Yankee players and fans for a number of years, what better way to stick it to him during a crucial playoff save. Russell Martin led off the inning with a simple single and took second base on defensive indifference.  Then the Seattle import Ichiro Suzuki lined a 2-run homer to right to cut the Tiger lead in half at 4-2. 

             With two outs and nobody on, Mark Teixeira managed a walk and also took second base on defensive indifference. With Raul Ibanez at the plate, the veteran who had hit a list of dramatic homeruns for the Bombers in late September and in the first round of the playoffs, Valverde foolishly decided to challenge him. Ibanez had one last ounce of magic in those hands and lofted a game-tying 2-run homer to right which tied the score at 4. With Yankee Stadium rocking, it brought back images of the Yankee Dynasty run under Joe Torre.

              The Yankees couldn’t put it away in the 9^th, so they needed to go to a bullpen that was taxed from Games 3 and 4 from the Orioles series. The best chance for the Yankees came in the bottom of the 10^th. Curtis Granderson, who has been invisible for weeks, managed to work a walk and was lifted for pinch-running Brett Gardner. As he’s supposed to, Gardner stole second, and the Yankees were set up with Gardner in scoring position at second, and Russell Martin at the plate, only needing a single to end the dramatic affair. Martin couldn’t get the job done, Derek Jeter behind him failed too and the game stayed tied.

             It was the 12^th inning when all went wrong for Derek Jeter and the Yankees, and it was probably at this moment that the Yanks lost the series. Girardi was forced to send the rookie David Phelps on the mound to keep the Tigers at bay. Cabrera led off the inning with a walk, and after one out, Delmon Young lined a shot to right which looked like Nick Swisher had a beat on, but Swisher mistimed his sliding catch attempt and the ball fell in for a double. Cabrera had scored and Detroit had their lead back.

             Then Jhonny Peralta, who killed the Yankees with his glove earlier in the night, hit a weak infield grounder to the shortstop hole. Derek Jeter, trying to make the play, got his feet twisted up and while trying to field the ball and ended up breaking his ankle. What was left of the Yankee Stadium crowd was in utter silence and from the body language of Jeter’s teammates, Detroit might’ve well just have been declared the ALCS winner right there. The Tigers brought another run home in the inning to give them a 6-4 cushion. There would be no more Yankee magic in the bottom of the 12^th, the bats went down in order with the Stadium practically empty by the end of Game 1.

             After a short night’s sleep, both teams were back at it again for an afternoon match up of Game 2 which would pin Anibal Sanchez against Hiroki Kuroda. For the first time in Jeter’s major league career, he was out of the Yankee lineup for a playoff game and would miss the remainder of the playoff with his broken ankle.

             Though the rest of the team looked defeated since Jeter went down, Hiroki Kuroda took to the mound and pitched his heart out against a dangerous Tigers lineup. In fact, Kuroda would go to the 6^th inning with a perfect game in hand, before Peralta led off with a single. The Yankee offense was again a no-show and the crowd was growing tiresome of the lackluster efforts by the likes of Robinson Cano, Nick Swisher, Alex Rodriguez, and Curtis Granderson.

             Yankee Stadium for Game 2 also saw a less-than-sell-out crowd for a playoff game and the hometown fans were more interested in booing their players than anything else, with good reason. The Yankee bats struggled to put anything together that even resembled a scoring threat. The Tigers finally got to Kuroda in the 7^th and scored on a Delmon Young fielder’s choice. The next inning, the Tigers put two more runs on the board from RBI singled and Kuroda was down 3-0 unjustly and was out of the game after 8.2 innings of inspiring work. Although a save situation, Jim Leyland left the battered and bruised Jose Valverde in the bullpen and let former Yankee Phil Coke finish off the lifeless current Yankees for the lame 3-0 victory.

             Down 2-0 to the Tigers and heading into the freezing Comerica Park against hard-throwing ace Justin Verlander, Yankees manager Joe Girardi shook up the lineup in attempt to squeeze some runs out of his comatose squad.

             The struggling Nick Swisher, a former fan-favorite who now the Yankee faithful  blamed Jeter’s injury on when he miss-played Delmon Young’s line drive double in the 12^th inning of Game 1, was relegated to the bench and instead Ichiro would start in rightfield. Brett Gardner, barely able to swing a bat since coming back from his shoulder/elbow injury that kept him out for most of 2012, was put in left. The problematic fielding, but quick footed, Eduardo Nunez started at short. The biggest headline grabber was Girardi not starting Alex Rodriguez at third, but going with Eric Chavez instead, who hadn’t much better recently either.

             The enigmatic Phil Hughes was given the ball for Game 3 with the Yankees entire season riding on his unpredictable shoulders. Down 3-0, the Yankees would be as good as gone for 2012. Earlier in the regular season, Hughes had pitched against Verlander and won the game 6-2 in a complete game performance. Months later, Hughes wouldn’t be able to duplicate his effort. With the game stuck at 0-0 in the bottom of the 4^th, Hughes allowed a solo homerun to Delmon Young to start the inning. The next batter, Andy Dirks, walked and something seemed wrong with Hughes’ back. The doughy-around-the-waist Yankee righty couldn’t continue and needed to be replaced by the young David Phelps.

            Quintin Berry begun the Tigers 5^th with a grounder to third base, where Eric Chavez, A-Rod’s Game 3 replacement, bobbled the ball and allowed Berry to reach on an error. Berry would later score in the inning on a Cabrera double and the Tigers were sitting pretty with a 2-0 lead with no fight from the Yankee bats. Although Verlander was throwing up zeros on the board, he wasn’t exactly sharp and left many pitches in the heart of the strikezone. Luckily for him, the Yankee bats were still struggling and they couldn’t do much with his mistakes other than foul them off. The Tigers threatened in the 6^th inning with a bases loaded opportunity and only one out with Miguel Cabrera primed to put the game away. In a nail-biting showdown, Boone Logan was able to entice a hard-hit grounder to Chavez (who didn’t boot it this time) and he was able to turn the inning-ending doubleplay. It seemed as if it could’ve been a turning point to inspire the Yankee bats, but they would go another two innings without any runs. Verlander stayed in to start the 9^th inning with the 2-0 lead, which seemed like 10-0 the way the Yankees offense wasn’t scoring. 

            Eduardo Nunez, a Girardi replacement for Game 3, provided another slight glimmer of success in an otherwise dull series for the Yanks when he battled Verlander with a 1-2 count. The young Yankee hooked a hanger from Verlander over the leftfield wall and gave his team some life with the score now 2-1 Tigers. Justin Verlander got the next out, but with a high pitch count, Leyland decided to go to Phil Coke to finish the game (with still no confidence in Valverde). Coke was able to get Ichiro out for the second out, but Mark Teixeira kept the Yankees alive with a single to center. Jayson Nix game in to run for Teixeira and he would make it to second when Robinson Cano finally showed up in the series and hit a single of his own to left. With the tying run at second base and the go-ahead run at first, it was Raul Ibanez, the Yankees’ most clutch hitter of late, with a chance to bring the Bombers back from the dead. The lefty-on-lefty match up was exciting, and ended up in the win column for Phil Coke who brought Comerica Park to a roar by striking out Ibanez to end the game. It would be Coke’s second save of the series to get Verlander the win. With the Tigers up in the series 3-0 and the Yankees showing no sign of life, they shouldn’t have bothered playing Game 4, but everyone had to go through the motions.

              Mother Nature actually gave the Yankees a small break when heavy rains forced Game 4 to be moved back one-day later, but it would only delay the inevitable.

             Nick Swisher got his right field job back, but A-Rod and Nix were still on the bench for the start. CC Sabathia saved the Yankees hide in Game 5 against the Orioles with a dominating complete game performance, but apparently he used all his bullets for that start because he had absolutely nothing against the Tigers in Game 4. After already giving up a run in the 1^st and the 3^rd to put the Yankees in a 2-0 hole against Matt Scherzer and his pitch-count going through the roof, Sabathia was officially knocked out in the 4^th inning after two 2-run homers surrendered to Miguel Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta. Down 6-0 Girardi lifted Sabathia after only going 3.2 innings in a pitiful way to end a season.

             The Yankees lone run came in the 6^th from a Nick Swisher double that scored Nunez, but Detroit got the run back in the 7^th from an Austin Jackson homer off of Derek Lowe, and then did one better with another Peralta homer, a solo shot this time, off of David Robertson to push the Tiger lead to 8-1 and there was the ballgame.

             For the second consecutive year, the Tigers had eliminated the Yankees from the playoffs, but with this time the Yankee bats showing no fight at all except the one little outburst in the bottom of the 9^th of Game 1 when they stormed back from a 4-0 deficit. The Yankees, who had to fight to the very last day of the season to capture the AL East crown against the surging Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays, and had wowed Yankee fans all season long with the long ball, simply had no hitting gas left in the tank when all was said and done. 

            All that is left is an aging roster filled with expensive sluggers who can’t make a dent once it comes playoff time........