Yankees baseball blog

Gardner favored to start in center

Brian Bruney walked through the Yankees' clubhouse yesterday toward a rear door when he spotted Brett Gardner holding court with reporters.

"Did you just get cut?" Bruney asked Gardner, who has been in a camp-long competition with Melky Cabrera for the starting center field job.

Gardner smiled and said something about having a back-and-forth with Bruney about his inability to retire Philadelphia's Matt Stairs, who has spanked the reliever this spring.

If Gardner, 25, is cut it would be a colossal upset, since many believe he will be named the starter tomorrow when Joe Girardi would like to announce his Opening Day roster. Continue

A.J. continues solid spring

 It didn't have the intensity of a typical Yankees-Red Sox game, but the 7-1 win over their hated rivals left plenty of things for the Bombers to be excited about.

A.J. Burnett  who is 5-0 with a 2.56 ERA in his career against Boston, allowed one run on three hits and two walks in 5-2/3 innings, striking out four. He threw 82 pitches, 49 for strikes, extending his pitch count as high as any Yankees tarter has this spring. Continue

Nady counted on to offer righthanded power

In their search for righthanded power in the absence of Alex Rodiguez, the Yankees hope X marks the spot.

Xavier Nady, the Yankees' rightfielder, may be the star-laden team's most under-the-radar regular player. But with A-Rod out until mid-May after hip surgery, Nady might just become front and center in the lineup - especially against lefthanders, whom he has hit to a .308 career clip.

Consider this: The Yankees' projected Opening Day lineup - if you give Brett Gardner the starting nod in centerfield - includes four lefthanded batters, two switch hitters and three righthanded batters, two of whom (Derek Jeter and Cody Ransom) are not power hitters. Continue

Posada thinks he is on the right track

Three different times, a Yankee minor-leaguer broke for second base. All three times, the bag was swiped successfully.

Jorge Posada bounced one throw and another sailed a bit wide, but he hardly was concerned with the end results of those stolen-base attempts. He simply was elated for the opportunity again to be making such throws under game conditions.

Posada caught Andy Pettitte for five innings Friday in a minor-league intrasquad game, but the Yankees' $52.4 million catcher felt there was nothing minor about the latest step he took in his return from season-ending shoulder surgery last July. Continue

For Hideki Matsui, playing the outfield for Yankees is out until June

 Hideki Matsui homered, doubled and drove in four runs on Tuesday night, but the fact that he was playing in his fourth consecutive game was far more important than his stat line. Matsui, coming off left knee surgery, has played in eight games this spring without any problems, although Joe Girardi admits that he will probably have concerns for most of the season. Continue

A.J. sharp in Yankee debut

A.J. Burnett threw two crisp, scoreless innings in his spring debut Sunday, holding the Tigers to one hit in the Yankees' 12-3 win. "It felt good to finally throw for this club, get out there and face some hitters," Burnett said. "I had a lot of bullpens, simulated games and BPs, so it was fun to get out there in live action."

Having watched Joba Chamberlain and Chien-Ming Wang each make two starts before he made his first, Burnett joked that he started thinking, "What did I sign for?" But once he took the mound at Joker Marchant Stadium, it was abundantly clear why the Yankees shelled out $82.5 million over the next five years for the 32-year-old righthander. Continue

Wang back on mound

 The last time Chien-Ming Wang pitched against the Astros - against any team, for that matter - he suffered a foot injury that wrecked his 2008 season and helped send the Yankees spinning, too. So when Wang climbed the mound at Osceola County Stadium Monday, the outing was fraught with more meaning than most spring training starts.

But there were no flashbacks to June 15, no grim views of Wang limping after tearing a tendon and spraining the Lisfranc ligament in his right foot while running the bases in Houston. Wang did not bat - the Yankees called the Astros to ask that the designated hitter be used for the game, which normally would be played under National league rules - and he completed a two-inning stint without incident. Continue

Gardner early lead in center

Brett Gardner doesn't quite fit the mold of legendary Yankee center fielders of the past such as Joe Dimaggio, Mickey Mantle or even Bernie Williams.

But if the first three games of spring training are any indication, the 25-year-old might find himself manning what is arguably the most famous position in sports when the season opens on April 6.

Gardner, who homered on his first swing of the spring on Wednesday, went 2-for-2 with a walk, two stolen bases and a run scored in the Yankees' 5-4 loss to Twins yesterday at Hammond Stadium. Continue

One year later things are different for Hughes

What a difference a year makes for Phill Hughes.

A year ago, Hughes was locked in as one of the Yankees' five starters, one of three young pitchers the Bombers were counting on to return them to another October.

Thursday, Hughes took the ball to start the home opener at Steinbrenner field.

"I got to start a game, so it felt like last spring training," Hughes said. "I'm just going about it the same way I always have. It doesn't feel too different." Continue

A-Rod homers, rides with cousin mule

On the most positive day he has experienced in almost three weeks, Alex Rodriguez managed to add fuel to the steroid scandal he desperately wants to vanish.

As he predicted to p.r. man Jason Zillo before the game, Rodriguez homered - in his second at-bat - against the Blue Jays and turned a negative reaction from the Dunedin Stadium crowd into a positive.

Then, after meeting with reporters and signing autographs outside the Yankees' clubhouse, Rodriguez strolled to a maroon SUV with two unidentified men who didn't have credentials. Continue