Nunez to the DL

The Yankees list of wounded has increased again as they have placed Eduardo Nunez on the DL today due to his left ribcage issue, the team announced. Infielder Alberto Gonzalez will be recalled from Triple-A to take his roster spot. Mark Teixeira has been transferred to the 60-day DL to clear a 40-man roster spot.
The problem was thought to be minor but it ha lingered and the Yankees would like to have a backup infielder, the good news though is that its retroactive to last Sunday so hopefully he only has to spend a little more than a week on the DL. The Yankees acquired Gonzalez a few days ago in a trade with the Cubs for a player to be named later or cash considerations. The Tex thing isn't a huge deal as at this point he wasn't likely to come back until June anyway and just started swinging a bat.

Now is the spring training of our discontent

Well Mark Teixeira is going to miss 8-10 weeks with a tendon sprain in his wrist and he will join Curtis Granderson and Alex Rodriguez as the Yankees on the Disabled list to start the year. The Yankees lineup was already going to be lacking the power that we have been accustomed to and now  the Yankees opening day lineup will feature only three men who qualify as "power bats"; Youkilis, Cano and Hafner. That is putting a lot of pressure on the remaining hitters and especially on the pitching staff to try and carry the team through the first month as at this point the Yankees are unlikely to acquire an impact bat at this point. The biggest issue is that traditionally the Yankees have had great benches, with lots of depth and then this year they have a bad bench with poor depth and it has hurt them.
Some people have decided to write off the season, despite the fact that the season has not even started yet. The Yankees probably will look to acquire a piece, but Brian Cashman stated that he would like to acquire a piece that can display some versatility and so he wants a guy who can continue to play after the return of Teixeira or someone that they can potentially drop. Justin Morneau's name has been thrown around, but Cashman indirectly disputed this rumor, by saying that the player would need to be versatile and his $14 million salary wouldn't be cut or moved easily. That being said Morneau may be the best option as we do not know if this injury could keep Tex out longer than his current timetable suggested as Jose Bautista suffered a similar injury in mid July and it kept him out for the rest of the season. Remember Gardner was only supposed to miss two weeks and he didn't return until September, I'm not trying to say that that's what will happen with Tex but you just don't know what will happen as the season progresses. The Yankees will likely acquire a player to try and fill the void, but as of now we don't know the quality of the player, but it will need to be somebody better than Dan Johnson.

Andy Pettitte will pitch for Team USA in WBC

Update 1/17 So in the end Pettitte was not on the roster, leaving just Texeira as the only Yankee on Team USA's WBC roster.

Andy Pettitte will be part of the Team USA pitching staff during the World Baseball Classic in March. He will be joined in the rotation by R.A Dickey and Ryan Vogelsong. He will be joined by fellow Yankee Mark Teixeira, as well as numerous other MLB stars. Jon a list of the Heyman has a list of the current roster, but I have to figure its not final as there is no current short stop. I'm not sure when Joe Torre will announce the final roster.
Its a little surprising that the Yankees are willing to let Pettitte pitch considering his age, but they must trust him to be able to handle the workload. Robinson Cano will play for Team Domincan Republic, but past that no their Yankees have announced their participation.

Update 1/14
Apparently Francisco Cervelli will play for Team Italy, he played for them in 2009. Also full rosters will be submitted on Thursday.

10/4 A True Yankee Podcast

Playoffs baby! Yankees are in the playoffs and Chris and I say who is going to win each series and the regular season awards. We also talk about the Yankees vs Red Sox series and the return of Brett Gardner and Mark Teixeira

Mark Teixeira out 10-14 days and Melky Mesa called up

So that sucks but the Yankees need to win despite Mark being out. Also if you were unaware Melky Mesa is a outfielder for the Yankees who primarily played in Double A this season but had been up with the Tripe A Yankees before they were eliminated from the playoffs. Mesa will probably be a defensive replacement and pinch hitter/runner. Although I would like to see them use him against a left hander over Andruw Jones who has been terrible and Mesa does have 23 homers on the year in the minors.

Jerry Meals and thoughts on the Baltimore series

Jerry Meals is blind

The Yankees split the series against the Orioles when they won 13-3 Sunday behind a offensive surge and a great performance from the bullpen. But the thought on every Yankees fans mind is that the Yankees were cost a game because of Jerry Meals horrendous call at first base when he called Mark Teixeira out when he clearly beat the throw. In my mind, which is probably biased, its one of the worst calls of the last three years behind only the Armado Galarraga call and the Jerry Meals 19th inning call. Apparently after Saturdays game Joe Girardi and Joel Sherman, the Yankees writer from the New York Post, got into a screaming match over something, we don't know what. But in the Sunday edition of the Post, Sherman wrote a scathing critique of the Yankees entitled "Blaming umps is loser talk". Yes the Yankees offense let them down, as did their Ace CC Sabathia but it doesn't change the fact that the Yankees did rally and tie it but were cost the tying run on a call that ended the game. Blaming the ump is loser talk, but their comes a certain point when you have the right to be frustrated by a terrible call and this was one of them; good teams take that frustration and put it out on the diamond and lets all hope that its exactly what the Yankees did today by blowing out the the Orioles. Overall I think the Yankees played really well this series, their offense stepped up but their pitching let them down in two of the games.

The Yankees had tied the game on Thursday and David Robertson of all people gave up the lead. Does this mean that Robertson is now not one of the the best relievers in the game? No it does not, Robertson for some reason wasn't throwing his curve ball and I think its because he was trying to cut down on his walks by throwing a cutter and its not as good of a pitch. He looks like he is going back to the curve after he used it more on Friday so looks like it wasn't an injury but only time will tell. The other story is one that certain people have been piping is that CC is not and never has been an ace. This story upsets me because its a sign of how short-term fans memories are, CC is struggling right now because he isn't getting the swings and misses that he should and I guarantee it is because of his arm problems this year. I do not know if this is a long term problem but we all need to hope it is not. Saying that CC is not the Yankees ace though is wrong and every pitcher struggles, Felix Hernandez gave up 6 runs the other day is he not an ace?

Also Mark Teixeira's injury sucks the Yankees really needed him back and if he is out for awhile then he may miss the beginning of the playoffs. The ideal scenario is that he is only out for a week and the Yankees can build that lead back up in the division. Next up comes the Red Sox who just got swept by the equally terrible Blue Jays and have won 1 of their last 10.

Former Yankees: Juan Miranda

Juan Miranda defected from Cuba to the Dominican Republic in 2004 and signed with the Yankees at the end of 2006. Miranda was a September call up in both 08 and 09 and got his first decent stint in the majors last year when he had 71 PA over 33 games. His defense was average with the Yankees which is likely why he only started 4 games at first base for the Bombers in 2010 and only 8 in total. In his short playing time with the Yankees he had two walk offs, one in 2009 against Kyle Farnsworth with the Royals which you can see here, which was also the last home win of the 2009 season and he also had the very memorable literal walk off against Hideki Okajima and the Red Sox.

At the end of 2010 Miranda was out of options and had no chance of making the club as the Yankees have Mark Teixeira at 1st. As a result Miranda was traded to the Diamondbacks for Scott Allen who has been atrocious with a 9+ ERA however his last start was good with 5 innings of 1 hit baseball. He is very young, but the Yankees really weren't expecting to get anything substantial out of the trade as they might have gotten nothing if they had to place him on waivers to send him back to AAA. Plus the Yankees wanted to move up Jorge Vazquez.
Miranda made the Diamonbacks team as part of a 3 man platoon with Xavier Nady and Russell Branyan. Branyan has since been released and Miranda has been good enough that the Diamond backs will likely make him the full time first baseman when he is 100% after taking a pitch off his hand. D-Backs top prospect Brandon Allen is waiting patiently in AAA and I don't know if he is viewed as trade bait or the future at 1st by the club. Juan Miranda hopes to solidify himself at 1st especially with the NL West having just been blown wide open with De La Rosa and Posey being injured. Miranda is hitting getting on base and slugging, best of luck to you as a snakehead.

4/3 Yankees and other notes

The Yankees failed to sweep the tigers as Hughes and Colon both got roughed up by the Tigers 10-7. The two teams combined for 14 HR, with 7 of those coming in today's loss. Here are some notes on the Yankees:

• Burnett looked okay, but he was apparently sick during the game so hopefully that means he will be even better next time around as he should likely be facing off against Francisco Liriano and the Twins.
• This first series was utterly forgettable for Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter as both combined for 4 hits and those all came in Saturdays game. But it is only 3 games so should be nothing to worry about.
• After Eduardo Nunez's error in Saturdays game I already want Ramiro Pena back.
• Russel Martin is hitting .455, A-Rod .400 and slow start Tex has 3 HR and 7 RBI's after 3 games. (He had 9 RBI's all last April) check it out
• I know its one start and its one start against one of the best offenses in baseball, but I am really concerned about Phil Hughes. He looks like he did last year after the all-star break and his velocity is still down. He gave up 5 runs on 5 hits in 4 innings. He could not put batters away racking up 1 K in 90 pitches.He needs to make a change NOW because his next start is against the Sox in Fenway.
• Bartolo Colon was a mixed bag with 5K's in 4 innings, but he gave up 4 runs and 6 hits in 4 innings. Mitre did better than that. However its only April, but I still would prefer Aceves.(who is in Sox AAA to start the season)
• The Sox got swept by the Rangers and while both teams offense's looked good the Red Sox pitching was very poor and their $142 million dollar man got bumped down to 7th today. Dropping Crawford in the order from 3rd to 7th really surprised me as its the 3rd game and they just payed him 142 million small market scrappy dollars and i wouldn't want to start off 7 years by dropping him down after two games.
• Bad news for the Rays as Evan Longoria was put on the DL for an oblique strain and he will miss at least 3 weeks according to Joe Madden. Also Manny and Damon have combined for a grand total of 1 hit and Damon was scratched today due to calf tightness.
• O's are in first, Toronto and the Yankees are both tied for second and the Sox and rays are on pace for 0-162 seasons.
• All that confidence that Brewers fans about this season was crushed by the Big Red Machine. Its only April, but the Brewers looked really bad in Cinncinati and so does my pick of them to win the NL Central.
• Matt Holiday had an appendectomy. Could the Yankees try and trade for Chris Carpenter?
• The Astros look awful. Is Brett Myers as good as that one start suggests and could the Yankees target him?
• The Yankees play the Twins for the teams only meeting in the Bronx this season. Lets hope the Yankees take over from where they left off in the ALDS.