Brett Gardner’s return to the lineup this year has been a much needed support for the ailing Yankees, who have a number of superstar players on the bench. Losing Nick Swisher in the offseason left an opening in the outfield for Gardner, and he has taken full advantage of it, starting in all 32 games of the season.

Gardner is batting a .270 on the season, which can seem a little sub-par to some people, but with an OBP of .343 (5^th on the team), Gardner’s proving to be an essential and, at this point of the season, vital part of the roster.  He also leads the team in steals with five, ahead of Ichiro Suzuki and Vernon Wells.

Gardner’s true skill set has been on display in the last seven games, leading the team in multiple categories, including batting average (.353) and hits (six). He’s also shown his patience in the batter’s box, leading the team in number of pitches seen during his at-bats with 79.

If Gardner can stay healthy throughout the year, he can be a very useful tool on the base paths as well as in the batter’s box in a year that didn’t look to promising for the Yankees to begin with.

I love games like today’s. And do you know why? I’ll tell you why. The pitching matchup was CC Sabathia vs. Justin Verlander and Yankee fans, and let’s be honest Tiger fans were counting on this to be a win for the Tigers. Now, CC is no slouch but he did have a rough go of it in the home opener and Verlander is Verlander. And with the lineups Joe Girardi has had to pencil in the past week, it was almost a foregone conclusion that Verlander would shut the Yankees down and that Sabathia would be the tough luck loser, right?

WRONG.

Sabathia was on his game and Verlander was slightly off his. He wasn’t terrible at all, giving up three runs in 7.1 innings of work with four strikeouts and two walks. The Yankees scored early off Verlander, in the bottom of the second. First when Francisco Cervelli hit an RBI double that scored Ichiro and then two batters later when Jayson Nix hit a two-run home run off Verlander to give the Yankees an early 3-0 lead.

Kevin Youkilis finished the game 2-4 with two RBI, Travis Hafner also finished 2-4 and Jayson Nix was 3-4 with the aforementioned home run and two RBI.

The Yankees scored some “insurance” runs in the eighth and ninth innings off Phil Coke and Octavio Dotel.

The Tigers couldn’t get anything going against Sabathia and they didn’t have an extra base hit all game. Sabathia finished with seven innings pitched and he gave up four hits, walked three and struck out four.

David Robertson came into the game in the eighth and made things slightly uneasy but did his usual Houdini act by giving up two hits and striking out two. He escaped unscathed.

Mariano Rivera, who was honored in a pregame ceremony because amazingly, this is the Yankees’ only trip to Detroit this season, came in to pitch the ninth. It was a typical Mo inning complete with bloop hits, broken bats and a strikeout. It wasn’t a save, obviously, but Girardi wanted to give the Tigers fans one last chance – unless the teams meet in the playoffs – to see Mo work his magic.

This was a game the Yankees needed. One, because no one wants to start their season 1-5. Two, because they didn’t want to see Sabathia have a second bad outing. Three, because Stacey didn’t want to have to take a Twitter break this early in the season.

Tomorrow, the Yankees will be in Cleveland to face an old friend in Nick Swisher with Hiroki Kuroda facing off against Ubaldo Jimemez. It’s an early game

Right now, the Yankees are playing the Detroit Tigers and trying to avoid a three-game sweep in Comerica Park. As this is happening, I figured it would be the perfect time to do a free association post of sorts and just write down what comes to my mind, baseball related and maybe not-so-baseball related.

Enjoy!

This week has been pretty terrible for the Yankees. I mean, losing two out of three to the Red Sox at home to open the season is bad enough but then attempting to fight off a three-game sweep at the hands of the Tigers and facing Justin Verlander? And I thought my week was bad.

I’m having computer issues. My four-year-old MacBook’s hard drive is on its way out and I’m crossing my fingers it lasts one more day until the new hard drive I ordered arrives. You can cross your fingers too if you’d like. Right now, I’m using my dad’s laptop which stinks of cigarettes and is making my hands and room smell but desperate times call for desperate measures. I’m a full-time blogger so I need a computer in order to work.

I don’t know about you guys but I’m finding myself turning Yankee games off in the middle innings – save the Pettitte game because it’s the only game they won and the only game in which the starter pitched well. The games have been torture. And not’s like I’m surprised by this. I figured they’d start off slowly because of all of the injuries but I was hoping the pitching would be okay. So far, it hasn’t been.

I’m also finding it hard to stay on Twitter during the games because some people are acting as if it’s September and the Yankees are in the middle of a pennant race. It’s April, it’s too early to panic and everyone needs to chillax.

The other thing that’s been bothering me this week is the reaction to the lineups when they’re posted. It’s not like we didn’t know Tex, Granderson, Jeter and A-Rod would be out so why all of the outrage? I mean, it’s every single day. This is how it’s going to be until May. It’s now April 7 so we have a while to deal with it. Get used to it already for the love of God.

I’m actually not in a bad mood but some of the stuff I’m seeing from my fellow fans and fellow bloggers makes me want to shake my head.

Let’s talk about something good that’s happening now: the weather. It’s gradually becoming more Spring-like which is nice. At this moment, it’s 55 degrees and I have both windows open in my room. It’s very pleasant. Although, I’m sure my nose and head will be angry with me later when I start sneezing and I develop a pounding headache.

A week from today, I’ll be attending my first Yankee game of the season. I went to Citifield on Thursday to see the Mets take on the San Diego Padres. The Mets lost. It’s amusing but I actually was watching the game but really don’t recall much of what happened. I think it was because I didn’t have a list of players in front of me and I had no idea who anyone was. It could have also been the 100 kids who were seated behind me who were yelling the whole time. They were there on a school trip. From looking at them I assume they were early high school or possibly late junior high/middle school aged. Who knows? I’m so bad at that. As much as the yelling and screaming was irritating me, I wanted to thank them for making me not feel bad about the fact that I am probably not having kids.

Back to the Yankees, it’s 3-0 in the bottom of the second. What the hell happened? Oh, I should point out, it’s 3-0 Yankees. Interesting, huh?

More interesting stuff, R.A. Dickey gave up five runs in the first inning to the Red Sox at the Rogers Centre. Oops.

I love baseball, don’t you?

As everyone knows, it’s snowing the northeast today and instead of just sitting and staring at my computer screen waiting for my Twitter feed to refresh, I thought I’d do another random thoughts post. And just to give you an idea of the afternoon I’m having, the song playing when I started this list was “Thank God It’s Friday” by Love and Kisses.

• Thank goodness we’re only four days away from Pitchers and Catchers.
• Of course, a few of those pitchers and catchers are already down in Tampa so Tuesday is just a formality.
• I wonder what Yankee Stadium looks like right now.
• Who will be the next big name to come out of the Biogenesis mess? Or will it be another Francisco Cervelli type of player?
• Will any more players be revealed?
• Why is Curt Schilling?
• Yes, that was a serious question.
• Seeing Kevin Youkilis on a Yankee themed show wasn’t as bad as I thought it would.
• How will the pitching staff hold up?
• How many home runs will Phil Hughes give up?
• Can the Yankees rely on Ivan Nova?
• Can they rely on a comeback by Michael Pineda?
• Where did CC Sabathia go?
• Will Travis Hafner make any sort of impact?
• Will the Blue Jays be as good as people think they will be?
• Will the Yankees be as bad as people think they will be?
• Will Alex Rodriguez ever play for the Yankees again?
• Will MLB hand out any suspensions in connection with the Biogenesis mess?
• Does anyone else see Blogenesis instead of Biogenesis?
• Is Tim Lincecum’s haircut a bigger deal than Keri Russell’s was in 1999?
• What will Kevin Youkilis’ walk up music be? (I hope it’s not bad.)
• My fantasy baseball team’s name is “Hungry Like Randy Wolf.” How cool is that?
• I had three teams last year and paid attention to them for a week. I finished second to last in every league. How did I not finish last?

The song playing when I ended this list: “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak.

[Installment #2 of "My First Favorite Player" comes from Jennifer R. Mullin. You can follow her on Twitter at @fiery_jennyrose ]

I was a baseball virgin. While I was born in New York, I grew up in Florida. Prior to this time, Florida had no baseball. Plus, my father was a soured Brooklyn Dodgers fan. When they moved to California, they took his passion for the sport with them. I was oblivious to baseball aside from the fact that the Texas Rangers held Spring Training down the street from our house. Literally one block from the house.

Fast forward to 1997. My boyfriend and I decided to make the move from our college town of Boston to New York earlier in the year. He was also from the NY area and grew up a Yankees fan but we had never discussed the sport. Luckily, the years we lived in Boston were fairly lean for the team and people didn’t make much noise about them. However, I did take in a game or two with local friends who were fans: I was completely bored. In fact, our dorm was on the border of Kenmore Square and at night you could hear the crowd noise from Fenway. The irony really makes me chuckle now.

When we finally arrived in New York at the end of the summer of 1997, the Yankees were pretty hot. My boyfriend turned on the game one of the first nights we were settled in. Cue me: “Um, this isn’t going to be an every night occurrence, right?” Ha! But somehow I got lured in. This was September, that golden time of year when baseball is ubiquitous in New York City. So I started asking questions. I knew nothing about the sport. Well, a little. Me: “Why do they get so many chances at bat? I thought it was four balls and three strikes?” Him: “Those are foul balls. They can hit as many of those as they want.” And I was hooked; I watched every night. Al Trautwig and Ken Singleton schooled me on the basics and a certain player in the number three hole stole my baseball heart. Paul O’Neill made me love baseball.

Paul O’Neill. Even Red Sox fans respect the guy. They may not like him but they respect him. Hard core. Determined. Fiery. Ill-tempered. Amazing. Paul O’Neill was locked in on every single pitch. He practiced with an invisible bat in the outfield between innings. He was a solely focused man. And I loved all of it! He threw his helmet when he couldn’t leg out a single to first base. He made catching balls at the wall in right field look easy. And sometimes he took his frustrations out on the water cooler. Some people tried to say he was a selfish player but he only got mad at himself. And I loved that fire! All of these things made him a beloved player to so many Yankee fans. But the last night of the 1997 ALCS against the Cleveland Indians sealed my fate forever. Paul was known for his “O’Neillian” at bats. Talk about foul balls. He made pitchers work. And he made Jose Mesa work overtime that night. With two outs, Paul gutted out a single into a double and slid hard into second base to extend the game in the ninth inning. He almost slid right off the bag! Resolution and grit; He stole back the moment. I had never seen anything like it. And then Bernie flew out to end the game and their chances of going to the World Series.

We out hit them and they had two errors; It should have been our game. But Paul O’Neill won my heart, and the hearts of many other fans. I shall never love another as I did that night.

I have a confession to make: I haven’t been wowed this offseason, none of the moves that have been made – Yankees and non-Yankees – have elicited much of a reaction from me. It’s so bad that I think I really should change my name to Pierre because I don’t care.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about (and I’m pretty sure you don’t), I’m referring to a character from the 1975 TV movie “Really Rosie“. If you’re in your late 30′s – early 40′s, you know that “Really Rosie” was a musical based on Maurice Sendak’s books and Carole King voiced the character of Rosie. It was shown on TV, played in elementary school assemblies and sometimes performed by students in your schools (at least that all happened in my school).

Anyway, the character of Pierre was a bit of a curmudgeon, which I am slowly morphing into as I age and his answer to everything was, “I don’t care.”

That’s me.

I don’t care that the Yankees signed Kevin Youkilis, well, at least not as much as others seem to be affected by it. Some people are going so far as to say, “I’m still going to boo him!” Really? You’d think the fact that the Red Sox traded him away last season would lessen the blow of the Yankees acquiring him but no, people are determined to act like morons. Have fun with that.

I don’t care that the Yankees signed Ichiro Suzuki for two-years even though he is older than I am. See? I can’t even think of anything to say right now.

I don’t care that the Angels signed Josh Hamilton to a five-year for $125 million dollars. Okay, I’ll be honest, I think it’s amusing but other than that? Meh. Next.

I don’t care that the Red Sox signed Ryan Dempster. Actually, I don’t care about anything they did this offseason. Mike Napoli? So what? Shane Victorino? Who cares.

Even the fact that the Dodgers and Angels have taken the “we’re going to get everyone and pay an exorbitant amount of money” crown from the Yankees, yep, you guessed it. I don’t care.

What is wrong with me?

I love baseball and I usually love the Hot Stove season but I am just indifferent this year. Maybe it’s a carry over from how the postseason ended for the Yankees. Maybe I’m preparing myself for the $189 million reality that Yankee fans are going to have to get used to. Or maybe, I just don’t care and there’s no rhyme or reason about it.

I was supposed to be at the beach, instead a last-minute decision was made to grab tickets to Sunday’s matinee match-up between the Angels and Yankees.  So last minute, that I had just enough time to buy tickets, throw on my cap and head out to the Bronx.

The day weather-wise was abysmal.  Hot and humid.  People with ice packs on their heads, shirts soaked through with sweat, some new shirts on people around the 5th inning because they were wearing a heavy jersey or they couldn’t sit in their sweat any longer.  The air sat on you like an x-ray vest.  It just wasn’t comfortable and people had already started heading for the exits as the Yankees were down by 5 going into the bottom of the 9th.

As the bottom half of the ninth started, about a third of the stadium remained.  I like to think it was all of us who didn’t participate in the wave as the game hung in the balance.  Everyone starts to look around at each other nodding approval for staying.  I automatically like everyone in the stadium because they really have every reason to leave. Hot, down by 5 and beer stopped being served awhile ago.  But the one reason we all stayed is because we know that no deficit is insurmountable. (See: Yanks vs Red Sox from earlier this season.)

Home run, down 3. No outs.

Those who weren’t completely sold about a potential comeback before, now are.  It was palpable. More chatter about pitching match-ups and a light drizzle starts to come down.  You could picture one of them hitting a walk-off home run through a heavier rain.  I said to my friend next to me, “How poetic,” with an equal share of sarcasm and hope.  Granderson comes to the plate with the bases loaded, still down by 3, with two outs.  He gets a hold of one, that from my angle, didn’t look gone, but looked like it had a chance to bury itself in the right field corner, just enough to clear the bases and tie the game.  For a split second, the Stadium came unglued. Then it hooked foul.

I noticed that I started my nervous tick during games where I rock back and forth when the game is on the line.  I noticed others in the bleachers doing their own thing.  Rubbing their hands together, staring at their feet between pitches, pacing back in forth in their empty row, abandoned by fans who would miss a great story.  I started to rationalize it.  “This is a series we already won in middle of July.  Why is my heart beating out of my chest?  Calm down.”  As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m completely irrational when 100% emotionally invested, so my brain loses again.  I WANT this.  For them, to be able to start a winning streak, for us, to have the story forever, and for the people that left, who will kick themselves forever that they wanted to beat the traffic.

Granderson walks.  Run forced in.  Down by 2.

As the remaining crowd is running around high-fiving anyone in sight, the rain stops and the sun starts to come out.  I think to myself, “That’s not what’s supposed to happen.  The rain was supposed to get heavier.”  Again, completely irrational, but rational to me.  The crowd is going completely nuts as A-Rod comes to the plate.  But the cheering always comes to a dead stop when the pitcher goes into a windup in a crucial moment of a game.  It’s impossible to cheer when you’re holding your breath.  Each pitch gets heavier on you, the groan after each near miss gets louder as you get closer to the one pitch that will be the last, for better or worse.

A-Rod pops up. Game over. Yankees lose.

Crucifixion.  As irrational as I am, the A-Rod hate is worse.  A man wearing a t-shirt boasting how many championships the Yankees have won, starts saying the foulest things about A-Rod.  Does he even realize how the number on his shirt would say “26″ if he wasn’t on that team?  Probably not.  He obviously doesn’t even remember his first inning 2-run home run that erased the 2-run deficit the Yankees had before they had even batted.  Up and down River Ave, the good feelings and camaraderie was gone.  Every small circle had someone on a soapbox, preaching like A-Rod is the devil reincarnate.  That’s how quickly it turns.  The Yankees fell just short and so did A-Rod, who honestly would have only bought himself enough grace with a walk-off, to carry over until his next plate appearance. I truly feel there is nothing he can do to be treated fairly by some of the fans.  Being a major cog in the Yankees 2009 playoff run on their way to winning the World Series has gotten him nowhere.  As the fictional, but poignant, Harvey Dent said, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

How poetic.

How about that?

The Yankees have put together a nice run as of late.  They’ve climbed out of the AL East basement and share first place in the division, as of this moment.  This year has had its share of major setbacks for the Yankees, but here they are.  Injuries have taken a bite out of the team and the lack of hitting with RISP is mind-boggling, but I’m a glass half full kind of guy, so I like to take notice that this team gets on base often.  That problem can’t last all year, could it?  If only we could have Nova’s hot bat in the lineup every night.

Kidding.

And there’s this: Pineda, Joba, Gardner, Robertson, Rivera.  These are huge pieces of the puzzle who have missed significant time, but other players are stepping up.  Raul Ibanez is batting .255 with 9 home runs and 30 RBI.  Who saw that coming?  Not me.  Andy “50 Shades of Grey” Pettitte is tying up batters, posting 40 K’s in 41.2 IP. (See what I did there?)  That’s a strikeout almost every inning.  Oh, and both of them have 34 years of MLB experience combined.   Pretty damn impressive.

So the fans I’ve talked to this year, who panicked and jumped overboard, patience would have been key.  Cat pictures are on the decline around here and that’s a great sign.  The Yankees are going through the NL East like a freight train and the schedule for the rest of June looks favorable.  Winning is a good look in the Bronx and the Yankees wear it the best.  Can they keep it up?  Maybe. Maybe not.  But my money is on them continuing the trend.

Originally published May 14, 2011

It was a Tuesday morning. My dad had called and asked me if I wanted to go to the Yankee game later that night. I had just gotten back from school up in Oswego that Sunday and I was feeling a little run down – too much partying will do that to you. I said I wasn’t sure and he said, “Don’t worry just let me know later.”

I remember going back and forth with myself all day from “Yes, I’ll go.” to “No I don’t feel well.” to “Maybe I’ll feel better if I get out of the house.” Finally, at the last second I decided to go. Like almost literally the last second. It was 5:30 when I made my decision – the start was 7:35 so we had plenty of time to make it to the game. I figured I hadn’t been to a game since the previous season and was curious to see what Yankee life would be like post Don Mattingly.

So my dad, brother and I headed down to the Stadium.

» Continue reading “This Date In Yankees History: May 14, 1996″

As the Ryan Seacrest compound was popping bottles of champagne and lighting cigars with burning hundred dollar bills, the nation was mourning the loss of Dick Clark.  Seacrest’s rise to absolute power is complete.  As Tupac returned to the stage this week in a form of a hologram, somewhere a cloaked Seacrest is talking to his minions via hologram and demanding they refer to him as Emperor Seacrestine.

Of course I’m kidding. (No, I’m not.)  As the Yankees head into Boston this weekend, I found it appropriate to honor Mr. Clark with a countdown of all things Boston.  Normally, I would take this opportunity to lambaste Boston, but that’s not the way Dick would have done it.  We’ll see how the weekend goes though.  There might be a new list on Monday.

So here it is. My Top Ten Greatest Things About Boston:

10) Terry Francona–I always loved this guy. Classy and a winner.  Won 2 World Series with Boston and then was the scapegoat for a monumental September collapse last year.  He was replaced with Bobby Valentine this year.  That move is like me dumping Kate Upton for Octomom because she ate my last granola bar.

9) Tom Brady–This guy has it all. Multiple Super Bowl winner, supermodel wife and a first ballot Hall of Famer. I mean seriously, what’s not to like? Kudos Tom, you are one of a kind.

8 ) New England Clam Chowder–It’s delicious.  Who would get the Manhattan clam chowder over the New England if given the choice? Sociopaths. That’s who.

7) Tom Brady–A two-time Super Bowl loser to the New York Football Giants.  The only quarterback to lose twice to the Giants in the big game. I mean seriously, what’s not to like? Kudos Tom, you are one of a kind.

4) Wade Boggs–What a fantastic player for the Red Sox. Gave everything he had for the eleven years he was with them. A franchise player. The type of player you’d never let walk away and sign with the Yankees. Oops. Boggs won his only World Series while playing with the Yankees in 1996.

1) Wings–NBC sitcom from 1990-97.  Extremely underrated show that took place on Nantucket.  I still DVR this show and laugh out loud during it.  I am the President and only member of the Wings Fan Club and Tony Shalhoub has a restraining order against me.  That means he noticed me!!

There it is. You may have noticed I skipped some numbers in my countdown, but quite frankly, so would Dick. Enjoy the Yanks/Sox matchup this weekend. Each year this series gets tighter and tighter. Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe tweeted yesterday:

“Last 10 years: #RedSox 93 wins, #Yankees 92. Avg score: Sox 5.46, Yanks 5.24. Crazy.”

It is crazy and a good reason to not hang on every pitch. Chances are if one team loses, they’ll bounce back the next day. The numbers don’t lie. If you start to feel anxiety or start to get too worked up, just take a deep breath and do a countdown from 10.