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Out of Town


I’m up in Jersey visiting family and preparing to send my little bro off to Japan.  The Yanks took two out of three this weekend against the White Sox and remain in a tie atop the AL (b)East.  I’ll be back later in the week to catch up on the news.

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Series Preview: Windy City


The Yankees (78-49) travel to Chicago to kick off a weekend series against the White Sox (68-58).  The “Pale Hose” are 3.5 games behind the Minnesota Twins for first place in the Central Division, but have struggled mightily to close that gap over the past couple of weeks.  Of course, dropping four out of the last six games against their division rival is not the best plan of action when trying to make the playoffs.  The White Sox have the reputation as a powerful station-to-station type of team.  I have not seen – and generally don’t pay much attention to – the White Sox, but a quick look at their team stats will affirm the power aspect of their squad.  They are 5th in the Bigs with 145 home runs.  The station-to-station label does not stand up to the statistical evidence though.  They are second in the league in stolen bases with 116, but only have a 66% success rate.  The Sox will come out blazing and fighting for their playoff lives this series so I expect the Yankees – who are, in theory, doing the same thing – to be in for a dogfight all weekend.

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Series Recap: If You Can’t Say Something Nice, Don’t Say Anything


The Toronto Blue Jays (66-60) are ass (regardless of their .526 winning %), yet the Yankees (78-49) continue to lose to them.  Anything that I would write from this point forward will just be a 400+ word rant, so I’m going to keep it at this.  They Rays (78-49) are tied for first atop the Beast and the Red Sox (73-55, 5.5 GB) continue to hang on.

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Pitching Updates: Nova, Rotation, Hiroki Kuroda


First of all, I want to acknowledge Ivan Nova for his solid performance against the Blue Jays on Monday night.  He was pulled rather early after 73 pitches, but overall I have to say I was at least mildly impressed.  He got himself into some trouble in the first inning, but was able to wiggle out of a bases loaded, no-out situation.  The general scouting reports indicated that he would hang out in the 93-94 range for the most part, but he touched 97 or 98 on several occasions.  That could be a case of being a little pumped up during your first Major League start, but its impressive nonetheless.  I liked the look of his curve and it also looked like his change-up could be a useful offering.  Nice start for Nova and I look forward to seeing what he can do for an encore.

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Series Preview: Blue Jays


The Toronto Blue Jays (64-59) have been a thorn in the Yankees’ (77-47) side all year and they will look to continue to be a pain over the next three games.  We have seen these two squads play a lot already this season, so there really isn’t too much new for me to discuss regarding the series.

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Series Recap: No More Felix


The Yankees (77-47) took care of the Seattle Mariners over the weekend (49-75) and improved to 30 games over .500.  After dropping the first game at the hands of Felix Hernandez, the Yanks went to work.  The offense was able to bail out Javier Vazquez on Saturday and also provided CC Sabathia with plenty of support on Sunday – he didn’t too much of it though.  The biggest concern remains the ineffectiveness of Vazquez and A.J. Burnett.

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Minor Matters


I’m going to get the bad news out of the way first.  Ivan Nova has been called up from Triple-A at the expense of Alex Rodriguez.  Nova will be a nice addition to the pitching staff as Phil Hughes and Javier Vazquez need to receive some extended periods of rest down the stretch.  Of course, Alex Rodriguez had to go on the DL for this move to happen.  He will be missed over the next 15 days, but the Yankees have to have him healthy so a DL stint could be the best thing for him and the team in the long run.

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Manny Banuelos Scouting Report


Manny Banuelos

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Series Preview: I’ve Seen Enough of Felix


Justin Smoak

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Series Recap: It’s About Time


After splitting a few series, the Yankees (75-46) finally found themselves on the winning side of one again.  They lost the first game against the Detroit Tigers (58-63) and proceeded to win the next three – the toughest way to win the toughest series (excluding the rare five-game series).  Javier Vazquez is just not right at this point in time.  He only gave up two runs, but between the six strikeouts, for walks and five hits he was only able to make it through four innings with 106 pitches.  Max Scherzer was dealing on the other side.  The Yankees were getting their first look at him so, naturally, two runs was going to be too much to overcome.  CC Sabathia played the role of stopper on Tuesday night while our bats were able to knock Justin Verlander around a bit.  It is extremely nice to have a guy like Sabathia who can stop a losing streak.  The Yanks didn’t really have that until last year.  The Yankees got their bats going a little bit more on Wednesday night against Jeremy Bonderman.  Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano went back-to-back and the team posted nine runs total.  Finally, up 2-1 in the series, Phil Hughes and the offense went to work in the afternoon finale.  Hughes went six strong and Cano fell a triple short of the cycle.  Sergio Mitre tried to make it interesting towards the end by allowing three insignificant (as it turned out) runs to score in three innings of work.  He earned a save for his lackluster performance.

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