Sitting here in the Garden State, it’s strange to look at the schedule and see the Yankees dark for the evening. Don’t get too used to it, but I’m sure the players are enjoying the chance to kick back and relax for a day. It’s Cinco de Mayo, incidentally.
So far today I’ve used the afternoon to go for a four mile run and crack open the new John Feinstein book, ‘Living on the Black.’ I’ll fire this plug in here because many of you might find this entertaining — Feinstein followed Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine around for the entire ’07 season and chronicled their ups and downs, the events and really, what it’s like to be a big league pitcher. I’m only a few dozen pages in but, so far, thumbs up.
Interesting weekend out at the Stadium, wasn’t it? They’ll try to keep that momentum going with the Indians headed in Tuesday night for a three-game series, sending Andy Pettitte out against Fausto Carmona. As our preview notes, maybe it will be the time that Robinson Cano breaks out … you know the Yankees can’t wait for his slumbering bat to wake up.
As some of you may know, every other Monday is Yankees Mailbag day. We’ll have a new one on MLB.com for you shortly but here’s a few points I wanted to get to, but had to leave on the cutting room floor. …
– The Yankees have shown no inclination to move Derek Jeter to a new position and, though it may happen eventually, it won’t be in ’08. Gonzalez has hung around longer than anyone expected — Joe Girardi had said that he’d be sent down as soon as Jeter’s quadriceps injury was better, but then Wilson Betemit came down with a mysterious corneal ulcer and went on rehab with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
– Andrew Brackman is going to miss all of ’08 after Tommy John surgery. Humberto Sanchez is throwing off a mound in Tampa but has not yet pitched in a Minor League game. When he does, you can start the clock, but a good guess would be that he could be considered for an August callup.
– Carl Pavano? Really? I must have had about 25 Pav questions, literally. Lisa Kennelly from the Newark Star-Ledger answered the question, “What is Pavano doing?” better than I can. The answer appears to be very little.
(By the way, for those of you who e-mail vulgar notes because I haven’t answered your questions … there are literally thousands of Mailbag questions and I can’t personally answer each one. If you send a question to bryan.hoch@mlb.com, it has a much better chance of being answered.)
Last thought — check out the Manager’s View with Joe Girardi before every home game.
