Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
Now that everyone's been in camp for a week and games are set to start in a couple of days, the aches and pains are piling up. Steven White's neck strain turned out to be nothing. Brian Bruney experienced a stabbing pain on his left side (or back, depending on the source), but an MRI came back negative and he should be back in action shortly.
More problematically, Humberto Sanchez experienced tightness near his right elbow and stiffness in his right forearm, as well as a throbbing sensation. His MRI revealed some inflammation, but no structural damage. Still, any such discomfort is troubling given Sanchez's history of elbow problems.
Speaking of injury histories, Carl "Heavy Legs" Pavano was hit on the left instep by an Alberto Gonzalez line drive during batting practice on Saturday. His MRI revealed a bone bruise. Pavano threw 27 pitches in his BP session after getting hit with the comebacker and Joe Torre considers the injury a non-issue. The proof will be in the pitching as Pavano's scheduled to throw a bullpen session today, then another on Thursday to put him on pace to start the Yankees' fourth exhibition game on Sunday.
Finally, as Alex has already reported below, Bobby Abreu will miss at least half of the Yankees' exhibition schedule after having strained his right oblique muscle during batting practice yesterday. Apparently Abreu felt a tweak in his right side, but kept hitting, resulting in a worse injury than if he had cut his BP session short. Abreu will be unable to hit or throw while recuperating, but should be ready for Opening Day, though the pace of healing on oblique injuries is often hard to predict. Still, even this injury should prove to be ultimately insignificant. Rather, it's Sanchez that bears the closest watching right now.
For those wondering, Cashman and Torre have both ruled out the possibility of Bernie Williams coming to camp given the playing time made available by Abreu's injury. As well they should, Melky and the Kevins will fill in just fine. Oh, and Johnny Damon took a couple of personal days away from camp. He's back now. Nothing to see there.
Today the Yankees will play their intrasquad game. Last year this turned into a pivotal event in the season as Jorge Posada creamed a Mike Mussina changeup, then taught Moose how to better disguise the pitch, leading to a 7-1, 2.42 ERA start for Mussina. Today's intrasquad hurlers are less prominent, with only Kei Igawa appearing from the projected rotation.
3 Me either.
2 Sarcasm on!
1 And remember the big tall bully character who administered the "double flag pole wedgie" on the Kevins was named "Brian Bruney" (played by Tim Robbins if I recall correctly).
1) He's a veteran with his job locked up
2) Abreu's a professional hitter, and his batting eye is not going to suffer even if his swing shows up a little later, unlike someone like Cano
3) Maybe gives Melky some more A-squad playing time heading into the season
I'm off to Tampa in a couple of days- looks like I'll be seeing Moose and Pettitte pitch. One of the games we're attending is an 'away' game at the Devil Rays in St. Pete- anyone been to their spring training base?
6 I drove by whatever they now call Al Lang field a few years ago; it looked like a decent place to watch a game. I think its been slightly remodeled since then though. IIRC, the Yanks held Spring Training there back in the 30s.
Anyone notice the smaller Lasik surgery ads in the papers touting Jason Giambi? Looks as though he has lasers shooting OUT of his eyes and not in.
Hmm, I wonder why he changed that ad...
Meanwhile, I keep refreshing Pete Abraham's fantastic blog for the updates he's giving on the intrasquad game.
21 LOL.
Murray Chass; read the last couple of paragraphs in http://tinyurl.com/3y9m23.
They eat that stuff up for breakfast. Lawd o'mighty, I don't want to know how good a player is vs. an average player.
28 I can't take credit; I followed the link from Jay Jaffe's post at BP Unfiltered. Can't wait to see what the FJM guys do with that one, though.
The worst part of all, as Jay alluded to - Chass has a Hall of Fame vote as a member of the BBNewspaperWAA AND a Veterans Committee vote as a Spink Award winner (2003). Sigh.
http://tinyurl.com/34kz2p
"A downtown pharmacy was raided by a law enforcement task force on Tuesday, the climax of a large New York state grand jury investigation into Internet drug sales that could expose widespread illicit steroid use by professional athletes and thousands of people across the nation."
"The Times Union has learned that investigators in the year-old case, which has been kept quiet until now, uncovered evidence that testosterone and other performance-enhancing drugs may have been fraudulently prescribed over the Internet to current and former Major League Baseball players ...."
"The customers include Los Angeles Angels center fielder Gary Matthews Jr., according to sources with knowledge of the investigation."
Can I rant a little bit about the Times' baseball coverage again?
When I go to my ESPN Local age for the Yanks each day (apologies to Alex, who also nails the major links), it generally looks like this:
-Post: Yanks article subject A
-Post: Yanks article subject B
-Post: Yanks article subject C
-Post: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Post: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Newsday: Yanks article subject A
-Newsday: Yanks article subject B
-Newsday: Yanks article subject C
-Newsday: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Newsday: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Daily News: Yanks article subject A
-Daily News: Yanks article subject B
-Daily News: Yanks article subject C
-Daily News: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Daily News: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Ledger: Yanks article subject A
-Ledger: Yanks article subject B
-Ledger: Yanks article subject C
-Ledger: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Ledger: Yanks column subj A/B/C
-Times: RED SOX ARTICLE E
-Times: ANTI YANKS SLANTED ARTICLE K
-Times: IRRELEVANT BASEBALL COLUMN Z
jeteupthemiddle.blogspot.com
Please, God, it's too early for this.
35 You nailed it, Knuckles. That's about the order of my daily reading list, with the exception of ESPN. They're dead to me.
For Yanks fans in the SF Bay Area who might have missed it: Giants tickets go on sale to the public this Saturday (March 3rd) at 10AM, but here's a link to their online only VISA promo where you can buy 'em starting at 10AM to midnight on Friday (VISA cards only accepted for this):
http://tinyurl.com/37asxo
Lefty O'Douls, here we come...
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