Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Game Preview: New York Yankees vs. Tampa Bay Rays 4/29


The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays will finish off their three game at Yankee Stadium this afternoon with a day game and a getaway game in the Bronx. New York looks to keep their strangle hold on the Rays as the Yankees have dominated Tampa Bay thus far this season, a trend that could continue this afternoon with Masahiro Tanaka Michael Pineda on the mound for the Yankees. Drew Smyly will be on the bump for the Rays as he and Tampa Bay looks to get out of New York with a victory. The game will be played at 1:05 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network, MLB Network and MLB TV.

  • Michael Pineda is making the start on normal rest for the now injured Masahiro Tanaka.


  • Smyly has only made one start this season after starting the year on the disabled list and is still building up his pitch count. Smyly only lasted 4.2 innings against the Blue Jays in his season debut but does own a 1-0 record with a 1.17 ERA in three career appearances at Yankee Stadium. Hopefully the Yankees can ugly up that pitching line a little bit this afternoon.



The Yankees have a day off tomorrow before starting a 17 games in 17 days stretch that starts off on the road in Boston’s Fenway Park. It will likely be all hands on deck this afternoon in the bullpen although Joe Girardi would likely stay away from Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances if he absolutely could. Go Yankees!

5 comments:

  1. The Yankees are playing great ball right now, and it's given me a renewed hope for the season. What I think is exciting is seeing areas we can improve without even going outside the organization. At some point, unfortunately, you have to call a spade a spade and admit that Beltran might be done. You can't blame it on a small sample size anymore. But we do have 3 outfielders tearing the cover off the ball in Heathcott, Flores, and Judge. Will the Yankees eat Beltran's $15 million plus? On the bench, Petit could easily be let go for Pirela or Refsnyder. Release Jones for Bird, and we'll have a strong bench. The only change I'd like to see in our ridiculously dominant bullpen is Lindgren replacing Wilson. Wilson has been good, but those walks scare me.

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    1. Jeff, don't get the idea, I don't agree with much of what you wrote, I just want more time to see what we have.

      I'm still of the opinion that we give Beltran, Drew, Petit, Jones and Young a chance to show what we may have in them for another few weeks. Some of them are playing above and others below what their history shows they are accustom too! As for bringing up Bird and Lindgren, we have A-Rod to give Tex a break at 1st and Headley at 3rd. It will take more than what Wilson has done this year for calling up Lindgren this year...the Yanks will not want to start the clock this early.

      If those guys don't play as they have so far and some fall off the high stool in the corner, dump the dead wood and git on with the Farm help! One guy forgotten in all this is Mateo(SS) if Didi can't get the job done he can and will, even though I would like to see him have one more year on the farm.

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    2. Replacing Wilson with Lindgren is about the only way to improve this bullpen. Lindgren is wasting bullets in Scranton but it's hard to just send Wilson down, he's been good.

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    3. Ken, here's my reasoning. I'm simply asking when we stop using the expression "small sample size"? Last year we watched Soriano and Roberts get hundreds of at bats before we got tired of waiting for them to play to the back of their baseball cards. Right now, it's easy to be patient because we're winning. So again, at what point do you lose patience? If Beltran is still hitting .150 at the end of May, is he going to get benched then? I like Beltran, but he looks lost to me.

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    4. I agree with you Jeff, your reasoning is not faulty at all (in my opinion lol) I just want to see if Drew, Young and Jones are for real! Can Didi learn to hit better, I have never seen a player with worse balance, flies open, hits with his arms on the wrong foot, I haven't seen him pull any more stupid plays in the last few games, and he has made some good plays. As for Beltran, again let's give him time.
      By time, I don't mean July or even June. When we hit a bad spot, and we will, let's see who the real players are...shall we.
      A commenter on another site by the name of "BallPark" helped me find a hitch in my swing that I had missed, about four/six(?) years ago! Anyhow, it was my last year of playing, but I lead the league in hitting.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)