Thursday, April 21, 2016

Live Game Updates: A's at Yankees - 4/21

7:46 p.m., End 2nd: Yankees finally get a hit with runners in scoring position. Aaron Hicks plates Teixeira with a bloop single to center and the Yankees have a 1-0 lead early on.

8:03 p.m., End 3rd: Severino tossed another scoreless frame, and then the top of the Yankees' lineup goes down in order. Still 1-0 after three.

8:18 p.m., Mid 4th: Severino gives up three straight hits to start the fourth -- resulting in the A's first run -- but settles down to escape further trouble. Middle of the Yanks' order coming up in a 1-1 tie.

8:32 p.m, End 4th: Yankees re-take the lead in the fourth on Austin Romine's slow dribbler up the third base line. They're up 2-1 going into the fifth.

8:56 p.m., Mid 6th: Mark Canha ties it again with a solo shot in the fifth, and it looks like Severino is done after six innings of two-run ball.

9:14 p.m., Mid 7th: Out of nowhere, Oakland's Khris Davis and Coco Crisp hit back-to-back home runs off Chasen Shreve on the first two pitches of the seventh. It's 4-2 A's at the stretch. 

9:33 p.m., End 7th: Yankees get a run back on an RBI single by Starlin Castro. Still trail it 4-3 after seven.

9:43 p.m., Mid 8th: Again, a great Yankees reliever struggles. This time it's Johnny Barbato, who allows a two-run shot to Chris Coughlan to extend the A's lead to 6-3.

10:15 p.m., Mid 9th: A's add another off Kirby Yates in the ninth. It's now 7-3.

10:27 p.m., Final: A's 7, Yankees 3.

Game Thread: New York Yankees vs. Oakland Athletics 4/21


The New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics are set to finish their three game set tonight in the Bronx as these two teams go head-to-head one last time in the Bronx. This series has been much like the Yankees season to date, frustrating and not nearly as good as the expectations were coming in. It’s still early though and there is plenty of time for the Yankees to turn it around, the sooner the better though would be good. Just saying. Anyway, the Yankees will send Luis Severino to the mound tonight looking for his first victory of the season while the Athletics will counter with a familiar face in Rich Hill. The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV.

The New York Yankees stay home this weekend to play host to the Tampa Bay Rays so we should be entertained by some fantastic pitching matchups. To see any of the three games live click the Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog to visit Ticket Monster and to snag your tickets to see the game without having all those bulky and annoying fees and shipping costs tacked on. If you can’t make it live then that’s okay too, simply head over to Twitter and give @GreedyStripes a follow to interact and live tweet during this and every Yankees game this season.


Don’t get caught looking ahead to your division rival and take care of business tonight in front of the home crowd. Beat the A’s. Go Yankees!

Charleston Riverdogs Bring Excitement to Weekend Homestand

RiverDogs Bring High Excitement 
into Second Homestand against Augusta, April 21-24
High fives, postgame fireworks, T-shirt giveaways and island hopping highlight the homestand

CHARLESTON, SC – The Charleston RiverDogs are off to a hot start in their 2016 season, winning 10 of their first 13 games, which included three walk off victories and came from behind in eight of the nine. The RiverDogs look to return to Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park with high excitement as they host the Augusta GreenJackets. Charleston will have another fun-filled weekend as the RiverDogs help end the work week with Thirsty Thursday, Friday night fireworks, Saturday’s T-shirt extravaganza and a beachy feelin’ on Sunday.

The RiverDogs host the Augusta GreenJackets on Thursday, April 21 at 7:05pm to open a four- game series. Charleston has played one series against Augusta, in which they won three out of four on the road.

Thursday, April 21, 7:05pm: Budweiser Thirsty Thursday once again proves to be THE place to be in Charleston, The Joe will be rocking as Southbound 17 jams on the front steps pregame and it is also the second Budweiser Thirsty Thursday of the campaign. Also, be prepared to throw your hands in the air on National High Five Day. Our ushers will be greeting all fans with all hands on deck. DJ Natty Heavy will again be spinning tunes all night at the Ashley View Pub that features $1 draft beers. Be on the lookout for Month of Man, as they will be conducting an in-game contest to promote their Night of Man coming on May 25. 

Friday, April 22, 7:05pm: Tech Night / Red Shirt-Fireworks Friday: A pair of ballpark classics highlight the docket as fans conclude the week with a postgame fireworks show presented by Home Telecom. The RiverDogs will wear specialty red uniforms to honor our military as part of Red Shirt Fridays in association with ISHPI. Also in partnership with Mix96, fans who wear red to the game get $1 off their tickets at the gate with the option of donating that dollar to the Wounded Warrior Corps. It will also be Tech Night as we feature all types of gadgets, maybe even some helpful everyday tips for you.

Saturday, April 23, 6:05pm: 1,000 t-shirt toss: Fans can continue to expect the unexpected as they join in “With the Crowd” in a summer series of postgame shows. Before the game stop by the front gate to check out the sounds of our featured band, Finnegan Bell, and get your autographs from your favorite RiverDogs as they will be signing behind home plate. It will also be Summerville night as Charleston celebrates the gorgeous flowertown of Summerville. All season “Saturdays Live at The Joe,” presented by Kickin’ 92.5 and Star 99.7, will quickly become a Charleston staple as the RiverDogs present a different postgame showcase for all 11 Saturdays. Be sure to stick around after the game as there will be a t-shirt toss giveaway postgame with 1,000 shirts to be thrown in abundance of crazy ways. 

Sunday, April 24, 5:05pm: Holy City Sunday / Kids Club/ Islands Night: The RiverDogs embrace Charleston’s “Holy City” moniker for the second of 10 Sunday games. The club will wear specialty uniforms that proudly display the “Holy City” namesake across their pinstriped tops with a new HC emblem on the caps. In association with Charleston County Parks and Recreation and Y102.5, every Sunday is a Kids ClubSunday where fans enjoy free parking and Lowcountry youth eat free, enjoy pregame catch on the field and run the bases postgame presented by CPI Security. It’s also Island Night where the Beech Hill Jugglers will be performing. 

Ticket information for this homestand and any of the remaining home games can be secured by contacting the box office at (843) 577-DOGS (3647) or online at www.riverdogs.com. Those that can’t make it out the park can follow every pitch of the RiverDogs season on WTMA 1250 AM and streaming online at riverdogs.com.

Hypothetical 2017 Yankees Club Staying the Course


The Yankees have a plan for better or worse and dammit, they are going to stick to it no matter what. Brian Cashman has a plan and he’s either going to look like a genius at the end of it all or him and manager Joe Girardi are going down with the ship. The Yankees did not sign a single free agent to a major league contract this winter and, for the sake of this fun and hypothetical post, they aren’t going to get in the deep water of the free agent market after this season either. New York has three major free agents coming off their books after the season in Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Aroldis Chapman and their plan to get younger and more flexible will continue when they let all three of them walk via free agency. What will the team do to replace them though while sticking to the plan? The answers are actually easier to come by then you think.

No more Teix messages in New York and Greg Bird had offseason shoulder surgery, what are the Yankees going to do? Are they going to sign Teixeira to a one-year deal and/or offer him a qualifying offer after this season or will the team find a stop gap via the free agent market? Neither. I can see New York, assuming the health of Greg Bird, sending the Birdman of New York to the Arizona Fall League and any winter league they can this winter to evaluate his shoulder and the health of it before the season. Bird is a young guy and he had a similar surgery that Luis Torrens had last season and has come back from without any major issues. Torrens is a catcher and has to throw the ball back to the pitcher 150+ times a night, Bird is not. Bird will be fine and will be the Yankees starting first baseman on Opening Day 2017 saving the Yankees over $20 million in salary and bringing the average age of the club down significantly.

No more Beltran belts one in New York and Aaron Judge struggled in Triple-A at the end of the 2015 season, what are the Yankees going to do? Leave the past where it belongs, in the past. That’s what they are going to do. Aaron Judge is a special talent and he has a lot of talented coaches and managers surrounding him not only in Triple-A but he will in the Bronx as well. Judge will have another year under his belt heading into next winter and barring an injury or a catastrophic fall off he should also get his MLB debut out of the way at least before the season ends, if not sooner. Judge is the future in right field in my opinion and not even Aaron Hicks, a potential Yoenis Cespedes free agent signing or anyone else is going to stop Judge. That’s my verdict. The Yankees save another $15 million, give or take $500K, and they get a whole lot younger in the process.

No more John Sterling home run calls to reference and no more snazzy one-liners to mention, the Yankees are going to lose Aroldis Chapman to free agency. The good news for the Yankees is the team and the organization has seemingly an uncanny ability to produce high ceiling and talented relief pitchers out of their farm system. Dellin Betances, Jacob Lindgren and Johnny Barbato are recent examples of this and this will continue in 2017. Bryan Mitchell should be fully healed and ready from his toe injury, Lindgren should be a staple in the MLB bullpen and the Scranton Shuttle will still be a thing in 2017 so I see no reason to go out and blow money on an experienced relief pitcher who will want anywhere from $5 million to $15 million when the team has plenty of hungry and young fire ballers willing to throw 100 MPH and strike out two batters an inning for $525K. Save the money, get younger and keep the flow of dominant young arms coming through the Yankees system.

Stick to the plan. Get cheaper, get younger and get better. Get under the luxury tax for a season and give Hal Steinbrenner no excuse not to dip his feet into the free agent waters again.


Game Preview: New York Yankees vs. Oakland Athletics 4/21


Tonight the New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics will make the trip to the Bronx one last time as these two teams finish off their three game set inside Yankee Stadium this week. The first game went to extra innings with the Yankees losing a heartbreaker while the second game was a tough one for both sides. Who will win tonight and take the series and who will head into their next series with a little bit of momentum? We’ll have to stay tuned and watch to find out as the Yankees send Luis Severino to the mound tonight to face off against a former Yankee in Rich Hill for the Athletics.

Severino has not had the start to the 2016 season that he or his Yankees teammates would have hoped for. Severino is slated to make his 14th MLB start tonight at just 22-years old and will look to lower his ERA and 15.2 H/9 IP ratios specifically tonight in the Bronx. This is why small sample sizes are bad to use as indicators for future performance, Severino’s H/9 ratio last season was just 7.7.
 Hill heads into tonight’s start with two loses already on his record despite pitching well in his starts for the most part. In Hill’s last start against the Kansas City Royals the right-hander allowed three runs on nine hits in just 4.1 innings in the loss and has yet to go over five innings more than once this season. This is the game the Yankees must win.


The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET inside Yankee Stadium and can be seen on the YES Network and MLB TV. The Yankees need this win in the worst way. You can’t win a division or clinch a playoff spot in April but you sure can lose one by losing games like this that you should be winning. Severino needs to turn things around and Hill is an average, at best, starter. Don’t fall for the trap game, just win. Go Yankees.


Hypothetical 2017 Yankees Club w/ Offseason Spending Spree


The New York Yankees went an entire offseason without signing a single major league free agent this winter, something I can’t ever remember seeing in my lifetime and fandom. Now the Yankees did take on money and add talent in the Starlin Castro, Aaron Hicks and Aroldis Chapman trades but the fact remains that New York did not sign a single free agent. Not for the bench, not for the bullpen and not for the starting rotation. This is especially shocking because this was one of the deepest free agent classes in recent memory and easily the deepest since the qualifying offer system was put into place and the Yankees showed patience and a willingness to stay the course. What if they throw the course out the window this winter and fill holes via free agency before 2017?

Obviously this is hypothetical, it even says so in the post title, so take it as that before sending hate mail to the site. It may be hypothetical but it is still plausible if you look at the recent history with the Yankees and with Hal Steinbrenner specifically. Attendance is down in 2016 already and will continue to be down in my opinion, even Bald Vinny isn’t going to the games anymore with any sort of consistency, and while Hal may be cheap he definitely isn’t dumb. He knows it takes stars and a draw to get people to come to the stadium and pay those prices down in the Bronx. Hal knows that spending a little actually makes money in the long run, as long as the team is winning and the spending is done the correct way anyway, and Hal knows that New York has some money coming off the books after the season. Hal may spend and he may spend a lot.

The Yankees will have a hole at first base after the season with the departure of Mark Teixeira and they will have another hole out in right field with Carlos Beltran’s contract expiring. New York will likely have another closer in 2017, whether it be Andrew Miller or a free agent, but one thing looks certain and that is that it won’t be Aroldis Chapman after his contract expires this winter and the team can always use another bench player or bullpen arm to solidify an already solid bullpen. Who could New York go after to fill these holes based on the presumption, for the sake and fun of this post, that Aaron Judge won’t be ready for right field and MLB pitching and that Greg Bird will need some time to get his shoulder right after offseason shoulder surgery. Taking a look at the potential free agent market after this season the “pickins” may be slim unfortunately.

We start with an easy one in my eyes, replacing Carlos Beltran. Outfielders tend to come a dime a dozen on the free agent market every season, especially at the corner spots, but there is one outfielder that specifically caught my eye. This outfielder can opt-out of his current contract after the season and this same outfielder approached the Yankees offering his services to the club. This outfielder is Yoenis Cespedes. I don’t believe Cespedes is as good over the course of 162 games as he was in  a half season with the Mets in 2015 but I believe he’s a lot better than Beltran and a lot better than most of what is set to be on the free agent market. He’s 31-years old so I don’t care as much about the money as I do about the years. Keep the years under five years and I’m happy, sign him up. Also, yes I realize Jose Bautista is a free agent and yes I realize his power inside Yankee Stadium would be tremendous and would far outweigh him being a douche bag, my opinion, but I see him destined for Boston to continue to be a thorn in the Yankees side.

Replacing Mark Teixeira may not be as easy as replacing Beltran due to the fact that the first base market is as dry as a cucumber next winter. The headliners at the position will be Mark Trumbo, Justin Smoak and Edwin Encarnacion while the likes of Pedro Alvarez, Ike Davis, Ryan Howard, James Loney, Mike Napoli and Wilin Rosario bring up the second tier. It’s almost has to be Edwin Encarnacion or bust for the Yankees, doesn’t it? He is 34-years old and unlikely to sign a short term deal so the blocking of Greg Bird wouldn’t be ideal here but the rest of the options just aren’t that enticing. Maybe New York can get creative and put an opt-out clause in there or options or something, I don’t know, but if it’s not Encarnacion it looks like Teixeira may be back on a one-year deal and/or a qualifying offer.

The final piece to the spending spree comes from the Yankees pitching staff, either for the rotation or the bullpen. The pen seems easier to fill from within but the rotation still seems to need help in 2017. CC Sabathia will be another year older, Ivan Nova will be potentially gone and you still don’t know what to expect out of Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi from start to start. So while the team would technically look to replace Aroldis Chapman in the bullpen the team may indirectly replace him by adding a starter that can give the team more than five or six innings a night thus taking the pressure and some of the work load off the pen. This is all for fun and we’re going big so I’m going real big and I’m reaching for the stars, the Washington Nationals stars. Stephen Strasburg come on down, you’re the next contestant in the Yankees future starting rotation.


You don’t see 28-year old former first overall draft picks hit the free agent market every day and when you do you have to snatch him up. He makes the team better and younger and so does Cespedes in my opinion. Encarnacion or Teixeira may make the team better but certainly not younger, that’s what you run into though when your farm system isn’t as deep as it needs to be. That forces you into the pool with the big boys and it forces you to write checks your ass doesn’t want to cash Hal. Write those checks buddy, I just told you how. 

Weekly Check In: Aaron Judge


Judgement time has finally come to The Greedy Pinstripes in the way of a weekly check in post with some of the Yankees top prospects. We’ve seen Nick Swisher’s stats along with those of James Kaprielian and Gary Sanchez but today the Judge has his say, his final verdict if you will. We all know the story of Aaron Judge and his rise through the Yankees farm system. He’s destroyed every minor league affiliate and stop he’s made until he seemingly hit a wall, or had a mystery back injury that still no one to this day wants to talk about, in Triple-A with the RailRiders. Judge struggled and didn’t get his call up to the Major Leagues in September. Rather than let that get him down he used that as motivation this spring and had a great spring in a small sample size. Now Judge is back with the RailRiders for his second season with his eyes back on the prize, the Bronx.


Here are the Judge’s stats as they stand this morning: 

This Day in New York Yankees History 4/21: Eddie Murray Passes Mickey Mantle


On this day in 1994 Eddie Murray knocked a home run from both sides of the plate in the Indians' 10-6 win over the Twins. Eddie Murray hit a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game for the eleventh time breaking the previous record set by Yankee legend Mickey Mantle in 1964.