Game Thread: New York Yankees @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 8/19

Here we go ladies and gentleman as the New York Yankees get set to kick off a three-game weekend set in sunny California with the first game coming here in just a few minutes. The Yankees will send their ace and their stopper to the mound tonight in Masahiro Tanaka needing him to be just that, the ace and the stopper of a mini two-game losing streak. Meanwhile the Angels will counter with a guy that has not kept the Yankees up at night in fear lately the night before his starts in Jered Weaver. The game will be played at 10:05 pm ET inside Angels Stadium of Anaheim and can be seen locally on Fox Sports One and of course on MLB TV.

The Yankees are in LAA all weekend before traveling to Safeco Field to begin another west coast series on Monday with the Seattle Mariners. The Yankees return home soon so click the Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog to get your seats now in preparation for their return. Also don’t forget the TGP T-Shirts link also located at the top of the blog for your Jacoby Ellsbury milk carton shirt or any of the other great shirts brought to you by our friends and partners at Breaking T.

Follow along with us during this game and every game this season by either liking us on Facebook or by giving @GreedyStripes a follow on Twitter. Happy Tanaka Day ladies and gentleman. Go Yankees!

While We Wait: BYB Hub Link Dump

The BYB Hub is a one-stop shop for all things baseball, not just Yankees baseball, and was brought to you by the brilliant mind of Bleeding Yankee Blue owner Robert Casey. You won’t see the “top” blogs on there like River Ave Blues or LoHud but what you will see is a bunch of up-and-coming and equally as talented writers and blog that are getting the help that many blogs and bloggers before them couldn’t get. Check it out as I leave a few links for your reading enjoyment while we wait.

Bleeding Yankee Blue talks about the possibility of Nathan Eovaldi never throwing another pitch for the New York Yankees in his career.

Lady at the Bat discusses how fun the Yankees future can be as we watch the disappointing 2016 version of the Bronx Bombers.

A Boston Red Sox and Jonathan Papelbon reunion? Section 36 asks why not?

Have the Oakland Athletics handled Sonny Gray's health correctly? Bullpen, Baseball and Sock Talk answers that question and more. 

You have to respect John Gibbons for getting in the face of Josh Donaldson for throwing his bat? Krusty Sox Sports thinks so. 

Andrew Miller and those "clever" Indians made an impact on Jessica. Read about it here.

Also be sure to check out or apply for the BYB Hub by checking out BYBHub.Blogspot.com or by contacting Robert Casey on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu. Thanks guys and enjoy. 

Press Release: Charleston Riverdogs Release 2017 Schedule

RiverDogs Release 2017 Schedule

Heavy Thursday – Sunday game days highlights schedule

CHARLESTON, SC –With two more homestands and the South Atlantic League playoffs right around the corner, the Charleston RiverDogs have announced the 2017 schedule as next year’s 70-game home slate is released.

Marking their 21st season in Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park and the 24th as the RiverDogs, the highlight of the 2017 campaign will be the 11Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday games. Nine contests each on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and only eight on Mondays round out the schedule.

The excitement and fanfare of Opening Night (April 6) and the Independence Day celebration (July 3) are annual top dates and great opportunities to enjoy the fun-filled experience that is widely known as RiverDogs Baseball. There will also be a return of the “Legends in the South” charity alumni baseball game that featured former players from the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves with a soon to be confirmed date.

“Although the summer is not officially over and we haven’t yet hosted the playoffs, we release our schedule early because we know that our fans like to plan ahead, and many are already scheduling activities for the Summer of 2017,” said President and General Manager Dave Echols. “We have a great schedule for ’17, and we’re already in the planning stages for great promotions, food and fun that fans have come to know as the ‘RiverDogs Baseball Experience.’”

May will be the busiest month at Riley Park as the RiverDogs play at home 18 times, while August features 17 dates and July sees 14.

The season begins with a seven-game homestand (April 6-12) as the RiverDogs host the Lexington Legends for four games and then the Augusta GreenJackets for three. The club will then venture to Rome and Augusta before returning home April 20 with a four-game block against the Asheville Tourists.

RiverDogs fans will become familiar with Augusta the most as they come to Riley Park for a total of 15 games while state-rivals Greenville and Columbia come to Charleston for 11 and 10 games, respectively.

Prior to the season’s opener, the RiverDogs will travel up to Myrtle Beach on April 5 for the second installment of the Battle of the Beaches, a preseason exhibition with the Pelicans at TicketReturn.com Field.

To view the entire schedule, please refer to www.riverdogs.com.

Individual game tickets will go on sale in March, while deposits for season tickets for all 70 home games and other ticket plans may be placed now by calling 843/577-DOGS (3647) or online at www.riverdogs.com.

4 Line Faithful $100 Giveaway!!!

That’s right, 4 Line Faithful is giving away $100 in store credit and you don’t have to buy anything to be entered. Before we get too involved in this I will start by saying that I get nothing if you enter, not even an additional entry or anything myself, but I did want to bring it to you anyway because who doesn’t want to win $100 bucks? I signed up to 4 Line Faithful before partnering with Breaking T because they make some pretty damn awesome t-shirts for a reasonable price so when I checked my email and saw the subject I had to check it out and bring it to you guys as well.

All you have to do to enter is to click THIS link by August 22^nd. 

Game Preview: New York Yankees @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 8/19

The New York Yankees made the trip across the country to the beautiful state of California to take on the team that doesn’t know what part of California they want to be affiliated with, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of Disney World of the Golden Gate Bridge. In all seriousness though the Yankees begin a series with Mike Trout and the Angels tonight at possibly the perfect time for New York as Los Angeles has really struggled over the past two-to-three weeks losing many, many games. Will the Yankees continue to hand the Angels “L’s” or will they fall into the trap? The man donned with the mission to do the former and not the latter for the Yankees is Masahiro Tanaka while the Angels will counter with Jered Weaver looking for a victory of his own.

Tanaka has won each of his last two starts for the Yankees while striking out eight opposing batters in each of those two victories. Tanaka looks to make that three in a row tonight in Los Angeles as he also looks to end the Yankees mini two-game losing streak.

Weaver on the other hand was not great in his last start or the two starts prior to that as well. In fact Weaver has lost each of his last three decisions including a five run and 10 hits allowed effort last time out against the Cleveland Indians. Yeah, more like that tonight Jered please.

The game will be played at 10:05 pm ET inside Angel Stadium of Anaheim and can be seen on Fox Sports One and MLB TV. Thank goodness this is a Friday game because I’ve been sick all week and the thought of staying up until 1:00 am or even 2:00 am on a weekday doesn’t really excite me like it used to. I’ll do what I have to do to root for my boys though, believe that. Go Yankees!

Predicting the 2016 Yankees September Call Ups

The New York Yankees youth movement is in full swing with Aaron Judge taking over the right field duties, Tyler Austin getting the bulk of the work at first base and Gary Sanchez catching behind the plate and frankly it’s a sight for sore eyes. The Yankees have needed such a youth movement for many years now and I am glad the team has finally committed to doing it and for this season I am more excited than ever for the calendar to turn to September so we can get some September call ups and reinforcements from the minor leagues. Who will those reinforcements be? One can only guess and speculate at this point and that is exactly what I’ll try to do for you on this Friday morning.

Let’s start with the easy ones, the players currently on the 40 man roster that have already had their minor league option used for the 2016 season.

INF/OF Robert Refsnyder

OF Ben Gamel

RHP Ben Heller

LHP Chasen Shreve/ RHP Kirby Yates (whichever is down in Triple-A at the time)

LHP James Pazos

RHP Luis Cessa (if he’s sent back down between then and now)

RHP Johnny Barbato

LHP Richard Bleier

RHP Nick Goody

OF Mason Williams

RHP Bryan Mitchell

The 40 man roster the crunch is real. The roster does have one free spot though and has some flexibility if the Yankees were to 60-Day DL Jacob Lindgren, Nathan Eovaldi or Nick Goody while designating Richard Bleier, Anthony Swarzak, Blake Parker, J.R Graham or Tommy Layne to name a few for assignment. The Yankees could get creative and bring up a few others but that’s purely speculatuion at this point. The future finally looks bright in New York and we can get a true glimpse of that come this September. Two more weeks!

Did I omit someone? Am I crazy for including another? Leave it below in the comments section or tweet us your thoughts and responses @GreedyStripes. 

Weekly Prospects Check In: Ben Heller

Ben Heller got his feet a little wet earlier this month after getting called up to the Major Leagues as a fresh arm for Joe Girardi’s bullpen but was sent back down the same week. This was more because of a roster crunch than anything as the Yankees are seemingly pretty high on Heller for this season and going forward and all signs point to New York believing that he could be a staple in their bullpen for years to come.

Heller may be down in Triple-A but he’s not forgotten, trust me on that. He’ll be back in September at the latest. Here is what he would bring to the table if he were to be called up today: 

Year	Age	Lev	Aff	W	L	ERA	G	GF	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9
2016	24	AAA-AA	CLE-NYY	3	3	1.76	47	31	13	46.0	26	9	9	2	14	52	0.870	5.1	0.4	2.7	10.2
2016	24	AA	CLE	1	0	0.55	15	14	7	16.1	3	1	1	1	5	23	0.490	1.7	0.6	2.8	12.7
2016	24	AAA	CLE	2	2	2.49	28	13	5	25.1	20	7	7	1	7	25	1.066	7.1	0.4	2.5	8.9
2016	24	AAA	NYY	0	1	2.08	4	4	1	4.1	3	1	1	0	2	4	1.154	6.2	0.0	4.2	8.3

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

This Day In New York Yankees History 8/19: Wade Boggs the Knuckelballer

Only three times in major league history have we witnessed three sacrifice flies in one inning and we were treated with the Yankees doing it twice during the 2000 season.One of the rarities happened on a warm night in the Bronx when Jorge Posada, Scott Brosius and Clay Bellinger each had sacrifice flies in one inning. Earlier in the season on June 29, 2000 Jose Vizcaino, Tino Martinez, and Bernie Williams also accomplished the feat.

In case you were wondering the first trio to ever accomplish the feat was the Chicago White Sox teammates Juan Pizarro, Nellie Fox, and Al Smith who accomplished this on July 1, 1962.

Finally on this day in 1997 Wade Boggs made his major league pitching debut throwing 16 knuckleballs and one fastball in a 12-4 Yankees loss to the Angels. Boggs would throw a scoreless eight inning giving up not hits, walking a batter, and striking out Todd Greene to end the inning.