Cano not in lineup today. He did extra hitting work with Kevin Long on back field. Hitting power to right field–a Yankee Stadium swing?

Cloudy and muggy here in Tampa today. Dad getting a sandwich for us to share. We have a half hour still until baseball. Mom teaching aqua.

Starting pitchers today. Sabathia for #Yankees, Charlie Morton for Pirates. Still looking for Pittsburgh’s lineup.

Sabathia’s first pitch slider for a strike. Third pitch, meatball down the middle, hit up the middle for a leadoff single.

Ronnie Cedeño now doubles. Men on 2nd and 3rd and no out. Is Sabathia working on something? Fastball location not where he wants it.

Lastings Milledge hits an RBI single, and then Garrett Jones cleans up in the fourth spot with a three run homer. Tra la spring training…

Wow, fearless. Sabathia snares soft liner right at him as the broken bat flew right at him. Then a pop up. But then another double.

8 Pirates batted. Four runs on five hits. Now Yankees coming to bat. Jeter, Johnson, Posada, Arod.

No, it doesn’t get old. The world series trophy is on display until the fifth inning. Dad and I may run down and get pictures.

Nick Johnson homers to right center. Second one this spring! Welcome back, Nick.

Posada singles, Arod walks. Here comes Granderson with one out.

Granderson caught looking. Up to Swisher to cash them in.

Swishalicious! RBI single plates posada.

Winn flies out. But we got two runs back. Sabathia back on hill.

Nice easy grounder to third gets Jaramillo. Then goes full count on McCutchen, but gets grounder to Jeter. Cedeño strikes out! 1-2-3.

Up for the Yankees, Cuban defector Juan Miranda. To be followed by Kevin Russo, Jeter, Johnson. Miranda robbed on liner to first!!

Both Russo and Jeter chased high fast balls from Morton. Russo struck out and Jeter hit a comebacker. Hmph. Sabathia out for the third.

Sabathia strikes out Milledge, now faces Jones, who homered in the first.

Jones hits a pop fly that falls in front of Winn and gets a double out of it. Scores quickly on an Andy LaRoche single up the middle.

Sabathia done. Walked clement. Now in Dustin Moseley.

Moseley strikes out Crosby and gets Young on liner to center. Coming up for nyy, Johnson, Posada, Arod.

Nick Johnson goes yard again! But that’s all we get. Moseley greeted by leadoff single in the fourth, now facing McCutchen again.

RT @BryanHoch Yankees have traded RHP Edwar Ramirez to the Rangers for cash considerations.

Pirates tack on another run. Two out, man on 2nd, Moseley facing Garrett jones who is having a big day… But Jorge catches runner napping!

New pitcher for Pitt. Lefty Brian Burres. Swisher. Walks.

Two walks to start inning. Then had Miranda down 0-2, worked to full count, then got him to chase some junk. One out, Russo up.

Burres walks Russo. Meeting on the mound before facing Jeter with bases loaded. Burres really doesn’t like facing right handers.

Burres goes 2-0 on Jeter. Not close. Jeter then chops ball to third gets one run in. Jon Weber pinch hits for Johnson, plates two! Double.

So Jorge bats with go ahead run on second. 6-6 game. Burres still on mound.

Posada RBI single takes lead, knocks Burres from game. Had full count, Burres didn’t want to walk him in front of Arod, got good pitch.

Ronald Oviedo’s first pitch to Arod almost went to the screen. Second one Arod fouled into the coaches and Nick Swisher, who ran into dugout

New Yankees pitcher, Royce Ring. Also Brandon Laird now at 3rd, Eduardo Nunez at ss. Unless like yesterday the announcer is wrong.

Ring gets a quick 1-2-3!

Granderson greets Pitt pitcher DJ Carrasco with a triple. Swisher up.

Swisher mad at himself. Struck out on sucker pitch. Now Winn.

Winn strikes out too. Ugh. And Miranda broke his bat on ground out. Granderson stranded.

Romulo sanchez looks built like Albaladejo but he pitched better. Another 1-2-3 and the yanks are back at bat trying to add to lead.

Sanchez strikes out former Yank prospect Jose Tabata, walks Argentis Diaz and leaves game. Lefty Boone Logan now pitching.

Logan gets a nice 4-6-3 double play. Still 7-6 Yanks. Montero now up to bat. Hyped and touted. Flies to right on first pitch.

Donnie Veal sits the yanks down 1-2-3. Seven innings in the books and my battery is getting low.

Tie game. Bobby Crosby Rbi double off Logan. Men on 2nd and 3rd one out.

Fielders choice brings in 8th pirate run. Logan gets next man on liner, gives way to new pitcher Hector Noesi. 8-7 pirates. 2 outs.

Noesi has really high leg kick. Gets lots of foul balls.

To the ninth. Two walks in 8th came to nothing. 8-7 Pitt still.

Sigh. Bleich now pitching. Error kept inning alive. Pirates batted around. Now 12-7 pirates going into bottom of the ninth.

Pirates won. Arrrr.

Today’s game was one long round of “who is that player?”

This is a typical spring activity, but one would think that with modern information technology things would get easier.

One would be wrong.

I started out this morning trying to print out the rosters from MLB.com which was all well and good, but what about the non-roster players? Those are the guys you need to know the most. So I went next to SpringTraining.com and printed out lists of the non-roster players, too. But I couldn’t help but notice the Phillies hadn’t assigned numbers to them by the time they went to press… so the list could be of limited usefulness.

Things started out easy enough, since both the Yankees and Phillies began with most of their regular starters. Missing from the Yankees were Jeter, A-Rod, and Granderson, who had all taken the bus trip to Bradenton to play the Pirates in a split squad. But the Phillies had a very similar lineup to what we say in the World Series last year: Rollins, Polanco, Utley, Howard, Ibanez, Werth, Francisco, Mayberry, Ruiz (aka Chooch).

Things started out not so easy for Javier Vazquez, whose last pitch in a Yankees uniform (according to the Twitter feed of Sweeny Murti of WFAN) was a grand slam to Johnny Damon, and whose first pitch back was… a home run to Jimmy Rollins.

But after that Vazquez looked good, throwing some off-speed stuff and striking out four of the next six batters he faced.

Meanwhile, I was trying to find out who the pitcher for he Phillies was, which was not in any of the tweets from press members I looked at, and the MLB.com “At Bat” Lite application for iPhone spent an entire inning trying to load game data and then I gave up. It looked like he was wearing #38, and according to the SpringTraining.com roster that would make him Kyle Kendrick. He was a skinny right-hander. (The reason we weren’t sure what his number was has nothing to do with technology and entirely to do with the fact that all the people I sit with have worse eyesight than mine, and mine is spotty through the screen.)

The Phillies changed pitchers in the fourth. No. 52. A dark-skinned guy. I checked the roster… there was no #52 listed. I went back to MLB.com’s “At Bat” app. “At Bat” now loaded and told me that currently pitching for the Phillies was… Kyle Kendrick. NOT HELPFUL.

Well, the Yankees shelled the mystery pitcher, getting two runs off him in his first inning of work, and then another four in the next one. The mystery was solved after he left the game and I went back to check “At Bat,” which was running a whole inning behind, and saw that it was Jose Contreras. Aha.

Meanwhile, on the Yankees side of the ledger, Jonathan Albaladejo looked a bit better that Saturday (when it would have been difficult to look worse, allowing 8 of 9 batters to reach, including a 3 run homer…). David Robertson looked good, letting a ground ball single go through and then a double play to erase the runner, but he had two strikes on Werth and could have ended a tidy inning if he’d retired him. Instead, Werth walked, and Robertson ended up leaving after facing three more batters, retiring none and giving up two runs. Amaury Sanit then came on and put out the fire by striking out Rollins, and then getting out of the next inning without allowing a run.

Still don’t know much about Sanit, but it’s clear the Yankees are intrigued by him and want to see what he can do.

Meanwhile, word came from Bradenton that Alfredo Aceves had pitched to 12 batters, retired them all, and struck out three. Nice. And the Yankees were up 3-0 there.

My scorecard is a bit of a mess, because there were various times when the PA announcer didn’t know how a player was, either, and announced the wrong one. Like at one point #94 came in to play second base and was announced as Eduardo Nunez. However, later that player hit a home run, and we’re pretty sure it was actually David Adams, not Nunez. (Just checked the box score… yep, Adams.) The only Yankee who played the whole game was Kevin Russo, whom we speculate was playing to impress his family. At the very least, two rows in front of us were a group of people who cheered really loud when he was announced before the game, and who went nuts when he doubled to lead off the big rally in the fifth… Definitely family, or family friends.

That was most of the excitement. Nick Swisher had a nice day at the plate, with a double to the wall in right center, and a ground rule double to the wall in left center. Super-hitting prospect Jesus Montero struck out looking, not much to say there. Marcus Thames is back with the Yankees… he finished the day with three strikeouts. Shrug. The Yankees got another run in the seventh, and the Phils added a John Mayberry solo shot, such that going into the top of the ninth it was 7-4 Yankees.

Normally that would be Mariano time, but this is spring training. We were forced to guess that #70, who had pitched the bottom of the eighth, was Zack Segovia.

Segovia got a little tight in the closing situation though, when Jimmy Parades, who had taken over third, made a blatant error to let the leadoff man on, and then with one out, Segovia let in back to back singles, scoring Kevin Nelson. That was enough for him, and so on came Kevin Whelan, who was at least printed on the roster. Whelan struck out Andy Tracy and then got a fly ball from Dominic Brown, which for half a second looked like it was going to put the Phillies on top… but no, it was hauled in for the final out. The game was over in a tidy 2 hours 46 minutes.

A shout-out to Dan McCourt of TakeHimDowntown. and one of the contributors to the YANKEES ANNUAL, who was at the game with some of our other pals from the Behind the Bombers bulletin board! (You guys! Email me the photo(s)! And enjoy the baseball and nice weather!)

I think I burned my ear.

Hello and welcome to another Spring Training! I’m in Tampa all week, and with any luck I’ll also be stopping by Lakeland. I’m not working on any high-powered books or articles at the moment (the YANKEES ANNUAL just came out so that is all done!) so this week I get to be just a fan, and sit in the stands and eat all the hot dogs I want.

Well, actually, I’m on a diet, but you get the idea.

Today’s fun in the sun took place at George M. Steinbrenner stadium, the place formerly known as Legends Field and still called that by many locals. Last night as my mother drove me from the airport to their house north of the city, we passed the brand new Steinbrenner High School. The Steinbrenners have been big philanthropists in Tampa, which is why you’ll see the New York Yankees logo on police cars and the like. (I imagine some poor Red Sox fans getting busted for being drunk and thinking it must be some kind of conspiracy…)

My mother couldn’t come to the game today (she was at a Haiti fundraiser), so I had an extra ticket to get rid of before the game. I milled about with some scalpers near the parking lot, but as game time drew nearer it was obvious no one wanted to buy just a single ticket. A scalper near me was also trying to sell just one ticket.

Finally, he approached me. “You’re selling one, but do you have two? How about this, will you trade me your two upper level seats for this one lower level seat which is a much better seat? It’s like fourth row.”

I looked at the ticket. It was for row DD, section 117. I knew from prior experience that would probably put me in the sun, and given that it’s only in the low sixties today in Tampa, that sounded like a plus. My regular seats are in the shade. Also, I knew row DD, when behind the dugouts, is the first row, not the fourth. I went for it. He was happy and I was happy.

Sure enough, my seat was right behind the Blue Jays dugout. As such, I decided not to “live tweet” the game, because I needed to be paying attention for foul balls. I got to my seat and had gotten out my regular paper scorecard just as the National Anthems began.

Canada’s anthem is really pretty, isn’t it? (Apologies to anyone who is sick of it right now; I didn’t watch any of the Olympics so this is the first time I’ve heard it since the last time I saw the Blue Jays.)

Observations from the game:

1st inning:
Every single Yankee is on the rail, watching the game. They are rapt as A.J. Burnett gets in and out of trouble. Burnett looks like his usual self, meaning he’s getting some swings and misses here and there… but is too prone to giving up the walk. This time it’s with two on, two out, and a 3-2 count, he walks Lyle Overbay. Argh. He escapes by popping up the next batter (Jeremy Reed) but has thrown a lot of pitches. Worse, every ball that has been hit has been a rocket.

2nd Inning:
AJ goes 2-0 on his former catcher Jose Molina. Then gets a swing and miss, and eventually a soft grounder to short. He’s the only guy Burnett really has looked “good” against, though. Snider, Bautista, and Hill all hit ropes off him. Sitting this close–we’re only about 110 feet from the batter–you can really hear the crack of the bat. I’m sure A.J. hears it even louder. He gives up two runs and is yanked after Hill’s RBI single.

On comes Amaury Sanit, a pitcher I’ve not only never seen before, but never even heard of. No one else in our section has heard of him either. He escapes by luck, serving up a deep drive to Adam Lind that Granderson hauls on on the warning track.

Third Inning:
Sanit gives up a leadoff hit and is gone. On comes Boone Logan, the lefty who came from the Braves with Javier Vazquez. I’d been hoping to see him, and they bring him in to face two lefties in a row, Overbay and Reed. He gets Overbay to live to first, doubling off the runner (nice play Miranda) and then Reed to ground out.

In spring training, not only can you hear the crack of the bat better, you can hear everything else better, too. The crowds are pretty quiet, and even the scoreboard music doesn’t sound like much during the innings. As such, you can hear what everyone around you says. Behind me there were two kids. One of them said, “I don’t understand why it’s called a dead ball. The ball isn’t ‘dead.’” His friend: “It just means no one can run.” First one again: “That’s morbid.”

Then Alex Rodriguez adjusted his anatomy, as ballplayers are wont to do, prompting a guy behind us to yell, “Yeah, Alex, it’s still there.”

Francisco Cervelli led off the bottom of the inning with Zach Zinicola pitching for the Jays. He tried to duck away from a Zinicola pitch and got it squarely on the noggin. Worst helmet hit I’ve seen since the Clemens/Piazza beanball. It sounded like a salad bowl, dull and plastic, and the ball kangarooed high in the air. Cervelli went immediately to all fours, both the umpire and Molina bending over him, and then didn’t move a muscle for a while. Trainer and coaches coaxed him to his feet after a minute or two and then he walked off the field, but upon checking the Twitter feed of YankeesPR later in the game we learned he had a concussion. Ouch.

Fourth Inning
Boone Logan looks pretty good. He threw a live fastball that he was able to spot on the outside corner for a strike, and he gave the Yankees their first (and only) one-two-three inning of the day. E

Ever notice when Jorge Posada wants a pitcher to really listen to him, he touches him on the chest while they’re talking? Sometimes repeatedly. (I get the feeling sometimes Jorge wants to smack them in the face to make them listen… but only sometimes.) He kind of taps them with all his fingertips splayed, sometimes in different spots on their chest. I’d think maybe it was some kind of signal except I haven’t picked up any pattern to it.

I also noticed from this angle that when Jorge wants to see eye to eye with a pitcher who is taller then him, he backs the guy down the back of the mound until their eye levels match.

Jorge’s throwdown to second looked really good today after every warmup. However, seconds after I made note of that, he overthrew third base on the around-the-horn after a strikeout. Hey, it’s spring training.

Overheard in the Yankees half of the fourth:
“So I was watching Antiques Roadshow and this guy had a Hank Aaron bat. it was awesome, the bat had all the bruises from the balls hitting it.”

During A-Rod’s second at bat: “$100,000 a day, hit the ball!” (He then struck out.)

Fifth Inning:
Albaladejo is apparently Spanish for “awful.” When Jonathan Albaladejo took the mound in the fifth, it was still a game, 2-1 Jays. When he left, he had faced nine batters, given up seven hits and one walk, and the one out he recorded was a line drive that Miranda miraculously snared! Five runs. That was pretty much it for the realism of the game. The biggest cheer of the entire day was for Dave Eiland when he came to take Albaladejo out.

After that, most of the regulars came out of the lineup, and it was a parade of second stringers. We did get to see Andrew Brackman pitch, the former college basketball star who has been in the Yankees system for a little while now. You could tell it was Brackman right away because of all the comments from people in our section along the lines of, “****, this guy’s tall.” He did give up a two-run homer, but the score hardly mattered at that point. We were also impressed by the fielding of Brandon Laird, the man who took over third base after A-Rod left the game. Laird is the brother of the catcher Gerald and made several nice plays and strong throws to first.

In the end the Jays had 16 hits, the Yankees only 5, but the shade and chilly didn’t reach us until the ninth inning, so I really can’t complain. It was all of 45 degrees in Boston today, and I’m not sorry I’m not there right now one bit. Nor am I sorry that I’ve sunburned my right ear (the sun was on that side of me all day).

Next game is Monday! I may live tweet it from @whyilikebb, or look for my next writeup here on Monday night!

Mariano threw only two balls in his outing. Struck out two looking, and had one comebacker to the mound. Corwin points out that maybe one reason Mo’s arm never breaks down is he doesn’t throw any breaking pitches at all. Hm.

Feels really good to see Jorge greet Mariano on the mound.

Igawa got out of the fifth without giving up a run but he didn’t look good. How much of that is our expectation, I don’t know but he threw a lot of balls.

Second inning of work Igawa’s bacon was saved by an amazing but ugly grab to start a DP by Edwardo Nunez. Nunez now leading off the sixth and got a nice hand. And then beat out an infield hit.

Today’s game is moving a lot slower than the previous two. Both pitchers have struggled with control. Apparently today I am struggling with typing. Must be the after effects of last night’s pilgrimage to Bern’s Steakhouse.

Lots and lots of Phillies fans here today.

Joba is still missing some of the time but he is still getting the guys out. Mid the second.

Well, the USA staved off elimination in the WBC so we still have no Jeter. The thing I miss most is watching him play long toss before every game.

Looking forward to Joba today! Although he just walked the first batter on 4 pitches, then struck out the next on 3… (cue ominous music).

1:26 PM
Joba is clearly working out some kinks.

He looks a little skinnier than last year.

Yes! Got Ryan Howard looking with a man on second.

1:45 PM
Today’s game is moving a lot slower than the previous two. Both pitchers have struggled with control. Apparently today I am struggling with typing. Must be the after effects of last night’s pilgrimage to Bern’s Steakhouse.

Lots and lots of Phillies fans here today.

Joba is still missing some of the time but he is still getting the guys out. Mid the second.

1:54 PM
Just wrote “failed pitch out” in my scorecard. Nunez stole second on a pitch out but the catcher had butterfingers.

Yesterday’s trivia quiz was tricky. Who was the first Yankee batter announced by Bob Sheppard? I will answer next inning…

They put the shift on Howard and got the ground ball but didn’t get him out because he hit it too softly.

2:24
The guys sitting behind us played high school baseball with Kevin Cash. So we hope he gets in the game. Lately we’ve seen Cervelli and Montero though.

Bruney pitching now.

Oh, and the first Yankee batter announced by Bob Sheppard was Jackie Jensen.

2:40
Cody Ransom looks really good today on both offense and defense. Now if he was 23 instead of 33 he would be a hot prospect.

Nick Swisher uses Jimi Hendrix as at bat music and Joba has AC/DC.

2:46
Oh no. Kei Igawa.

3:12
Igawa got out of the fifth without giving up a run but he didn’t look good. How much of that is our expectation, I don’t know but he threw a lot of balls.

Second inning of work Igawa’s bacon was saved by an amazing but ugly grab to start a DP by Edwardo Nunez. Nunez now leading off the sixth and got a nice hand. And then beat out an infield hit.

3:30
The Yankees broke it open in the 6th, sending 11 men to the plate. One of them was Kevin Cash, making our friends happy. Cash hit a pop foul on the first pitch that ended up just fair and ended up in the seats. RBI ground rule double.

With such a big lead, Igawa gets another inning.

4:03
Cash was on deck last inning so we grilled his pals over whether he was always a catcher, that is, did he always have those ham hocks for legs? Or as corwin put it, “catcher’s butt”?

Apparently he was a third baseman until after he went pro. “but he always walked funny, like he’s wearing high heels.” His pal also pointed out Cash might be the only guy who has won all three World Series, Little League, College (FSU), and MLB (Red Sox).

Cash is on again on another lucky pop! Flubbed by left fielder for two bases.

It is 11-0 Yankees.

Huge hand for Jorge. He has been DHing so it is not like he hasn’t played but still.

Wow, Jorge beat out an infield hit! And because they were holding that speed demon on, Damon’s grounder became a hit instead of a double play. And then he tagged and took third on a foul pop! Apparently while having his shoulder fixed, Posada got new legs.

[Blogging Live via the Steinbrenner Field Wifi]

The weather is perfect again today. 81 degrees, breezy, and we were just treated to a special forces parachute drop.

With any luck, we’re about to be treated to Jorge behind the plate and Pettitte on the mound.

[I've now consolidated all the live blog posts into a single post.]

1:09 PM
Amusingly, Posada is leading off.

1:29 PM
Huge hand for Jorge. He has been DHing so it is not like he hasn’t played but still.

Wow, Jorge beat out an infield hit! And because they were holding that speed demon on, Damon’s grounder became a hit instead of a double play. And then he tagged and took third on a foul pop! Apparently while having his shoulder fixed, Posada got new legs.

1:42 PM
The first outbreak of the Let’s Go Yankees chant came in the second inning after a nice two strike clap. Pettitte then ended the inning with a K.

2:03
What is it with pitchers getting hit here? Yesterday one of the Astros got hit in the hand with a line drive. Today Glen Perkins of the Twins just got hit with Matsui’s broken bat and fell right off the mound. It was the third out so they took him right out. It looked like it hurt.

2:11
Swisher just lived up to his name and struck out on 3 pitches.

2:22
This game is flying along. Like yesterday, which had no walks, this one is walk-free. We are halfway through and only one hour has passed.

Phil Coke did his part with two perfect innings. As we said in the Maple Street Press Yankees Annual, Coke would be wasted as a situational lefty. The annual is on sale now, FYI.

2:40
Coke started to lose it in his third inning of work with two outs. He allowed three line drives on a row, then walked a guy. Dave Eiland made a visit, and he got a dribbler out of the next guy to end the inning. Nice job.

Posada out of the game.