Good morning, Pinstripe Alley!
Contrary to popular belief, the sun has risen on this Sunday morning and the New York Yankees are alive and well despite losing their last four games.
The Boston Red Sox are looking for their first ever three-game sweep of the Yankees at New Yankee Stadium tonight at 8:05 on ESPN. It'll be Jon Lester taking on Freddy Garcia. More on this game will be posted in the afternoon. For now, onto your morning links.
Mike Mazzeo of ESPN takes a look at the recent "rut" that the Yankees have found themselves in. Interestingly enough, Mark Teixeira was 0 for his last 30 against Boston until his single in the seventh inning. Here's a bit from him on the slump.
"When you slump as a team, you’re gonna lose games. The great thing about baseball is if I’m in a slump, and the guy behind me is hitting well, we’re fine. If one pitcher doesn’t get the job done, the other pitcher steps up or whatever the case may be. But when everyone’s in a rut, it doesn’t make for a lot of wins."
Personally, my favorite quote came from Brett Gardner.
"Offensively recently we haven’t been able to get a whole lot going, but you can sit around and do two things: you can either sit around and hang your head or you can get ready to work tomorrow and try to salvage a game from these guys."
This is good. Red Sox and Yankees minor league affiliates had a bench-clearing brawl on Saturday in a South Atlantic League game between the Greenville Drive and the Charleston River Dogs. Slade Heathcott was plunked by a pitched, turned around and started throwing punches at the catcher. Video can be seen here. Charleston won the game, 6-2. A minor victory for the Yanks, I suppose.
Wallace Matthews tbreaks down the Jorge Posada situation and speculates on how this could be just the beginning of craziness in the future when Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and CC Sabathia don't live up to their tremendous contracts.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend and come back later tonight to see if the Yankees can salvage the final game of the series against the Red Sox.