New York Yankees News: 6/8/12

- A couple injured Yankees are making progress in their return from various ailments. Brett Gardner will begin his rehab assignment tonight with the Low-A Charleston RiverDogs and Joba Chamberlain intends to throw a bullpen session today after throwing off a half-mound last weekend. We could use both of those guys back ASAP, so it's good to see them on the road to recovery.

- Andy Pettitte has been better than most of us could have hoped he'd be after a year of retirement, and Michael Eder at The Yankee Analysts breaks down Andy's latest strong pitching performance against the Rays to see why he's been so successful. You could argue that right now Pettitte is pitching better than he was when he decided to call it quits, and you'd hear no argument from me on the matter.

- Doctors have seemingly been able to finally pinpoint the cause of Mark Teixeira's lingering cough: nerve damage to one of his vocal chords. Tex was told that it could take up to a year for the damage to completely heal, but that he will have no issue continuing to play through it.

- Lou DiPietro for YES looked at the Yankees' 2012 draft by the numbers and found a few interesting things along the way. Among the statistics of note, twenty-seven of the draftees were taken from college, seven were from the state of Florida, and three play shortstop.