Around the Empire: Yankees news — 7/30/2020

WFAN.com: The radio voice of the New York Yankees, John Sterling, missed last night’s game because he was feeling under the weather. In his place, Rickie Ricardo, the Spanish play-by-play announcer, filled in. As everybody knows, the 82-year-old Sterling does not like missing games, as he in fact missed his first game since 1989 last July, so let’s hope that this isn’t serious, and that Sterling returns to the booth shortly.

New York Times | James Wagner: Even by the standards of this 2020 season, this week has been strange for the New York Yankees. Following the cancellation of the two games in Philadelphia, the league put forward the possibility of the Yankees heading to Baltimore to play the Orioles instead of to New York to play the Phillies, in order to give the Phillies a longer time to quarantine after playing the COVID-infected Marlins. A quick players’ meeting, a herculean effort by Ben Tuliebitz, and a bit of flexibility later, and we have a reworked schedule — the necessary price of playing baseball in 2020.

Philadelphia Inquirer | Matt Breen: Two bits of potential Yankees news in this Philadelphia article. For starters, the Yankees/Phillies home-and-home series looks to be rescheduled for next week, playing the four-game, two-location set simply a week later than expected; how that changes the Yankees’ schedule, since they are supposed to play the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, remains to be seen. Furthermore, the possibility of doubleheaders consisting of two seven-inning games has been raised, in order to shorten the amount of time players need to be at the ballpark and reduce the physical load on players during this abbreviated season.