Yankees vs. Royals Game Preview: Capuano's first start

Chris Capuano will make his season debut today, after rehabbing a quad strain since mid-March. There had been some question as to whether he would take Adam Warren or Chase Whitley's spot in the rotation, but Whitley's elbow injury took care of that problem. In order to activate Capuano, Bryan Mitchell was sent back to Triple-A. Capuano has never faced the Royals before, and the Yankees need him to do his best impersonation of CC Sabathia and eat up a bunch of innings, though only allowing one run would be great too, especially after the way the bullpen got hammered on Friday night.

The Royals will send Edinson Volquez to the mound. In his last outing, he gave up four runs in five innings to the Rangers. Volquez has recently been dealing with a blister on his right thumb, but that's been said to be improving and could be a non-issue. He has a 3.19 ERA and 4.18 xFIP going into this game. Here's your interesting stat of the day: In seven at-bats, Didi Gregorius has hit two home runs off of Volquez in the past. Several other Yankees have also taken him deep before, so maybe this game will keep the offense on track.

Despite Friday's disaster of a game, the Yankees still have a chance to take the series with a win today. Today's game starts at 2:10 EST and you can catch it on YES Network and MLBN.