Well big surprise, the Yankees made the playoffs. Bigger surprise, they made it as the wildcard?!?! Yes that is correct, the Yankees made the playoffs as the wild card despite winning 95 games and face Minnesota in the first round. Another first round matchup against Minnesota, a team that has struggled vs the Yankees in the Ron Gardenhire era. The Yankees sent CC to the mound in game 1 knowing full well they were gonna run him back in game 4 on 3 days rest. The Yankees have already announced just a 3 man rotation with CC-Andy-Phil. The Yankees also come in to this series struggling struggling mightily winning only 29 of their last 60 games and 7-14 in the last 21. They went from 36 over 500 at the best to finishing the season 28 over.
The Yankees made a few interesting calls with the playoff roster, they went with Greg Golson on the bench. A speedster who plays good defense and has a nice arm who will likely pinch run and play valuable 8th and 9th inning defensive replacement minutes. They also decided to leave Gaudin, Vazquez, and Nova off the roster and went with Burnett, Moseley, and Mitre as the long relievers in the pen. That comes in addition to the stud 5 in the pen--Mariano, Logan, Robertson, Wood, and Joba. The rest of the Yankee bench includes Ramiro Pena as the utility infielder, Lance Berkman, Marcus Thames, and Austin Kearns. I'm hoping Kearns won'y play vs Lefites and they just trust Granderson and Gardner to get it done, but we shall see. In the meantime the series looks to be interesting and I think the Yankees will need a big first game performance if they wanna take control of this series. It could really deflate Minnesota with a first game W, given their history against each other.
First pitch is 8:37, CC vs Liriano.
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