The Yankees managed to win last night against the Tigers even after Mariano Rivera blew his third consecutive save, thanks to a Brett Gardner walk off home run. They won their first series of the second half and their first since the beginning of July against the Orioles. Tonight the goal is to win consecutive games for the first time since the last game of the Royals series and the first game of the Twins series before the break. Their lineup against the Angels includes:
Tonight's lineup: Gardner 8 ichiro DH Cano 4 ARod 5 Overbay 3 Soriano 7 granderson 9 Nunez 6 Stewart 2 Kuroda 1
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) August 12, 2013
Brett Gardner and the DHing Ichiro Suzuki lead off the offense with Robinson Cano hitting third and Alex Rodriguez back in the lineup hitting clean up and at third base. Lyle Overbay follows and then corner outfielders Alfonso Soriano and Curtis Granderson bat further down in the order than usual. Eduardo Nunez and Chris Stewart round out the lineup as Austin Romine goes back to his mandatory place on the bench.
The big reinforcements, Soriano and Granderson, are hitting a measly .204/.232/.389 and .179/.361/.286, respectively, over the last month. Stewart has been the worst hitter in this lineup over the last month, hitting only .143/.222/.184 while Romine has hit .333/.438/.556. It would be nice to see if Romine can sustain that over regular playing time, but that doesn't look likely to happen.
Derek Jeter will continue to throw while he's with the team over this home stand, however, the plan is for him to return to Tampa to rehab his calf injury when the Yankees go on the road. Jeter has stated that he needs to begin running on a bike before he starts sprints on the field and return to baseball activity. He'll probably also get into a game or two in Tampa before he's activated from the disabled list.
The team will be in New York for the next for games against Los Angeles and then will travel to Boston to to face the Red Sox for three games. After that they have that Monday off and return home to face the Blue Jays in a four-game series (with a doubleheader scheduled for Tuesday). If he's on the fast track like last time, he could be back with the Yankees around then or could wait until they come to him for the series with the Tampa Bay Rays.