Joe Girardi

New Stadium Playing Much Differently Than Planned

Three games have been played at the new Yankee Stadium thus far and 17 HRs have been hit. Add the eight hit in the exhibition games against the Cubs and that's 25 HRs in five games, or for you shellshocked Yankee fans, five HR per game.

Up 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning with two outs, Damaso Marte gets pulled from the game for Jose Veras. He walks his batter only to be pulled for Phil Coke who gives up three runs and loses the game.

Why are managers so concerned with the lefty and righty match-ups? It makes absolutely no sense to continually do it. I know, I play baseball and I bat left-handed, and yes, it does make it harder to see the ball—but a big league hitter better be able to hit it!

By the time the Kansas City Royals got on the scoreboard it was too late to make a comeback. CC Sabathia had given the Yankees seven-and-two-thirds innings of shutout baseball and Jose Veras held the shutout until Tony Pena Jr. grounded in the Royals' first and only run of the night.

Once again, the Yankees jumped on the Royals' pitching. Johnny Damon singled, Nick Swisher walked, and Jorge Posada doubled in two first-inning runs for the second straight game. In the third, the Yanks' catcher doubled in another run after Swisher tripled in captain Derek Jeter.

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“You have the rest of you life to work.”

In what was the last spring tune up for the New York Yankees, and only the second game played in the new Yankee Stadium, the Bronx Bombers topped the Chicago Cubs this afternoon, 10-1.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of the afternoon was the hitting show put on by the Yanks’ $180 million off-season acquisition Mark Teixeira.

The new first baseman had two home runs in today’s game, smacking a solo homer into the right-center field bleachers in the third inning and a three-run dinger into the upper deck in right field in the fourth.