New York Yankees

The Yankees opened the 2010 season by playing their most hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, on the road to start the year.

The Yankees won two of the three games to win the first series against Boston, a major confidence booster.

After Boston, the Yankees traveled to play another tough AL East division rival in the Tampa Bay Rays.

The first game went poorly for Javier Vazquez, and the Yankees took a 9-3 loss.

Fans are what makes this game great. The fans are what make the players try that much harder and they're the reason that the ninth inning is the most exciting inning in baseball.

They stand during big plays, they explode on a big strikeout or a go-ahead RBI.

Fans aren't always the same. They think differently, they react differently, and they expect different things, some more irrational than others.

New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi has both his critics and his advocates.

If Kelly Shoppach hadn't broken up CC Sabathia's no-hitter with two outs in the eighth inning of yesterday's game between the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays, Girardi would have made a managerial move that could have converted many of his supporters.

He told ESPNNewYork's  Wallace Matthews, "Shoppach was [CC's] last hitter, no matter what." 

That translates to, "If CC had a no-hitter entering the ninth inning, I wouldn't have let him attempt to make history."

After allowing two runs in the first inning, A.J. Burnett (1-0) rebounded to pitch six scoreless innings as New York topped Tampa Bay, 7-3, Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field. The Yankees completed their season-opening road trip with a 4-2 record. They also improved to 11-4 in their last 15 games against Tampa Bay.

The New York Yankees.  Lord of their realm, with fans who let you know it.

Talking to a Yankee fan is generally an exercise in futility, since they are programmed to utter two basic phrases:

Phrase one: “Twenty-seven rings, baby”, or a something along that vein.

Brett Gardner had another great game in the New York Yankees' 10-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays yesterday.

The only thing Gardner could not do was catch Kelly Shoppach's base hit to left field with two outs in the eighth inning that broke up C.C. Sabathia's bid for his first career no hitter.

It may have been academic anyway, since manager Joe Girardi has said since that Sabathia would not have gone back out for the ninth inning even with the no hitter still in place.

After scoring one game each of the first six days of the 2010 baseball season, Fantasy Baseball Insiders took on an even more impressive task on Saturday.

On a day full of exciting matchups, the Insiders scored three games from start to finish, making for the most in-depth update of the young season.

Previous Fantasy Baseball Insiders Tonight updates:

CC Sabathia (1-0) was four outs away from pitching the 12th no-hitter in Yankees history. But with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, Kelly Shoppach, who was Sabathia’s teammate in Cleveland from 2006-08, singled to left to end the no-hit bid. While Sabathia was nearly flawless on the mound, New York pounded out 10 runs on 14 hits in a 10-0 shutout Saturday afternoon at Tropicana Field.

He just couldn't wait to get out there.

Manager Joe Girardi appeared to be out of the dugout before Kelly Shoppach's line drive single to left hit the turf in front of Brett Gardner with two outs in the eighth inning.

It was the Rays' first hit of the afternoon off CC Sabathia and with the big lefty at 111 pitches in his second start of the season, Girardi basically sprinted onto the field to pull his pitcher from the game with an 8-0 lead.