Spring Training Game 12: Yanks @ Tigers

Spring Training Game 12
Yankees @ Tigers
Joker Marchant Stadium - Lakeland, FL
Game Time: 1:05 p.m.
TV/radio: none

Here are the lineups:

YANKEES
Melky Cabrera CF
Johnny Damon LF
Nick Swisher 1B
Hideki Matsui DH
Xavier Nady RF
Cody Ransom 3B
Jose Molina C
Angel Berroa SS
Doug Bernier 2B

Pitching: A.J. Burnett, Phil Hughes, Brian Bruney, Andrew Brackman and Mark Melancon.

TIGERS
Adam Everett SS
Placido Polanco 2B
Gary Sheffield DH
Marcus Thames LF
Jeff Larish 1B
Brent Clevlen CF
Gerald Laird C
Brandon Inge 3B
Alexis Gomez RF

Pitching: Nate Robertson, Dontrelle Willis, and Fernando Rodney

You can follow the game on MLB.com's live boxscore, or listen on MLB.com's gameday audio. Don't worry, if you don't have MLB gameday audio you can listen to the game for free on WXYT's audio stream (hat-tip to Scott Proctor's Arm).


News & Notes: This is A.J. Burnett's spring training debut and he will pitch two innings, Phil Hughes will follow with three. A lot of interesting pitchers to see in this game for the Yankees, too bad it's not on TV.

With A-Rod now out for 6-9 weeks he will likely miss the month of April let's take a look at the two guys who are fighting for that spot and see how they're doing so far this spring:

Cody Ransom in seven games he's hitting .222/.263/.278 with a RBI.

Angel Berroa in six game he's hitting .462/.500/.769 with a homer and a RBI.

I know Girardi said that Ransom is the leading candidate to play with A-Rod out, but if this continues you have to think Berroa will win the job.

UPDATE 1:22 p.m.: A.J. had a 1-2-3 first inning, a pop out, a fly out, and a ground out. And according to the Tigers radio guys he was hitting 96 MPH on the gun.

UPDATE 1:29 p.m.: Angel Berroa launched a 3-run homer in the top of the second to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead.

UPDATE 1:38 p.m.: Burnett had another easy inning in the second. He got the first batter to fly to center, then allowed a single, but the next batter hit into an inning ending doubleplay.

He's done for the day: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, three ground outs and three fly outs.

UPDATE 1:50 p.m.: The Yanks added two more runs in the top of the 3rd on a Jose Molina two-run bloop single.

UPDATE 2:00 p.m.: Phil Hughes came on to pitch the 3rd. He walked the leadoff hitter on four pitches but then was able to retire the next three in order. The Tigers announcers said he was hitting 92-93 MPH with his fastball.

UPDATE 2:21 p.m.: Hughes allowed another walk in the 4th but that was it, and retired the other three batter he faced.

UPDATE 2:24 p.m.: Xavier Nady just blasted a solo homer in the top of the 5th to give the Yankees a 6-0 lead.

UPDATE 2:31 p.m.: RBI double for Angel Berroa - he's really on fire - and the Yankees lead 7-0. 4 RBI on the day for Berroa.

UPDATE 2:45 p.m.: The Yanks continue to pour it on in the 5th, adding four more in the inning. It's now 11-0 Yanks.

UPDATE 3:00 p.m.: Another easy inning for Hughes. Three up, three down with two strikeouts. I think that's it for the day for Hughes: 3 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K.

UPDATE 3:17 p.m.: Brian Bruney came in an gave up two runs on a 2-run homer by Will Rhymes to cut the Yanks lead to 11-2.

UPDATE 3:30 p.m.: Andrew Brackman is in the game, and he got off to a shaky start; leadoff single, hit batter, another single to load the bases with nobody out. He then allowed a run on a sac-fly to make it an 11-3 game. But then got out of the inning with a doubleplay ball.

I gotta run out of the house for a bit so I may not have anymore updates. Remember, you can listen to the game for free on WXYT's audio stream.

Stick around and discuss the game

as it happens in the comments section.