Guzman In, Hinske Out For ALCS

From Anthony Rieber at Newsday:

"Joe Girardi just announced one change to the ALCS roster: Freddy Guzman is in, Eric Hinske is out.

"No change in the pitching staff. Damaso Marte stays on the roster. Brian Bruney stays in Tampa."

Read the full article here.

Well now there's no off-the-bench power hitter in a series where the Yanks could use one but that's not a bad move, Guzman's good- but here's where it sucks. Marte is still on the roster, which is more than questionable. I'm not jumping for joy with that guy on this roster.

.....

Greg here, was actually writing a post about this myself... anyway... Here's another quote from Girardi regarding the move via Chad Jennings:

“We thought we could use another speed guy in this round. We’ve had some success doing those types of things late in the game, and in a seven-game series stuff could come up late in the game. We saw the games against Minnesota were very close and sometimes you can use a couple of pinch runners. If Gardy gets a start, then you don’t have a pinch runner (without Guzman). It just frees us up to do some more things.”

I like this move. Hinske wasn't going to get any playing time anyway and now the Yanks have even more speed on the bench. This may also mean that Girardi will start Gardner in at least one of these game, which is what I was hoping for. At this point he's probably a tougher out than Melky anyway.