The New York Yankees declined to offer arbitration to any of the teams free agents in fear that they would accept and then the team would be forced to pay them a higher amount then what the would have wanted to. Bobby Abru and Andy Pettitte are the two big names that were not offered.

Even though the Yankees did not offer arbitration to both players, they can still talk about a new contract and negotiate with them.

Also not receiving arbitration offers were pitchers Mike Mussina, Carl Pavano and Sidney Ponson, plus catchers Ivan Rodriguez and Chad Moeller, and first basemen Jason Giambi.

With the Winter meetings coming up in the next week, it will be interesting to see what management decides to do about the starting pitching rotation as they would really like to get a couple of new pitchers that they could plug into the rotation.

New York Yankees

The “Moose” will not be coming back to the New York Yankees as he announced he will be retiring from the game of baseball on Wednesday. Mike Mussina was one awesome pitcher in his career and could still throw the ball a lot better then most major league pitchers.

Mussina, spent the last eight seasons with the Yankees after pitching for the Baltimore Orioles for the first 10 years of his career. His 270 wins rank second among all active right-handers, behind only Greg Maddux.

We wish the Moose all the best as he spends more time at home with his family and away from the game of baseball.

The New York Yankees are expected to decline the $22 million option on Jason Giambi but resign him to a much cheaper deal the New York Post is reporting. Giambi made $21 million in 2008 and will have to take a huge paycut if he chooses to stay with the Yankees in 2009.

The Yankees wouldn’t mind not re-signing Giambi if they are able to get a decent first basement via trade or free agency but I fully expect Giambi to be back in pinstripes in 09. Even if they choose to go with a younger player, Giambi can platoon at first and also DH while helping out a younger player.

The Yankees management should soon know if Mike Mussina plans to retire or not as his agent will be meeting with him in the next week to see what he would like to do. Mussinw won 20 games for the Yankees last year and if he chooses to retire, the Yankees will be looking for another starting pitcher as well.

Yankees News

The New York Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox on Thursday afternoon but they wouldn’t have if Jason Giambi didn’t have the game that he did. Giambi had all three of the Yankees runs including the game winner in the bottom of the ninth inning. Giambi stepped up big when the Yankees really needed him.

Giambi had a two run home run in the seventh inning to get the Yanks on the board and then added the game winning rbi single in the ninth inning. Pitch runner Brett Gardner scored the winning run on the Giambi single. It was sad to see the rest of the Yankees offense not show to play however.

Mariano Rivera ended up getting the win and is now 5-5. Starting pitcher Mike Mussina pitched good as he went seven innings and only allowed five hits and two runs but for the lack of run support he ended up with the no decision.

Yankees Blog

The New York Yankees swept away the visiting Minnesota Twins on Wednesday with a 5-1 victory.  The Yankees pretty much dominated the entire series against the Twins as they won all three games pretty easily.  I have a feeling that the Yankees are going to go on a nice run and get right back up there with the Rays and Red Sox in the standings.

Mike Mussina tossed eight shutout innings to pick up the victory.  It was a great outing by the moose as he only gave up six hits and struckout seven batters.  Mussina is now 13-6 on the year.  LaTroy Hawkins came in and pitched the 9th inning and gave up one run as he had some troubles.  Mariano Rivera was then brought in to finish off the Twins and pick up his 25th save of the season.

The Yankees didn’t get on the scoreboard until the 5th inning when left fielder Justin Christian had a two run double to score two runs.  Alex Rodriguez then had a two run double in the 6th inning before he scored on a Richie Sexson rbi sac fly.  Those two innings were all that was needed for the offense because Mussina threw the ball so well.

The Yankees are now off on Thursday and will head to Boston to take on the Red Sox in a weekend series.  So how well will they fare do you think?  This is a huge series at this point in the season.

Do you want to show off your writing skills here at yankeeshomeplate?  We are looking for a Yankees fan that would like to write game recaps during the middle of the week.  If this sounds interesting to you, use the contact us link at the top of the page and send us a email!

The Yankees Blog

The New York Yankees lost a make up road game to the Pittsburgh Pirates by the score of 4-2 on Thursday night.  The Yankees could only muster two runs in the seventh inning in the game as they struggled to get the big hit in the game that they are accustomed to getting.

Both of the Yankees runs came off the bat of Bobby Abreu who had a two run single in the seventh that scored Justin Christian and Wilson Betemit.

Mike Mussina tossed the first six innings while allowing nine hits and two runs in the game.  Moose did a pretty good job however he took home the no decision.  Jose Veras took the loss for the Yankees as he gave up two runs in the seventh inning.

The Yankees will now board another plane and head to Toronto where they will play their final series of the first half against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Yankees Blog

The New York Yankees got a good start out of Mike Mussina but they still lose to the Texas Rangers 2-1 on Monday night.  Mussina struck out eight batters over six innings but gave up two runs and took the loss which dropped his record to 10-6 on the season.  It was really just a bad night at the plate for the Yankees.

The Yankees offense was only able to come up with four hits on the night as they really struggled against the Rangers pitching staff.  Alex Rodriguez did hit his 534th career home run in the fourth inning for the Yankees only run in the game.  Rodriguez’s home run but him in a tie with Jimmy Foxx for 14th on the all time list.

The Yankees will now try to even the series up at 1-1 when the two teams face off on Tuesday night.

Yankees Blog

Mike Mussina logged his tenth win of the season and the Yankee offense powered the team to an 8-4 victory in Houston taking the first two games of the series.  The Yankees have reached their high water mark going three games over .500 for the first time this season.

Alex Rodiriguez got the Yankee bats started in the 2nd by delievering his 11th home run of the season into the right-center field seats.  Back to back doubles from Jason Giambi and Melky Cabrera added another run to make it a 3-2 game.  In the third, with a man on third, Houston pitcher Wandy Rodriguez issued three consecutive walks to Rodriguez, Giambi and Cabrera to tie the score at three.  Jose Molina then ripped a single to left scoring A-Rod and Giambi to put the Yanks in front for good.  The Yankees tacked on three more runs throughout the game including a pinch-hit RBI single by Robinson Cano in the 8th. 

Mussina got off to a rocky start being greeted by a long three-run homrun by Carlos Lee in the first inning, but he settled in quickly after that retiring 13 of his next 15 batters.  Mussina worked 6 strong innings allowing only the three runs.  The bullpen of the Yankees continued to impress allowing 3 hits and 1 run over the final three innings to preserve the victory for Mussina.  Mussina has now reached a minimum of 10 wins in each of his last 17 seasons.

The Yankees go for the sweep Sunday afternoon at 1pm CDT.  Alberto Gonzalez rejoined the team and got the start Saturday after being recalled from Scranton on Friday. Shelly Duncan was sent back to make room for Gonzalez.   

The Kansas City Royals hit two home runs against the New York Yankees pitching staff of Monday afternoon, and they only needed those two hits as they beat the Yankees 3-2 at Yankee Stadium.  Mariano Rivera gave up the game winning hit in the top of the ninth inning as Jose Guillen took him deep for a solo home run.

Rivera is now 2-2 after taking the loss for the Yankees.  The loss put a dampter on the game where starting pitcher Mike Mussina tossed a gem.  Mussina tossed eight innings and only gave up a two run home run in the seventh inning.  Mussina only allowed three hits, just the one home run was the costly mistake.

The Yankees struggled at the plate against the Royals as they only came up with six hits for the entire game.  Alex Rodriguez did hit a two run home run in the seventh inning, but other then that there was no offense at all out of the Yankees.

So now the Yankees are back at .500 with a 32-32 record on the season.  They will now take on the Oakland A’s in a three game series starting Tuesday evening.

Yankees Blog

The New York Yankees played a better game on Wednesday than they did on Tuesday and they came away with a 5-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.  Everyone in the Yankees lineup had atleast one hit except the Bobby Abreu on the night as they had a lot of production up and down the lineup.

Wilson Betemit had a solo home run in the game while Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Hideki Matsui, and Melky Cabrera all helped out with an rbi of their own.  Good job by the Yankees offense putting the baseball in play and making things happen.

Mike Mussina picked up the win for the Yankees as he tossed six innings and gave up five hits and one run.  Mussina was able to improve his record to 9-4 on the season and lower his era to 4.01.

Ross Ohlendorf, Kyle Farnsworth, and Mariano Rivera all tossed one scoreless inning in relief of Mussina.  Rivera threw the ninth inning even though it wasn’t a save situation.

Yankees Blog