Yankees vs. Twins - March 5

Yankees taken on the Twins today in a televised game (both YES and ESPN) at 1:05 pm. Here are the lineups and pitching probables, courtesy of PeteAbe. The guy I'm most interested in seeing again today is Jon Albaladejo (unfortunately I can also already hear Chris Berman calling him Jessica Albalaedjo), who could be a big acquisition for the pen.

YANKEES
Johnny Damon LF
Derek Jeter SS
Bobby Abreu RF
Alex Rodriguez DH
Jason Giambi 1B
Jorge Posada C
Robinson Cano 2B
Wilson Betemit 3B
Melky Cabrera CF

Pitching
Ian Kennedy (2-3)
Joba Chamberlain (2-3)
Jon Albaladejo
Ross Ohlendorf

TWINS
Carlos Gomez CF
Brendan Harris 2B
Joe Mauer C
Justin Morneau
Delmon Young LF
Brian Buscher 3B
Jon Knott DH
Garrett Jones RF
Matt Tolbert SS

Pitching
Matt Slowey
Randy Keisler
Dennys Reyes
Pat Neshek
Julio DePaula

Kei Igawa threw 2 scoreless innings against the Jays yesterday and Joe Girardi, doing his best Joe Torre imitation, was very upbeat about it. But can anyone really see this guy having any kind of long term success, even in the less offensive National League?

Listen to what Igawa's countryman Hideki Matsui told the NY Times' Tyler Kepner...

“In Japan, he had pretty good velocity and he was the type of pitcher that usually threw fastballs and changeups to strike out hitters,” Hideki Matsui said through an interpreter.

“In Japan, you don’t see that many pitchers throw changeups, as opposed to here, where a lot of pitchers throw changeups. And in Japan, his fastball was pretty fast. But when you compare it to pitchers here, it’s not as fast.”

Well here's the thing. This isn't Japan. You can't pitch up in the strike zone in MLB either. Every day, in ever way, we are reminded that the Yankees scouting system did not do their home work on Igawa (or Carl Pavano for that matter). Some people are going to take longer to convince.

“It was too early to cut the cord,” Cashman said. “I had conversations with ownership, and there was a financial commitment made, a big number on the posting system. Because of the financial investment and the small sample size of information and the adjustments that need to be made for a player coming over from Japan, we felt we should keep trying.”

Good luck with that Brian.

With only 1 inning of work in yesterday's exhibition game, the Yankees got permission from the Blue Jays for Phil Hughes to use their indoor pitching mound to complete his work (2 innings of simulated pitching).