The New York Yankees overachieved early this season in leading the American League East despite missing several injured stars. Well, things are starting to catch up to the Yanks. Curtis Granderson is back on the disabled list and now it appears Mark Teixeira also will return there.

Yankees GM Brian Cashman thinks it is likely that Teixeira will go on the disabled list again because of his injured right wrist. Cashman, who will make the decision, said that after Teixeira received a cortisone shot for the inflamed tendon in the wrist, the slugger would not play for the Yankees for about a week at minimum.

“I don’t know that it’s been right since he’s been here, honestly,” hitting coach Kevin Long said of Teixeira, who returned to New York this weekend for further tests on the wrist. “A big part of his routine is doing tee work, and he hasn’t been able to do that. It definitely affects him from the left side, not the right side. The right side is fine, but the left-handed part where you kind of go like that (bending at the wrist) in the last minute, he’s not able to execute.”

It was just a few days ago that Teixeira said he felt good and thought his at-bats were getting better, but his switch-hitting numbers told a worrisome story: Teixeira was hitting .278 from the right side – the swing that primarily uses his uninjured left wrist – but only .086 as a left-handed hitter.

Cashman said Teixeira doesn’t yet need season-ending surgery, but the GM wouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility. Teixeira, 33, is hitting .151 with three homers and 12 RBIs in 15 games. He went 3-for-31 (.097) over his last nine games before pulling himself from Saturday’s game because of weakness in his wrist. Lyle Overbay is replacing Teixeira at first, but Overbay is struggling as well.

When Teixeira suffered the torn tendon sheath in early March, doctors told the Yankees there was a 70% chance the injury would heal without surgery. Given that an operation would have knocked him out for all of 2013, the decision not to send him for surgery was easy. If Teixeira does go on the DL, he’ll join fellow Yankees Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Granderson, Kevin Youkilis, Francisco Cervelli, Eduardo Nunez and Michael Pineda.

The New York Yankees set a new kind of record today after reporting the highest Opening Day payroll at $230.4 million. To give you some perspective, that is almost 10 times the Astros’ payroll.

Not too far behind are the Dodgers who are at $214.8 million and are only the second franchise to break the $200 million barrier, according to a study of big league contracts by The Associated Press.

Derek Jeter alone is on a three year contract worth $51 million… and he’s not even playing.

The injury-ravaged New York Yankees simply can’t catch a break as now shortstop Derek Jeter has all but been ruled out for Opening Day as he works his way back from a broken ankle suffered in last year’s ALCS against Detroit.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Sunday that Jeter is likely to begin the season on the disabled list, but the goal is to have him on April 6. Jeter will be shut down for the next two days after feeling soreness in his surgically-repaired left ankle following a minor league game Saturday. He’ll be re-evaluated at that point to determine when he can return to game action. Jeter seems likely to spend plenty of time in the DH slot when he is ready to return,

“The season’s coming quicker than that leg’s going to be ready,” Cashman said.

Jeter, who had only 11 at-bats in major-league spring training before his setback, likely will play only in minor-league games so the Yankees can preserve the right to backdate him if he has to start the season on the DL. That would mean he’d have to miss only the first four games.

“I will not address how anything feels anymore,” Jeter said. “It’s good. It’s not broken. Some things you’ve got to work through. It’s really pointless to sit here and say each and every day, ‘How’s it feel? Does it feel better?’ It’s pointless. Some days are good, some days are bad, but you’ve got to work through it. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Jeter broke his ankle in Game 1 of the ALCS in October. If he starts the season on the disabled list, he will join Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Curtis Granderson as Yankees stars on the shelf instead of the field. Eduardo Nunez is slated to replace Jeter at shortstop. New York opens the season April 1 against the rival Red Sox.

This season’s New York Yankees lineup already was looking like the team’s worst in years and now the top power threat in that group, outfielder Curtis Granderson, will be out until May with a broken forearm.

Granderson suffered the fractured right forearm Sunday after being hit by a pitch in his first at-bat in a spring training game and will be out until at least the first week of May. Granderson was hit by a 2-2 pitch from Toronto’s J.A. Happ and left the game in obvious pain. Originally, the injury was announced as a bruised forearm but he was taken to a local hospital for X-rays, which revealed the fracture. The Yankees announced that Granderson will be “major league ready” in 10 weeks, or by approximately May 5. It was to have been Granderson’s first game in left field as the Yankees experiment with moving Brett Gardner to center field, but Granderson never got a chance to field a ball in the outfield.
Losing Granderson means that the Yankees now lose the most potent home run bat in a lineup that already lost 94 home runs in the offseason with the departures of Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Raul Ibanez, Andruw Jones and Eric Chavez. Plus Alex Rodriguez is out at least the first half of the season. Even though Granderson is only expected to miss the first five weeks of the regular season, he takes with him a bat that produced a team-high 43 home runs in 2012 and 41 home runs in 2011.
As presently constituted, the Opening Day lineup is expected to score just 4.29 runs a game, an impressive drop-off from the 4.96 runs a game the Yankees scored in 2012. The last time the Yankees failed to score 4.29 runs a game was the 1991 team that had Matt Nokes, Roberto Kelly and Mel Hall as the OPS leaders.

Manager Joe Girardi said the Yankees were likely to fill their temporary outfield vacancy with spare parts already in their clubhouse. Matt Diaz and Juan Rivera have the obvious edge being experience major-league players, and Girardi raised the possibility that he would platoon the two in left field until Granderson returns.

But one name already has been bandied about: Alfonso Soriano. Of course he is a former Yankee and now has two years remaining on his massive Cubs contract. Chicago is willing to eat much of it in trade. Soriano does make some sense. He hits right-handed. He’s played on the big stage before with New York. He showed he could still be a dependable presence in the lineup last season with 32 homers. But he’s also 37 and not a good defensive player. Soriano also has a no-trade clause.

“I don’t know,” he said of perhaps waiving the clause to head to New York. “[Granderson's injury] happened, and I don’t know if they want to call or not. If they call for me, I have to think about it. I don’t want to make a quick reaction and say ‘Yeah’ or say ‘No.’ I want to think about it. I’m 37 years old so I have to think first what’s good for me and for the team and for my family, too.”

Last year at the Trade Deadline, Soriano drew some interest, and there were six or seven teams that he would have considered. He reportedly turned down a trade to the Giants.

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Only one team in Major League Baseball history has rallied from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series, and it so happened against the New York Yankees. Now they are the ones in the hole and their season is on the line Wednesday night in Game 4 of the ALCS in Detroit. The Yanks are slight -105 WagerWeb.com favorites behind ace CC Sabathia.

Behind Justin Verlander, who actually wasn’t his usual dominant self, the Tigers took that 3-0 series lead with a 2-1 win on Tuesday night. New York benched two struggling regulars for the game: Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher. Verlander allowed only a pair of singles by Ichiro Suzuki and a leadoff homer by Eduardo Nunez in the ninth. Phil Coke got the final two outs. Delmon Young hit a solo home run for the Tigers, and Miguel Cabrera had an RBI double.

Cabrera has at least one hit in each of his 16 career League Championship Series games, moving out of a tie with Pete Rose (1973-1983) and Manny Ramirez (2003-2007) for the longest hitting streak in LCS history. In this ALCS, Young is 4-for-13 with a double and five RBIs to go with that pair of long balls. During the regular season, Young batted .417/.440/.500 with a .940 OPS in 25 plate appearances against the Yankees.

New York is batting .182 for the series and .200 during the postseason. The Yanks have had back-to-back postseason games with 1 run or fewer and 5 hits or fewer for 2nd time in franchise history (also in 2001 World Series Games 1 and 2). The Yankees have not had a lead in three straight games. It’s just the third postseason in which the Yankees have failed to have a lead in three consecutive games. In 1976, the Yankees did never led in the first three games of in their World Series loss to the Reds (eventually swept). That was the last time New York trailed 3-0 in a series.

So now it’s up to Sabathia (2-0, 1.53 this postseason), and it’s still not clear if either A-Rod or Swisher will play.  The Yankees will keep their ace on regular rest — a rarity in the postseason — after he threw 121 pitches in Game 5 against the Orioles for his first playoff complete game. He allowed three runs in 17 2/3 innings in the ALDS, striking out 16. Detroit goes with Max Scherzer. He pitched five scoreless innings in the ALDS vs. Oakland.

Since the advent of the best-of-seven format in 1985, four teams have gone down 3-0 in the American League Championship Series. The 2004 Boston Red Sox came back to eliminate the Yankees and win the World Series. The 1988 and 1990 Red Sox and 2006 Athletics were all swept in four games.

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Yankee fans sat stunned yesterday while they watched Derek Jeter being helped off the field. The durable captain broke his left ankle and is out for the rest of the postseason.

The New York shortstop silenced the crowd when he went down and didn’t get up after making a tumbling stop on Jhonny Peralta’s grounder in the 12th inning.

Jeter appeared to stumble as he took several steps to his left for the sharp grounder, went down and winced in pain as he flipped the ball toward second base. He then rolled onto his stomach, and a collective gasp was heard when the player who symbolizes championship baseball didn’t get up.

Jeter remained on his side, rolling slightly, as trainer Steve Donahue and manager Joe Girardi checked him out. He was helped up, and he put an arm around Girardi and Donahue. They coaxed him off the field with Jeter not moving his left leg as chants of “Derek Jeter!” rang out.

“You can see the disappointment in his face,” Girardi said after the Yankees’ 6-4 loss.

Girardi said the injury won’t jeopardize Jeter’s career. But the recovery will be about three months.

The Baltimore Orioles were the most surprising team in baseball this season – Oakland was a close second — and the Birds were able to split at home vs. the AL East champion Yankees. The teams start their ALDS back up Wednesday in the Bronx with the Yanks as big -180 favorites.

After dropping the opener 7-2, Baltimore bounced back with a 3-2 victory on Monday for its first playoff win in 15 years. Red-hot Chris Davis drove in two runs to lead the way for Baltimore, which used the same formula that got them into the postseason for the first time in 15 years: a magnificent bullpen and an ability to win tight games. Baltimore was 29-9 in one-run decisions during the regular season and 74-0 when leading after seven innings. Major league saves leader Jim Johnson, roughed up for five runs in a Game 1 loss, came back to pitch a perfect ninth to close it out.

New York, meanwhile, stranded 10 and went 2 for 8 with runners in scoring position. Alex Rodriguez is just 1-for-9 with 5 strikeouts thus far this postseason. He struck out to end Game 2 and has missed on 11 of his 23 swings this postseason.

The Orioles have done a nice job working the edges of the plate vs. A-Rod. They’ve thrown 40 of their 47 pitches in this series to the inner-third (or off the inside corner) or the outer-third (or off the outside corner) of home plate. Rodriguez hit .227 in at-bats that ended with pitches to those edges during the regular season, with a miss rate of 28 percent. That miss rate ranked second-worst of the 13 Yankees with the most plate appearances during the regular season, trailing only Curtis Granderson’s 31 percent.

Manager Joe Girardi said that he has no intention of removing Rodriguez from the No. 3 hole in the Yankees’ lineup: “You look at, he squared up two balls tonight. You look at the ball he hit in the first inning, he squared it up, and then he had the other hard single. Right now, I don’t have any plans to make any changes.”

The pitching matchup for Game 3 features Baltimore rookie Miguel Gonzalez (9-4, 4.25) against the Yankees’ Hiroki Kuroda (16-11, 3.32). On paper, the advantage goes to Kuroda, an accomplished veteran of Japanese baseball, the National League and now the pitcher-unfriendly AL East. Girardi opted for Kuroda in Game 3 instead of Game 2 because he felt the additional rest would be beneficial.

Gonzalez is a 28-year-old who spent his formative years in the Mexican Winter League. He began this season as a reliever, but after being moved into the Orioles’ rotation, he excelled on the road and was 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in two starts at Yankee Stadium. Gonzalez will be starting on seven days’ rest. During the regular season, Gonzalez posted a 4.55 ERA in nine starts on regular rest, but his ERA was 2.52 when he worked on six or more days of rest. Baltimore won all three series at Yankee Stadium this year.

WagerWeb.com trends: Under is 5-0 in Gonzalez’s last 5 road starts vs. a team with a winning record. Under is 7-1 in Gonzalez’s last 8 starts as an underdog. Under is 6-1 in Gonzalez’s last 7 road starts. Under is 6-1 in Gonzalez’s last 7 starts as a road underdog. Over is 4-0 in Kuroda’s last 4 starts overall. Under is 8-1 in Kurodas last 9 starts as a home favorite of -151 to -200. Under is 10-2 in Kurodas last 12 starts as a favorite of -151 to -200.

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The first playoff game in the city of Baltimore since 1997 didn’t go well for the Orioles and now they face the distinct possibility of falling behind 2-0 in their ALDS series vs. New York with the series heading to the Bronx. And the Yanks are -138 WagerWeb.com favorites for Game 2.

New York catcher Russell Martin led off the ninth inning with a tiebreaking home run off Jim Johnson, CC Sabathia turned in a sparkling pitching performance and the Yankees pulled away to a 7-2 victory in the opener of their AL Divisional Series.

Sabathia allowed two runs and eight hits in 8 2/3 innings to help the Yankees take the edge off the Orioles’ first home playoff game since 1997. The left-hander went 0-2 in three starts against Baltimore during the regular season, but in this one he returned to form and improved his lifetime record against the Orioles to 17-4.

With the score 2-all, Martin drove a 2-0 pitch from Johnson into the left-field seats. It was the first of four straight hits off Johnson, who led the majors with 51 saves. Raul Ibanez and Derek Jeter followed with singles, Ichiro Suzuki drove in a run with a swinging bunt and one out later, Robinson Cano hit a two-run double.

Suzuki has at least one hit in 10 of his 11 career postseason games and has reached base in all of them. He’s also hit in 20 straight games at Camden Yards, a streak that began in 2008. It was a rare off night for Johnson, who took advantage of a new career opportunity at age 29 to join Francisco Rodriguez, Bobby Thigpen, Mariano Rivera and Dennis Eckersley as the fifth reliever in American League history to record 50 or more saves in a season. He converted 51 of 54 opportunities, and fit the description of “dominant” despite striking out just 41 batters in 68 2/3 innings.

Andy Pettitte will bring 42 games of playoff experience into Game 2 on Monday night as the starting pitcher for the Yankees. Orioles rookie Wei-Yin Chen will be making his postseason debut

Chen, who had a sub-4 ERA through his first 27 starts, took over the No. 1 duties with right-hander Jason Hammel’s knee injury and had a seven-start stretch from July to early August in which he pitched to a 2.89 ERA. He struggled down the stretch with a 5.05 ERA in six September/October starts — the worst ERA in an otherwise impressive rookie campaign, but is coming off of a quality 6 1/3-innings outing last Monday against the Rays.

A broken fibula shortened Pettitte’s season to 12 starts and 75⅓ innings. Pettitte has a 3.77 ERA as a Yankee. His regular-season ERA in pinstripes is 3.95. But he is a quite different pitcher than the one who started his first playoff game Oct. 4, 1994, against Seattle. When Pettitte takes the mound for Game 2 it will mark his first start against Baltimore since Sept. 19, 2010.

Pettitte will be making his 43rd postseason start, the 15th in the   division series. Eleven of his 14 division series starts have come in Game 2, so he’s seen this situation from every angle possible. Pettitte is 6-3 with a 3.63 with the Yankees in the division series. Pettitte is 19-10 with a 3.83 ERA overall in the playoffs, posting the most wins, starts and innings pitched of any player in MLB history.

WagerWeb.com trends: Over is 5-0 in the last 5 meetings in Baltimore. Over is 6-0 in the last 6 meetings. Under is 4-0 in Pettittes last 4 road starts vs. Orioles. Yankees are 4-1 in Pettittes last 5 road starts vs. Orioles. Yankees are 19-7 in Pettittes last 26 starts vs. Orioles. Under is 8-3-1 in Pettittes last 12 starts vs. Orioles. Yankees are 23-9 in the last 32 meetings in Baltimore. Yankees are 56-24 in the last 80 meetings.

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