Moeller and Coke to be called up

Chad Moeller and Phil Coke will be called up tomorrow when teams can expand their major-league rosters, according to Chad Jennings.

Moeller appeared in 32 games with the Yankees this season.

Coke, a 26-year-old left-hander, was 2-2 with a 4.67 ERA in 14 games (one start) for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Jennings has Coke's reaction:

"I'm excited," Coke said. "I've been waiting for this since I was three years old so I've got to be excited. All my years of hard work coming back to me, I feel like I'm being reward for what I've done not just this season but in the past, working to get better every day. That wasn't something that I was expecting to hear today, that's for sure, but they told me. I'm sorry, I'm just all addlebrained right now. It's a little difficult trying to get my thoughts ordered at the moment."

Good for him.

On the other hand, one glaring omission with that of Melky Cabrera's. He is batting .333 (19-57) since being demoted. Only two of the 19 hits have gone for extra bases, however.

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre will be in the International League playoffs, so expect more call-ups once their season is completed. Until then, it seems that only Coke and Moeller will be called up.

Hughes struggles, Pavano improves

Both Phil Hughes and Carl Pavano started in the minors leagues and turned in mixed results.

Hughes started for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. He gave up five earned runs and eight hits in 3 2/3 innings. He struck out four, walked none and gave up one home run. He also threw 63 of his 91 pitches for strikes, but 91 pitches over 3 2/3 innings won't cut it in the majors.

From Chad Jennings:

“I threw too many pitches over the plate,” Hughes said. “That pretty much sums it up. I was decent, but I left too many fastballs over the plate and they jumped all over them... Physically I felt fine. A little bit of a dead arm, but you're going to go through those days when you don't have your best stuff. You just try to compete and unfortunately I wasn't able to do that today."

Jennings says that his velocity was down to 91-93 mph while it had been higher in previous minor-league starts. Jennings also has comments from catcher Chad Moeller, saying that Hughes lacked command of his secondary pitches in addition to his fastball.

If Hughes turned in a good start tonight, he could have been in line to start for the big club this weekend. But now I'm not so sure. If I were in charge, I'd like to see another minor-league start from Hughes.

Onto Pavano: After giving up seven hits and five runs in 4 1/3 innings on Tuesday, Pavano scattered six hits and one earned run over six innings tonight. He struck out six and walked one as well. I have no idea where his velocity was tonight, but his line does show that he was successful. If healthy he could be a major-league option as well. That would be something, huh?

Oh, by the way, Melky Cabrera went 1-for-1 with four walks and two runs scored in his first Triple-A game in two years. With New York this season, Cabrera has walked 29 times in 440 plate appearances. Since July 27, Cabrera has only walked twice in 133 plate appearances. And this is yet another reason to not take minor-league stats seriously.

Roster changes

As a result of yesterday's acquisition of Ivan Rodriguez, the Yankees designated Chad Moeller for assignment. They also called up Chris Britton to replace Kyle Farnsworth's roster spot.

The Yankees also traded infielder Alberto Gonzalez to the Nationals for Double-A RHP Jhonny Nunez. What's with people spelling "Johnny" as "Jhonny"? Anyway, strange trade for the Yankees. Gonzalez seemed to be a better infield option than Wilson Betemit is.

By the way, Rodriguez will wear No. 12.

Breaking news: Yankees trade for Pudge Rodriguez

Jose Molina won't be the starting catcher much longer.

The Yankees have traded Kyle Farnsworth to the Detroit Tigers for future hall of fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez, according to ESPN's Buster Olney.

In 82 games this season, Rodriguez has five home runs and 32 RBI. He is batting .295/.328/.417 in 302 at-bats. He has also walked 19 times while striking out 52 times.

Farnsworth seemed to turn his Yankee career around, becoming a rather reliable member of Joe Girardi's bullpen. He's given up a ton of home runs for a reliever (11) but he's also had stretches where he was dominant this season.

I find this trade rather strange. Unlike other Yankees fans, I never hated Farnsworth. I knew that if he could harness his stuff he could be valuable and I also felt the Yankees could get by with the tandem of Jose Molina and Chad Moeller. This takes one of the primary setup men out of the bullpen as well. That said, you can't pass up Rodriguez's defense and batting abilities.

The acquisition of Damaso Marte looks huge right now, and Brian Bruney is getting close to returning.

Rodriguez is a free agent after this season, so they won't have to worry about him interfering with Jorge Posada's eventual return.

Posada is killing this team

Teams are beginning to run marathons on Jorge Posada's right arm, and rightfully so.

Since coming off of the disabled list, he has been unable to unleash crisp throws to second base and threw to the foul side of third base in the ninth inning tonight. A good throw probably would have had Ian Kinsler.

Posada's offense hasn't exactly made up for his poor defense, either. He is 19-for-67 with two home runs and nine RBI since returning on June 5.

It's a shame that Jose Molina and Chad Moeller can't replace Posada's offensive potential, because I'd be in favor of either of them start behind the plate if they could hit.

Hopefully Posada's scheduled off-season surgery will correct whatever probably he has, but if the Yankees have three more years of this (and he still wants to catch), there will be problems.

Speaking of killing this team, Melky Cabrera needs to be benched or sent packing. He is absolutely lost right now. Why wasn't he bunting in that spot? Brett Gardner bunted in the first inning and Posada inexplicably bunted a ball foul later in the game. Yet Cabrera, who has been terrible since May, doesn't bunt there?

A-Rod out longer

I saw this last night, but wasn't around long enough to post it. Good thing I missed the game too. This team is flat-out boring.

Alex Rodriguez is progressing slower than expected and will miss at least the rest of this week (including the always overblown Subway Series).

Rushing him back is the reason why his injury became more severe, so it's good to see that they are at least being more cautious this time around.

To say that the Yankees are desperately missing Rodriguez is an understatement. For every game that the lineup puts together games of six or more runs, they play three more games where they score three or less runs.

The Yankees are playing uninspired baseball at this point, and it's amazing that they are 19-20 through 39 games this season. The Yankees were 18-21 at this point in the season last year, but this was before a losing streak that found them sitting at 21-29 after 50 games. Keep in mind that Rodriguez was just coming off that crazy April where he won two games with his bat in the ninth inning.

All is obviously not lost. While the Red Sox are seven games above .500, they are only four games ahead of the Yankees in the AL East standings. As we learned last year, nothing is decided this early in the season. Rodriguez can sit out this week to recover, but he will start to be a concern if he's out any longer.

They can win with Rodriguez in the lineup while Jorge Posada is out. Jose Molina and Chad Moeller are fine once Rodriguez is back. However, while both Posada and Rodriguez are out with injuries, the lineup is anemic.

This season has given Yankee fans a glimpse at what life without Rodriguez would have been like if he didn't re-sign this off-season. Hopefully they will now appreciate Rodriguez and what he brings to this lineup.

Moeller goes unclaimed

Chad Moeller passed through waivers this afternoon and is back with the Yankees, according to Jon Heyman via Peter Abraham.

Chris Stewart started behind the plate and got crossed-up several times on Phil Hughes curveballs. Jose Molina has also been bothered with a hamstring injury.

In six games and 20 at-bats with New York, Moeller is batting .350 with one home run and three RBI. He also has two doubles and three walks. He was designated for assignment before Jorge Posada was placed on this disabled list, so it's obviously good news that he went unclaimed.

Times: Posada has muscle tear

According to Tyler Kepner of The New York Times, Jorge Posada has a muscle tear and is likely headed to the disabled list.

Posada was a late scratch from this afternoon's lineup, and the Yankees said that they would not announce why until after the game. It appears that we have finally found out why.

Posada had been out of the lineup for a good part of April due to a "dead" shoulder and Jose Molina has caught 39 more innings than Posada has this season.

Chad Moeller was designated for assignment yesterday and can be claimed by another team.

It's great that Posada is in the first year of his new $52.4 million contract and held out for the Yankees to give him a fourth year. Hopefully Moeller does not get claimed and can come back to backup Molina. I can't understand why they designated Moeller for assignment when Posada still wasn't fully healthy.

Back from Maine

I just got back from Maine, and boy are my legs tired.

The Yankees have lost two games (three-straight overall) and some moves have been made. I was unable to watch the games, so I don't have the right to comment. Here are the moves that have gone down:

Before today's game, Shelley Duncan was called up, as lefty reliever Billy Traber was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Lefties had been hitting .375 against Traber, so he isn't serving much of a purpose if he can't get lefties out. Loyal readers of the blog already know my stance on lefty relievers, so it's not a big deal if the bullpen doesn't have a lefty reliever for the sake of having a lefty reliever.

Before last night's game, it was learned that Brian Bruney has a torn ligament in his foot and will be out for the season. Chad Moeller was also designated for assignment. This resulted in Chris Britton and Jonathan Albaladejo being called up to give the bullpen some extra arms.

Apparently Joba Chamberlain tweaked his hamstring the other day and is receiving treatment. The Yankees are being quiet about the injury, so I'll pass along any information I can get when it becomes available.

After losing three-straight, the Yankees are one game below .500. As evidenced by the record, the team has been very up and down so far. The Yankees have been on two three-game winning streaks and have followed both with a three-game losing streak. Hopefully Chien-Ming Wang can be the stopper tomorrow afternoon. If they can pull out a victory tomorrow, they'll have a chance to split the series Monday night.

Catchers looking at Saturday

Injured catchers Jorge Posada and Jose Molina are both targeting Saturday as their return date.

According to Peter Abraham, Posada is annoyed about getting asked about his health:

“We’re pushing for Saturday,” he said. “So ask me on Saturday. I’m really tired of you asking me everyday, ‘How you doing?’ - ‘I’m fine.’ Same (stuff). I could have played today (but) they didn’t want me to. So I’m pushing for Saturday.”

Nice attitude, Jorge. These people are just doing their jobs. There is no need to be surly.

Molina hopes to do blocking and throwing drills tomorrow. However, with Chad Moeller around, there is no need to rush Molina.

Meanwhile, Manny Ramirez took Mike Mussina deep on a 3-1 "fastball." Why are they pitching to him?

Kennedy has a bruised hip; other updates

Ian Kennedy has a bruised hip resulting from getting hit by a line drive off of the bat of Jason Bartlett.

Manager Joe Girardi doesn't believe Kennedy will miss a start, but Kennedy wants to wait to see what it feels like tomorrow morning.

From Lisa Kennelly: "It kind of sent a little shock toward my calf," Kennedy said. "It's fine. A little sensitive."

Derek Jeter says his quad feels fine. He even beat out a ground ball for an infield hit tonight.

Jorge Posada threw before the game. Peter Abraham said Posada threw 40 times from 125 feets and 20 times from 75 feet. Posada isn't sure when he'll catch again. In the meantime, Chad Moeller went 1-4 in his first game as a Yankee and threw out B.J. Upton trying to steal third base.

Moeller and Albaladejo up

Chad Moeller and Jonathan Albaladejo have been called up and are on the 25-man roster for tonight's game in Tampa Bay.

Moeller replaces Wilson Betemit, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list with pink eye. Albaladejo replaces Joba Chamberlain. Chamberlain was placed on the bereavement list, meaning he'll be away from the team for at least three days while tending to his ailing father in Nebraska.

Interesting news about Betemit. I thought they'd disable Jose Molina due to his left hamstring injury, but I'm not complaining.

Molina injured, may be headed to DL

Last night I said the Yankees were pushing their luck by playing both catchers in their last few games.

Looks like I was right, as Jose Molina injured his left hamstring sliding into the plate in the fourth inning of last night's 8-5 loss to the Boston Red Sox.

Jorge Posada, catching the eighth inning, obviously couldn't throw to second base, so the Yankees will have to make a roster move before tonight's game. Chad Moeller seems to be the logical choice.

Molina has been one of the Yankees' best hitters thus far. In 10 games, he is 12-33 with seven doubles and two RBI.

Yankees sign Moeller

Instead of recalling Austin Romine or Jesus Montero to replace Francisco Cervelli, the Yankees signed Chad Moeller to a minor-league contract, according to Peter Abraham. They have also invited him to spring training.

Moeller was released by Washington on Sunday. In 37 games between Cincinnati and Los Angeles last season, he hit .161 in 56 at-bats.

Update - 3:50 p.m.: According to Bryan Hoch, Moeller said that he's been told he'll be the starting catcher at AAA Scranton/Wilkes Barre. He is also wearing No. 65 in camp.