Game 7: Yankees at Rays (RIP Harry Kalas)

Here are your lineups for today's opening game of a three-game series with the defending AL champs, the Tampa Bay Rays, and the New York Yankees.

Calling the Rays the defending Al champs still sounds weird, considering how bad they were for so long, but anyways, on to the lineups:

Yankees
Jeter(ss)
Damon(lf)
Swisher(1b)
Posada(c)
Nady(rf)
Cano(2b)
Matsui(dh)
Ransom(3b)
Cabrera(cf)

Rays
Upton(cf)
Crawford(lf)
Longoria(3b)
Pena(1b)
Burrell(dh)
Navarro(c)
Gross(rf)
Iwamura(2b)
Bartlett(ss)

Chien-Ming Wang will try and rebound from his terrible first start. He has had good success in his career against the Rays. He is 5-2 with a 3.74 ERA in eight career starts at the Trop.

Derek Jeter is one for his last 17 and Ransom is 1-for-20. Melky Cabrera is nine for his last 43, dating back to last year. Mark Teixera had a MRI today and it was OK, no damage; he expects to be back in the lineup tomorrow.

Alex Rodriguez was in Tampa today and did some light jogging, fielded grounders, and hit off a tee and from a coach soft tossing to him.

He took 78 swings, 36 off of a tee and 42 from a coach tossing it to him. He worked out on the field for 45 minutes and then met the media after. He said he is dedicated solely to baseball now and wants to be like he was in 07—expect him with the earplugs in before games and not talking too much after.

The bottom line is he has to produce and help the Yankees win a championship.  IF he does that, then no one cares about anything else. He said the month in Colorado really allowed him to look at things and reevaluate his life, and he knows he has to put the other things to the side and only concentrate on baseball.

He said his hip had been bothering him since last June and he can tell now that something was fixed. I expect to see him on the bench and maybe hear more from him pregame tonight. Peter Abraham of the Journal News and http://yankees.lhblogs.com/ had a lot of this info on his blog, so thanks goes out to him. If you don't already do so, make sure you check out his blog—he does a great job.


Harry Kalas, the longtime phillies announcer, passed away today at the age of 73. Condolences go out to his family and the Phillies' family as that is a great loss to them.