Yankees Notes: Jeter, Granderson, and Milestones

Behind a brilliant performance from AJ Burnett, who was pitching to Jorge Posada by the way, the Yankees won today’s game 7-3. Burnett’s line: 7IP, 6H, 0R, 0ER, 2BB, 7K.

Here are some other notes:

• Derek Jeter was playing with a head cold today, but you could hardly tell as he extended his hitting streak to 11-games to start the season by going 3-for-4 today. That is why he left the game after seven innings.
• Curtis Granderson received the 2009 Marvin Miller Man of the Year Award today. The award is given to the player for both on and off the field contributions and is voted on by the players. Torii Hunter and Albert Pujols were the other finalists.
• Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez achieved a couple of milestones today. Posada picked up his 1,500th hit as a Yankee. He is only the fourth Yankee catcher to ever do that. Thurman Munson, Yogi Berra, and Bill Dickey are the other three. A-Rod homered today for the 584th time of his career. That puts him in 8th place on the all-time list just ahead of fellow steroid user Mark McGwire.

Thoughts:

• The news that Jeter has a mild cold is obviously not a big deal. I just figured that people were probably wondering and Michael Kay didn’t have an update before the game ended.
• Granderson has gotten off to one great start with the Yankees. He is a fine player on the field and he is simply being recognized as a fine player off the field. The Yankees continued their recent trend of signing really good guys this offseason when they signed him.
• More and more in my mind is Posada becoming a Hall of Famer. No he wasn’t better than either Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez, but neither really played long before him and he has easily outlasted both of them on the field. If he puts together another strong season this year and next, I don’t see how he can be kept out. He will continue to achieve smaller milestones like this over the next two years.
• A-Rod could make it as high as 5th on the all-time list this year with 46 more homers. Although if Griffey hits even one more home run that number increases. So expect him to finish 6th this season.
• The only reason why I pointed out that both McGwire and A-Rod are past steroid users is so nobody says anything bad about McGwire. If you want to bash him, you’ve got to bash A-Rod as well. Although clearly A-Rod is a much more all around ball player. There really is no comparison aside from the home runs and steroids.

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