The Yankees continued to put the hurt on the National League as they welcomed Zack Greinke and the Milwaukee Brewers to the Bronx.  The Yankees offense got going early and knocked the Brewers out of the game quickly as they took a 12-2 win to start the series.

Greinke did not start his return to the Bronx particularly well, as he hit Brett Gardner with a pitch to start the bottom of the first. Curtis Granderson followed with a fly ball to Nyjer Morgan, who misplayed the ball giving Grandy a triple and plating Gardner for the first run of the game.  A groundout from Mark Teixeira sent Granderson home and the Yankees took an early 2-0 lead.

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In the first of three games against Milwaukee, the Yankees torched the Brewers staff and gained an additional game on the Red Sox, who were shutout by Cliff Lee and the Phillies.

Today’s game offered a nice snapshot of Zack Greinke’s season thusfar.  The ‘09 AL Cy Young winner came in with a very mediocre ERA, despite leading the league in K/9, K/BB, and xFIP.  The Yankees scored four runs in the first 1 ⅔ innings, all technically “earned,” despite the fact that they only hit two balls well, singles by Nunez and Cano.  Nyjer Morgan lost his footing on a Granderson flyball in the first, leading to two runs.  Then a poor decision by Casey McGehee extended the inning, forcing Greinke to throw 27 pitches in the opening frame.  A bad-bounce beaning, a passed ball, and a soft single created by a strange defensive shift against A-Rod all contributed to Greinke’s misery before Nick Swisher’s three-run homer brought the outing to a merciful conclusion.  Clearly, Greinke has not missed the American League.  This was his worst start since 2007.

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After another solid outing last night, the Yankees have promoted pitcher Nick Turley from Low-A Charleston to High-A Tampa today. Here’s the roundup of tonight’s action on the farm.

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What if the Major Leagues added two more franchises? The guys over at The Platoon Advantage simulated this exact scenario, asking each ESPN SweetSpot blog to represent their respective teams. I volunteered to do this for IIATMS. The process began by having each “team” submit a list of 15 protected players, according to the 1997/1998 MLB expansion rules. After this first round, we all had the opportunity to protect three additional players. After this second round, we protected three more players.

After it was all said and done, three players were picked from the Yankees: Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Austin Romine. Below are explanations for not protecting these players:

Phil Hughes

When this project began, Phil had just been shutdown. The Yankees ran every test known to man on him, and nothing came up. To me, this signaled that there was really nothing wrong with him at all. And velocity is very important to Phil’s repertoire; last year by far his best pitch was his fastball. A large part of that success is velocity, and if Phil can’t light up the radar guns his ERA will balloon. Basically, I gave up on Hughes and decided he wasn’t worth much. In retrospect, this move may appear short sighted. Phil is currently making rehab starts in the minors and is showing much better stuff. However, research has shown that when most pitchers lose a lot of velocity, they almost never gain all of it back. Given the information at the time, the move was risky, but defensible.

Joba Chamberlain

Relievers are not valuable. Relievers are not valuable. Relievers are not valuable. This is what went through my head when creating my protected player list. I was very tempted to not protect Mariano Rivera too, but due to purely irrational behavior and fear of being struck by a lighting bolt I protected him. With only 15 players to initially protect I had to economical in getting the most value out of our players. Relievers simply do not throw very many innings and the Yankees have a stable of relievers in the minors ready for the call up.  The news that Joba needed tommy john came during the middle of this exercise. In the interest of transparency, I did protect David Roberston.

Austin Romine

Romine was lost due to a communication issue on my part. Nevertheless, not a huge loss. The Yankees have a lot of catching prospects in addition to Martin and Cervelli in the majors, so losing Romine was not that bad. I personally think J.R. Murphy and Gary Sanchez are better prospects anyway, and Montero certainly is.

Other notes

I did not protect Jeter or Posada at any time. I ran out of sentimentality after protecting Mariano.