With a potentially historically devastating Hurricane Erma set to hit Florida sometime on Friday, the upcoming series with the Tampa Bay Rays might possibly be moved.
With the recent images of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey fresh in our minds, we’ve all been reminded how something like the New York Yankees and sports takes a back seat to real life.
With that, the Tampa Bay Rays have rescheduled the team flight to Boston from Thursday evening to Friday morning in order to give Rays’ players and their families time to prepare for what has already been presidentially declared as a State of Emergency.
The storm is currently at a Category 4 and is expected to reach Category 5 status (winds of 180 mph) by the time it hits native soil sometime Friday. The potential damage from a storm of that magnitude has led the Rays and Major League Baseball to consider either relocating the series to a neutral site or changing the dates of the series altogether.
According to Mike Mazzeo of the NY Daily News, manager Joe Girardi said that he was told about the possibility of the rescheduling/relocating of the series but added that there was nothing set in stone at the moment.
Regardless, our thoughts and prayers are with all those living in the states that are in the path of this potentially catastrophic storm.
MLB Nominates Gardner for Prestigious Clemente Award
Yesterday, Major League Baseball announced all 30 of the nominees for what Rob Manfred calls the most prestigious award in all of baseball: the Roberto Clemente Award.
Each year, MLB selects one player from each team that best represents the game of baseball; taking into consideration things like community involvement and philanthropy in conjunction with the outstanding on-field play, via MLB.com’s Mark Newman. And the brass of America’s pastime selected the longest tenured current Yankee, Brett Gardner.
Sevens Are Wild
According to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, No. 77 Clint Frazier (oblique) is set to begin a rehab assignment tomorrow with AA Trenton and could return to the big club as early as next week.
With Aaron Hicks re-aggravating his own oblique injury, the Bombers have had no other choice but to run Gardner, Jacoby Ellsbury and Aaron Judge out every single night. Once Red Thunder returns, he could provide some much-needed rest for those three guys.
ICYMI: Yankees 6, Orioles 7
Dellin Betances was unable to shut the door on the Orioles with a one-run lead, serving up a walk-off bomb to Manny Machado that put an end to a game that had a 2hr14min rain delay and didn’t end until 12:50 this morning.
The Yankees erupted for six runs in the top of the third, highlighted by a two-run double by Didi Gregorius and a two-run single by Jacoby Ellsbury. But the Baltimore Bashers turned out to be too much for the Bronx Bombers; powered by home runs by Mark Trumbo and Jonathan Schoop, and two long balls(including the game winner) by Manny Machado.
With Boston winning their unexpected doubleheader by beating Toronto 3-2 in 19 innings, the Yankees once again fall back to 3.5 games behind the rival Red Sox. Hopefully, Sonny Gray and company out-duel Kevin Gausman and the Orioles in the rubber game tonight and get this team back on a winning track.
That’s all for now from Yankee Universe, but be sure to stay locked in right here at Elite Sports NY for all things New York Yankees.