NEW YORK -- The Yankees have eight home games left, and as their playoff hopes fade, the question of how many of them they will win has been replaced by a more immediate one: How many of them will Derek Jeter play in?
Jeter is in the lineup for tonight's game against the Toronto Blue Jays, playing shortstop and batting second.
But when asked directly if Jeter would play in every one of the Yankees' last eight games at home, Joe Girardi gave an evasive and cryptic reply.
“We’ll just go day by day," Girardi said. "I’ll DH him some. Like I said, I have to do what is right. I understand people are coming to see him, but I have to do what is right for the club.”
Depending upon where you sit on the issue, that means Girardi will either play Jeter every day, or not play him at all. After his recent 0-for-28 skid, Jeter's average is down to .249, his lowest point since early May and the lowest batting average of his career over a full season, 21 points below 2010's .270. He is batting .122 in September, a month he has traditionally excelled in, with a .315 career BA over the final 30 days of a season.
Still, to blame Jeter for the Yankees' failures this season, or to blame Girardi for continuing to play him and bat him second, is ludicrous; there are still three players in the Yankees' batting order hitting worse than he is -- Stephen Drew (.156), Mark Teixeira (.217) and Brian McCann (.234), and his two most likely replacements, Drew and Brendan Ryan, are hitting 93 and 53 points lower than him, respectively.
By the numbers, Jeter has as much right to be in the Yankees' lineup as just about anyone, and by his history, considerably more.
But if you've got tickets to one of the final eight home games of Jeter's career, there is no guarantee that your ticket assures you of one last look.
Tanaka still a go: Masahiro Tanaka threw 32 pitches in a bullpen session this afternoon and reported no issues, which means he's still on to start against the Blue Jays in Sunday's series finale, his first start since suffering a partially torn UCL on July 8.
Beltran returns: Carlos Beltran returned to the Yankees today following the loss of his unborn son when his wife, Jessica, suffered a miscarriage. Beltran was not in the Yankees' clubhouse during media availability, but Girardi said Beltran would be available to pinch hit tonight if necessary.
“My heart goes out to him, and obviously to his family," Girardi said. "When guys go through this, I think sometimes people think we’re immune to problems because we’re professional athletes. We deal with things on an everyday basis and we go through issues, too. That’s the most difficult part. I just want to get a temperature of where he’s at when he comes in today and then we’ll go from there.”
Together again: The battery of Shane Greene and Francisco Cervelli, which was a thing for the first 10 starts of Greene's major league career, resumes tonight after a two-start hiatus while Cervelli was down with migraines. Greene was 4-1 with a 3.09 ERA in his first nine starts with Cervelli behind the plate before getting bombed by the Red Sox for six runs in less than three innings on Sept. 2, which bloated his ERA to 3.88. In the two starts with Brian McCann behind the plate, Greene is 1-1 with a 1.74 ERA. Greene has faced the Blue Jays once this season, allowing three earned runs in 5 1/3 innings to get a no-decision in a 5-4 Yankees loss on July 27.
Knuckling under: Dickey is 6-3 against the Yankees in nine career starts, with a 2.61 ERA. Although the two teams have met 15 times already this season (Yankees lead the series 8-7), this is only the second time he has started against them. On April 5, Dickey held the Yankees to a run on five hits in 6 2/3 innings at the Rogers Centre. Few of the Yankees have good numbers against him -- Jeter is 2-for-17 (.118) and Teixeira is 2-for-13 (.154), but Jacoby Ellsbury is 5-for-12 (.417), and Cervelli is a ridiculous 4-for-5.