TAMPA, Fla. -- The first rainout of the season came early this year, with all outdoor workouts cancelled due to a heavy downpour, and all pitchers who had been scheduled to throw live batting practice, including Michael Pineda, set down for the day.
Now, everything that had been scheduled for Saturday will be re-done Sunday -- Pineda will throw that live BP after all -- and the intrasquad game Joe Girardi had planned to have Sunday will be pushed to Monday. It also delayed, by a day, the official announcement of starting pitchers for the first two spring games, although it remains likely that Adam Warren will make the start against the Phillies in Tuesday's spring opener in Clearwater.
Hit the road, Alex: It was as close to an A-Rod-free day as we have had all spring -- Alex Rodriguez was seen briefly in the clubhouse this morning but did not speak to the media and left before the clubhouse re-opened in the afternoon. Still, he was a topic of discussion in Girardi's interview session.
In answer to a question, Girardi indicated it was likely Rodriguez would make more road trips this spring than a veteran of his age, experience and stature would customarily make because of his need for at-bats following a 17-month layoff. Generally, players like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera rarely, if ever made road trips. The running joke was that Mo did not even own a pair of road gray pants, and Jeter hardly ever went further than the 20-minute ride to Clearwater, the Yankees' nearest road city.
“That’s possible, but I’ll try to pick my spots," Girardi said. "But you’re going to want to play him two days in a row and three days in a row, and to do that, he's going to have to make some road trips. I have a lot of veterans, somebody’s got to make them.”
Girardi said he could not yet commit, however, to Rodriguez playing in the first spring training game Tuesday.
“It’s something I’ve got to talk to him about," Girardi said. "I figured I would wait until Monday to see where he’s at, where he feels he’s at physically. I just have to see where he feels his body’s at.”
Closer competition not close to being settled: A betting man would be wise to put his money on Dellin Betances as the Yankees closer this season, simply based on his outstanding work as David Robertson's set-up man as a rookie last season. But Girardi acknowledged that with two viable candidates -- Andrew Miller is the other -- and no real way to simulate a ninth-inning save situation in a spring training game, it is possible that the battle will drag on into the regular season, with both Betances and Miller getting into save situations until one shows he's the right man for the job.
“As important as it is, I think, sometimes to feel like you can establish the roles, I’m not worried about it because of the talent that we have down there," Girardi said. "Our bullpen, I really feel, is going to be a strength of ours. I’m not fretting over that. It will iron itself out. In this game, most things iron themselves out.”
Ryan improving: Girardi said Brendan Ryan, sidelined by a mid-back strain caused by weight lifting, "felt better" today, but still is not expected to take part in any baseball activity until Monday at the earliest, and so of course will not be involved in the first spring training game, at the very least. Everyone else is healthy.
Pep talk: In what has become an annual tradition, the Yankees brought in a motivational speaker to address the team today. This year's guest: Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett. Nice, but can he possibly be as inspiring as the guy they brought in a couple of years ago, who tore phone books in half and rolled up an aluminum frying pan with his bare hands? Hard to imagine.