Yanks Lose a Battle, but Win the War

The Bombers were on the road in Polk County Fla.  to play  the Detroit Tigers  and despite losing 3-0, they received arguably the most favorable results we’ve seen in the first  3 games

Bryan Mitchell, first round pick James Kaprelian, and the 798th pick in 2008 Kirby Yates, tossed 5 no hit no  run innings..

Luis Cessa who  came to  the Bronx in the Justin Wilson trade pitched 2 scoreless innings giving up 1 hit

Unfortunately Cousin Vinnie Pestano hit a batter, walked a batter, then served a Pestano Meatball to Miggy Cabrera and the Migster poked it over the right center field wall  for a 3 run Tater

Miggy’s 3 run bomb scored the only runs in this game, but the buzz in Bomber camp  was Mitchell and Kaprelian, 2 kids that are being counted on to save Hal Steinbrenner  from poverty…

The last frontiers to  conquer on this 2016 team are the last bench spot, and the bull pen… Chapman’s suspension opens a 30 game window for one of the Shuttle butts, but the spot Girardi needs to  fill  the most is Adam Warren’s old Ramiro Mendoza Swiss Army knife job

“I think everyone knows where the spots are,” Mitchell said. “Everyone’s battling, you know?”

There was  a lot of  chatter yesterday  that it’s  Mitchell’s job to lose, and his two clean innings sans the HBP, has him wearing the Yellow Jersey

“The ability is there,” Joe Girardi said. “As I said last year, his role, it was a tough role because there were a lot of days in between pitching and not sure exactly what he was going to do, but the idea is to get him on track. … He has three or four pitches and his cutter was good today. It’s just getting him on track.”

Of course there was no TV so  we couldn’t see the action, but the Tigers announcers were raving about Mitchell’s arm..  Larry  the Stable Guy immediately came into  the clubhouse with  a big Fire Hose and blasted the Hot topic with cold water

 Larry Rothschild said he would have liked to have seen Mitchell dictate the count a little better — only 12 of 25 pitches were strikes — but Rothschild also dismissed that as typical early control problems. When he had to, Mitchell made pitches and got through his two innings with a low pitch count.

Mitchell did admit he was a bit antsy and could have been over throwing, and despite Girardi  saying he’s not going to be impressed in the first  2 weeks of camp, these kids know every outing is a must  win  battle, at least that’s the case for Mitchell

So  far Mitchell, Kaprelian, Yates, and Cessa have out pitched Severino in the first  go  round, and it’s gonna be at least another week  before Severino gets a start…We might see him pitch  two innings behind Tanaka, Pineda, Sabathia, Nova or Eovaldi next  week though..

The other  buzz in camp  came from 22 yr old James Kaprelian’s 2 inning outing.. Again the Tigers announcers were very complimentary of this kid’s outing

Kaprelian is the type of kid you love having on your team, he appears to have  Greg Bird type make-up, and with  the turmoil he’s been through he’s real  easy to  root for.

“All the guys at the big league level, they’ve all been through what I’m going through right now,” Kaprielian said after throwing 26 pitches, hitting 96 mph with his fastball on seven of then. “I’m going to lean on them, listen to them. They’ve been in my shoes. I take what I can to get better.”

Anyway  as Rothschild said it’s only one outing, he said the same thing when Severino  couldn’t find home plate working out of the stretch..

Kaprelian is still a year out, but there is a possibility he can fast track  from Staten Island rookie league, to  single A, to Double A this season…

Kapreilan, Mateo, Judge, Bird, Sanchez, Severino, might be the biggest names to  follow this season, if these kids pan out the new Yankees will be back in business come 2018…

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