Javier Vazquez

New York Yankees Javier Vazquez will face Tampa Bay Rays Matt Garza on Saturday night at the Trop.

Let's take a look at this match-up:

Tampa Bay Rays: Matt Garza (11-5)

The day was April 14, 2010, the second home game of the season.

The Yankees were the reigning 2009 World Series champions, making New York glow with pride. Yankee fans' subdued looks of unfamiliarity from 2009 were replaced with smiles because our new house felt like a home.

At least that is how I felt that Wednesday afternoon, until the game started.

Andy Pettitte thinks he can be back on the mound in three weeks.

After watching the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim slaughter the New York Yankees, any encouragement that the team could manage without the Southpaw went right out the window.

Phil Hughes went into the game with a 3-0 career record against the Halos. That was short and sweet after Hughes gave up nine hits, six runs and two home runs over five innings.

It was the icing on the cake on this streak of bad luck the Yankees have had since the start of the second half of the season.

Allow me to introduce you to two mystery pitchers, Player A and Player B.

In their last eight starts, dating back to the beginning of June, both pitchers have been very good. Player A has been all but impossible to beat, having completed almost every game he's started, and going fewer than eight innings only once, when he went seven. He almost never walks anyone, generally keeps the ball in the yard, strikes batters out...everything you could want in a pitcher.

The Yanks enter the 2010 All-Star break with the best record in baseball and are on pace for 103 victories. But the big news in Yankeeland this past week was the non-trade for Cliff Lee. Since that deal fell through, ESPN Insider is reporting that a Yanks deal for Cubs starting pitcher Ted Lilly “has legs.” What I don’t understand is the Yanks’ sudden obsession with starting pitching. Yes, yes, there are those old pitching adages:

Pitching wins championships.
You can never have enough pitching.

Mike Axisa of River Ave Blues came up with a crazy idea for a trade that I don’t think is so crazy: Javier Vazquez to the Phillies for Jayson Werth . Furthermore, the trade would open up a spot in the rotation for the Yankees to land Cliff Lee .

Each year, one question rises to the surface following the announcement of the American and National League rosters for the Major League Baseball All-Star Game: who got snubbed by the All-Star managers?

Today, I take a look at the other side of the coin.

He's currently the most coveted pitcher out on the trade market.

They are the best team in baseball trying to defend their championship.

The Yankees and Cliff Lee, seems like a trade everyone is expecting or debating about that could, might, or won't happen.

But here is the big question: will the Yankees pull the trigger and make a deal with the Mariners to get Lee?

I think a lot of us owe Javier Vazquez a big time apology. Especially me.

In April and early May, I basically had all but packed his bags and tried to ship him back to the National League.

I did a popular feature story on how Vazquez would easily fit in with the Mets. A lot of you agreed with the story and some disagreed with it.

Some who disagreed thought I needed to give Vazquez a chance to find his rhythm and I thought at the time, you all needed your head examined because at the time, Vazquez sucked.

Now, it's a complete 180 degrees and I was wrong.

By Larry Barnes | Yankees ‘n More and The New York Yankees Daily-Press
It is past time for the New York Yankees to have a fulltime pitching coach on staff – a benefit the Yankees haven’t enjoyed for a week and counting. That’s because Dave Eiland has some unnamed personal issue that has kept him away from the team.