Girardi has tough lineup decisions
The Yankees and Twins need to have their 25-man rosters for the AL wild-card game turned into Major League Baseball by 10 a.m. Tuesday.
According to Joe Girardi, the Yankees are likely to carry nine or 10 pitchers.
“That allows us to take 15 position players,” he said.
With the Yankees set in the infield, catcher, left field and right field, Girardi has three names for two spots and will have to decide who isn’t in the lineup from among Chase Headley, Aaron Hicks and Jacoby Ellsbury.
At this point Matt Holliday is likely a bench player to hit against a lefty later in the game. Holliday stopped a 52 at-bat homerless streak with a seventh-inning homer in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Blue Jays.
One way Girardi can go is to play Hicks in center field, DH Ellsbury and have Headley’s bat available from either side of the plate if he needs a pinch hitter.
Girardi used Headley as the DH against Twins starter Ervin Santana on Sept. 18, and Headley went 1-for-3. Lifetime, Headley is 4-for-13 (.308) against Santana. Hicks, who was hurt, didn’t face Santana. Ellsbury is 11-for-37 (.297) against Santana. Ells- bury went 1-for-2 and reached on catcher’s interference Sept. 18.
This season Ellsbury hit .337 (29-for-86) in the final 27 games (24 starts) with a .436 on-base percentage.
Ellsbury fouled a ball off his right foot Saturday and wasn’t in Sunday’s lineup but Girardi said Ellsbury was fine.
Headley’s solid season in which he batted .273 after a slow start finished on a downer. In the final nine games, Headley batted .161 (5-for-31).
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and head of amateur scouting Damon Oppenheimer presented Aaron Judge with a Waterford Crystal gavel before Sunday’s game in recognition of Judge breaking Joe DiMaggio’s Yankees’ rookie home run record. DiMaggio hit 29 in 1936. Judge finished with an AL-leading 52.
The Yankees are considering putting infielder Tyler Wade on the roster for the wild-card game and beyond should they advance. He’d be used as a pinch runner.