Masahiro Tanaka Day is here, so now the Yankees can finally get a win.
#Yankees lineup vs. OAK Gardner LF Jeter SS Ellsbury CF Teixeira 1B Beltran DH Solarte 3B McCann C Soriano RF Roberts 2B Tanaka P
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) June 5, 2014Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter, and Jacoby Ellsbury are at the top of the lineup, as usual. Mark Teixeira bats cleanup, while Carlos Beltran returns to the lineup as the designated hitter. Girardi has said that he will use Beltran exclusively as a DH for now, meaning that three-year contract is looking pretty bad already. Yangervis Solarte bats sixth and Brian McCann has been dropped to seventh in the order. Alfonso Soriano is in right field and has dropped to eighth, so this should be a pretty ugly day for him on both sides of the ball. Brian Roberts is also still hanging on as he bats ninth.
To make room for Carlos Beltran, the Yankees have designated Scott Sizemore for assignment for some reason or another. Sizemore hasn't been overly impressive, but he hasn't been bad either. Throw in the fact that neither Kelly Johnson nor Brian Roberts have been very impressive and after placing Michael Pineda on the 60-day DL they also designated Alfredo Aceves for assignment, this move was completely unnecessary and unhelpful to the team. Now the Yankees' 40-man roster stands at 38 and it remains to be seen what they intend to do with those spots.
UPDATE:
Team official says Scott Sizemore DFA actually an Optional Assignment Waiver situation, meaning he stays w/ Yanks -basically optioned to AAA
— Daniel Barbarisi (@DanBarbarisi) June 5, 2014Ok, this makes more sense now. The 40-man roster stands at 39.