Yankees notes : who's hot/not , pitching match ups & postseason presale

The bombers have just a game and a half lead in the division with just four home games left during the regular season. The Yanks and Rays have lived up to the expectation of a race till the end, and tonight it gets even better. CC Sabathia and David Price will be on the hill, two potential Cy Young award winners battling for the division. Last Monday the pair of lefties faced off and each proved why they each deserve consideration for the award, throwing a combined 16 innings and allowing just five hits combined. So expect a pitchers dual tonight at the stadium. The Yankees win and the lead goes back up to 2 1/2 games but if they lost it will be just 1/2 game with nine games remaining.The Yankees magic number to clinch a playoff birth is three.        

The pitching match ups for the final Yankees vs Red Sox series in the Bronx for 2010 :

Friday 7:05 YES Network: Andy Pettitte (11-2) vs Josh Becket (5-5).

Pettitte will make his first start at home since suffering the groin injury in July. While Josh Beckett, who has been beat up by the Yankees over his career (except in the 2003 World Series) attempts to prevent the Yankees from clinching a playoff birth.  Beckett has a career 6.23 ERA against the Yankees and needs to watch out for Robinson Cano who has hit .341 against him along with three homers.

Saturday 4:05 Fox : Jon Lester(18-8) vs Ivan Nova (1-0).
Looks like a mismatch for the Yankees who will go with the inexperienced Nova. Nova has pitched well the first two times through the line up and then hits a bump in the road. Lester on the other hand never hits bumps against the Yanks (5-1 3.63 ERA ). Cano (.227), Posada (.231) and Nick Swisher (.133) all had had their struggles with Lester over their career. This one looks like a win for the BoSox.

Sunday 8:05 ESPN : Daisuke Matsuzaka (9-6) vs Phil Hughes (17-8)
You know its a Yankees-Red Sox weekend when Fox and ESPN each have a game that they are airing, even if the Red Sox are out of it. The Yanks have hit Dice-k hard (ERA 6.31) but the Red Sox have done the same to Hughes (5.81) , so expect a slug fest for the final regular season home game.

Who's hot
Curtis Granderson may be only hitting .256 but his four home runs and 12 RBI have helped the bombers beat up on the Rays in the first two games of the series. Curtis also has drawn seven walks.

Shh don't look now but Derek Jeter has an 11 game hit streak and over that time is hitting .357. So much for Jeter being finished for his career, the hot streak comes at the perfect time. Lets hope he can keep this up during the post season.

Could Cano pick a better time to continue his hot hitting ? Over his last 10 games hitting .350, while driving in nine. Josh Hamilton has been sidelined since September 4th, suddenly Cano could really make a fight for why he should be MVP.


Who's not
Tex has been battling injuries since the end of August and it has shown hitting just .176 during this month with out a home run.

Austin Kearns had looked like a great pick up when he first came over for Cleveland but recently has cooled off , hitting just .214 and battling a few nagging injuries.

Last thing don't forget that if you are a Yankees partial season ticket plan holder that the pre-sale is tomorrow starting at 10:00 AM. Your password for the sale can be found in you Yankees account manager page.