YGY Radio Show Rewind: Yankees-Orioles Postgame/1st Half In Review

Jul 7, 2014; Cleveland, OH, USA; New York Yankees relief pitcher

(68) and left fielder

(center) celebrate a 5-3 win over the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. (Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports)

For this episode of the Yanks Go Yard Radio Show (recorded during Sunday night’s rain delay), my co-host for the evening, co-editor of Yanks Go Yard, Billy Brost and I started the show by discussing the Yankees-Orioles series. While the New York Yankees did lose two out of three to Baltimore Orioles in the series, there were some positives in this series. One of them being Shane Greene, who improved to 2-0 on the season, with a nine strikeout, seven shutout inning performance against the O’s on Saturday. Brett Gardner also started Sunday night’s game with a home run, his ninth of the season.

Unfortunately, Chase Whitley had a rough fourth inning in Sunday night’s rain-shortened loss and the offense as a whole managed just six runs in the series. Now, the New York Yankees, at an even 47-47 on the season, head into the All-Star break five games back in the AL East and 3 1/2 games behind the Seattle Mariners for the second Wild Card spot.

On this episode, Billy and I also took a look back at the first half of the Yankees’ season with the All-Star Game coming up on Tuesday (Derek Jeter and Dellin Betances will be the Yankees’ participants). We also took a look ahead to the second half of the season that will begin on Friday when the Yankees take on the Cincinnati Reds at Yankee Stadium. It will be the beginning of a stretch where the Bronx Bombers will play 17 of their next 23 games at home. Here are some of the other topics we discussed on the show:

• What has impressed us about Shane Greene so far?
• Should Joe Girardi have had a different approach to Sunday’s game
• Hiroki Kuroda gaining more consistency as the season goes on
• Thoughts on the Masahiro Tanaka injury/his first half of the season
• Offensive Standouts: (Billy: Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury,  Me: Mark Teixeira)
• In Billy’s opinion, was the Alfonso Soriano designation for assignment a mistake?
• Brian McCann getting hot at the plate as we head into the All-Star Break
• Offensive Disappointments: Me: Carlos Beltran,  Billy: Brian Roberts
• Yankees’ 1st Half Strength has been their bullpen!
• Could the Yankees trade David Robertson before the trade deadline?
• Yankees’ schedule very favorable to begin 2nd half
• Should Yankees buy or sell at the trade deadline?
• Should the team trade for Cliff Lee/Cole Hamels?
• Other starting pitcher trade options: (Billy: Bartolo Colon/Ian Kennedy,  Me: Jorge De La Rosa
• Billy’s thoughts on Rob Refsnyder, Jose Pirela, Luis Severino, and Peter O’Brien
• Why my player to watch in the rotation for the second half is David Phelps
• Our thoughts on Derek Jeter‘s first half!

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