Game 124 Preview: Yankees vs. Astros

Aug 17, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; New York Yankees shortstop

(2) at bat during the first inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Players to Watch

The Yankee Captain has spent the majority of this season reaching and surpassing milestones.  Yesterday he had one of those milestones taken away, or delayed, or nothing really happened, depending on how you look at it.  Yesterday, Joe Torre, in his role as Vice President of Major League Baseball made a scoring change on an infield single that Jeter hit on August 8^th in Cleveland.  The hit was changed to an error by Indians first baseman Carlos Santana.  That hit originally moved Jeter into a tie with Honus Wagner for sixth place on the all-time list, with Jeter taking sole possession the next day.  Now, according to the scoring change Jeter tied Wagner on August 9^th and passed him on August 11^th in Baltimore.

Thus Jeter has one less hit than he started the week with but is still firmly in the record books as having accumulated the sixth most hits in the history of baseball.  Jeter will likely finish the season and ultimately his career in sixth place due to his impending retirement, so in the grand scheme of things it may seem like a mostly trivial change.  However, the fiercely competitive Jeter joked about having to go “beat up” his onetime manager, Torre, to set things right when told of the change.

Jeter will look to add to his all-time (corrected) total of 3435 hits tonight as he gets the start at shortstop.  In 13 games in his career against Houston, Jeter has 10 hits and 8 RBI.  He is hitting .273 in his career against tonight’s starter Scott Feldman., most of those at bats having taken place when Feldman was a member of Baltimore Orioles.