Andy Pettitte went through his bullpen session without a problem yesterday and proclaimed himself “good to go” for his start Friday in Toronto.
“Everything is where I want it,” said Pettitte, who was scratched over the weekend after suffering back spasms. “They want to see how I feel after [the bullpen]. Hopefully there’s no tightness tomorrow after I worked it as hard as I did today.”
Pettitte said he felt fine during the 35-40 pitch session yesterday, but pitching coach Larry Rothschild noted his last bullpen went well in Cleveland and his back stiffened later.
“It was a good decision, so I don’t second guess it,” Pettitte said of being pushed back. “I hope I go Friday and it’s not that big of an issue.”
* Mark Teixeira was scheduled to have his wrist examined last night, but manager Joe Girardi was unaware of how the visit went. Teixeira has been limited to strengthening exercises, one-handed work with the bats, fielding grounders and running the bases. “It feels good,” Teixeira said.
Eduardo Nunez started at shortstop last night after being sidelined since suffering a bruise on his right wrist when he was hit by a pitch Friday. He went 1-for-3 with a sac fly.
“My wrist was fine,” Nunez said. “Just my timing was off.”
* On the Tampa front, Derek Jeter was on the field again, and though he didn’t have as many balls hit to him at short, they were hit with greater intensity. He also took five rounds of batting practice. His recent decreased workload was not the result of a setback, according to Girardi.
“Sometimes I think he can take too many ground balls and we talked about lessening that load,” Girardi said.Derek is such a creature of habit, to get him to break a cycle is difficult and he’s going to want to do as much as he can, as soon as he can.”
The team doesn’t know when he will be ready to play in games in Florida.
“I don’t think any of us are gonna know the exact date [of his return] until we go through some trial and error,” the manager said. “We’ll make sure he can do everything before he gets in a game.’’
Curtis Granderson played catch, but still hasn’t swung. Chien-Ming Wang, who general manager Brian Cashman said Monday wouldn’t be on the team’s radar until he moved up to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, will start there Friday. Michael Pineda (shoulder) threw his third bullpen session for 35 pitches. Clay Rapada threw 25 pitches in a simulated game and fellow lefty reliever Cesar Cabral pitched a scoreless inning in his second extended spring training game.
* Mariano Rivera is a fan of Jackie Robinson the man and the movie “42.”
“I loved it,’’ said Rivera, the last player to wear Robinson’s number 42. “I bet it’s not close to what he went through. The Lord places people in the right position. [Robinson] was the right person to do it, to not fight back.’’
Because the Yankees and Diamondbacks were off Monday, players wore No. 42 in honor of Robinson when MLB celebrated Robinson by having all players wear 42, the teams wore the number last night.
For the first time ever the Yankees allowed fans to watch batting practice behind a screen on the warning track in center field. It’s popular in other parks, especially Fenway Park.