Yankees News

According to the New York Post, Hideki Matsui had a good day rehabbing, and thinks he could get into some games soon. This one good day of rehabbing comes after approximately 30 bad days of rehabbing, so some fans still remain skeptical. In other rehab news, Jorge Posada is deciding to not rehab, and instead go for the surgery. This is good news for those with high hopes for the 2009 season. The 6 month recovery time puts Posada on pace to return about 4-6 weeks before Carl Pavano.

It would appear that the Washburn deal has gone cold as the Mariners want a top prospect in addition to having the Yankees pick up about $13.6 million of his contract. Although the Yankees appear to be the only team interested in this trade, the Mariners still believe they have leverage. The original offer from the Yankees of Kei Igawa and an autographed picture of John Sterling was not accepted. Apparently the Mariners want the Yankees to remove Kei Igawa from the trade, but the Yankees said they will only trade the John Sterling photo if Kei Igawa is included in the offer. In a related story, the potential trade for Washburn does not concern Rasner. It does however scare the crap out of Sydney Ponson.

The Yankees have promoted pitchers Mark Melancon and Chase Wright to Tripple A Scranton. You may remember Chase Wright as the lefty who gave up 4 consecutive homeruns to the Red Sox a year ago. Although we have not confirmed this, the word on the streets is that Wright developed an out pitch known as a "slider" that rumors claim slides away from the strikezone making it more difficult to hit homeruns off of. You may also remember Mark Melancon as the pitcher who was reportedly promoted to Scranton about 3 sentences ago.

Lastly, the Yankees decided last minute to keep Phil Coke out of the trade with the Pirates on account of his name being to gangster to not have in a Yankee uniform. They had originally planned to trade Coke to the Pirates in the deal that landed Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte but pulled him last minute when they realized infielder Jimmy Triggerfinger and relief pitcher Tommy Gatz were still several years from the majors.