Plenty of news coming out of the Bronx late this afternoon in advance of tonight's Yankees-Orioles game:
1). Joe Girardi's 81-year-old father passed away in an Illinois nursing home, where he's been dealing with Alzheimer's for many years. Orginally thought to have happened overnight, Jerry Girardi's death apparently took place Saturday and Joe has been keeping it quiet to not cause a distraction for his team. Wow. Joe Girardi spoke about his father today (above) and will manage tonight as normal.
2). Derek Jeter's sore foot will limit him to DH duties tonight, with Jayson Nix starting at short. That's the first time in 155 Yankees postseason games that Jeter will not be at short, dating to the climactic Game Five of the 1995 division series in Seattle. Tony Fernandez started that one, which turned into the Mariners' dramatic, 7-6 victory in 11 innings.
3). Alex Rodriguez has been dropped to fifth in the lineup but Raul Ibanez is not in the lineup tonight despite his epic performance last night.
Meanwhile, we finally have a team that closed out a game and won a series. The Giants scored six runs in the fifth -- the last four on Buster Posey's grand slam -- and held on to beat the Reds, 6-4, to take their series in five games. Watch the slam here:
The Giants are the first team in NLDS history to crawl out of an 0-2 hole in any format and the first to do it in a 2-3 format when dropping the first two games at home.
Another horrific entry to the odd resume of Reds manager Dusty Baker, who wins plenty of games but blows plenty of big moments. Think 2002 Giants (a 5-0 lead and six outs left to win the '02 World Series in Anaheim), 2003 Cubs (Bartmaned away NLCS to Marlins).
---Mike Harrington
Twitter: @BNHarrington
(Photo: Getty Images)
