Live from New York ... it's Saturday afternoon

Dioner Navarro was in surprisingly good spirits this morning in explaining the details of his freak injury Friday night, saying he indeed cut his hand by grabbing the netting attached to the rail in front of the dugout.
Navarro said the cut on his right ring finger was the worse of the two, requiring eight stitches; the cut on his middle finger took four. Navarro's fingers were wrapped heavily in gauze, and he's hoping he will only miss the two weeks he will be on the disabled list.
He grabbed the net when he slipped on his way down the stairs in an effort to make sure he did not go down hard and hit his head. "It could have been worse,'' he said.

Mike Difelice made it to Yankee Stadium in plenty of time for the game, having flown from Toledo, where Triple-A Durham was playing, to Cincinnati to New York. He acknowledged the unfortunate circumstances of Navarro's injury but said nevertheless he was eager to be back in the majors. Look for him to make his first start Monday night.

With Difelice in the majors and Hector Gimenez still being handled cautiously at Triple-A, the Rays may look into signing a veteran catcher to have at Durham in the event of further injury. Josh Paul could be a possibility.

Juan Salas' extended delay in getting a visa to leave the Dominican Republic actually worked in the Rays favor; because he hadn't reported by the start of the season MLB put him on the restricted list, which means he is temporarily removed from the 40-man roster. That gave the Rays room to add Difelice without having to take someone else off the roster and - ironically - if Salas now does report, the Rays would have to risk losing a player.

And as for today's lineup, Elliot Johnson makes a major-league debut that probably isn't how he drew it up, as the DH in Yankee Stadium batting ninth.
Iwamura, 2b
Crawford, lf
Pena, 1b
Upton, cf
Gomes, rf
Aybar, 3b
Bartlett, ss
Riggans, c
Johnson, dh

Comments

[Rays of Hope]

VERY nice win again today ... especially nice to see:
-Aybar get a HR
-Gomes stick one in the YankMe's duke
-Wheeler, Reyes and Percival from the bully

Hope to see:
-CC get it going SOON
-Shields with another solid outing Sun
-another win over the evil empire!!

[J.R.]

Well, if anything the RFO said they wanted to see how he would react to a slump. I'm not to worried about him he'll be fine....

[matt]

Longoria watch....3 games 0-11 4 K's... Not going to get back here like that.