Musing On The Interleague Outfield Rotation

The Yankees have an off-day today as they make the trip from Los Angeles to good old Milwaukee.  They start a 3-game series against the Brewers tomorrow night, their 2nd interleague series of the young season and the first in which they'll be the road team.  Including these 3 upcoming games, the Yankees will play 7 of their next 12 games as the interleague road team, which means 7 of the next 12 without the benefit of the DH.

The Yanks have had a pretty solid outfield rotation working so far this year.  Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, and Carlos Beltran are the clear top 3, but Alfonso Soriano has gotten some time in place of Beltran and Ichiro Suzuki has been a surprisingly consistent offensive and defensive contributor as the 5th outfielder.  Without the benefit of the DH spot in the lineup, that rotation will have to shorten and Joe's going to have some work to do when it comes to giving everybody the proper amount of playing time and rest.  Piggybacking on an idea that Mike Axisa touched on earlier this morning, I'm curious to see how Joe handles juggling those top 4 guys.

Looking At The Yankees' Interleague Schedule (Updated)

The Yankees kick off their 20-game interleague schedule tonight when the Arizona Diamondbacks come to town.  It'll be New York's first series under the new interleague scheduling setup that MLB implemented this season, and to be perfectly honest, I hadn't given much thought to the team's interleague schedule and how it can work for or against them this season.  Every team is going to be impacted differently with the way MLB set this up, so now's as good a time as any to take a quick look at how things stack up for the Bombers and educate yourself if you're like me.