Joe Torre opened the Yankees' spring training camp at Legends Field with a medical update on Carl Pavano. Forty-three days later, he ended it the same way.
In between, there were no major health scares. The Yankees played 30 games here, winning 14 of them, and they headed to Phoenix on Thursday after a 6-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They will play two exhibitions with the Diamondbacks at Chase Field, a trip they agreed to when they traded for Randy Johnson.
Johnson will pitch the first game of the season on Monday in Oakland, and Pavano will stay in Tampa. He threw one inning in a minor league game on Thursday, but Torre was uncomfortable watching him.
PHOTO: AP
Pavano, who opened camp with a stiff back, bruised his buttocks on Tuesday when he tumbled while making a play at first base in his first game back. Pavano pitched on Thursday anyway, but he looked awkward to Torre, who spoke with him on the mound. He let Pavano complete the inning, but will rein him in for now.
"I don't think we can schedule him now until the soreness gets out," Torre said, adding later, "When you think about it, it doesn't push him back at all, even if he misses four days, because we never had a specific date we needed to have him ready."
There are plenty of pitchers in reserve, and the Yankees need a fifth starter only twice in the next four weeks: On April 15 at Minnesota and on April 29 against Toronto.
Torre has not announced the rotation past Johnson and Mike Mussina, though Wang Chien-ming (
"I didn't even think about it," Wright said. "The way it came out of my hand felt good. I think the velocity was there. I got everything I was looking for today."
Mussina started against the Devil Rays, working four innings. Based on his spring, he said, he would not expect to have further problems with his elbow, which caused him to miss three weeks last September.
Jorge Posada caught Mussina, his first time behind the plate in more than a week. Posada's biggest challenge this spring was to catch Johnson, but he broke his nose playing catch on March 22 and missed his last two chances. Posada caught only two of Johnson's six spring starts, but he will catch him on Monday.
"I don't think there should be any problems," Posada said. "I think we got on the same page. I'm just doing my job and trying to get our No. 1 guy comfortable."
Torre has not ruled out the idea of making Kelly Stinnett the personal catcher for Johnson, though he has not decided that yet. Stinnett caught Johnson for the Diamondbacks in 1999 and 2000. As John Flaherty said last year, Stinnett said that the job belongs to Posada, but that he would do what Torre said.
"It's not Randy's decision," Stinnett said. "Me and Randy talked about it; it's Joe's decision. Whatever he wants to do, it's fine with me and it's fine with Jorge. That's why we're here. Whoever's in the lineup is in the lineup."
The Yankees' lineup completed the Florida portion of camp intact. Johnny Damon missed time at the World Baseball Classic with a sore shoulder, but he has returned to center field.
Gary Sheffield started slowly after a winter of inactivity, but he hit better late in camp and finished with a .273 average. Sheffield homered on Thursday and led the Yankees in runs batted in, with 11. He said he planned to start slowly and get hot late.
"When I decide I want to do something, I go do it," Sheffield said. "I decided to do that."
For Torre, the best part of camp was seeing the depth of the Yankees' farm system. Because five Yankees played in the Classic, more prospects played in exhibition games. First baseman Eric Duncan, who batted .414, and pitchers Matt De Salvo and Phil Hughes made strong impressions.
"In the 11 years I've been here, it's probably the best crop of young players that I've seen, size-wise and ability-wise," Torre said.
Alleged doping by Barry Bonds and other players will be investigated by Major League Baseball, and former US senator George Mitchell will lead the effort.
"Nothing is more important to me than the integrity of the game of baseball," MLB commissioner Bud Selig said on Thursday.
Selig's decision to launch the probe came in the wake of ``Game of Shadows,'' a book by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters detailing alleged extensive steroid use by Bonds and other MLB stars.
"The unique circumstances surrounding BALCO and the evidence revealed in a recently published book have convinced me that Major League Baseball must undertake this investigation," Selig said.
Earlier Thursday, Victor Conte -- founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative -- was released from a California prison. He spent four months there after pleading guilty to orchestrating an illegal steroids distribution scheme that allegedly involved many high-profile athletes.
Mitchell, a director of the Boston Red Sox, has been a director of the Florida Marlins and served on an economic study committee that Selig appointed in 1999.
Mitchell also is chairman of The Walt Disney Co, whose ESPN subsidiary is one of MLB's primary broadcast partners.
Several lawyers will assist Mitchell.
No matter what the findings of an investigation, it would be difficult for MLB to penalize anyone for steroids used before Sept. 30, 2002, when a joint drug agreement between management and the players' association took effect. MLB began drug testing in 2003 and started testing with penalties the following year.
"I will only comment on things about Barry's on-field performance or contractual status," said his agent, Jeff Borris.
Tavarez suspended
Boston Red Sox reliever Julian Tavarez was suspended for 10 days and fined on Thursday for his role in a brawl this week.
Bob Watson, Major League Baseball's vice president in charge of discipline, cited Tavarez for "violent and unsportsmanlike actions" during Monday's game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Tavarez punched Tampa Bay's Joey Gathright lightly on the jaw after a play at home plate.
The penalty would start next Monday, when Boston plays its season opener, unless the players' association appeals.
Tavarez is with his seventh team in eight years and has been suspended four times, starting in May 1996 when the Dominican threw a pitch behind Milwaukee's Mike Matheny, sparking a brawl. Tavarez was suspended for three games.
He was suspended for five games and fined US$1,000 after a spring training melee in 2001 when San Francisco's Russ Davis charged the mound after striking out because he thought Tavarez, then with the Chicago Cubs, had shown him up.
Tavarez was fined US$10,000 by the commissioner's office in October 2004 for throwing a pitch over the head of Houston's Jeff Bagwell in Game 4 of the National League championship series. Earlier that season, he was suspended for eight days for applying a foreign substance to balls while pitching.
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