YANKEE NOTES
Gary Sheffield should return to right field by tomorrow. And if Sheffield feels great this morning, Joe Torre might start him in the Yankees’ outfield today.
“He’ll play here in the next couple days,” Torre said before yesterday’s 7-4 loss to Toronto.
Sheffield strained his left thigh in the outfield on Sept. 7 and missed the next four games. He was the designated hitter in his 12th straight game yesterday and went 1-for-5.
He had either been shagging flies or doing agility drills every day, and Torre was informed by coach Roy White that Sheffield is moving better laterally and backwards.
While Sheffield said he’s as optimistic as Torre, he doesn’t want to rush back and aggravate the leg. He wants to make sure he’s not tentative while chasing down fly balls.
“I’ve just got to get past that,” Sheffield said.
“When the ball is hit, you don’t have time to think about it. That’s my concern.”
Sheffield is looking forward to saying goodbye to DHing, though. He said playing the field is “fun.”
“This is a way you can play 50 years,” he said of DHing. “That’s baseball to me, when you can make a difference on both ends.
“Just hitting is not a whole lot of fun.”
When Sheffield returns to the field, Torre indicated he’d give Hideki Matsui a day or two at DH.
“I think Matsui could use a little oxygen,” he said.
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Jason Giambi [back spasms] returned to the lineup at first base. Giambi missed the previous two games.
Giambi, who batted third, went 0-for-4 and now has three hits in his last 28 at-bats.
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Mike Mussina threw his bullpen session yesterday and said it was “fine” . . . Ruben Sierra broke out of a 1-for-21 skid with a sixth-inning pinch-single . . . Bernie Williams has three hits in his last 24 at-bats.
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The Yankees welcomed their 4,000,000th fan of the season through the gates yesterday. They are only the third franchise to draw that many people in a season. Toronto did it in 1992 and 1993, and Colorado also reached that milestone in 1993.
“It’s an incredible achievement, particularly when I remember that when I bought the Yankees, we had trouble drawing one million to the stadium,” George Steinbrenner said in a statement. “We have the greatest fans in the world.”
