BRONX- The boss has been gone for a few years now and things have changed in Yankee-ville. Over the off-season Hank and Hal offered their ultimatum to Brian Cashman, get beneath the $189 million mark to stop the luxury tax from denting their dense wallets. Cashman was forced to make some tough decisions, letting free agents Nick Swisher, Russell Martin and Rafael Soriano walk while failing to pursue big name free agents demanding large contracts in order to meet his bosses requests.

To make matters worse, Yankees suffered a plethora of injuries in the off-season. Yankees legend Derek Jeter is out for at least the first month after injuring his ankle in last season's playoff series with the Detroit Tigers, Alex Rodriguez is out until the All-Star break after another off-season hip surgery, Mark Teixiera injured his wrist in the World Baseball Classic and is out for until June, and Curtis Granderson is also out until June with a forearm injury suffered after being hit by a pitch in Spring Training.

With multiple stars injured, the Yankees turn to a bunch of seasoned veterans. The opening day squad will feature scrap-heap players like Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay, and Ben Francisco along with off-season acquisitions Vernon Wells and Kevin Youkilis. They join Yankee holdovers Robinson Cano, Ichiro Suzuki and Eduardo Nunez. The tandem of Francisco Cervelli and Chris Stewart will man the backstop.

Not all is doom and gloom in the Bronx this Spring. Albeit old, the Yankees return all 5 starting pitchers from last year. If Ivan Nova can return to 2011 form and Andy Pettitte and Hiroki Kuroda don't age the Yankees could have a damn good pitching staff. They also have David Phelps, who is waiting in the wings in case a starter goes down with injury. Returning to the Yankees after tearing his ACL last spring is Mariano Rivera, who will probably be appearing in his last season in the bigs. The Yankees also return relievers Boone Logan, David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain. Expect to see Michael Pineda back with the team in mid-August, early September.

The final move the Yankees made this off-season didn't affect them on the field, it happened in the front office. Brian Cashman hired 18-year-old Kevin West as Assistant General Manager. West is expected to help Cashman out with money management and provides an extra set of eyes in what will be a taxing season for Yankees Front Office personnel.

BRONX- CC Sabathia started off the year right with a beautiful 8 inning, 6-hit performance. CC struck out 11 Red Sox hitters while allowing only 1 run off a solo homerun to to Dustin Pedroia. He handed the ball off to Mariano Rivera, who is in his final season with the Yankees who notched his first save of the season. The save was also Rivera's first since tearing his ACL shagging fly balls last June in a game against the Kansas City Royals.

The Yankees scratched one run across in the 3rd inning off of a wild pitch by Jon Lester. Lester went 6.1 innings and allowed 5 hits and 3 runs while walking 5 and striking out 4. The big blow for the Yankees came in the 5th inning, when free agent acquisition Travis Hafner belted a 2-run homerun over the right-centerfield fence. The Yankees would add another run in the 8th after Lyle Overbay doubled and Chris Stewart singled him in.

Game Notes...Yankee off-season acquisitions accounted for 3 of the Yankees 8 hits...Eduardo Nunez was 1-3 in the first Yankee opening day without Derek Jeter in over a decade...Chris Stewart had an RBI pinch hit single for Francisco Cervelli in the 8th inning...Ichiro accounted for the other 3 Yankees hits, going 3-4 with 1 run...The Yankees will rest tomorrow before sending out Phil Hughes in game 2 and Hiroki Kuroda in game 3 to face Ryan Dempster and Clay Buchholz respectively.

BRONX- The injury bug has struck the Yankees once again. This time SS Eduardo Nunez will be missing time. He tore his hamstring running the bases in the Yankees in the 2nd inning of a 12-4 blowout loss to the Red Sox. The Yankees had been going for a series sweep after beating the Red Sox 8-4 in the middle game of the series.

This is especially troublesome news for the Yankees, who already have starting SS Derek Jeter on the disabled list with ankle problems. The Front Office could not be reached for comment, but we suspect that the Jayson Nix will be taking Nunez's spot in the everyday lineup unless there is an immediate upgrade available. The Yankees called up OF Brennan Boesch to take Nunez's spot on the 25-Man Roster.

BRONX- Things were looking down in the Bronx after the Yankees went on a 5-game losing streak. Especially after the 5th loss came in the 12th inning against the lowly Cleveland Indians.

But the team snapped out of it. They went on to beat the Indians 3-2 and 5-4 in 11 innings to even their 4 game series at 2-2. Then they came out and beat the Baltimore Orioles 11-10 in a marathon 15 inning game.

That game featured 20 runs in the first 9 innings, including Mariano Rivera's 2nd blow save of the season (he has an alarmingly high 7.94 ERA thus far) before going 5.5 straight scoreless extra innings before Kevin Youkilis hit a walk-off RBI single. What's even stranger is that the game only featured 5 homeruns. Travis Hafner and Lyle Overbay continued their hot starts with big games, Hafner was 3-6 with 1 HR, 2 2B, 2 runs and 5 RBI and Overbay was 3-6 with a 2B and 1 run scored.

The Yankees finished out that series with a 1-0 victory in game two where Phil Hughes allowed 4 hits over 8 innings with Mariano Rivera getting back to form with a 2-strikeout save and a 13-3 loss which saw Hiroki Kuroda get shelled. Kuroda is 0-2 with a 7.71 ERA in 3 starts (spanning 14 innings) this season. Hopefully, for the Yankees sake, he can get back to his 2012 form where he was 16-11 with a 3.32 ERA in 219.2 innings. The Yankees current record is 6-7 which is good for 4th in the AL East, 3 1/2 behind the 9-3 Toronto Blue Jays.

BRONX- Derek Jeter made his much anticipated return to the Yankees roster last night, going 1-4 notching one of the Yankees 3 hits. Jeter was returning from off-season ankle surgery for an injury suffered in last season's ALCS against the Detroit Tigers. His return was dampened by a 3 strikeout performance and a 1-0 loss. Robinson Cano had the only other hits against the Jays, hitting a double in the 7th and 9th innings.

Brandon Morrow was spectacular for the Blue Jays, going 8 innings while allowing 2 hits and 1 walk while striking out 7. He had Yankee hitters stifled throughout the game, with their best chance coming after Jeter singled and Cano doubled him to third in the 7th. Vernon Wells then hit a fly ball to right field and Jeter was thrown out at the plate trying to tag up. Aaron Loup came on in the 9th and struck out 2 Yankees for his first save of the season.

Yankees News & Notes...David Robertson pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in the loss, he allowed 2 hits, struck out 2 and walked 1 to lower his ERA to 0.90...Lyle Overbay is keeping pace with the homerun leaders thus far, he has 7 HR, 16 RBI and is hitting .308. Not too bad for right off the scrap pile!...Today's loss drops the Yankees season record to 10-13...

BALTIMORE- Kelly Shoppach seems to be just what the doctor ordered for the struggling Yankees. The move, which was questioned by most, has made General Manager Brian Cashman and Assistant General Manager Kevin West look brilliant. All the Yankees had to give up for Shoppach was a journeyman relief pitcher, and only have to pay about half of his $1.2 million salary for the year.

Since the acquisition of Shoppach, the Yankees have gone 5-1. Even more surprisingly, Shoppach is 7-17 (.412) with 2 HR, 10 RBI and 4 runs scored. Before the trade, he had been 5-21 (.238), with 0 HR, 2 RBI and 0 runs. Of course, Shoppach is more likely to revert back to the latter statistics, but that doesn't mean he is going to make his front office look bad if his pace starts to slow. This was a low-risk, high-reward type move that has no repercussions if it doesn't pan out.

Yankees News & Notes...Over the Yankees 5-game winning streak, they have scored 37 runs while allowing only 19 runs...Over the streak, Travis Hafner has hit homeruns number 6, 7, 8 and 9; Robinson Cano has hit homerun number 9 and 10; Lyle Overbay has hit his 9th homerun of the year and Kelly Shoppach has hit homeruns number 1 and 2 on the year. Brett Gardner and Francisco Cervelli also both hit their first homeruns of the season...The Yankees winning streak has improved their record to 22-27, 7 games back of the first place Toronto Blue Jays...

BRONX- Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees nailed down his 250th career victory with a 4-0 win over the New York Mets last night at Yankee Stadium. Pettitte, 40, fired 5 strikeouts over 6 innings of work. He gave up no runs, 4 walks and allowed 4 hits.

"I feel great," Pettitte said afterward. "I try not to get caught up in the moment. It's hard with so much press coverage these days, but I tune all that out when I go out there and pitch." Thus far in his career, Pettitte has 250 victories and 146 defeats with a 3.82 ERA. He has limited other teams to a .265 average.

Pettitte's brilliant start came just after the Yankees 8-game winning streak was snapped by the same Mets lineup. Despite losing their streak, the Yankees managed to win 2 of 4 against the Mets to improve their record to 27-27, 4.5 games behind the AL East leading Blue Jays. But that wasn't the only streak the Mets snapped. The Mets also snapped Kelly Shoppach's 8-game hitting streak and also silenced his bat, holding him to only 1-7 with 1 walk. He is now 17-53 (.375) with 3 HR and 15 RBI while drawing 9 walks with the Yankees.

The Yankees will play Boston and Cleveland at home before making a trip to the west coast to play Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles (AL).

BRONX- It was a special day at Yankee Stadium for New York's CC Sabathia. The Yankees ace logged his 200th career win against the Dodgers. In the 2-0 decision Sabathia tossed 8.1 innings, surrendered 4 hits with no walks and 11 strikeouts.

"I'm real fortunate that I had the opportunity to play with such good players during my career," said Sabathia. "I just couldn't have drawn it up any better. I'm glad I did it in this uniform, too. New York is a great organization to play for."

During his career Sabathia has a 200-105 won-lost record with a 3.47 ERA. At age 32, with 4 and a half years still left on his Yankees contract, it's reasonable to believe that CC could become the next pitcher in the 300 Win Club.

MINNEAPOLIS- The Yankees suffered a big blow to their starting lineup tonight after it was revealed that OF Brett Gardner tore his labrum trying to make a defensive play. He is expected to miss 3-5 months, effectively ending his season. Gardner was hitting .220 with 1 HR and 29 RBI, but his presence on the basepaths is what will really be missed. He has 18 stolen bases in 26 attempts. Gardner had missed time earlier in the year with a hamstring strain.

Fortunately for the Yankees, Dewayne Wise was on the waiver wire and was picked up to take Gardner's place on the 25-man roster. The Yankees are already without superstar OF Curtis Granderson, who is out for 5 weeks with a sprained ankle. So it looks like the Yankees will be playing with an outfield rotation of Ichiro Suzuki, Vernon Wells, Ben Francisco, and Dewayne Wise.

On a brighter note, SP Michael Pineda was activated off the disable list and will spend some time in the minors on a rehab assignment. The Yankees hope to have him with the major league team by August. The Yankees current record is 50-41, 1.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox.