Spring Training is over, folks. The Yankees wrap up their exhibition schedule tonight at Nationals Park, so, for the first time this year, they’re going to play in a big league ballpark. That is pretty cool. After tonight’s game the Yankees will enjoy off-days Tuesday and Wednesday, then open the 2019 regular season against the Orioles on Thursday. Hooray for that.
There is a bunch of rain in the forecast tonight, so the Yankees are going to work backwards with their pitchers. The big league relievers will pitch the early innings to make sure they get their work in before the rain. Once those guys are done, scheduled starter Nestor Cortes will take over. Here is the Nationals’ lineup and here are the players the Yankees will use tonight:
- CF Brett Gardner
- RF Aaron Judge
- LF Giancarlo Stanton
- DH Luke Voit
- 3B Miguel Andujar
- C Gary Sanchez
- 2B Gleyber Torres
- SS Troy Tulowitzki
- 1B DJ LeMahieu
LHP Stephen Tarpley
Available Position Players: C Francisco Diaz, C Austin Romine, 1B Greg Bird, IF Angel Aguilar, IF Thairo Estrada, IF Kyle Holder, OF Trey Amburgey, OF Jeff Hendrix, OF Mike Tauchman, OF Zack Zehner, UTIL Tyler Wade. Aguilar, Estrada, Holder, Amburgey, Hendrix, Zehner, and Wade are the lucky minor league camp guys who got to make the trip.
Available Pitchers: LHP Zack Britton, LHP Nestor Cortes, RHP Cale Coshow, RHP Joe Harvey, RHP Tommy Kahnle, LHP Trevor Lane, RHP Adam Ottavino, RHP David Sosebee, RHP Greg Weissert. Cortes, Coshow, Harvey, Lane, Sosebee, and Weissert escaped minor league camp to make the trip.
Like I said, there is rain in the forecast in Washington this evening. The internet tells me it’ll start raining around 6pm ET or so, with the heaviest stuff set to arrive about an hour later. Once the rain starts, it’s not supposed to stop until early tomorrow morning, so don’t bet on a mid-game delay. They’ll call it after a few innings. Anyway, first pitch is scheduled for 5:05pm ET and you can watch live on MLB.tv and MLB Network. (MLB.tv is free tonight. Just sign up for a free MLB.com account.) MLB Network will show the game in the Yankees’ home market and there are no MLB.tv blackouts in Spring Training. Enjoy the game.