Yankees vs. Rays. Round 2?

ROGER MOONEY
rmooney@bradenton.com

ST. PETERSBURG -- The ruckus created when Rays minor league infielder Elliot Johnson crashed into Yankee catcher Fancisco Cervelli in the ninth inning Saturday in Tampa, causing Cervelli to fracture his right wrist, has yet to die down and will only be fanned Wednesday when the Yankees travel to Al Lang Field for their lone appearance in St. Pete this spring.

The teams have traded jabs through the media.

To recap:

Yankee manager Joe Girardi criticized Johnson’s aggressive base running.

“I want you to play hard. I want you to hustle, but to me it's not the time to do it,” Girardi said. “It's just disheartening, it's spring training, I just don't understand. I told all my players to play hard, but when you do something like that you take your chances that you will get someone hurt."

Rays senior advisor Don Zimmer fired back at Girardi.

“I’m talking about a guy who’s like a son to me. I can’t believe that he went after it the way he did. That’s not Joe Girardi. And being a catcher on top of it,” Zimmer said. “You block the plate. If I slide into him and break a leg, nothing is said. Instead of breaking my leg I bowl him over and it’s not the right play? Well, to me it’s the right play, spring training or no spring training. Play the game the right way. To me, our kid played it the way he though it was right, and I think it was right.”

Rays manager Joe Maddon defended Johnson.

“It was a good hard baseball play,” Maddon said. “We have to play the game one way all the time. That’s the way we do things. It’s really unfortunate that kid got hurt, because I read his comments and I thought I’d like to have him on my team at some point. The kid said it was a hard baseball play and it looked like Elliot Johnson is trying to make the baseball team here. I thought was beautiful, and I really respect that kid for saying that. Nobody wants to hurt anyone under those circumstances, that was not the point, but that was a great comment from that player and I respect him for that.”

Shelly Duncan of the Yankees weighed in with this:

“(This) opens another chapter of intensity to spring training ball games in my mind. They showed what is acceptable to them and how they're going to play the game. So we're going to go out there and match that intensity or even exceed it.”

Rays outfielder Jonny Gomes shot back.

“We'll take care of it,” he said, replying to Duncan’s comments. “We got some athletes over here.”

When told Sunday that Girardi might want to talk with Maddon about the incident, Maddon replied:
“Honestly, I really haven’t even thought about that. I like Joe. I’ve always liked Joe. If he’d like to have a conversation, god, I’d like to talk about politics, global warming, I’m good with a lot of topics in a daily basis. I like iTunes. I download some stuff off iTunes. I like different restaurants. I like red wine. I have a lot of different areas I can go a conversationally with.”

Andy Sonnanstine will face Andy Pettitte. First pitch is at 1:05 p.m.