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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Yankees carried nine pitchers on their list of 25 players for the Wild Card Game 2015, a loss to the Houston Astros at Yankee Stadium.
Last year, they went with 10 guns when they beat the Minnesota Twins home in the Wild Card game.
They will play the Wild Card Game for the third time in four seasons next Wednesday.
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How many pitchers will they go with their match against Oakland Athletics?
"I could see between 10, 11 and 12," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday before his club's 8-7 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. "These will be some of the final decisions we obviously have."
The next few days will determine whether the Yankees will host the Wild Card Game again – they have a 1 1/2 game lead and hold the tiebreaker at four days of the regular season.
The lineup of the Yankees' Wild Card will only be decided after their weekend series in Boston and maybe not before the morning of the match, which is the deadline.
At this point, there appear to be 20 locks for their Wild Card list, seven pitchers and 13 position players.
Here is our hypothesis on locks:
Unnamed starter pitcher: (1): J.A. Happ, Luis Severino or Masahiro Tanaka.
Relievers (6): Dellin Betances, Zach Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Green Chad, Jonathan Holder and David Robertson.
Catchers (2): Gary Sanchez and Austin Romine.
Infielders (6): Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, Gregorius Didi, Miguel Andujar, Adeiny Hechavarria and Neil Walker.
Outfielders (4): Andrew McCutchen, Aaron JA, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner.
Designated Striker (1): Giancarlo Stanton.
That would leave five places, and at least two of them and maybe four would go to the other starting Yankees pitchers: CC Sabathia, Lance Lynn and the two mentioned above who are not chosen to start.
That would leave one, two or three places remaining for the other players supposed to be on the bubble: reliever Stephen Tarpley, first baseman Greg Bird and league player / scorer Tyler Wade.
Sonny Gray, A.J Cole and Tommy Kahnle, and pitcher Ronald Torreyes are assumed to be extremely long shots.
What is Boone thinking?
"Do we want to wear this type of extra bench?" he said. "Do we want it to be an extra launcher, how do we see it evolve to a certain extent?" I would expect 10, 11, or 12 launchers – these are the really tough final decisions you make.
"I think we can all imagine who the 23, 24 players are, we are the three or four players we are considering for this last place, it will be something we are discussing and have not yet been finalized. "
Randy Miller can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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