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Derek Jeter will sit out his first game of the season. Just a routine day off.

YANKEES
Curtis Granderson CF
Nick Swisher RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Alex Rodriguez 3B
Mark Teixeira 1B
Raul Ibanez LF
Eric Chavez DH
Russell Martin C
Jayson Nix SS
 
Pitching: Hiroki Kuroda (3-4, 3.56)

Introducing Players A and B, and their 2012 numbers through Wednesday's games:

Player A
Stats: .232 BA, 5 HR, 19 RBI, .683 OPS
Salary: $180 million over eight years
Skinny: Average has steadily declined since posting a .353 clip in 2008, but power numbers and glove remain at elite levels.

Player B
Stats: .212BA, 1 HR, 14 RBI, .505 OPS
Salary: Approximately $254 million over 10 years
Skinny: Annually rated as one of the best players in the world and a bona fide threat to Barry Bonds’ all-time home run record. Receiving the benefit of the doubt by those waiting with confidence he’ll bust out. And waiting, and waiting, and waiting ….

Player A is Mark Teixeira. Player B is Albert Pujols. Teixeira has been affected by a bronchial infection since last month, which could

When Ivan Nova is on the mound, good things tend to happen for the Yankees. Consider:

• If given a lead, Nova is near unbreakable. Entering Monday night against the Orioles, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Nova is 21-1 in 33 starts pitching with an advantage and Yankees are 28-5 in those games.

• More from Elias: The Yankees haven’t made an error with Nova pitching in 37.2 innings this season.

• The Yankees are 5-1 in Nova’s starts. Last season, their 19-8 record was the second-best for an American League team in starts by one pitcher. The Tigers were 25-9 when Justin Verlander was on the mound.

• Nova and the Yankees starters have stepped up their games in May. Nova comes off his finest start May 8 when he held the Rays to two runs on six hits

Tonight (YES, 7 p.m.)
Ivan Nova (4-1, 5.02) vs. Jason Hammel (4-1, 2.09)

Tuesday (My9, 7 p.m.)
CC Sabathia (5-0, 3.51) vs. Wei-Yin Chen (3-0, 2.68)

Follow Jon Lane on Twitter: @JonLaneNYC

Seriously? One blown save and there are those, albeit a small segment, who don’t believe David Robertson is cut out to be “Mariano Rivera’s replacement?”

The vast majority of fans are behind Robertson and Robertson expressed his gratitude over Twitter. Of course, there were others who believed AM (after Mariano) was the end of the world. My guess is that similar folk braced for Rivera’s decline each time he blew a save.

Look, there will never be another Mariano Rivera. David Robertson will never be Mariano Rivera’s replacement, nor will he be the next Mariano Rivera. David Robertson will be the next David Robertson and will create his own niche in baseball. In fact, he already did as the most dominant relief pitcher in the game. B.J. Upton’s sacrifice

I admit I’m a Survivor fan. And while I haven’t seen every episode of all 24 seasons, I’ve witnessed the countdown to the $1,000,000 winner of “Survivor: One World” in its entirety.

This current season is on its stretch run. The same goes with the Yankees pitching staff as currently constructed. Andy Pettitte will be activated on Sunday and he will have a place in the starting rotation. This has Brian Cashman running Tribal Council as Jeff Probst, the castaways and the members of the jury.

“Time will tell,” Cashman told Meredith Marakovits. “Obviously there's 12 guys on the clock, so somebody gets voted off the island here at some point on Sunday and we'll see who that is.”

Manager Joe Girardi, of course, will have Cashman’s

I'll go more in-depth in a bit, but even though it's early May, this week's series against the Rays is a big one for the Yankees. They sit 3 1/2 games behind the Rays and Orioles in the AL East in this first season that places the ultimate premium on winning the division.

“Every game’s big at this point,” said Nick Swisher. “That’s the AL East. No matter what else happens, it’s going to boil down to the last week of the season anyway. We’ve just got to keep playing hard, get healthy, get our guys back on the field, and we think everything will take care of itself.”

The Rays are throwing their best starters at New York's lineup, James Shields, Jeff Niemann and David Price. Yankees starting pitching has shown signs of improvement and the offense

The fallout of Mariano Rivera's torn ACL won't be fading anytime soon. Mike Francesa opened Friday's broadcast paying homage to Rivera's impact on New York, baseball and all of sports.

"If you wanted to end any argument, all you had to do was bring up Mariano Rivera, because there is no argument," Francesa said. "There's been no argument about who who the best .. who carries himself with more grace and more dignity and more class than he has."

Bernie Williams, Rivera's teammate from 1995 to 2006, later joined the show. The scheduling was a mere coincidence.

"He was probably for years the best center fielder we had on the team," Williams said with a laugh. "It was incredible to go out there and see him in batting practice chasing fly balls. That's the way he chose to condition himself.

A pall remains over Yankees Universe with the shocking injury to Mariano Rivera Thursday night. Participating in his normal pregame routine of shagging fly balls during batting practice, Rivera stumbled on the warning track and suffered what was eventually diagnosed as a torn ACL of the right knee.

“I thought it wasn't that bad, but it's torn," a somber Rivera said after a 4-3 Yankees loss to the Royals obviously rendered secondary.  “Have to fix it.”

Rivera being Rivera, he said he will attempt to come back before the end of the season, but given the timetable it takes to rehab an injury of this extent, it’s very unlikely. Also in question is whether will put aside any thought of retirement, something he’s hinted about but never definitively stated.