The Yankees aren’t feeding the trolls

As D.J. noted last night, yesterday Bobby Valentine tried to troll the Yankees, talking smack about the famous flip play from the 2001 ALDS and about the famous Jason Varitek-A-Rod fight.

Today the Yankees were asked about it. And they weren’t gonna get down on Bobby V’s level. Here’s Jeter:

“… who cares? I mean, why are we talking about this, really?” Jeter said. “He must be bored over there, huh? I don’t understand.”

And here’s A-Rod:

“I’m not going to win many battles here when it comes to words, especially against Bobby,” Rodriguez said. “But I will tell you this: I’ve got my new press secretary that should be landing in the next couple days – Reggie Jackson – so I’ll let him handle that.”

That’s the way to defuse these little petty controversies. Just bore them to death.

And really: you’d think Valentine would want to set out to write his own chapter in the Yankees-Red Sox thing rather than try to rehash the old ones.

Some good news for the Nationals today: All-Star hurler Max Scherzer is due back from the injured list this week, this time (hopefully) for good. He’s slated to start during Thursday’s series finale against the Pirates.

It’s been a long road back for the right-hander, who earned his seventh consecutive All-Star designation after heading into the break with a 2.30 ERA, 5.6 fWAR, and a league-leading 7.56 SO/BB rate. An untimely back injury forced him to the injured list in the days leading up to the All-Star Game, however, and he hasn’t returned in any kind of part-time or full-time capacity since.

While Scherzer was originally expected to pitch for the Nationals sometime during their weekend series versus the Brewers, manager Dave Martinez elected to push back his return date by a few days. It’s not clear whether he felt some lingering pain during his 64-pitch simulated start on Saturday or whether the Nationals simply want to play it safe with their ace, but either way, the club apparently feels like Scherzer will be back to full strength before the end of the week.

If so, his return would be a significant asset to the Nationals, who could use a sub-3.00 ERA, 5.0-fWAR starter to help bolster their standing in the NL East. Still, there’s no guarantee that the veteran righty is ready to shoulder a full-time role in Washington’s rotation, nor is it certain that he’ll be able to match his results from the first half of the season. In one start between IL stints last month, he dealt five innings of three-run, two-walk, eight-strikeout ball in an 8-7 loss to the Rockies.