Game 100: Facing Yu Darvish

The Yankees went 18 innings between scoring runs before Jacoby Ellsbury tied the game in the 13th inning last night with an RBI single after the Yanks had fallen behind, 1-0, in the top of the 13th -- ironically, Ellsbury drove in the last Yankees run on Monday night with solo homerun.

Neither team really deserved to win last night's game on a count of how bad the Rangers played and how bad the Yankees' lineup struggled. But in the end, the team with the most runs win, and that just happened to be the Yankees, even if it took nearly five hours.

Let's just hope somebody can score in the first nine innings tonight.

Tonight's lineup against Texas:

LF Brett Gardner
SS Derek Jeter
CF Jacoby Ellsbury
DH Carlos Beltran
1B Brian McCann
3B Chase Headley
RF Ichiro Suzuki
C Francisco Cervelli
2B Brendan Ryan

* Michael Pineda will throw a simulated game tomorrow. The plan is for him to toss two innings or 30 pitches -- which ever comes first.

* McCann is going to play first base while Mark Teixeira is out, day-to-day, with a light lat strain.

Pitching matchup preview:

David Phelps has been pitching pretty well since rejoining the Yankees' rotation this season, and he hopes to continue his success tonight when he faces the Rangers in the third of four games against the Texas club at Yankee Stadium this week.

Phelps is seeking just his 5th win of the season, but he has worked six innings or more in each of his three July outings, and he's 1-0 with a 2.33 ERA in that span.

Phelps kicked off the second half of the season with a win over the Cincinnati Reds last Friday, giving up two runs on six hits in 6.1 innings.

The Yankees have had a tough time hitting pitchers that you've never heard of the past two games, so it's probably not a good thing that they're facing Yu Darvish tonight, as he goes for his 10th win of the season for the third year in a row.

Darvish is coming off of a win against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, where he struck out 12 and gave up one run in 6.2 innings. This'll be fun to watch.

Follow @GavinEwbank