Hello once again from Yankee Stadium, where it has turned into a cool and pleasant evening and the Yankees are welcoming the Tampa Bay Rays to town for four games in three days. It gets started tonight with Wade Davis and Ivan Nova facing off.

Some quick updates for you:

• It looks like Francisco Cervelli may have played his final game this season. Joe Girardi acknowledged that he isn’t sure when Cervelli could come back, since he is still feeling concussion symptoms.

• Isn’t it funny that the Red Sox (and their fans) may spend much of this week rooting for the Yankees to take care of business against Tampa Bay?

  “I’ll bet they are,” Mariano Rivera said. “It doesn’t matter. We still have to do our job. It doesn’t matter if they’re pulling for us or not. We still have to do our jobs. I definitely know they’re pulling for us.”

• The tentative plan is to have Phil Hughes start tomorrow’s first game, assuming he’s OK after his bout with back spasms. CC Sabathia would start the night game.

• Prior to Tuesday’s game, Medal of Honor recipient Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyers threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The first living Marine to receive a Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan, Meyers received the award at a White House ceremony on Sept. 15 for his heroic efforts during battle on Sept. 8, 2009 in Ganjgal Valley in which he saved the lives of 13 U.S. Marines and soldiers, in addition to 23 Afghan soldiers.
  

Here are tonight’s lineups —

September 20, 2011 – Yankee Stadium – 7:05 p.m. ET (MY9/MLB Network, WCBS 880 AM)

RAYS (85-67)

Desmond Jennings LF
B.J. Upton CF
Evan Longoria 3B
Johnny Damon DH
Casey Kotchman 1B
Matt Joyce RF
Sean Rodriguez 2B
Kelly Shoppach C
Reid Brignac SS

Pitching: Wade Davis RHP (10-9, 4.41)

YANKEES (92-60)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Alex Rodriguez DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher 1B
Eric Chavez 3B
Russell Martin C
Brett Gardner LF

Pitching: Ivan Nova RHP (15-4, 3.81)

September 14, 2011 – Safeco Field – 10:10 p.m. ET (YES, WCBS 880 AM)

YANKEES (90-57)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher RF
Jesus Montero DH
Andruw Jones LF
Russell Martin C
Eduardo Nunez 3B

RHP Ivan Nova (15-4, 3.94)

MARINERS (61-87)

Ichiro Suzuki RF
Kyle Seager 3B
Dustin Ackley 2B
Mike Carp LF
Justin Smoak 1B
Miguel Olivo C
Wily Mo Pena DH
Luis Rodriguez SS
Trayvon Robinson CF

LHP Jason Vargas (8-13, 4.49)

September 12, 2011 – Safeco Field – 10:10 p.m. ET (YES, WCBS 880 AM)

YANKEES (88-57)
Derek Jeter SS
Curtis Granderson CF
Mark Teixeira DH
Robinson Cano 2B
Nick Swisher 1B
Eric Chavez 3B
Brett Gardner LF
Chris Dickerson RF
Austin Romine C

Phil Hughes RHP (4-5, 6.41 ERA)

MARINERS (61-85)

Ichiro Suzuki RF
Kyle Seager 3B
Dustin Ackley 2B
Mike Carp DH
Justin Smoak 1B
Miguel Olivo C
Trayvon Robinson LF
Brendan Ryan SS
Michael Saunders CF

Felix Hernandez RHP (14-11, 3.15 ERA)

Umpires: HP – Mark Carlson, 1B – Tim Timmons, 2B – Mike Muchlinski, 3B – Jeff Kellogg (CC).

Weather: A gorgeous afternoon here in Seattle, and shaping up to be a nice evening as well. It was a little overcast on the way in, but that doesn’t really matter much with the retractable roof.

This and that: Nick Swisher (left elbow) feels better, but not to the point where they want to play him in the outfield. He has no qualms about playing first base, though. … Austin Romine makes his first MLB start tonight. He caught Phil Hughes in rehab starts at Double-A. … Francisco Cervelli’s MRI came back negative in New York, but he’s still having concussion symptoms. He likely won’t rejoin the Yankees on this trip. … Russell Martin (right thumb) is better and may be the emergency catcher tonight. The hope is that he could catch tomorrow. … Joe Girardi said that everyone is available in the bullpen, including Boone Logan (dead arm). … Girardi is sticking with Jeter, not Brett Gardner, atop the lineup against right-handers.

Quotable

On Phil Hughes: “We want some distance from him tonight. He’s going to have to shut them down because of who we’re facing tonight. There’s usually not a lot of runs scored off of Felix, so he’s going to have to be on top of his game.” – Girardi.

Nick Swisher, on the AL East race: “You hear it every day. You see it on SportsCenter every day. It’s crazy, we haven’t been playing as well as we’ve wanted to, obviously, but we’ve been lucky Boston’s been in that same boat a little bit. Then again, Tampa’s coming up. They’re playing well. It’s going to be an exciting rest of the season. It’s going to be a lot of good baseball games, a lot of big games, and I know everybody in here is ready for it.”