Today’s news is powered by “The Bangin’ Pots Man (Freddy Sez)” at the old Yankee Stadium:

• Chien-Ming Wang isn’t sure what’s wrong with his pitches:

The soft-spoken 29-year-old from Taiwan said he has compared video of his performances from this season to last year, when was 8-2 with a 4.07 ERA in 15 starts before injuring his right foot June 15, and doesn’t see a difference.

“Everything is the same as last season,” Wang said. “Nothing’s wrong. Just keep working.”

But Girardi also watched video with his staff and thinks there are several things Wang can work on.

“We looked at his hands, height of his leg kick, where his head is — if it’s out of line — the angle of his arm. We looked at everything.” Girardi said. “We had some healthy stuff that we saw. We understand that we need to make some adjustments.”

[My take: Since the Yanks don’t have a “long man”, would they want to (could they afford to) move Wang into that slot for a little while, rather than sending him to Triple-A?]

• Not-so-fun fact: Chien-Ming Wang is only the second starting pitcher since 1954 to give up seven or more earned runs in each of his first three starts in a season.
• From our friends over at Was Watching (with an assist from the Hit Tracker website), it appears the new Stadium is  more conducive to homers:

I created this by using actual prints from the new stadium, and by using high resolution satellite photos for the old stadium. You may have heard that the dimensions at the new park are the same as the old park, but that is not strictly true. In certain spots the distances are the same or similar, but there are significant differences in the fence line. As you can see in the diagram, most of right field is shorter in the new park, by as much as 9 feet, but more typically by 4-5 feet (the blue dotted lines in the corners are scale markings that are 4 feet apart.) In center field, the new park is actually a bit deeper, and in left field, the parks are very similar. From some analysis I’ve done on home runs, these differences would tend to increase home runs overall, and particularly in middle-to-lower power hitters.

The fence distances are not the only difference: in a few places, the fence is shorter (particularly the right field corner). A typical conversion factor for fence height to distance is that lowering a fence by 1 foot is roughly equal to moving it 0.84 feet closer to home plate. So, with the right field fence being a couple feet shorter in the new park, this is like moving it in a foot and a half or so. Minor, but I thought I’d mention it.

• Buster Olney has noticed the homer-happy wind patterns at the Stadium:

“With the way the wind has been the last couple of days, right field is a joke,” one official said. “I would say at least three or four home runs in this series would be routine outs in nearly every park.” . . .

The new Yankee Stadium is just across the street from the old park, but it’s not aligned quite the same way as the old Yankee Stadium. In the late-afternoon shadows in the old park, the sun was in the eyes of the left fielder. Now the sun sets into the eyes of the center field and right fielder. Whether or not that’s a factor is not known, and it’s also possible that the number of home runs hit is directly related to the poor pitching of the likes of Chien-Ming Wang.

But already there have been a number of fly balls that seemed to be routine outs, before almost leaping out of the park. Mark Teixeira lifted a pop to right field off the end of his bat in the first inning Saturday, and players on both teams appeared to be completely surprised when it carried over the wall.

Even if the Yankees wanted to make an adjustment, there is nothing they could do structurally to alter the park this season. They would have to petition for a change going into the next offseason, before doing any reconstruction.

[My take: Coors Field humidor perhaps?]

• Ozzie Guillen has some responses to Nick Swisher’s comments on his year with the ChiSox:

A Q&A with Swisher that ran in the New York Post was brought to Guillen’s attention Sunday. In one segment, Swisher was asked about his new teammates and his new manager, Joe Girardi.

‘‘Never want to play for anybody else,’’ Swisher said. ‘‘There’s just something about him, man. He brings everybody together. Best manager I ever played for.’’

‘‘I heard the same [stuff] on April 20 [last year] about me,’’ Guillen said. ‘‘He’s got to say what he’s got to say. He was talking about people he’s only known for two weeks. That’s hard to make that statement when you only know people for two weeks, but that’s Nick.

‘‘I’m not pretending to be the best manager. I never will. But I guarantee that I will manage a lot longer than he will play. That’s all I can say. And I’ve got more friends in baseball than I have enemies. Some people can’t handle the way I manage. It’s not easy. When you manage, you have to deal with 25 to 50 people every year. To make [all of those] people happy, you can’t.

• The Times has a story on some youth athletic teams displaced by the Yanks new stadium:

For years the home baseball field for the All Hallows Gaels was at Macombs Dam Park. But the field and the park were demolished to make way for the new stadium. Without a home field, coaches have held baseball practices in the cafeteria and the gym, and the school had to spend $75,000 to buy two buses and is planning to buy a third for $25,000 because of the increased travel to and from games. . . .

The new stadium was built across the street from the old one on Macombs Dam Park and a portion of John Mullaly Park. State and federal law dictates that parkland removed from public use must be replaced by parkland of equal or greater value. The city’s Parks and Recreation Department originally said seven of the eight replacement parks planned for the area would be completed in time for opening day at the new stadium. But the agency later pushed back the schedule for some of the parks, and a report in January by the city’s Independent Budget Office found that the cost to replace the two parks had climbed to nearly $195 million, up from a 2005 estimate of $116 million.

• PeteAbe at LoHud points out another possible issue with the stadium:

The old Stadium had a walkway alongside the top of the right-field wall so fans could not easily lean over and interfere with play. After the Jeffrey Maier incident, the Yankees always had security there to keep the fans back.

Why wasn’t the new Stadium planned out the same way? What we saw today in the seventh inning is going to happen time after time as fans reach over the wall.

• Happy 48th birthday to Don Mattingly!
• On this date in 1932, the Yankees draw the largest paid attendance, 55,452, for any Yankee Stadium opener to that point. Babe Ruth homers, as Lefty Gomez beats Lefty Grove in the 8 – 3 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics.
• On this date in 1939, the Red Sox show off their prize rookie Ted Williams before 30,278 in the opener at Yankee Stadium, delayed two days because of rain. After striking out twice, Williams collects a double off New York Yankees pitcher Red Ruffing, who wins 2 – 0. Lou Gehrig makes an error, goes hitless, and lines into two double plays in the only game featuring the two great sluggers. Other notables in what will become a historic box score include Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Jimmie Foxx, Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Red Rolfe, and losing pitcher Lefty Grove. Boston has baserunners in each inning, but Ruffing tosses just the second opening day shut out in Yankees history. One of the umpires for the game was George Pipgras, the starting pitcher for the Yankees in the 1929 opener against Boston. Curiously, his opponent for that day was Ruffing.
• On this date in 1988, Claudell Washington hits the 10,000th home run in Yankees history, in a 7 – 6 victory over the Twins at the Metrodome.