FanHouse Francisco Cervelli

It didn't just rain on the Yankees in the Bronx on Monday night, it poured. They waited 2 1/2 hours to lose a fourth straight game to the Red Sox, saw their manager ejected in the proceedings and watched their starting catcher limp off the field with a hamstring injury. It will be a while before they see Jorge Posada on the field again.

Posada was placed on the disabled list on Tuesday with what's being called a Grade 2 strain of his right hamstring. That means it is a partial tear, and it probably means that it will be June before he'll be back behind the plate or playing DH for the Yankees.

Now that the season is underway, there are more important things for the Rays and Yankees to do than rehash their spring training squabbles. The Rays have been showing signs of life on the field, in the stands and at the bar. The Yankees, meanwhile, are struggling at the plate and waiting for some maturity out of their young starters.

Yet, when their series starts at the Trop tonight it will be hard to miss the reminders of the home plate collision heard around the Sunshine State. Mediocre journeyman Chad Moeller will likely be starting behind the plate. That's a result of injuries to Jorge Posada and Jose Molina, of course, but also because of Elliot Johnson's pancaking of Francisco Cervelli. Moeller was signed by the Bombers two days after the collision and it's not hard to guess what prompted his acquisition.

Moeller's lack of lumber won't light any fires in the Yankee lineup but the Rays choice of pregame activities just might. Johnson will be given the Al Lopez Award for top Rays rookie of spring training before the first pitch. It's not like the Rays haven't had a chance to give him the prize, it's their seventh home game, so the choice of date is certainly meant to give a little grief to the boys from New York.

Will they notice? When last seen Hank Steinbrenner was dredging the Hudson after a tugboat captain reported dumping a portrait of Mike Greenwell overboard so it may not be on his radar.

Joe Girardi wasn't the only one Yankee upset with the Devil Rays for actually playing the game the way it's meant to be played this weekend: Shelley Duncan has vowed to keep Francisco Cervelli's injury in mind when facing the Rays this year.

"What it does is it opens another chapter of intensity in the spring training ballgames," Duncan said Sunday about the incident in Saturday's game between the Yankees and Rays. "They showed what is acceptable to them and how they're going to play the game, so we're going to go out there to match their intensity - or even exceed it."

The Rays and Yankees meet again in two days -- I can barely wait for the 20-second highlight on SportsCenter! I know teams get up for playing other teams during the regular season, but this might be the first time I've heard of a player circling a game on the spring schedule. Needless to say, the Rays still think the Yankees have their panties in a bunch for nothing -- I love Joe Maddon's dismissive comments:

Maddon even made light of the situation when he was asked if he planned to talk to Girardi about the incident before Wednesday's game. "I've always liked Joe," Maddon said. "If he would like to have a conversation, I'd like to talk about politics, I'm good with global warming, I'm good with a lot of different topics on a daily basis. I like iTunes, I download some stuff off iTunes, I like different restaurants, I like red wine. I have a lot of different areas I can go conversationally."

I would love to talk to Maddon about iTunes -- given his hipster glasses, you just know he has awesome taste in music.

The collision in the video above resulted in a broken wrist for Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli. Now even though Cervelli probably wasn't going to make the Yankees roster this season, the play and subsequent injury did anger his manager Joe Girardi after the game.

"I think it's uncalled for. It's Spring Training. You get people hurt and that's what we've got – we've got Cervelli hurt. I know they had an incident four or five days ago. I'm all for playing hard, but I don't think it's the time when you run over a catcher in Spring Training."

Girardi's response then brought on this response from Rays senior baseball advisor, and Pedro Martinez punching bag, Don Zimmer.

"It stunk," Zimmer said."Somebody said on the bench when it happened that Girardi looked like he was angry. Now I took it that he was angry because his man got hurt - not because anybody did anything wrong. That's the way I took it, knowing Girardi. And somebody on the bench said he thought Girardi was mad because he bowled him over. I said, 'No, I don't think so. That's not Girardi.'