But when the 5th inning began last night, and Adam Warren walked the lead-off hitter, I sensed trouble.
This dude just always breaks down after looking fabulous for the first four innings. Maybe that is why he succeeded ( sort of....did any Yankee succeed last year when we didn't make the playoffs?) as a long-relief guy.
So I figured, here we go again into the maze of bullpen guys whose names I still can't remember
( everyone of them seems to be a Wilson or a Baker or something like that ). It also seems that none of them are reliable.
And worse, it seemed obvious that the numerous below .200 hitters in our line-up were going to fail, and make certain that the Yankees would not score again. We have all seen this before; the Yankees score a few runs early, in a spurt or two, and then they are shut down. Alex gets tired late; Jacoby has 4 hits already, and Brett 2. McCann and Tex ( and Drew if in there ) bang into short right field ground outs, and the others in our line-up go phfsssst. A myriad of 7 pitch innings while we bat. It becomes a given that the runs the Yankees have on the board will remain unchanged.
The next piece of this puzzle is the desperate appearances by Bettances and Miller. Joe can smell what is happening, and they are his only shot for a win. Don't let Baltimore get a run or we lose. Maybe not in 9 innings, but eventually. So they are again trotted out and, again, do their job.
This is dangerous in a 162 game season, and disastrous if we get further. We need some players who can hit and score. We need pitchers to go 7 innings. We need someone amongst the non memorable names to perform.
Otherwise, we are kidding ourselves with this first place thing.
Well put. We are kidding ourselves. As Duque pointed out, we were in first place in early May last year, too.
ReplyDeleteWearing out the bullpen and inevitable injuries to older players will kill us before long.
ReplyDeleteOn this date last year, the Yankees were 1/2 game back. But the fighting Showalters were in first, not last.
ReplyDeleteToday was the perfect example of all the stars out of alignment, first place has been fun,,,,, while it lasted.
ReplyDeleteAgree. The middle of the order is loaded with guys batting below.250. The bottom below.200.
ReplyDeleteThere may be hope. McCann tried to bunt yo third last night & singled down left line.