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Thursday, June 2, 2016

3....2....1.....0



The Yankees' steady decline in offensive output makes one wonder if something else is going on.

We used to reliably score about two runs a game, which means we could yield only one run to whomever we are playing, if we ever hoped to win a game.

This memorial day weekend has shown a worsening...... to a zero output yesterday.   The last game the Yankees won, our output was 1 hit ( Castro's 2 run homer).  It came late in the game , so all the fans stayed watching and listening as the Yankees remained a hairsbreadth away from being on the wrong side of a no hit humiliation.

But here is the thing:  we all know that, at some point, an athlete's skills begin to diminish.   At a later point, the skills diminishment accelerates until there, " just is no more gas left in the tank."  A fitness border is crossed, no matter how much oat bran and molasses an athlete consumes, how many reps he does in the gym, or how impressive the distances covered running up hills in New Jersey might seem.

At some point, age will catch up and everyone's reflexes slow by micro seconds, arm strength notches down, speed afoot slows, and the raw kinetic energy generated by the bat connecting with the ball is reduced.  Those home runs, once 18 rows deep into the left field seats, become balls caught at the wall.  Throws to the plate on medium flies to right field consistently are six inches off target, or a breath late arriving, and word gets around that, " you can run on him."

The Yankees are a team of mature and aging ballplayers.  Is it possible that the skills of all of them are entering the, " accelerating diminishment," phase at the same time?

 Tex drilled a shot to right yesterday which, off the bat, looked gone on tv.  It was caught at the wall.  Everyone seems to run on Ellsbury, including a dude who scored from first on a single to center. Jacoby is working so hard, sometimes, to get position on a fly ball that he is mis-timing it, and committing errors he never used to make.  Carlos's throws home from right field are lame and often 1-2 feet off the plate when they do arrive.

Look at all the old guys. And include Gardener and Jacoby in that group.  People decline at different times and at different rates, but the Yankees are not getting what they expect from either of the two I just mentioned.  Gary is hitting .212 and it is only June 12.  Jacoby is hitting enough singles to bat  about .267....a totally average performance for most anyone. Tex is hitting under .200 with no power.  He is playing hurt.  Our next best choice at first is either Austine Romine or Nick Swisher.  McCann just came off a 0-24 steak with a meaningless, late homer that did not impact the outcome of the game.  A-Rod is now only facing lefties, and remains hitless in his last eight appearances. Headley, while not old, has caught the malaise and is beginning to seem, more and more, like another mistake in talent evaluation by Cashman and Co.

Baseball can be ironic sometimes.  Here we have been worrying about our starting pitching, but it has, all along, been the toothless offense that is our albatross.

And no one in the organization pays the price.  The responsible people get to complain loudly in the press, as if that changes anything.  Just as in the financial crisis;  no one goes to jail.  No one is fired.  Incompetence is rewarded.

That's what the Yankees have become.

Nothing is the adjective that comes to mind.  Nothing.


8 comments:

JM said...

I say, bring up Swisher already. We need to bring down the average age of the team and provide a steady, day-to-day bedrock for Castro and Didi in the infield.

As for Headley Lamarr...is Charlie Hayes still available?

Parson Tom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Parson Tom said...

They're getting old early out there:

http://www.lohud.com/story/sports/mlb/lohud-yankees/2016/06/02/room-improvement-ranking-disappointing-yankees-hitters/85270374/

Anonymous said...

I CAN HONESTLY SAY, I SAW THIS COMING, WE MADE ALMOST ZERO IMPROVEMENTS OR ADDITIONS TO OUR AWFUL OFFENSE OF LAST YEAR.....(STARLIN CASTRO COULD NEVER FIX THE ILLS OF THIS LINEUP BY HIMSELF, LIKE CASHMAN THOUGHT)...... WATCHING ALMOST EVERY GAME LAST YEAR, THIS IS ALMOST EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING ON LAST YEAR TOO, (EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IN BETWEEN THE 4 OR 5 STINK BOMB OFFENSIVE PERFORMANCES IN A ROW, WE WOULD PUT UP A "15" SPOT ON THE SCOREBOARD IN ONE GAME......THEN AFTER ANOTHER 4 GAME STINK BOMB, (YOU KNOW, 7 FULL INNINGS AND WE HAVE 2 OR 3 HITS AND 1 OR NO RUNS), I REMEMBER WE PUT UP A "21" SPOT....... WE HAD ABOUT 8-10 MONSTER, BIG RUN GAMES, BUT OVER THE COURSE OF MOST OF THE SEASON, IT WAS PRETTY MUCH WHAT IS GOING ON NOW....ONLY THIS SEASON, THE BIG RUN PERFORMANCES ARE GONE, AND WE ARE GETTING EVEN WORSE (WHICH IS HARD TO DO)........

Yonkers Nomad said...

Our hitting has sucked for many, many years, since the days when A-Rod was taking off his pants as he rode up the freight elevator in Madonna's building. Yes, I know we won in 2009, but our clutch hitting has been declining since we were at the old stadium and, even in recent years, when we actually had good starting pitching, we could not buy a clutch hit for any price. We used to have guys who would salivate at the idea of RBIs if they came to bat with men on base. The current team? Half of them are on Geritol and the other half are in suspended animation. They have that group lethargy that losing teams seem to generate. They are not going to content and they know it. They may trot out there every day to earn their paychecks - just like the rest of us - but, in their hearts, they know they suck. We know they suck. Suzy baby knows they suck. And Hal? The worst sin of all is that he doesn't care whether they suck or not. The stadium that we built him is still paying out handsome returns as his personal ATM. I'm voting with my feet lately, especially after they sodomized StubHub. I'm not going to the stadium until this turns around. A lot of prognosticators on this board keep saying "2018." Keep dreaming, brothers, it's not going to change till 2023 at the earliest. We have nothing in the farm system.

Anonymous said...

YOU'RE RIGHT, YONKERS, ABOUT OUR HITTING SUCKING FOR MANY YEARS NOW, IT'S THE TRUTH....I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW OUR RISP AVERAGE WITH 0 OUTS, 1 OUT AND 2 OUTS THE LAST 7 YEARS.....IT ALL HAS TO BE....HAS TO BE...... ABOMINABLE!!!!!

Parson Tom said...

hey, but it looks like Robbie the Ref can actually hit. Small sample size and all, but he's got as many doubles as my main man, Chase the Headcase.

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