Losing two out of three to Chicago (53-80), the third worst team in the AL, in must-win games... at home.
Wow...
Wow...
Well, if anything can be said of the 2018 Yankees, it is that the batteries don't stay charged for long. An emotional walk-off victory, like on Tuesday night, didn't launch a streak. It didn't even last 24 hours. One night later, we were dropping like fake geese in a shooting gallery, leaving Aaron Boone naked to the post-game show, sounding every bit like an ESPN analyst and nothing like a leader.
Clearly, Bird needs another 1,000 at bats to jell; in three years, he could be great! The next Steve Pearce! And Sonny Gray, he's on the verge of finding himself. And don't forget Gleyber Torres, who somehow manages to situate himself at the fulcrum point of every Yankee loss.
Remember that great farm system from last spring, ranked in the top tier? It now looks like a cupboard full of lottery tickets. We watch young, ascending teams like Chicago and Tampa roll over our great stars, as we did in 2016, back before Bird and Sanchez defined themselves at the major league level.
I suppose we shouldn't give up on the 2018 Yankees. If everyone heals, who knows? But last night offered a glimpse of the Wild Card: Some no-name schlump from East Shunk has a career night, while our sluggers go to sleep - and suddenly, we're talking about signing free agents over the winter, back to the old ways that won us nothing in this decade.
Last night, a 23-year-old RH named Michael King threw six perfect innings for Scranton. He started the year in Single A Tampa (1.79 ERA), rolled through Trenton (2.09) and has dominated at Triple A (1.09.) On practically any other team, he'd get a shot next month, and he's just the type of guy who will shut us out in some game like last night, when there is no reason why we should look so flat. But forget about him. The Yankees won't bring him up. It's not their way.
We just lost two out of three to the White Sox... at home.
Wow...
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20 comments:
We can’t drive in a run with reliability. Our pitching is suspect, at best. We seem to lack heart when we need it the most. We make bad front office moves. The coaching staff is unexceptional, to be charitable. The trainers have to use too much KY. The manager is a moron. The farm system system is a gross of broken eggs. The owner doesn’t give a shit. Only the master remains as a beacon of excellence in this organization. We are in the long desert between dynasties. I don’t know what it’s going to take, but I feel like we are cursed until Cashman is gone.
13bit is right. Until we're rid of the Hollow-Eyed Loser (Cashman, I mean, not Bird), we lose.
To Mustang's question on why this, by most measures, successful team is disliked by us.
After all:
84-49 Great!
2nd in runs
3rd in run differential etc.
The answer is simple. We have to watch them.
Doug K.
Oh and 13Bit pretty much sums it up. Except for the cursed part. I don't do curses. I read in the Post that Frazier played baseball yesterday. Maybe we can get him back.
Re: Gleybar - Jeter made 22 errors in his rookie season. AnDUjar's lack of range is more concerning because you can't teach athleticism.
Doug K.
Last night, Greg Bird led off the fourth or fifth inning with a double. Romine then proceeded to whiff. At the time, I think, it was only 2-0, maybe. I thought, for another time too many, hmm, maybe somehow advance the runner. Romine comes up and strikes out swinging from the heels on three or four pitches. I don't get it. I really don't. I don't mean to pick on Romine; the whole team lacks situational sense. I blame the coaches more than Cashman, I blame the manager more than Cashman, I blame the players more than Cashman. And I blame Cashman. But we are thirty plus games over .500. What does this say about the state of major league baseball? That a team can be so uninspired and yet still be better than most of the other teams in the league? I am getting this off my chest because having watched the Yankees for over fifty years it deeply and profoundly depresses me. Your piece on Bill Robinson brought me back to when I was a 12 year old in 1966 rooting for the micro bats of the Yankees. That was a season worth of suffering--forget the pitcher's year of 1968, the Yankees finished tenth in a ten team league. Fast forward to 2018 and the Yankees have a plethora of young talent and seemingly a bright future -- but why does it seem so dim? I know these observations sound like the crotchety musings of an old fart, perhaps because they are, but WHY CAN'T ANYONE BUNT AGAINST THE SHIFT! WHY CAN'T THE MANAGER CALL A SQUEEZE PLAY. (I have been waiting for years to see a sacrifice squeeze). WHY CAN'T WE "MANUFACTURE" A RUN? WHY DO OUR WILY VETERANS (and I mean you, Bret Gardner, hitting .200 since the All Star break with maybe 2 home runs and 2 stolen bases) TAKE BALL AFTER BALL ONLY TO FLAIL AWAY AT A PITCH A FOOT AND A HALF OUTSIDE THE STRIKE ZONE WITH RUNNERS IN SCORING POSITION? WHY, NO MATTER WHAT THE SITUATION, DOES EVERYONE TRY TO HIT A HOME RUN? WHY DIDN'T GLEYBER TORRES SCORE ON THAT WILD PITCH? The fact is, without Judge, and to a lesser degree Didi, we are no longer any fun. The focus has shifted from the amazing, beautiful blasts of our sluggers to our paralyzing offensive ineptitude and lackadaisal defense. Can the PR man in our dugout please do something to suggest leadership? (Okay, okay, back to work, take the meds, stop this. Stop this now.)
Roger that.
Doug K.
Excellent points all, Daddy Yankee.
For about ten minutes there, when his back was absolutely to the wall, Ma Boone suddenly seemed to be trying to force the action: starting runners, stealing bases, surprising the other team. It worked! And then...it was back to the utterly contradictory, completely idiotic strategy of both swinging for the fences AND taking close pitches.
But you're right, Big Daddy: how can it be that we still have the second-best record in the league?
The answers, I think, are that about half the league is currently rebuilding, and that it seems everyone outside of the Red Sox and Astros plays the same, stupid, soul-killing idea of baseball.
The big solution to this so far...has been the Rays getting rid of starting pitchers. Oh, joy. Make the game as anonymous, as mediocre, and as stultifying as possible.
There is good news for once.
"Clint Frazier, who has been sidelined since July 19 with post-concussion migraine headaches, is beginning his rehab assignment Thursday. The outfielder joined Single-A Tampa to begin his climb back to the majors."
https://nypost.com/2018/08/30/yankees-outfield-help-is-finally-on-the-way/
I wish him all the best, but I just can't start hoping on Clint, Warbler. I give this a week before he feels nauseous out there again. I think this guy is more seriously hurt than we know.
I gave it a little more thought and I think our issue with the current team/management/front office which has been adequately addressed using all kinds of case in points (13bit, roger, Duque, hell... everybody), is this...
We are all baseball fans. We love the game in general and the Yankees in specific but we love the game. That means seeing it played right. We don't love watching a bunch of guys get up and just swing (even if some of those swings become massive home runs.) It's boring and worse than boring... it's stupid.
If you look at the comments in this thread alone we are begging for them to play real baseball. As Roger said, "MANUFACTURE A RUN". Hit situationally. Bunt. Anything other than watching a parade of players who can't adjust and managers and coaches who don't do either.
So the success of the team is kind of secondary. We're not impressed by the W-L record being the 2nd best in baseball because the baseball being played sucks. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king but who wants to be king of a country that only has blind people in it?
They are boring. Oh and can they please, please, please give Stanton a day off? Seriously. We lose games anyway. We're not chasing the Sox any more and we need him for the games against the A's and Mariners. Give the guy a breather. Morons! And how do you root for morons? The answer is habitually but not with joy.
Doug K.
I agree Doug. The Three True Outcomes is not a life well lived.
Good post, Daddy Yankee Roger. Please pass that bowl of meds this way.
And Doug, I don't really do curses, either, but I grew up in Yonkers and fell on my head a few times growing up, so my judgement is not to be trusted.
Then again, as a long-standing Jets fan - now EX Jets fan after they stole 40 years of my life from me - I have a fairly solid belief that they will never win again until every last member of the 1969 team is dead, including the glorious Broadway Joe.
Okay, time to go fan the burning pile of sage under my ass.
Keep shaking that tiny fist, 13bit. Keep shakin' that fist.
I'm just now getting to this post, and all of the comments, @ 254pm. I have to say --
a. I couldn't agree more.
b. I wish to heck the beat writers wrote this kinda stuff.
c. I would love it if the YES team forgot about getting their contracts renewed, and started to say these things into their live microphones (David Cone says some stuff, on occasion, it seems to me).
d. Despite this miserable August, the failure of Scary Gary, the collapse of Gardy, the absence of Didi, and the end of Judge until 2018 -- the information and perspectives on this blog keep me coming back.
Thanks, y'all.
Well said, Doug K.!
That was the beauty of watching The Great Team of the Ninth Dynasty (1993-2001). They rarely had THE best player in the game at any position. What's more, most remarkably, almost all of them, through 1998, anyway, were UN-juiced players taking on juicers.
But you would just watch them slowly build these rallies...Knoblauch would get on, then Jeter. Then you just KNEW one or two of the next few guys—Paulie, Bernie, Tino, whoever the DH was—were going to do something.
This team today, they get two or even three men on, and I actually feel downhearted: 'Ah, crap, here comes the inevitable strikeout-pop out-strikeout sequence.'
ALL of sports is situational. ALL OF IT. When it's third-and-twenty with time running down, you don't run into the line. When you're down 3 with five seconds left, you don't go in for a layup.
If you can't adjust to THE SITUATION, you're sunk.
Joe FOB—NOT to be confused with Joe F., sorry about that one!—you are completely right. I think the Mets' commentators are the rare exceptions to these rules. Mex, Darling, and that non-athlete whose name I'm blanking on really seem to understand the game.
The sad thing is, if you read back through the years, most sportswriters never really did get baseball. They still don't.
I wish someone on this blog just once would google a rin expectancy table. With an average or better hitter, a SUCCESSFUL sacrifice bunt reduces the likelihood of scoring that inning and thus manufactures nothing but an out. The main problem with rhis team right now is the stupidity of keeping Bird in the lineup.
You know what was more fun than watching this lackluster team play the White Sox over the last three days? Watching the OAK/HOU series. To watch those two teams play baseball is balm for a hurt baseball mind. Watching teams who can hit, hit in the clutch, hit for power, have speed, and have managers who actually know how to use the talents of the players they have just makes me sad. We could have been there *sigh*.
I'm shaking it, Win, I'm shaking it!
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