But it won't. Nope. It just won't. We have seen the future, and we will be lucky to survive this West Coast horror trip with a decent lead over Seattle.
We've seen starters piss away leads. We've seen lead-off walks stranded on base. We've seen the types of blunders normally associated with the definition of lousy baseball.
Tell me: Is it my imagination, or have Yankee hitters lately often swung at pitches early in the count, just after the pitcher walked the previous batters? Is there no old coot in the dugout demanding that they take pitches until a strike is thrown? The pitcher just walked a guy on four balls. Is it smart baseball to swing at the first pitch?
Is it my imagination, or are Yankee batters consistently flailing at pitches well outside the strike zone? Brett Gardner seems mystified at what has happened to his batting average. Well, it's no mystery here. Captain Brett lunges for pitches a foot off the plate, sometimes when the count is 3-2.
Is it my imagination, or is Miguel Andujar developing Chuck Knoublach disease? He'll field a ball cleanly, have plenty of time to make the throw, then double-clutch - that's right, he'll think about it - and Frisbee the ball side-arm, down the line. It's getting worse, by the way. I'm not sure he can play 3B in a one-game season.
Is it my imagination, or are the Yankees still viewing Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird through the lenses of their breakout rookie seasons? Sanchez's game has gone steadily downhill, and Bird's has never materialized. Yet Yankee announcers speak of them in awe, like volcanoes ready to erupt. Baseball is full of players who went once around the league. The pitchers adjusted. They didn't. End of story.
Listen: The Yankees will probably qualify for the Wild Card, with or without home field advantage. That's because last spring, they presented a seemingly overwhelming lineup to a league where several owners were already on the verge of surrendering the season. Look at the bottom seven in the AL - Twins, Jays, Rangers, White Sox, Tigers, Royals, O's: Practically every one had given up by mid-June. The A's simply didn't get the memo. (And it didn't arrive with the Rays until too late.)
The Yankees success this year more represents the sorry state of MLB competition, three years into a Collective Bargaining Agreement that was supposed to make all franchises equal. Instead, what we're seeing is a cold, hard strategy of teams seeking to fail, so they can stockpile cheap talent. We're seeing young teams ascending, when it no longer matters. Tampa is 8-2. So is Kansas City. The White Sox are 7-3. And the Yankees are 5-5.
We keep hearing that all will be fine when Judge and Didi and El Chapo return. What a crock. We are limping toward that miserable one-game season - the nightmare we so wanted to avoid - which is now our main goal. And we might have to play it in Oakland.
HEY, LETS BE HONEST WITH OURSELVES.
ReplyDeleteWE HAVE 2 REALLY GOOD ROOKIES IN OUR INFIELD WHO BOTH CAN HIT.
.....BUT THEY ARE...ROOKIES.
WE HAVE TO LIVE WITH THEIR GROWING PAINS IN THE FIELD.
IT MIRRORS DIDI IN HIS FIRST FULL YEAR WITH US. HE LOOKED AWFUL IN THE FIELD AND WITH THE BAT.
LOOKS LIKE WE AREN'T TAKING THAT MAGIC CARPET RIDE TO THE CANYON OF HEROES THIS SEASON.
SO, PLEASE, LETS STICK WITH THESE 2 KIDS IN OUR INFIELD, UNTIL THEY WORK OUT THE KINKS WITH THEIR DEFENSE.
SIDE NOTE: PLEASE, NO MORE CC AFTER THIS SEASON.
The Yankees' hot streak in May and June was a steamroller affair that flattened all the major contenders in the American League, one after the other. They sure did look special. Now, I can't stand to watch and can't see how they retain home field advantage for the play-in game. Oh, well. I guess after another 10 years of mediocrity we now know how it feels to be mortal. Our team is like everybody else's, except we won a lot more pennants 20, 40 and 60 years ago. The sport has managed to level the field, and our team is trying to capture lightning in a bottle just like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteWe got to 30 games over .500 and basically we've stayed there. Right now, we're a .500 team, with lousy pitching, lousy batting, and lousy managing.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the postseason looks just ducky. And I don't mean Medwick.
The Yankees are in a tough spot. They have played 45 games in the last 47 days since the all star break ended. This included five make up games that should have been days off. Add to that a bunch of key injuries forcing them to roll out guys like Stanton and Gardner , without rest , day after day. No to mention play Shane Robinson more then anyone would like.That fact is, they are a tired and injured team.
ReplyDeleteMy concern is not how they have played the last six weeks. They are hanging in there. My concern is there is not enough time left for them to get healthy , rested and back to the level they are capable of playing before the playoffs. Can we really expect Judge to be on top of his game a month from now. Say what you want about Chapman, but he has had a good year playing with a bad knee. Will he be back ,and do you really think they can make a deep post season run without him.
There is no crying in baseball. In sports you lace them up and give it your best. Sometimes the mountain is just to high. I see a team that is not making excuses and trying against steep odds But , I am afraid the odds are too steep.
If the Yankees are inventive ( not ), creative ( not ) or have insight ( not ), they will introduce Andujar as next year's starting left fielder.
ReplyDeleteWhy will this year be one big pineapple in the end? (Pun fully intended.)
ReplyDeleteWhy did Hannibal and his army ultimately lose to Rome, despite all those elephants?
Why did the Wicked Witch of the West, with magic, all those chanting guards. and an army of terrifying flying monkeys, ultimately get beat by a Kansas farm girl and a bunch of goofy roadside layabouts?
Why did Henry Hudson fail to find the Northwest Passage. and get a free land tour from his men?
The answer is always the same, as it is in all human endeavors:
Pitching.
A chain breaks at its weakest link, and going into this season, our weakest link was pitching. I thought we had gathered up enough guys to get through it, but I was wrong.
So was Brian Cashman.
We all could see the vulnerabilities. Would Severino repeat his excellent 2017 season? Would Tanaka's arm hold up? CC's knees? And surely Sonny Gray couldn't be as bad as he looked again. Could he????
And hey, in any case, we surely had enough arms stacked up in our mighty Bullpen of Death. Didn't we??
Well, now we know.
Things didn't go nearly as bad as they MIGHT have gone. CC didn't come apart, Tanaka missed time because of his legs (which may have saved his arm), and overall, Severino has been okay.
But we lost Montgomery, Gray spit the bit, the rookies have looked half-baked, and the replacements Cashman came up with have been a mixed bag, at best. The failures of the starters eventually combined to break even a bullpen as deep as ours, a process that was probably accelerated a little by our rookie manager's frequent misuse of starters and relievers alike.
The injuries and meltdowns ensured that we didn't have some kind of super lineup to overcome this.
It does seem like we are viewing Bird and Sanchez that way. (Through the lens of their rookie years)
ReplyDeleteBird - The Bird issue is now moot. Voit has filled the void. By my favorite standard, am I glad the guy is at the plate, he passes. No Fast forward during Voit ABs.
Sanchez - I can't figure it out. But there was one telling moment a couple of days ago.
The Yankees won the game (it was his first one back) and they were doing the line thing and Stanton was behind Sanchez as they went down the line.
He gave him a big hug from behind and said something along the lines of "really glad you're back" and then about 5 seconds later... he did it again. The first one seems natural. The second one was emphasis.
I have to think that his teammates know more than we do. Stanton was REALLY glad that he was back so I'm going to give him the rest of the month to shake off the rust and start producing. He lost weight. so there's that.
AnDUjar's errors - If he goes all Knobby we are truly screwed. But it's not the errors that has me thinking about LF for him after all, Jeter made 22 errors in his rookie year. It's how many balls go for doubles down the line.
I have no way of knowing whether or not a good (not even a great) 3B gets to those balls. Yet, I don't have any overwhelming memories of him making "spectacular" plays over there which, at least in my mind, is the hallmark of a good 3B.
I'm not talking Nettles level plays just above average Todd Frazier ones. That's a pretty low bar.
I only use the eye test and in the spirit of disclosure, I hit FF and rarely watch the defensive half of the 4th and 5th when the Yankee pitchers melt down with regularity.
Walk, Hit, FF, hit, FF 3 runs. So maybe that's when he's making the great plays. (More likely that when the balls get by for doubles.)
Let's at least win tonight against TBD. I wonder what the Yankees record against TBD is? Probably not good.
Doug K.
@Alphonso...what makes you think Andujar can play left field? What makes anyone think Andujar can play first base? Has Andujar ever played left field or first base? Do we think that anyone can just pick up a glove and play left field or first base? I understand we're not getting consistent production from LF or 1B but really...let's put Sanchez at first base for that matter. Put some ice cream sandwiches near the bag. Jeez....
ReplyDeleteAndujar I feel is getting a bum rap regarding his fielding. He has almost exactly the same number of games per error as did Jeter in his first two full seasons.
ReplyDeleteranger, no one is saying that playing left or first is easy, or that Andujar will be great at either. It's just that:
ReplyDelete—A key hitter we MIGHT get in the offseason would be well placed at third, where he is also a great fielder.
—In general, left and first are probably the easiest positions to play in the modern game (NOT that they're easy!)
So it's something that might be worth considering, and it wouldn't kill El Matador or anyone else if he were to take a whack at playing it, say, next spring training. Guys used to do that all the time, without bored sportswriters turning it into another sign of the apocalypse.
Personally, I think Andujar has a cannon of an arm, which would be wasted at first. But from what I see—which ain't sayin' much, I know!—Doug K. is right. Sure, Jetes sometimes struggled in the field early on (and later on), and even Nettles was pretty erratic when he first came to the Yankees.
But if Andujar doesn't have the natural quickness to get to enough balls—and again, I don't know where he was positioned by the coaches or anything else—then all the hard work in the world won't help.
And YES, Sanchez, who has such trouble getting down to stop pitches, might well be better off moving to first, at least part-time.
As I've written before, I wonder if we really NEED a full-time first baseman at all next year, considering how few position players Coops insists on carrying.
Interesting observation about Sanchez, Doug K., and who knows what inner demons he might be battling.
ReplyDeleteConsidering HIS arm, it would also be a great advantage for us if we could get Sancho back behind the plate. It is a good sign that he lost weight, and a good sign that he seems to be hustling thus far.
And yes, as others have said, he seems to be getting royally screwed by the umps.
(In general, the home-plate umpiring has been so consistently dreadful this season that I am back to favoring the replacement of the blues with some kind of electronic strike zone. It seems to me that they simply can't keep up with the speed of modern pitching, and are constantly fooled by how catchers frame the pitch—with every close call ALWAYS going to the home team now.)
In any case, Sanchez, unlike Bird, didn't just take one triumphant turn around the league and then flop. He really looked like the best catcher in baseball for a year-and-a-half. We really need to address what changed—and hope it isn't something like getting off PEDs.
I'm good with Machado on 3rd and trying to make AnDujar an outfielder. His arm strength would still be a plus. Supposedly it is easier to go from the infield to the outfield. I think Mickey Mantle came up as a shortstop. Not that it has any real bearing on the situation.
ReplyDeleteTry this batting order on for size:
Hicks CF
Judge RF
Machado 3B
Stanton DH
AnDUjar LF
Gleybar 2B
Voit 1B
Sanchez C
Didi SS
4th OF Frazier
Pretty good.
Doug K.
My only caveat, Doug K.—and it's a big one—I want Harper, too.
ReplyDeleteI am now permanently, deeply scarred by having to watch Neil Walker and Shane Robinson in right field. This can never happen again; anything like it would trigger my permanent PTSD.
Get Harper. That way we're prepared if Frazier can't come back. Hicks can always be dealt away, if necessary, and now he might actually fetch something.
Get Harper.
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