After Devers, Bogaerts and Martinez, no Redsock is hitting above .216. (Wait... Brigadoon Refsnyder stands at .400 - two for five on the year - but he's in Disappearance Mode.) Remember Bobby Dalbec, who was gonna make us forget Mitch Moreland? He's at .148 with one HR (against us, natch) - about 30 points below the Great Gallo.
File this in the Dept of Knowing When We Got It Good, because last night, even Higgy was hitting, and the Yankee Triad - Judge, Rizzo & Stanton - is crushing it like Covid. When did a Yankee last lead the league in RBIs? As the late alive Warner Wolf would now say, "Let's go to the Google!" It was Mark Teixeira in 2009. Fateful year, eh? Check out the current leaderboard. Yowzer!
Moreover, at least for now, we have silenced one demon: We won't repeat August of 2021 - when we christened a 13-game win streak by giving it all back. After 11 in a row, we have now won four in another row and - last night, exploding in the eighth - we looked like a team on the rise. One drawback: We at IIH may have to soften our righteous stance on Cooperstown Cashman, who - aside from his recent, cringeworthy "We wuz robbed in 2019!" dust-up with the Astros, worsened by revelations that the Yankees were not exactly pristine - has built baseball's best bullpen... at a time when bullpens are everything.How far does this pony go? Donno. But Boston could be on the verge of cashing out. And last night, with every extra pitch thrown by the White Sox starter, we moved closer to a matchup of bullpens - a dual we are likely to win. The real Yankee Triad might just be King, Holmes & Loiaisiga - because if an opposing starter does not reach the 7th, the scales tip decisively in our advantage. That could change at any time. But for now... don't pinch me. It's all good.
Moreover, at least for now, we have silenced one demon: We won't repeat August of 2021 - when we christened a 13-game win streak by giving it all back. After 11 in a row, we have now won four in another row and - last night, exploding in the eighth - we looked like a team on the rise. One drawback: We at IIH may have to soften our righteous stance on Cooperstown Cashman, who - aside from his recent, cringeworthy "We wuz robbed in 2019!" dust-up with the Astros, worsened by revelations that the Yankees were not exactly pristine - has built baseball's best bullpen... at a time when bullpens are everything.How far does this pony go? Donno. But Boston could be on the verge of cashing out. And last night, with every extra pitch thrown by the White Sox starter, we moved closer to a matchup of bullpens - a dual we are likely to win. The real Yankee Triad might just be King, Holmes & Loiaisiga - because if an opposing starter does not reach the 7th, the scales tip decisively in our advantage. That could change at any time. But for now... don't pinch me. It's all good.
I miss Warner Wolf, one of the few sportscasters who understood that we wanted to see athletes play, not him talk.
ReplyDeleteCashman's teams have often had great months or even a good season, here and there, before fading badly down the stretch or in the postseason. We'll see.
ReplyDeleteDuque, any more of this optimistic talk and I will most certainly pinch you!
ReplyDeleteThe bigger they are
ReplyDeletethe harder they fall, just saying, it's only May.
Talk to me in the cold grey dawn of October (At least where you all live)
Lasagna has not been the Lasagna of 2021. Green has also been stumbling. King has proven he is fallible. And we'll always have Chappie. So I'm not ready to christen our bullpen The Greatest quite just yet. But when you score 15 runs, and knock around a starter who's been mowing down the league, none of it matters.
ReplyDeleteWhich brings me to one of my favorite old Wall Street sayings: Nothing matters until it matters. We'll see if any of it matters in the months ahead.
Hicks looks terrible. Gallo looks better than him right now, and that's pretty damning. I still say with Hicks and Gallo clogging the lineup, we don't go all the way. Unless by some miracle one or both of them regularly starts hitting, hitting with power, and hitting 'em where they ain't. Zach's post about Hicks nailed that.
Just because we haven't collapsed after a big win streak like we did last year doesn't mean we can't. It's a long, long way from May to December (which is when MLB seems intent on extending the season to). And the days grow short when you reach September.
ReplyDeleteOK. Please permit me to impose an injection of positive realism:
a. NYYs are 23-and-8. At the end of March, how many of us would have placed our chips on 8-and-23?
b. Judge seems to believe he's in a Walk Year (maybe he is...?). Guys Age 30 who are in their walk year seem to have unreal seasons -- which are followed up by mediocrity, injury, or lack of motivation. Ignore the "will they sign him" issue. The guy is hot, and uninjured so far. That's HUGE. Motivation is a key to performance, ain't it?
c. Did you really expect this kind of early season from Nestor? The freaking guy as a 1.41 ERA, 42Ks, 11BBs. Some of us might have thought he'd be on the Scranton Shuttle by now.
d. With the underperformance of Hicks and Gallo, perhaps some of us have overlooked Donaldson's lack of production. BA .224. 3HR, 10RBI. Blah. The catchers (generally) don't hit. Ralph Kiner's SS great-grandson is no great shakes. How the F are they doing this? Some kind of magic?
e. Yes, Chapman makes ME sweat---and not in a good way. But it's hard to imagine him having a better start. Keep in mind that Zack Britton + Domingo German are on the IL, Deivi Garcia is nowhere to be seen, and (for reasons that elude my analysis) Clarke Schmidt remains in the minors. Yet the pitching is amazing -- 3rd in MLB (behind LA Dodgers and the Houston Miserable Bastards). The Mets have a team ERA of 3.29.....behind the NYYs, who are at 2.75
f. No doubt it has crossed your mind that losing Gary Sanchez (FINALLY!) has improved the pitching -- a stupendous, amazing, unforeseen gain to levels not imagined here. You can't prove it, but Perhaps Gary was F-ing up the pitching on a regular basis.
To sum up this take: Things are better than we thought. AND: This a lot better team, even with all of the malfunctioning pieces, than many other teams.
All of which is very true, Joe FOB!
ReplyDeleteI admit: I was one of those who was sure it was more likely to be 8-23.
So good on them. And if they keep this up, I'm more than willing to give even Cooperstown Cashman his props.
And JM? Loved the "September Song" reference—one of my favorite tunes.
ReplyDeleteBy most accounts, Pieter Stuyvesant was a cranky old bigot. Thanks to the magic of Broadway and an immigrant fleeing fascism, he gets to sing a beautiful, melancholic love song!
Unless my google is broken, Warner Wolf is still with us.
ReplyDeleteSo he is! Glad to see that. He's 84. Hope he lives to be a hundred.
ReplyDelete