Small things.

 

During the Beat Me in St. Louis, Louis series just passed, Michael Kay (of all people) came up with the bizarre but intriguing stat that the Yankees had outscored their opponents by over 40 runs, despite running up a 12-17 record in their previous 29 games.

According to the crack statisticians at YES, only one team since 1901 had ever accomplished such a dubious feat before. That was the 1985 Boston Red Sox, a team that finished 81-81, good for 5th in the AL East that season.

That Sox team was, of course, en route to glory and heartbreak the next year. This Yankees team is en route to nothing, more than likely. Future? What future? This is most likely the boys' last stab at the golden fleece, and as a great man once sang, "Nothing is forgiven or forgotten when it's the last time around."

For all that, there seems to be very little sense of urgency around this team, or any recognition that it is win now or win never.

The Yankees—who may now be the ONLY team to have played as badly as 13-20 while outscoring their opponents—have indeed looked lately like a Red Sox team of yore, winning the laughers while finding ways to lose the close ones.  

That advantage in runs scored comes wholly from five games, an 11-5 whomping of the Royals, a 16-0 pasting of Pittsburgh, and three glorious games in which they walloped the Carmine Hose by 12-5, 14-1, and 13-2. Hey, nothing we Yankees fans love more than a one-sided beat down. But you have to win the close ones—which is exactly what they were doing in the first half.

So what changed?  

Well, we've all hammered on the usual suspects. The fact that this team had big structural problems from the start, and was never as good as it looked in the first half. The awful deadline deals that should have cost our wildly overrated general manager his job—and the injuries that will save it for him.

This team never did have the pitching to win it all—and it may be that now it does not even have the pitching to limp home with a division title. The slavish devotion to the "Three True Outcomes" game has been a disaster—and so has bringing in a bunch of players, such as IKF, Donaldson, Gallo, etc., who are mostly good at One Lousy Outcome. 

These are all valid criticisms. But all that aside, I think it's worth noting that this team now loses game after game by the smallest of margins, and often due to a decided lack of concentration.

Egregious base running mistakes, poor decisions on which pitches to swing at, and trying to retire awful hitters with change-ups—looking at you, Gerrit Cole!—have all played a disproportionate role in what promises to be an epic Yankees slide.

This is where a good clubhouse manager comes in—or should come in.

It's not fair to blame Aaron Boone for the material he has to work with, of course—the terrible deadline deals, or the seemingly inexplicable desire to fill up the Scranton RailRiders' roster with guys who should be up in New York, fighting for a pennant. Nor, I suspect, can we blame him for many of the bizarre lineups or even some of the strategic decisions—giving Joey Gallo one more chance to prove himself against Edwin Diaz?—that we have seen over the past month.

Most of those, I think we can safely assume, are dictated from the squirrelly little control freak upstairs.

But a good clubhouse manager—as Joe Torre was, as the likes of Bob Lemon and Ralph Houk and Lou Piniella, among others, have been—keeps his team engaged. He finds ways to keep them involved, even during the dog days and the wearying road trips of August. He lightens the load, keeps things fun, keeps guys on their toes. 

Ranger has it right: the baserunning blunders are on Boone. So is the general sense of this team sleepwalking its way to oblivion. I hate to say it about Ma Boone, who seems to be an incredibly gracious and kind man—witness his off-season work in Haiti and elsewhere—but he needs to go.

It's a shame that he will be the fall guy for Cashman, the real culprit, following what promises to be a colossal meltdown. But it's the manager's job to make sure the small things get done, and done well.

If you can't do that, the team might as well manage itself.