Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Yankeetorial: We have the leading basestealer in the American League batting eighth

The last time Brett Gardner led off, we scored 7 runs to beat Toronto.

We haven't scored seven runs since.

On most teams, the league-leading base-stealer leads off. Not on the Yankees.

Last night, in the ninth inning, the Yankees had one real hope: (Well, the truth is, we always insist on the fourth-grader hope that somebody will hit a homerun, but it's getting lame.) That Brett Gardner would get on base, steal second, spook the pitcher and wrangle a run. The only problem: Gardner was batting eighth, so low in the order that he never got to the plate.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeter needs to do the right thing for THE TEAM as no one else seems willing to push him down in the order. He is hurting the team.

Joe De Pastry said...

Lou Brock was vastly overrated.
His career OBP was only .343 [by comparison, Jeter .383] and he had only 149 HR in 19 seasons [Jeter 237 in 17].
Brock did, of course, steal a lot of bases [938], but his SB % was also lower than Jeter's. Plus he was a below-average outfielder.
Brock belonged near the bottom of the line-up, just like another future [and more deserving] HoF player now does.
And that Brock is in the Hall, but Tim Raines, with more homers, 808 steals but a much better %, and a .385 OBP, never has come close makes no sense.