Well, as most logical baseball fans have sensed for months the New York Yankees reign on the American League East title is over. There are thirty one games remaining and New York trails the well balanced division leading Boston Red Sox by seven and one half games. This is not the nineteen seventy-eight New York Yankees.
Although New York leads MLB in many offensive categories their pitching is in the middle of the pack.
Andy Pettitte has been all the Yankees have asked of him with all but three or four bad starts. With a decent bullpen, early on, he would more than likely be among the league leader in wins. After Pettitte and more often than not, Chien-Meng Wang, it is a real #### shoot.
Roger Clemens, playing half a season, has given them innings but at forty-five years of age is not the Clemens of previous years. Still it is amazing how well he pitches at times.
Mike Mussina has been more awful than respectable. He will throw a gem every eighth or so start. His velocity is down, again, and he needs to be almost perfect with his location to be effective. Not an easy task given the diverse strike zone of many umpires. Add to that equation how Mike shows his arrogance and displeasure when an umpire squeezes his strike zone. Not mister public relations along those lines. Umpires are turning into stage performers, but I digress, that is for a future article.
Phil Hughes is poised for a twenty-one year old but is still a rookie with little experience and will make rookie mistakes. This year, with injuries, has been hard but helpful for this future front line starter.
The procession of raw rookie starters that paraded through the Yankee rotation early was not impressive, at all, at this level. With more minor league development they will thrive given their talent. The Yankee farm system has never been stacked with this quality of young gifted arms. This seems to be the trend for many quality franchises to develop their own young talented arms.
The bullpen has been erratic to dreadful, at best, for most of the season.
Luis Vizcaino, Scott Proctor, Brian Bruney and Kyle Farnsworth were basically the same type of pitchers and were having the same kind of problems. Location, location, location. They walked everybody and gave up a ton of extra base hits. So did the likes of Ron Villone, and Mike Myers.
Mariano Rivera, due to lack of work early, has shown signs of age and inactivity. His velocity is down a notch. He really is only a one inning pitcher but unlike Farsworth can pitch on multiple days and still be effective. He still is among the elite in MLB as a closer.
The bench was weak and shallow.
Given that assessment the Yankees have improved both the bullpen and bench dramatically in the past five weeks. With the addition of Joba Chamberlain and Edwar Ramirez, the resurgence of Vizcaino, the bullpen has a more balanced and diverse feel for Torre.
The bench has been shored up with power defense and diversity. The acquisitions of Jose Molina, and Wilson Betemit proved to be wise. The promotion of Andy Phillips and Shelley Duncan ads some power and energy to the mix.
Back to basics. The Yankees are awful in one run and extra inning games. They do not play consistently well against the better teams in the league. They play bad on the road. On the plus side, they play well at home (excluding Baltimore) and have beaten up on the lesser teams in the AL.
Losing to a Sheffied-less Detroit on Friday night/ Saturday morning and again on Sunday was telling and painful. Derek Jeter was hurt and was hitting into many double plays lately. If he were healthy perhaps they win those two games. Perhaps.
Seattle has ten of it's next thirteen games against playoff contending teams. Will they crack? I thought they would a month ago. I was wrong, again. They are a legitimate club, with good hitting, pitching and a good bullpen.
The Yankees need to approach and play each game as a potential seventh game playoff. I am not crazy, this is what they need to do thanks to the enormous hole they dug themselves early on.
With Mussina going tonight there is a chance that the Yankees will be eight games behind the Red Sox when they meet at home on Tuesday. A sweep of Boston, while not impossible, is mandatory.
The Yankees are chasing two teams, well, really only one. The Red Sox are not going to fold with that pitching staff and their momentum.
More than likely the Yankees need to play .650 ball to advance into the playoffs as the wild card. Even that is not a given with Seattle playing superb baseball.
The Yankees play Boston six times Seattle three times and Baltimore (ouch) six times in the remaining thirty-one games. With tonights game against the Tigers that is more than half their remaining games against teams who will play them tough. Not an impossible task but not one favoring the Yankees given their season's history.
With the third best record in all of Major League baseball the New York Yankees look like the class of the American League. They will display more than adequate starting pitching, strong relief pitching, good defense, timely hitting, and the best third base coach in the game. That is on any given day. Yet, also on any given day, the New York Yankees might look like a team that is more suited for the second half of their division or league. Spotty starting pitching. Pitchers who are unable to pitch with a lead, a tired an ineffective bull pen, poor and lackadaisical fielding, offensively squandering base runner after base runner and the best player in the game not being the best player in the game. Who are these guys?
The first half of the year they kick around the top tier teams in the Central division and made the baseball annalists look at the Central Division teams as imposters to their records, inflated by playing in a heavily scheduled weaker division.
The Yankees take a five game series from the Red Sox, in Boston. Unheard of in sixty-three years in Boston. Yet they are now having a hard time winning a series from lower echelon teams like Baltimore and Seattle (it’s always dangerous to play a team who has lost eleven straight games). Now they are off to play the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim ( could we make this teams name longer or more confusing?) who out hustle, out pitch, and out manage the Yankees every time they meet. Then they're off to play the Detroit Tigers (best record in baseball) and the Minnesota Twins who are one of only three teams to have a winning record against the Yankees this year.
This stretch of twenty-one games in twenty days has a kiss your sister kind of feel to it so far. The Boston series being the big bright spot that keeps the pressure somewhat tolerable today. Boston is not going to go away. There are still four more games with the Red Sox at Yankee stadium and right now the Red Sox are only five and a half games back.
The Red Sox rebounded nicely after the Boston Massacre of 2006, winning two of three from the Angles after flying cross-country. Not so for New York and it will only get tougher for the next nine games (Angles, Tigers, Twins). Boston has a break for the next three games as they play the Seattle Mainers who should be primed for a sweep after their winning ways against the Yankees, although the Red Sox are only 3-4 against Seattle. Then they too have a rough schedule playing Oakland, who they are 3-4 against, Toronto 4-7, and Chicago 2-1.
The Yankees still should be the team to beat. They have benefited nicely by their July 31st trades. Bobby Abreu has been nothing short of stellar offensively and is an upgrade defensively in right field. Corey Lidle has pitched like he always has in the second half of the season throughout his career. Craig Wilson certainly hasn’t hurt the team but between him and an uninjured Andy Phillips I’ll take Phillips defensively. Wilson is just awful swinging at pitches low and away.
Pitching is the key, as always, and the Yankees seem to have a nice edge here also. Wang, who has pitched more innings then at any other point in his short career, is their ace. A watchful eye needs to be focusing on preventing a reoccurrence of last years shoulder problems.
Mussina is being protected and rested and that should be all he needs to finish out the year on a strong note.
Randy Johnson will give you mostly good outings and lots of innings. You will always get the occasional stinker. Lets hope if this is his last year he lets it all out.
Jaret Wright, amazingly has been injury free and is a bulldog, showing an ability to keep his team in most of the games he pitches. The bullpen needs to be rested when his turn in the rotation comes up. Strategic bullpen planning is required here by Joe Torre and Ron Gudry.
Maybe a Jeff Karstens can sneak in a few good starts while the Yankees periodically rest their starters. He throws strikes and has a decent assortment of off speed curves and change ups. Certainly the Yankees can’t be the only team dazzled by young unknown pitchers.
The bullpen has really come around and it looks like everyone has his niche. If Proctors right arm is not four inches longer than it was at the beginning of the year I would be surprised. He has done more than an adequate job. The same can be said for Ron Villone.
Mike Myers is brutal to all lefties and is seasoned for the playoff run.
Kyle Farnsworth is starting to look like the pitcher who pitched brilliantly for the Braves the second half of last season. The Yankees hope that in the playoffs he pitches better than he did for the Braves last year.
Octavio Dotel ???
Mariano Rivera. Enough said.
So if the Yankees can master the art of not playing down to their competition then all is well in Yankee land and a trip to the Championship series and beyond is likely. Anything less could mean a interesting series with the dreaded Red Sox.
