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.
