Repeat after me: “Teams are not as good as they look when they are hot, and they are not as bad as they look when they are playing badly.” SU is a firm believer in that saying and it especially applies to baseball when you play pretty much every day. Of course, I was very disappointed in the Yankees’ performance over the weekend as I expected this to be a statement series. My expectations for this team have been modest all year long so having them slip back record-wise is not a huge surprise. But, SU does have some concerns:
- Tanaka pitched well for 6 innings. 2 runs, only 80 pitches. But Girardi pulled him anyway citing him not having pitched much on only 4 days rest this year. SU asks the question: if he doesn’t have surgery, is this the way he will be the rest of his career? Do you need to have a 6-man rotation for him? And can you really consider him to be an ace?
- The Yankees have gone something like 10 games in a row with their starter pitching 6 innings or less. It’s a huge burden on the bullpen and SU continues to say that Girardi is masterful in how he handles his relievers. Joe Torre was the worst – he would pitch guys 4 days in a row (see Tanyon Sturtze and Scott Proctor). But if you play a lot of close games down the stretch, at some point it will start to show in the performance of the key guys. Something to watch.
- The tradition of fans throwing opposition homeruns back onto the field is just stupid. Brett Gardner was hit in the back of the head yesterday. SU says it’s like doing the wave at Yankee Stadium: we don’t do that.
- Gardner does not even have a stealing attempt going back to early June or something like that. The team has stopped running and is just waiting for the 3-run homerun. Sometimes, you need to try and manufacture runs.
- Jacoby Ellsbury is one streaky hitter. In his 2 years here, he is either red hot or ice cold. The Yankees will start winning again once he figures it out.
- Stephen Drew came up Friday night late in the game with a runner on 1st, one out and the only infielder on the left side hugging 2nd base. How he does not bunt or just slap the ball the other way is beyond me. If you are Mark Texeiria, it’s one thing. You hope he will go deep. When you are hitting .190, how does the manager not call for him to do that? SU says it’s selfish. As he cools again (and I use the word “cools” loosely given his batting average), and Brendan Ryan reverts to his career numbers, SU once again would like to see Refsnyder brought back up.
SU will not panic but the Yankees really need to win the division. They don’t have a true ace to start a wild card game and win it. The Blue Jays have a great 1-4 in the line-up, but really the rest of the hitters are not that wonderful. And they are all righties. Time to pitch inside and make guys uncomfortable. SU was very surprised not to see that this weekend but it’s something to watch out for next weekend up in Toronto.
Meanwhile, the Mets are playing inspired ball with a lot of enthusiasm. They lost a couple of close games in Tampa but they now come home against Colorado with a chance to build on the lead as the Nationals are out West. SU is watching.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
Have been watching an ex-Yankee Nick Swisher lately with the Braves. I always liked the guy and he always seemed to be the player that was upbeat and kept everyone loose even when things were not going well (of course this is from a past limited sample of only getting to watch 52 regular season Yankees vs. Red Sox games on ESPN each year). From what I have seen the guy is miserable here. Who would of thought that someone would be upset coming from Cleveland to Atlanta. Looks like Chris Johnson (now in Cleveland) is the happiest player in baseball after getting out to town. Not sure if it is the purposeful tanking by management or the fact that Gonzalez is a junior college manager at best.
Pete, I was always a Nick Swisher fan when he was on the Yankees and rooted for him once he signed with the Indians. But this was a case of Cashman letting a guy go at just the right time. He is much better in a good line up vs. having to be the man in a lesser one. His body also looks a lot smaller now than what he looked like in NY for those years. I think his body has let him down as he has gotten older and that must be affecting how he feels about playing these days. You wonder if this is it for him?
Blue Jays should not be hoisting the division banner just yet. Tulo was a nice pickup, but it’s not as if he was replacing a total slouch at SS (as opposed to the case if he replaced Drew)- Price is an ace but the Yankees have hit him before- if you’re touting Hawkins as a savior, you better think again- Yanks will miss Dickey next series and get Hutchinson instead- should help. Angels overtook the Astros out west and then lost something like 8 in a row. Long way to go.
I was critical of the Blue Jays for improving what didn’t need to be improved but they make me nervous. They have the best run differential in all of baseball (only the Cardinals are close) which tells me that they should have been winning a lot more games along the way than they have so far. I thought they needed to improve their pitching but the fact is they’ve been outscoring their opponents by a lot, just not always at the right times. That could be chemistry or luck thing. All these things are impossible to quantify but maybe just making some trades and moving some people around gave them the spark to figure out how to turn their scoring advantage into wins.
Seth, they also improved their bullpen. I am not a Latroy Hawkins fan either (as mentioned by long-time SU subscriber J. Levine above), but the guy is throwing the ball 94 mph at age 42. Time will tell with Toronto as we know they won’t be playing .900 ball the rest of the way. Time to see what the Yankees are made of.