All of a sudden, the Yankees have gone on a winning streak and are actually scoring runs via hits. Many people ask SU: what’s going on? It’s interesting:
- First of all, Ellsbury went down with an injury (shocking, I know). He has been an offensive blockade at the top of the order for the last 5 weeks. Girardi has no choice but to keep him there as he has 4 more years on this awful contract. Having him on the bench allows Girardi to play Hicks who is rapidly becoming an SU fave. Young, athletic, swings with purpose and has an upside (what a concept).
- Next, Texeiria went down with an injury. Neck spasms. “Bothering me for a while but I won’t use it as an excuse.” (which means he is using it as an excuse). Tex is clogging the middle of the line-up with poor production and his 6th year in a row of hitting into the shift left-handed (can you believe he was a .300 hitter before coming to the Yankees?) He needs to sit out 5 games to let others play. Anyone. Ackley has shown he has ability and deserves some at bats.
- Chase Headley has quietly moved his average above .170 and even increased his RBI total by 50% last night (we are up to 3 now). He is the last piece to the puzzle. Once Headley is moved, things can only get better. He just cannot play in NY and joins a long list of players who are not good in a major market. Not his fault – he was happy out in Arizona.
The return of Chapman is already creating problems in the bullpen. Girardi is usually the master of the relief corps and protects them from overuse and having to warm up and sit down. The last two days Betances has warmed up several times and has not been used. SU recommendation: let Chapman show he is the real deal and then trade him for some prospects in July before the deadline. Miller is just as good and you don’t need 3 of these dudes. Get something in return for the future.
Bottom line: the team is much more interesting with the youngsters and role players in there. Once the starters return, SU will be dozing off again. Let them rest and get well.
Over the weekend, SU was one of the 4 people watching the finals of the Madrid Open between Djokovic and Murray. Interesting moment in the finals where Murray was taking a long time to towel off and erase some ball marks in the clay around the baseline. Djokovic was ready to serve and waiting. The umpire issued a warning to Djokovic for taking too much time to serve (part of tennis’s pace of play initiative to move things along). Murray walked up to the umpire and told him it was his fault and that Djokovic shouldn’t be penalized. To me, it’s just another example of the respect between the top players and how in this great era of men’s tennis, the story is about the actual matches vs. all of the gamesmanship that we saw during the McEnroe/Connors era of the past. You need to watch how good these top players are as they won’t be around forever and you won’t see an era like this again. High quality and high respect for one another. SU finds it to be an interesting contrast to NBA play or Big Papi hitting a homerun and taking 47 minutes to round the bases.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
The most interesting thing is to see the Royals playing like Yankees rather than the team that they’ve been for the past two seasons. Cain did everything he could to win the game (3HRs but was also the reason they lost). He misplayed a flyball that turned into a double and then misplayed a bloop single into a bases clearing double.
I did not like what I saw when I looked at the Yankees’ lineup yesterday but at least these guys are going to work hard to score runs. There’s definitely some energy there. Still, some of this resurgence is on the back of Beltran and I don’t expect him to keep it up for too long.
Keep the faith
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Has anyone noticed that the Mets offensive production problems will be solved if they just bat 9 pitchers?
All is quiet at SU despite signs of a continued resurgence in the Bronx and the Toronto/Texas brawl. A few things about the brawl:
1) Texas very well may have tried to hit Bautista as retaliation for a bat flip in the playoffs. This is more or less in line with the unwritten rules we often hear about although I’m now learning that the unwritten rulebook has as a subchapter on this that indicates the retaliation should happen early in the series rather than late in the game on getaway day. I have little patience for all of this, mostly because MLB has been policing this for years in a way that is about as effective as can be expected. People still get hit but it rarely gets out of hand with retaliation after retaliation. In any case, it was late in a close game and getting a free trip to 1st base is valuable in its own right.
2) Bautista’s slide into second was just wrong. It was not quite Chase Utley bad because it was actually a slide but it was a slide that pretty much began after passing the base. Middle infielders should have to deal with hard slides but they should be comfortable knowing that the slides are headed towards (not away from) 2nd base. The rules could be clearer on this and it doesn’t have to be about feet first or no roll blocks or whatever. The slide can be hard but it has to be towards the base. Period. Anything else results in an out at 1st base. And I’d give Bautista the same suspension given to Utley, especially if his motivation was to hurt more than to break up the double play.
3) We can’t pretend to know what athletes are really like as people. But maybe this shows us that those who were offended by Bautista’s bat flips were onto something. You might say the same thing about those that were offended by Bryce Harper. I don’t know if baseball needs to be made fun again but, if so, maybe we can find some better guys to do it.
4) Compared to Bautista or Harper, I know even less about Odor but his reaction was truly ugly. I don’t know if he’s nastier than the next guy in a fight or if he just got lucky to connect with a punch (where others rarely do). In any case, a fist to the jaw is not the image MLB wants to be associated with (other than the attention and clicks it draws on their sites and apps) and he’s going to see a pretty hefty fine and suspension as well.
Regarding the Yankees resurgence, it’s really just notable in relation to how they played the weeks before. Nothing terribly surprising though. We knew Headley would eventually get an extra base hit and we’re excited by the bullpen. Of course, yesterday we learned that the big three relievers will occasionally give up hits and runs and make things interesting. Three dominating relievers (like the Mets’ starting rotation) will not all always be dominating. Nobody has ever been perfect all the time in this game.