SU has noticed that the Yankees fans are already booing Miguel Andujar for not coming through with men on base. It’s not even April 1st yet. SU says adopt the John Sterling approach where he won’t even give you a hitter’s batting average until May. You don’t want the young guys to get down on themselves early. No need to boo – just don’t react then if you are sitting in the stands after paying $125 for your ticket. Move Andujar down in the order to get his confidence. You wonder if Aaron Boone is smart enough to figure that out. But he is the great communicator and no doubt a line up demotion combined with a big hug should work. Actually, the only challenge for Boone is to figure out where to put his 1 or 2 left-handed hitters each game in the line up.
It’s only been 3 games but SU has some insightful observations as always:
- Giancarlo Stanton is just not clutch. He’s just not. It’s not his fault that some team wanted to pay him $30 million a year for 10 years, and that the Yankees eagerly picked up that contract. He lives comfortably and after another day at the ballpark where he left runners all over the bases (as in today), he will have a nice dinner and enjoy his luxury apartment. Note SU is not bashing him and I will not boo him. He is what he is and I accept that. My only request is that you bat him 7th so that the Yankees can avoid him in rally situations. I will take the 42 homeruns and 85 rbis along with the .255 average. Yay, Giancarlo!
- You cannot bat Judge and Stanton back-to-back. Too many strikeouts.
- And by the way, the all right-handed line up is just stupid. The Yankees were overpowered by the lowly Orioles the last 2 games by hard throwing right handed pitchers and soft throwing change up lefties. They all go up trying to hit homeruns. They may break the season record that was set last year but it’s a problem for winning championships.
- The new guy LeMahieu was a great pick up. He takes a ton of pitches, hits to the opposite field (WHAT!!!!!!!!!?????) and plays everywhere. He needs to play every day. New SU favorite. They could use 4 more guys like him.
- No need to panic after 3 games. But you can see the weaknesses already. Baseball is a marathon but having all right-handed hitters all just trying to hit home runs is not ideal (note: this did not work last year).
SU likes the Met newcomers already coming through. Good first series on the road.
Coach K is a hall of fame coach, obviously, but does he run any offense for Duke? Michigan State is a team. SU has no love for them but they are a consummate team. So is Texas Tech and that will be a very good game come next Saturday.