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.
Sports Update Intergalactic 
LeMahieu will be everyday player and move to top of lineup— he is an old school type hitter and Is needed in one or three hole. When Hicks comes back and also is in top of lineup, we can get away from all sluggers all the time and the oh so boring strikeout. Let’s put March behind us and start April fresh. Boy do I hate losing to Baltimore
I agree with you on Lemahieu. 3 games and you have concluded that Stanton is not a clutch hitter? OK… I grant you that he was not one last year….but that was his first year in the AL. As you said above… let’s give them all until may before we start tossing opinions around… including the top heave righty lineup that we have. I would love to see Gardner or LeMahieu at tghe top followed by Andujar and then Judge, Stanton, Voit, Bird, Sanchez, Tolowitzski and then Torrez for our lineup.
Can LeMahieu play shortstop or left field? Andujar must be a starter most of the time. Cmon… he lead the team last year in average and doubles. Does anyone remember what a notoriously slow start Bernie Williams was as a hitter
Andy, it’s never too early to dump on Stanton. But I will not boo him. I am a big Andujar fan – he needs to be protected and handled with care. And yes, we need to give the hitters a chance to warm up in April. No need to panic – at least until tomorrow maybe…
Not right to boo Andujar. If nothing else, he saved us from having Machado (3-15, 1 RBI) on the team. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough.
I’m not going to boo Stanton either but he is not a great player. Not a generational player. And certainly not worthy of his contract. He’s Dave Kingman but with more strikeouts. He’s likeable but he’s a black hole in the middle of the lineup.
It’s still about a month too early to evaluate any player, performance or stat. But I think we are allowed to wonder what Boone is up to. I don’t know what the metrics are telling him but why take Happ out after 4 innings? He had a rough first inning but was otherwise looking OK. And they are planning to use an “opener” which will require heavy bullpen use in the coming days. Seems strange.
Krzyzewski is no longer an effective in-game coach and has been getting by on past reputation for years. With that lineup he should have been winning games in this tournament by 15+ points. I know that Duke has a bulls eye on their back every time they step on the court and as a result gets everyone’s best, but they still should have been dominating the competition in this tournament. Even with four first-round level players (and three top five players) this team was playing too much one-on-one and relying on Williamson and Barrett to bail them out. A good coach would have found a way to get more contribution from Reddish, Bolden, and DeLaurier (and the other talented players on that team). One just needs to look at his assistant coaches and realize that their chance for tournament success would be minimal, as they do not appear on the surface to be capable of anything other than sitting and standing. They are great at hugging, crying, and talking about the “Duke Family” but they cannot draw up a play or provide insight into the necessary adjustments required during a competitive basketball game. If Krzyzewski were an NFL coach then two years ago he would have been told that changes were required on his staff, and after the close games against Wake (possibly the worst team in NCAA this year) and UCF, two losses to UNC, and then the Elite 8 exit (a game they had multiple opportunities to win) he would be fired today. And, not to take anything away from Tom Izzo (and his Spartans) as he can still actually coach and gets the most out of his players.
LOL @ “He’s Dave Kingman but with more strikeouts.” I wasn’t sure that was possible but there you have it.