About last night…
A MOMENT OF HOPE – After watching the Yankees come back time and again against the Twins, there was a brief moment last night when it seemed it might happen again.
It was the Top of the Second Inning, the Red Sox were already up 7-1. The Yanks were at bat, there were two outs, the bases were loaded, and D.J. LeMahieu was up. I thought, “If he hits a bomb, it’ll be 7-5 and the Yanks will be right back in it.”
LeMahieu walked. It was now 7-2.
Up stepped Aaron Judge…
And he hit a long fly ball… but it wasn’t long enough. He hit it into the deep area of Fenway – center field. It was nothing more than a fly out.
At that moment, it was apparent that the Yankees has lost their last best chance to get back in the game.
THAT MAKES FIVE – Last night was the fifth consecutive start where the Yankees starting pitcher did not last more than 4 innings. This is a growing disaster.
Bad Is Bad, but… – There is the old adage that a team is never as bad as it looks when it is playing poorly. In a way, Yankees fans have to take hold of that and run with it. The pitching cannot really be this bad. It can’t. It can’t…right?
With Each Bad Start… The price for a starter (or two) and (now) necessary bullpen reinforcements gets more and more costly. Desperate teams have to pay more to acquire talent. I fear that 2019 will be the opposite of 2016 when the Yankees traded Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller to build the farm. This year the Yankees will have to sell the farm.
That fact frustrates me because quality arms have been available for nothing more than money – and the Yankees have plenty of money.
(I’ll be more frustrated if quality pitching help doesn’t come by the deadline…)
Last Night – The pitching lines from last night:
Masahiro Tanaka: 3.1 innings, 12 runs.
Stephen Tarpley: 1.2 innings, 4 runs
Luis Cessa: 2 innings, 0 runs
Austin Romine: 1 inning, 3 runs
OUCH.
Legendary Bad – According to ESPN, the twelve runs allowed by Tanaka was the second-most earned runs ever allowed by a Yankees pitcher – ever. EVER. The most runs ever allowed by a Yankee pitcher was in 1923. That year Carl Mays allowed one more run in his start, 13 in total. The difference (and it’s a huge difference) was that Mays pitched a complete game.
1912 – Also from ESPN, the Yankees starting pitchers have allowed a total of 40 runs over their past five games. That hasn’t happened to the Yankees since 1912. Or, since the Yankees were the Highlanders in 1912 (they became the Yankees in 1913), one could say that this had never before happened to the Yankees. Never. This is bad. Very bad.
Just a Question – It’s a crazy dichotomy, but why is it that the Yankees can turn fringe players, guys other teams give up on, into plus players if not stars but they can’t do it for pitchers? Year after year this seems to occur. Luke Voit, Gio Urshela, Mike Tauchman come to the Bronx and become plus players…
Yet, at the same time, the Yankees bring in pitchers who, by all measures should be very good, if not great, and they flop. The Yankees get these very good pitchers who a very good until they’ve been around the Yankees, and then they aren’t. J.A. Happ, James Paxton, and Sonny Gray are just three, but the list is longer. Sometimes the players (like Happ) are good when the initially arrive, but then they seem to get worse.
Why is this?
I can surmise only two possible conclusions:
Brian Cashman and his team cannot accurately predict pitching and they choose the wrong players to acquire or
The Yankees big pitching coaches are not doing a good job… (or, at least, their approach and philosophy doesn’t work)
It seems that pitchers come to the Yankees and get worse while at the same time pitchers go to other teams, like the Astros, and get much better.
Something isn’t working.
Chad Green was a disaster in the big leagues this year. He went to AAA, made an adjustment, and has been much better. Why didn’t the big league coaches see the flaw?
Sonny Gray has a 3.29 ERA and a WHIP of just 1.13 this year with the Reds With those numbers, he’d be the best Yankees starter, or at least second best behind Domingo German. When he left, he was very critical about the Yankees approach with him. He was roundly criticized for that. Maybe he was right…
Maybe…
Silent Bats – It was bound to happen, but the top four hitters in the Yankees lineup had a total of zero hits. Luke Voit had three hits on the day. No other player had more than one hit.
TULO – Troy Tulowitzki retired. Come back to our site at 1:00 p.m. today for a nice feature on him.
The BEST Thing – In baseball, the next day always comes. Loses don’t have to linger. The Yankees need the Big Maple, James Paxton, to be big time tonight. They need quality innings from the guy who was acquired to be their ace.
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