Hello folks. Jim Johnson here from The Bronx Block. I’m currently watching the Sox help the Yankees in their task of securing the Wild Card and I thought, “Hmm, it’s been a while since we’ve seen one another.” So I thought I’d come over and breathe a little New York into your lives.
What’s New?
It’s been over 2 months since the Yankees and Sox had last tangled and much has changed since then.
- Back then, the Yankees’ third starter was named Mussina, now he’s named Clemens.
- Their first base situation was a mess; a light-hitting defensive wizard more notable for claiming world series balls than hitting and a AAAA player who is struggling to find playing time on the Pirates. That has been corrected by the promotion of Andy Phillips, who is playing a sterling first base and hitting around .300. He has also made some very clutch plays and gotten some key hits in important situations. Time will tell if he regresses back to his career averages of if he has finally developed (at the ripe old age of 30) into a solid major league hitter..
- Cano and Cabrera were hitting a respective .265 and .248 back in the golden days of June. They now sport much more respectable numbers of .309 and .292.
- Abreu has been off and on all year. More off than on. His average has average has gone from .244 to .286 and his current status is “on”, having hit over .600 in his last 2 series. I fully expect that to last for quite some time; right up until the point when we actually need him hitting.
- Hideki Matsui absolutely tore the cover off the ball in July, hitting .345 with 13 homers, 28 RBI and 31 Runs scored. He still has a girly-arm, however.
- Jason Giambi: Last time you were around, Giambi had finally hurt something important and the Yankees were finally rid of him for a decent amount of time (When you have a team that has 4 or 5 DHs, the loss of one of them is always seen as something of a solution). At present time, after a walking boot, a steroid investigation, and most likely, a good amount of free time, Giambi is just on the verge of rejoining the team. He looks to take some at-bats from the current DH Johnny Damon, who is coming off a 0 for 6 with 3 Ks performance in his last game. If you ignore the fact that we have $34 million tied up in one position that doesn’t even play the field, and the fact that both of them are probably going to be rather pissed off with sharing at-bats, it DOES give Joe Torre and option for how he wants to present the team for each game: more power in the middle or (presumably) more speed and table-setting ability at the top.
- The Yankee bench has been vastly improved. Gone are Phelps and Nieves. Yankee fans are sad to see Nieves go because, frankly, he brought each of us a lot of hope (If that guy can make a major league roster, hell, I probably can too). Jose Molina is the new backup to Posada. Doug Mientkiewicz is still out since Lowell steamrolled him. With Andy Phillips replacing Phelps/Minky as a starter, Wilson Betemit is the new utility infielder (time will tell if Cairo will remain with the team). Johnny Damon now fills the role of part-time DH and fourth outfielder. The Yankees have also called up a young slugger named Shelley Duncan who has hit 5 home runs in his first 22 at bats… and could possibly strike out 200 times between now and the end of the year if given enough starts. He provides power from the bench, another 1B option and an emergency right fielder. He’s also incredibly goofy to watch when celebrating or giving an interview.
- Oh right, Phil Hughes is back. If nothing else, that at least means that Kei Igawa is banished to Baseball Purgatory.
- Back then, the Yankee leadoff hitter was hitting .251… oh wait… that’s exactly the same.
- Also the same is the fact that the sixth and seventh innings of the Yankee relief corps are kind of a mess. Proctor is gone, Farnsworth is public enemy No. 1, Myers is responsible for everyone else
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And by the way, Jc’s thanks a lot for the love! I haven’t been on here in a week or two but I checked in today and was humored to see your comment. Hopefully I’ll be able to comment a little more here myself once I finish work this week.
Mike,
I already addressed my “Beckett is still Beckett” comment. I meant that he was really good last time we (Yankee fans) saw him and he’s still really good now.
As for the pitching, I will admit that the Red Sox hold an edge over the Yankees in the rotation and have a huge advantage over them in the bullpen. The reason I consider the rotation beatable is because I believe the Yankee offense is that much better than the Red Sox line up. I think the Yankee bats have a much better chance of coming through against the Sox pitching than vice-versa.
Myers’ ERA was low because he only pitched to a batter at a time. He was responsible for everyone else’s ERA being high due to all the inherited runners that he allowed to score.
I’ll admit, the Yankee bullpen is a major chink in the armor and unless the Yankees somehow get sterling performances by their rookies and other new faces they’re bringing up to replace old useless parts, then the latter innings of big games are going to be adventurous. To put it mildly.
Worried? After 2004, i dont think any sox fan worries about the team they embarresed so bad in their own home field. I can really say that if their is any team to think about, is the anaheim angels. THey seem to have a better over all team than the “has Been” Yankees.
Jim, like I said, pitching wins. But let’s pretend for a moment that pitching and hitting are equally important. Do you really think the Yankees offense is more or less better across the board in comparisson to that of the Red Sox, the way the Red Sox pitching staff is in comparisson to the Yankees?
And to address this quote by Andrew…
“Bad teams don
Mike – I wasn’t saying the Yankees will score 9 runs per game or win at a pace of 20-7 for the rest of the year. But, you have to admit that bad teams don’t play like that for a full month, no matter the competition. I was just putting forth evidence that the Yankees weren’t a bad team, after all.
Plenty of bad teams play well for periods of two weeks or a month. Every year there are teams that get off to a fast start the entire first half of the season only to fall back down to earth. The Yankees clearly aren’t a .500 team like they had been for most of the season but I don’t know that they’re good enough to make the playoffs.
To demonstrate my point a little further about the Yankees, in their best month, inside of which they went 20-7, they still allowed over 4.5 runs a game. Offenses don’t stay hot for 2 month spans. They go up and down and when the Yankees aren’t getting leads and winning like they are now, they don’t always play at their full potential. What’s going to happen when the Yankees start to struggle a bit when it really matters? They’re not the relaxed type of team that can take that in stride and show up every day treating it like a new game.