Should Yanks be Concerned about Late Season Stumbles?

The 2010 season has seen a number of ups and downs (much more ups than downs) for the Yankees, but coming into this four game series with the Tampa Bay Rays (which will likely determine who wins the AL East unless it’s an even 2-2 split) the Yanks have stumbled a bit. Before winning 2 of 3 from Baltimore the Yankees had hit a rough patch going 4-9 in their previous 13 games against teams like the Blue Jays, Orioles, Rangers and Rays. Add to this the obvious struggles of Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeria (due to injury), Nick Swisher, Lance Berkman and Javy Vasquez and the curiously unknown incident that left A.J. Burnett with a black eye and bruised cheek (maybe he ran into K-Rod and was mistaken for his Father-In-Law?) and there should be cause for some concern.

The Yanks righted things to a point with a winning series in Baltimore this past weekend and winning the first game of the 4-game series with the Rays (extending their lead in the AL East to 1.5 games) but overall, between health (Teixeria’s thumb and toe, Posada’s head, Swisher’s knee, Gardner’s wrist, Pettitte’s groin) and some slumps, the Yankees have to be a little worried headed into the last stretch before the playoffs.

To hear them talk, they are not. Brian Cashman is “not concerned at all” and Jeter said “we are right where we want to be, controlling our own destiny”. I wouldn;t expect anything but these sort of comments from this team, but I do think there is something to the fact that this is not a good time to suddenly hit the skids. You want to go into the playoffs on at least a fairly smooth run. Cashman has said that the Yankees focus is much more on winning a World Series than on winning their Division and I have to agree to a point that it would make more sense in the last week of the season if the division is still in doubt it would be better to set up for the playoffs more than worry about finishing in first, but do not discount the Yankees advantage at home, something they would basically not have at all if they won the Wildcard instead of the AL East.

It also seems that A.J. Burnett is going to have a spot in the rotation in the playoffs no matter what, according to Cashman. This makes sense, seeing as the alternate would be rookie Ivan Nova or the banished to the bullpen Vasquez. It seems that manager Joe Girardi is wary of Burnett, but there really isn’t too much of a choice.

The Yankees have had late season slumps before and flipped the switch once the playoffs started (at the horrible finish in 2000 for a perfect example) but this is a weird team. They really should be considered the overall favorites as the team is strong and sound, but there is that nagging little voice that seems to worry just enough about things to keep the expections from being a slam dunk.

It’s hard for me to say the Yanks are in trouble. They still have an excellent record and they still feel like that team that will always find a way to win in the end. However, the Twins have the best record in baseball since the beginning of August (without their MVP 1st baseman), The Rangers have a big time offense and a Cy Young caliber ace and the Rays pitch and catch the ball a little better than the Yanks do (although they do not hit and score as well). The Phillies, with two legit #1 aces in ‘The Roys” (Halladay and Oswalt) and a solid #2 in Cole Hamels are a team to watch out for and are streaking at the right moment and the Braves pitch just about as well as anyone. This isn’t going to be a cake walk by any stretch.

All-Star Puzzlement

The 2010 All-Star game will be remembered for a number of things… it came on the day that one of the largest figures in modern MLB history passed away in George Steinbrenner, it marked the end to a thirteen year drought for the National League, and it also might be remembered for the strange moves the managers made in a very close game that could have gone either way.

Both teams pitched very well, which shouldn’t be a huge surprise seeing the names on the rosters for the most part and noting that things like home runs and scoring are down this year overall. This is certainly looking like the year of the pitcher and the all-star game was no exception.

Both managers made some very weird choices (I’m not talking roster choices… I’ve bitched about that enough) though that made me puzzle why.

On the NL side, Charlie Manuel didn’t exactly surprise me when he named Ryan Howard to be the starting DH. I wouldn’t have made that same choice… it should have gone to Joey Votto, who is tearing up the NL like it’s his own personal batting cage… but since Howard is his guy, it’s not too much of a stretch to figure he’d put Howard in that role.

What really made no sense to me though, was that by the 5th inning, you had (arguely) the three best hitters already out of the game in Albert Pujlos, David Wright (who had two hits and a stolen base in the game) and Ryan Braun… but Howard was still in there until the 7th inning. Nepotism is one thing… but waiting until the 7th inning (and at that point the NL had been shut out) to finally get the hottest hitter in the NL into the game didn’t made a lot of sense. Either did putting Hong-Chih Kuo in the game to pitch the 5th with names like Adam Wainwright, Brian Wilson, Heath Bell and even his own Roy Halladay still in the bullpen.

On the AL side, every player got into the game except for A-Rod… and after Big Papi singled to lead off the 9th inning… wouldn’t it have made sense to pinch run for him? Of course he could have pinch hit for Beltre, but he had only come up in the 8th and had only played defense… however Ty Wigginton was pinch hit for with Nick Swisher after playing on one inning of defense and he didn’t get an at-bat (which I though was pretty unfair of Girardi to do to him) so it wouldn’t have been the first time he would have done that. Once he let Betre hit (and he struck out) you had John Buck up afterwards and you had to leave him in because he was the last catcher… I get that… but you had Ian Kinsler up after him and Vernon Wells up after that. Odds are you weren’t pinch hitting for either. What was Joe Girardi waiting for? The next obvious move would be A-Rod pinch hitting for Elvis Andrus (and A-Rod could have played short had the game gone on) but you had three batters before Andrus would be getting up. Of course, Buck hits a bloop single that Ortiz had to wait to see if it would be caught or not and OF Marlon Byrd made a spectacular play, by picking up the hit on one bounce, spinning and firing a bullet to 2nd, where he caught the slow Big Papi by a step. If it had been A-Rod, he would have been safe and it would have been 1st and 2nd with one out and the winning run at the plate.

All in all, it was a tight and exciting game with a lot of dominating pitching and good defense. However, to me, the game was a little marred by the weird decisions each manager made.

Spring Ahead: Who’s hitting 2nd for the Yankees?

Among the (very) few debates for the Yankees in spring training will be who is going to hit 2nd in the batting order. So far there haven’t been any hints from skipper Joe Girardi (which considering that most of the every day players haven’t even reported yet is not surprising) but I also don’t know if there are a lot of good choices.

I would say that odds are you are going to see Derek Jeter batting leadoff… which then brings you to wonder who would hit 2nd, which is normally Jeter’s position in the order. Looking at the roster, I would say that the best idea would be to put Nick Johnson and his fantastic .400 on-base-percentage at the number 2 spot. Yes, Johnson is slow as molasses, but he’ll be on base a lot for the power bats of Alex Rodriguiez and Mark Teixeira which means more runs. I don’t think Brett Gardner has the stick to bat leadoff, but as a young and speedy player it’s not out of the question to see if he could handle that spot.

The issue here for the Yankees realy comes to this… Johnson could very well follow his normal MO and spend a large chunk of the season on the DL and Jeter could very well see his .334 batting average from last year come down to anywhere from .325 to .300 (which would still be pretty darn good) which means you really could see a serious reduction in production from the table setting spots in the Yankee line-up, meaning less opportunity for A-Rod and Teixeria to drive in runs. Just something to consider for the Yanks who don’t really have a hell of a lot to worry about in spring training this year.