Monday, May 28, 2007

A very long summer

I refer, of course, to the hapless Yankees who have justed dropped a 7-2 decision in Toronto and in the process drop to 21-28 and made 0-2 Dustin McGowan he of the (formerly) 7.17 ERA look like a Cy Young award winner.

Over the past few weeks I'd thought hey a slow start but not as bad as 11-19. Well, now it's actually worse - they are seven games below .500 and its materially later in the season.

Boston came into tonight 34-15 and the Yanks 21-27. To reach 95 wins - probably enough for the wild card - Boston would have to go 61-52 over the rest of the season, or .540 winning percentage. The Yanks would have to go 74-40, a .650 clip. We did it last year as Boston collapsed down the stretch.

A colleague who has been to many games put it the best.

"They've got no fire."

Well they can't get any decent hitting now that the pitching is back to form. The bullpen is very questionable and probably overused. I was about to get on Torre was using soft tossing lefty Mike Myers against Ortiz because Ortiz was hitting .300 against him but to be fair actually that's the best against this bullpen!

It's also true that the Yankees have been unlucky. Using Bill James' Pythagorean theorem (based on runs for and against) they should be 26-22 instead of 21-27. Even so they need to shake this funk and preferably fast.

How? Having the Rocket back in the clubhouse should help - unless he bombs. Otherwise I am not sure there is a game changer that can be had - an Ichiro or Reyes - to revive this dead offense.

The Monk is due back and will be giving a dose of his usual insights very shortly.

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