Who: New York Yankees
What: versus Boston Red Sox
Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York
When: 18 to 20 September 2018
Well, surely the Yankees – after their disappointing series loss against Toronto – couldn’t bounce back and manage to win the series against Boston — and still allow the Red Sox to clinch the AL East in the Bronx? Well, if anyone could, these contrary Yankees could. Read on…
Who: New York Yankees
What: versus Toronto Blue Jays
Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York
When: 14 to 16 September 2018
The plan must have been fairly simple as the Yankees returned to the Bronx for a nine-game home-stand – take 2 or 3 from Toronto, beat Boston 2-1 and blast past Buck Showalter’s weaker-than-ever Baltimore Orioles where a sweep seemed more than possible. What could go wrong?
Well, first of all, the Yankees evidently didn’t reckon on a gutsy, scrappy Blue Jays’ performance and their own all too apparent second half failings.
Who: Staten Island Yankees
What: Staten Island Yankees versus Brooklyn Cyclones
Where: Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St George, Staten Island, New York
When: Early September 2018
The Yankees have one of the highest ranked farm systems in Major League Baseball (MLB) and the New York Yankees General Manager, Brian Cashman has made it clear that this major league team’s future success depends on that factor more than it does on bringing in high-priced free agents in the prime (or after the prime) of their career.
The Yankees used 8 starters in August. The bullpen was more consistent than the rotation but even there the Yankees lost Aroldis Chapman to the disabled list in the second half of the month. The Yankees had hoped to solve some of their pitching problems by the moves they made at the no-waiver trading deadline but whilst J.A. Happ exceeded expectations, Lance Lynn looked less and less reliable as the month went along.
The Yankees form had taken a dip by the time the season reached August and the dog days. From a .281 batting average (BA) in the month of July, they fell to a team .240 in the eighth month and a 17-13 win/loss record. Part of this was due to under-performance (let’s all say Greg Bird together and shake our heads sadly). Part of this was due to injury (Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, although whether in Sanchez’s case that’s a blessing or a curse remains to be seen) but mostly it is down to over-performers coming down to earth. However, that tandem of wonder-rookies, Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar are still playing everyday and still showing great ability (at least offensively). Read on…
The Yankees had a difficult month on the pitching front with some of the stalwarts they had depended on all year suddenly losing form. Let’s see who came to the forefront and who was added to the corps to keep the machine a-running:
The Yankees weren’t great in July but they weren’t that bad either. They won exactly three-fifths (15-10) of their games. They suffered a fall of form from lead pitcher Luis Severino and most of the bullpen which meant the batters needed to turn it up a notch. Let’s see who did:
When I was a boy, at this time of year, you knew which players were going to be in the squads of the significant Association Football teams of the coming season. They were, in short, largely the same players as were contracted to the club the previous year. Growing up in Yorkshire a number of us at school followed Leeds United. The team we knew was Sprake (later Harvey)- Reaney-Cooper-Bremner-Charlton-Hunter-Lorimer-Clarke-Jones-Giles-and Gray. It was almost a playground chant. Anyway, we knew those names by heart. It came as rather a surprise to me a number of years later when I looked back on the line-ups for that era to find that the particular 11 mentioned with Sprake in goal only appeared in a grand total of 1 game for Leeds. That was in a game, in the FA Cup, against Mansfield Town on the 7th of February 1970 which Leeds won 2-0. The 11 mentioned never lined up at the start of a game in the Football League.
How can we account for this?
The answer to this seeming conundrum can be found in two simple words.
Paul Madeley.
Madeley sadly passed on the 23rd of July this year.
The Yankees’ pitching continued on two separate trends in June. The bullpen was continuing to be successful but most of the starting rotation with the exception of Luis Severino was struggling. Add into that a dual hamstring strain which took Masahiro Tanaka on the disabled list and they would inevitably be leaning more and more on that ‘pen
The Yankees were great in May and they managed to continue that excellent trend in June – so important because Boston are showing no signs of slowing down. The Yankees are going to need to keep winning if they are going to finish ahead in this two-horse race. In June, they won exactly two thirds of their games. Let’s see who amongst the batters was lifting the most weight:
twilightdawning 