twilightdawning

A writer's thoughts – mainly about music, sport and theatre. Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, live shows, New York Yankees

New York Yankees Diary – September 22nd, 2023

Posted on September 25, 2023 by twilightdawning

The Yankees went into their last home series of 2023. In reality, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ record on the season isn’t that much stronger than the Yankees, but they are in a much weaker division – and, therefore, whilst the Yankees will finish fourth or fifth, Arizona will finish second or third.

Today, the Yankees sent Luke Weaver to the mound, who is trying to rebuild his career, whilst Brandon Pfaadt (pronounced “Fought”) is trying first time around to establish a Major League career.

Weaver started the season at Cincinnati, and then when the Reds released him, he was signed by Seattle. The Mariners placed him on waivers, and the Yankees claimed a couple of days later. His career might seem to be on the garbage heap, if he can’t turn things around soon. His first game for the Yankees came in Pittsburgh where he pitched four innings for 3 runs. Tonight, he had a second opportunity to turn it all around and rebuild his career.

Pfaardt went into this game with a 2-8 record on the season, His Earned Run Average stood at 5.86.

It was not hard to predict that the outcome of the game depended primarily on the two teams’ batting performance on the night.

Continue reading →

New York Yankees Diary – September 20th, 2023

Posted on September 21, 2023 by twilightdawning

Well, the Yankees have returned to their losing ways. Yesterday, in the first game of their three games series against the Toronto Blue Jays, they lost 1-7 despite Clarke Schmidt (who has had a better than expected season) being on the mound.

Today, with another much improved pitcher, Michael King on the mound, they lost again – this time 1-6. This time, though, the starting pitcher had very little to do with the loss. The main feature of King’s season has been the way that the Yankees have been able to build his stamina, so he has gone from being a long reliever to one of the starters. In these days of many injured Yankees’ starters, this has proved a key element. Today, he delivered up 7 innings for only 1 run, and a career-high 13 strikeouts. And still the Yankees lost.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in July – Part Two – The Pitchers (2023)

Posted on August 4, 2023 by twilightdawning

So, continuing on with this theme of the Yankees appalling collapse in July – It is not appalling because the Yankees have a divine right to success. It’s is appalling because the Yankees’ roster is not the roster of the Kansas City Royals, or the Oakland Athletics. It is appalling because going into the season, it appeared that the Yankees had a roster which was the envy of everyone, and had a starting rotation which looked like one of the best, if not the best in the Majors.

Gerrit Cole – Carlos Rodon – Nestor Cortes – Luis Severino – Frankie Montas — and if injuries arose Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt to fall back on.

Injuries came – and too many. Even then the bullpen held up the weight, but by July the relievers were over-tired, and with Aaron Judge injured the team was going nowhere but down.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in October – Part One – The Batters (2022)

Posted on November 10, 2022 by twilightdawning

When it comes to a situation like the Yankees face most every season these days, – getting ready for the post-season – they can make one of two choices. They can maintain momentum by choosing their best lineup every day, or they can rest the regulars and use the players off the bench. The latter is not as easy these days, because roster expansion is much lower numerically than it used to be a few years ago, but that still seems to be the route that the New York team chooses.

The thing that the Yankees would gain if they maintained that momentum, is that they would build the confidence of a line-up of a team who seem very, very conscious that they are likely to face the Houston Astros in the post-season. And the Astros, regardless of how they achieved some of their previous winning seasons, seem to have a hoodoo over the New York team which inhibits the Yankees performance.

So, once again the Yankees made their choices, and one again the season came to an earlier than hoped for end. The fans ran out of patience. They wanted to see the back of Aaron Boone, they treated Isiah Kiner-Falefa and his family badly. Hey, they even booed Aaron Judge.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in September – Part One – The Batters (2022)

Posted on October 6, 2022 by twilightdawning

Well, after August it had to get better right? Well, thankfully, it did! Winning 17-8 on the month, it was the best month that the Yankees had since June. July had been ordinary. August was appalling, but September was just what the Yankees needed to head into the post-season.

Some new faces settled into the squad. Some players came back from injury.

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in October – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on November 17, 2021 by twilightdawning

It was October and the Yankees’ starting rotation was struggling.

While Gerrit Cole was on the active roster, the Yankees elected to not use him in the series with Tampa Bay in order that he might be ready for the Wild Card game.

Jameson Taillon was back from injury and a rehab assignment and ready to go but, as already noted in last month’s report, the Yankees had sent Andrew Heaney to the bullpen and now assigned him outright to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders (Triple-A) – an assignment he would decline and so elect to become a free agent.

Let’s see who rose above the challenges of the end of the year:

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in July – Part Two – The Pitchers (2021)

Posted on August 11, 2021 by twilightdawning

The Yankees 14-9 record in July was due in no small part to their pitching. Their record improved after the All-Star break. They were 9-5 afterwards, 5-4 before.

The Yankees brought in two new pitchers at the trading deadline – Andrew Heaney (SP) from the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Joely Rodriguez (RP) from the Texas Rangers but neither of them made their debut for their new club before the end of July.

Heaney was traded for minor leaguers, Janson Junk and Elvis Peguero (both right-handers). Joely Rodriguez may be more of a make-weight, as there is no question that the Yankees main target in the trade was outfielder, Joey Gallo. The players who went in the opposite direction were right-hander pitcher, Glenn Otto and infielders Josh H.Smith, Ezequiel Duran and Trevor Hauver.

In addition, they had added Clay Holmes (RP) from the Pittsburgh Pirates on the 26th of the month in exchange for Hoy Park and Diego Castillo. A curious move saw relievers Luis Cessa and Justin Wilson join the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for a player to be named later. It was no surprise that the Yankees wanted to offload Wilson because the veteran has struggled all season long but giving up Cessa who has had a solid year and been with the Yankees for a number of years when they weren’t particularly targeting anybody in return is strange.

Let’s look at the pitchers who play in July, beginning with the starters…

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in June – Part One – The Batters (2021)

Posted on July 15, 2021 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees were a mess in June. You don’t have to take my word – no less luminaries than Brian Cashman and Giancarlo Stanton agree with me and the language they used was far less kind than mine.

Their record for the month was 12 wins and 14 losses. They lost 5 of the last 6 games in the month. At one point, they lost 7 of 9.

Their roster is full of batters who hover around the Mendoza line (.200). There are others who appear way beyond their sell-by date. Let’s survey the team’s performance on the month:

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in April – Part one – The Hitters (2021)

Posted on May 6, 2021 by twilightdawning

Well, it’s so wonderful to have baseball back at something approaching normal. The crowds allowed to attend are limited but isn’t it great to hear games being played with real crowd noise – we are not there yet but we are taking steps in the right direction and it is so heartening.

So, the time comes to survey the Yankees first month. The picture is not pretty but with so many players under-performing there is so much scope for growth – so, let’s not sink into the slough of despond just yet, even with the Boston Red Sox sitting pretty at the top of the division.

It is fair to say we wouldn’t have expected that anymore than we would have expected one of the Yankees’ roster to have retired from MLB in the first month of the season. We closed out the month at 12-14 and in fourth place but given they spent 8 days on the bottom spot, at least the trajectory is in the right direction,

Continue reading →

The New York Yankees in July 2019 (Part Two) – The Pitchers

Posted on August 6, 2019 by twilightdawning

On the face of it, the Yankees’ starting pitching in July wasn’t really much different than the way it had been in June. In June, the team had come out 17-9 on the month and the starters had picked up 8 of those wins. Excluding the rather bizarre decision to open with Stephen Tarpley in the second “London series” game, the team had depended on 4 principal starters and one opener, Chad Green who did exceptionally well both as an opener and as a reliever. In July, the Yankees reverted to the more usual tactic of using 5 starters, now that Domingo German was available for the full month. Indeed, German was the pick of the starters but nothing else quite went to plan but even so, the starters just about got away with it. Whilst the win percentage was down (14 out of 25 games), the starters were still responsible for 50% of those wins. However, the real truth can be seen in the ERA (earned run average) and WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) columns.

Continue reading →