In September the Yankees had a team batting average of .232 and a team ERA (earned run average) of 4.05. If it wasn’t for those home runs that the team kept coming up with bundles of, then they would probably be looking at a win-loss record under .500 for the month. As it was, they came through 15-13 but some of their big name pitchers struggled majorly.
The Yankees seemed rather to take their eye off the ball, metaphorically speaking, in September. They finished the month with a 15-12 record which was enough to seal their wildcard spot and even to give them home-field advantage in the forthcoming playoffs, but along the way the management made some peculiar and bewildering decisions in terms of who was on the field of play. Let’s look in this first article at the batters who exploded and those who really struggled.
Who: New York Yankees
What: Baltimore Orioles @ New York Yankees
Where: Yankee Stadium, Bronx, New York
When: 21 to 23 September 2018
So, the end is near, as some singer or other once said. The last three home games of the regular season and Yankee Stadium is certainly filling up slowly. In fact, in a worst case scenario, these could be the last home games for the Yankees until next year. If they continued to struggle until the end of the season, they could lose home-field advantage to the Oakland A’s for the wild card playoff. And that is only a one game match-up…
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.
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:
Last night was the first night of Bob Dylan’s tour of the Far East and Australasia.
On Friday, here and elsewhere, I published an article which argued that more care and consideration should be shown in our critiques of Dylan’s art when we considered his albums and his live performances and argued that at a very minimum we should use his written lyrics as a lexicon to try analyse who he is and what he is speaking about:
If you haven’t read it already you can see it here:
https://twilightdawning.com/2018/07/26/bob-dylan-sloppy-analysis-and-hearing-what-we-want-to-hear/
twilightdawning 