The Yankees settled into their groove right from the beginning of the season this time out. By the end of March, they were 4-0 and in first place in the American League East.
By the end of April, they had slipped back to 2nd in the division, but only by one game behind the Baltimore Orioles.
Continue readingAt the end of August, Brian Cashman (Yankees’ General Manager) said “It’s been a disaster of a season. We’re embarassed by it”.
This came, of course, with the Yankees’ usual gift for hyperbole. It was what the less thoughtful fans wanted to hear, and it just built things towards the inevitable firestorm.
For Hal Steinbrenner, and those at the financial helm of the Yankees, it had of course been disastrous. They looked like they were going to miss the post-season (they still had an outside chance when the statement was made – and that would be a tremendous financial loss. They had cut Aaron Hicks, and Josh Donaldson was about to go down the same route. They would carry the can for those poorly chosen signings and their contracts.
But they have finished the season over .500, and were just about to pull themselves up by their bootstraps with a 17-11 last month plus of the season, and move above the old enemy, Boston Red Sox into 4th place in the American League East.
So, really not good, but not a disaster. It gave them a chance to look at some developing young players (not everything went smoothly as we shall see), and to re-examine their priorities. Some fans will still spit and cuss, but that’s a given. Here’s the batting stats for September and October.
As we have seen in the analysis of the batters’ statistics the Yankees really over-depended on the pitchers in June, and in particular their bullpen.
Obviously, this cannot continue. In a peculiar way, the steady drip, drip, drip, of pitchers returning from injury means that fresh arms are being made available. Some have been out all season (Tommy Kahnle), others for a shorter time (Ian Hamilton). And the return of Carlos Rodon is not too far away.
It seems likely that before the trading deadline, the Yankees will need to bring new offensive and pitching stars. Let’s hope they are able to do so without giving too much away.
The Yankees’ injury situation in May began to settle down. Only four players were added to the injured – Aaron Judge, Jose Trevino, Ian Hamilton and Oswald Peraza. And whilst it is never going to be easy to lose Judge, in particular, it must be noted that three of these players bounced back at the end of the 10 days that their period on the injured list required. Hamilton will be out for longer.
At the same time, many players were heading for rehab assignments and moving closer to a return. These included Luis Severino, Josh Donaldson, Tommy Kahnle, and Ben Rortvedt.
Perhaps even more significantly the Yankees finally gave up on the wretched tenure of Aaron Hicks, accepting that clearing a space on the roster was more important than worrying how much of his contract they were still going to be liable for. They designated him for assignment on the 20th of the month – and when he cleared waivers without any notable interest, they released him a week later. Hicks signed for Baltimore by the end of the month.
In a parallel move, the Yankees traded with the Boston Red Sox, giving up minor leaguer Diego Hernandez and acquiring Greg Allen. Allen had previously played for the Bronx Bombers in 2020.
Aaron Judge…! Aaron Judge…!! The 17 games the Yankees won during September were primarily down to Mr Judge, their superstar outfielder, whose sixty plus home runs guaranteed them their place in the post-season.
But, it obviously wasn’t down to Aaron alone. We’ve already seen how much players like Gleyber Torres contributed to getting things rolling in September. And many of the pitchers, both starters and relievers, added great performances into this strong month.
As we mentioned in our previous article, the Yankees just did enough to achieve a .500 win-loss record in July and as we survey the pitchers, we note that many of the starters began to buckle with only Nestor Cortes coming in at the end of the month with an ERA of less then 4.
Michael King was having another excellent month in July, but broke his elbow in the 2/3 of the month and is gone for the long term. You’d never want to see somebody go out with an injury like that, and in reality there is no compensation. However the Yankees did have longterm injuries Domingo German and Jonathan Loaisiga coming back this month. Clarke Schmidt who had been building up his stamina was recalled from Scranton, but oft-injured Luis Severino was lost to the team again.
The Yankees were able to call on their main five starting pitchers throughout April, without any of them suffering injury. Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon and Nestor Cortes were available from Opening day, and remained that way.
Domingo German remained on the injured list but the Yankees had anticipated that. There were no new faces amongst the starting pitchers and only a smattering among the relievers. Based on last season, the fanbase wouldn’t be too sure what to expect from this arrangement but as we have already suggested in our article about the batters, things worked out just fine as, after a few bumps, the team cruised to the head of the division.
Pretty much every baseball season ends in October – although there have been exceptions: one of which comes to mind all too easily and painfully. This year’s was scheduled to possibly run into November…
The Yankees’ season ended way too early in October. They had a three game series against the Tampa Bay Rays to round out the regular schedule and that qualified them for the one game wildcard playoff where they would face the Boston Red Sox.
And that’s where it all came to a premature end. To be frank, whilst it would have been nice to beat a great rival, the Yankees didn’t deserve much more. They had a season where they bounced between simply horrible and very good. Were the best bad team? Or the worst good team? Either way they didn’t deserve to be taking home any pennants this year. We have two tables for you – the stats for the last regular games and then the stats for that one post-season game. Let’s take a look at who did what:
The New York Yankees of September were not the New York Yankees of August. From the 4th to the 10th of the month, they had a 7 game losing streak. However, later in the month (20th to 28th) they were to match this with a 7 game winning streak.
Inconsistency was their watchword.
This all meant that they only closed the gap on Tampa Bay by one game across the whole month and as the month came to an end, they were locked in a blockbuster situation with only three games to play. They still needed to head off Boston, Toronto and Seattle to earn one of the Wildcard places and this was going right down to the wire.
Most of the batters struggled. Some were pretty good…
The New York Yankees had a 21-8 record on the month in August. It seems odd therefore, given that this was far and away their strongest month of the season, that I remain unconvinced about their potential to reach the post-season
On one hand, the vast majority of those wins came in consecutive games, when the momentum and positivity was spinning out of control. On the other hand, once that winning sequence was broken, they lost the four remaining games of the month – against the Oakland Athletics (a potential challenger for the New York team for a wild card spot) and against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim who went into their series with the Yankees below .500 on the season.
It is an interesting conundrum and it will be very interesting to see what September brings. Boston have remained in contention. Toronto are fast improving. Oakland will need to sort out some of their issues but could still challenge for a wild card spot and Seattle have also come into the reckoning.
The Yankees would need to maintain something like their August record to challenge the Tampa Bay Rays for the AL East division lead, which, frankly, I can’t see happening. This means that any two of five could capture the wild card route to the playoffs. The Yankees of August could do it. The Yankees of July will not.
Let’s see what happened in August-
twilightdawning 