(with just a little insight into the first few days of the season!)
Well, if you compare my previous two articles on the Yankees in Spring Training,(https://twilightdawning.com/2016/03/18/the-new-york-yankees-in-spring-training-2016-update-1/ & https://twilightdawning.com/2016/03/25/the-new-york-yankees-in-spring-training-2016-update-2/ ), with what has actually happened you’ll find that I was pretty close to correctly predicting the opening day roster.
But I was lucky!
(up to and including March 16th)
Spring training hasn’t brought any huge revelations for the Yankees – no huge “ups” but, thankfully, no huge “downs”. This is not to say that things have gone entirely to plan or that Training has been easy. Of their first 15 games, they won 5, lost 8 and saw 2 games called at a tie. 17 players were reassigned but of those only Jacob Lindgren and perhaps Matt Tracy had much hope of making the 25 who would see service on Opening Day. And there have been no players breaking down to major injuries and only Brett Gardner suffering a major delay to his first appearance because of prior ailments.
Well, that is in the little bit of October the Yankees were actually involved in this year. They made it to the playoffs but only by wildcard qualification. And then in the one-game wildcard playoff, they failed to produce a single run in their game against the Houston Astros. Let’s look at what went wrong… and one or two things that went right and look bright for the future.
Let’s consider some figures:
.275
.274
.249
.240
What do they represent? Well, unsurprisingly for this column, they represent the monthly team batting averages for the New York Yankees for every month prior to August. The top one on the list is July, the bottom is April. June and May come inbetween and reveal the way that the Yankees’ batting had improved every month this season – that is until August, the month when their batting performance fell apart. Let’s see where the disaster had its roots:
In June, the New York Yankees’ bats caught fire, rising from a .249 team monthly batting average to .273. In July, against all expectations, they managed to maintain that and take it a little further with small gains in batting, slugging and on-base average.
Across the team, the bats are giving the pitchers that little extra breathing space and run support, resulting in a 17-7 month and a six-game lead in the American League East.
At the end of May, the Yankees were tied for first place in the American League East. By the 9th of June they were 2.5 games clear at the head of that table. By the 23rd, they were 2 games behind. As June turned into July, they were poised to take the lead in the division again.
June was a mixed month for the New York Yankees. June was a very streaky month for the New York Yankees.
twilightdawning 