With all these injuries, this season was never going to be straightforward, but the Yankees except for an initial stumble or two have handled the opening weeks with style. Let’s see who had the arms which led the way:
The New York Yankees had the most amazing start to a baseball season in their history but unfortunately, it wasn’t in the Wins column (although they didn’t too badly in that respect). Rather it was in terms of players heading to the (now renamed) injured list (IL). Let’s see what happened:
Continue readingIn 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.
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 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 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’ 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:
If those assessing the Yankees chances in the 2018 season picked out one flaw, it was the starting rotation which they saw as middling at best. The bullpen, they argued, was going to be the best in baseball.
In the opening period of our analysis (the last few days of March and all of April), it didn’t quite work out that way. The starters delivered up a very respectable 13 wins, 5 losses and 10 no-decisions. Of those 10 no-decisions the bullpen won 5 and lost 5 and 5 members of the bullpen produced an ERA of 4.50 or over. Confused? You will be…
twilightdawning 