twilightdawning

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

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,

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The New York Yankees in June 2019 (Part One) – The Batters

Posted on July 5, 2019 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees did not quite maintain their May level of performance in June but they weren’t still far off that pace.

In June, they had the somewhat bizarre London series which produced 50 runs in two days to inflate the earned run average (ERA), runs scored and batting average columns.

https://twilightdawning.com/2019/07/03/professional-baseball-in-the-uk/

Despite winning those two “road” games, the Yankees finished the month 17-9, compared to 20-7 in May.

However, they had finished May only one and a half games ahead in the division. Now with Tampa Bay falling off the pace, they led by 7 games.

Let’s see who led the way with the lumber:

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The New York Yankees in May 2019 (Part One) – The Batters

Posted on June 9, 2019 by twilightdawning

The New York Yankees spent most of April buried in injuries. It didn’t get much better as the season rolled along but that didn’t stop the team from growing in confidence. With their young call-ups flexing their muscles, their May record was 20 wins to 7 losses. Ending April at 17-12 and in second position in the American League East, they scorched to 37-19, headed the table and were showing a one and a half game lead by the end of the month of May!

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The New York Yankees in March and April 2019 (Part One) – The Batters

Posted on May 4, 2019 by twilightdawning

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:

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A Staten Island State of Mind

Posted on September 10, 2015 by twilightdawning

Where: The Ballpark at St George, Staten Island, New York

When: 3rd September 2015

What: Tri-City Valleycats vs Staten Island Yankees

The current season’s issue of “Playball!”, the Staten Island Yankees’ matchday programme shows photos of several former SI Yanks who have made it to the minors. There have been more than the 8 listed there (I recall one, Jason Anderson – there may have been others) but the truth is not many. Contrary to its probable intention, it got me reflecting during the game on how hard it is for these young men to make it to the top in their chosen sporting career. Or truth be told, anywhere near the top.

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