July was an unusual month for the Yankees. They surprised the pundits by bringing in Ichiro Suzuki who looked likely to spend the whole of his American Major League career with Seattle and designated Dewayne Wise, who had become a fan favourite following a remarkable June. They persisted with Russell Martin and saw Alex Rodriguez head for the disabled list. But who were the solid bats behind a creditable month. Let’s see:
The Yankees’ pitching in June was phenomenal. Even leaving the amusing story of Dewayne Wise aside, the very fact that they had 11 pitchers who achieved individual ERAs of less than 3.00 on the month shows that it was the pitching staff who earn the lion’s share of the credit for the 20 wins -7 losses record that they put together in June. Let’s see who did what:
A quick look over the Yankees statistics for the month of June 2012 sends one of the bench players to the centre of attention in a most novel way. Dewayne Wise not only led the team in batting average but he pitched in a game and came out of it with a 0.00 ERA and “caught” a flyball in the stands and was awarded an out even though somebody else was holding the ball at the time. But as well as that amazing month for Dewayne, what else went well and what else went badly? Well, let’s start by surveying the guys who swing the lumber…….
The pitching led us to a .500 record in May – which isn’t good enough – but encouragingly all the wins came from pitchers who for one reason or another took a spot in the rotation during that month.
Let’s see who led the way and who was dragging behind……
May was a difficult month for the Bronx Bombers. It opened with Eric Chavez headed to the disabled list and then the bullpen fell apart. Mariano Rivera and then, his replacement as closer, David Robertson both went to the DL with Rivera done for the season.
In the end, they finished the month 14-14 with the bullpen settling into its new routine in a way that nobody could have predicted. How were the bats this month?
April was a very straightforward month for the Yankees. There was still that lingering sensation that they had coasted through Spring Training and that too much was being taken for granted and assumed. May was to be wake up time but for now let’s look back at April and see what was going right….. and wrong.
The Yankees came out of Spring training with pretty much the roster you would have predicted if you’d have sat down with pencil and scrap paper and roughed it out before they began.
And there’s something worrying about that……
So we have surveyed the batters, now onto the pitchers…..
So the baseball season is over. The St Louis Cardinals who performed very well in the Series are the champions and probably deservedly so. It still sticks in my gut a little that the eventual winners only made the playoffs as the wild card but with the wildcard system likely to expand in 2013, me complaining about that is about as meaningful as a National League fan complaining about the Designated Hitter rule – so I shall make no more noise in that regard. The system allows for that possibility and it has happened. C’est la vie.
Whilst the Yankee bats were quiet in September, the pitching held its own but the makeshift starting rotation started to creak at the seams and the bullpen which had been such a nightmare in May / June continued to bail out starters who just couldn’t go as deep as they had earlier in the season…….
twilightdawning 