Coming into
the 2012 baseball season, I never thought I would say this but the New York
Yankees face a tough test against the Baltimore Orioles starting tonight.
After another
disappointing performance by ace CC Sabathia, the Yankees stumbled into an off
day losing two out of three games against the injury-riddled, Triple-A Toronto
Blue Jays. The Yankees are going to have to step up their game if they want to
maintain their slim three-game margin in the American League East, with their
next 10 games against the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays.
We knew the
Rays would be good, with their superior, youthful starters, but who saw the O’s
coming? Not me. I have to give Buck Showalter a lot of credit for the Orioles resurgence
(although with his luck he will get himself fired right before the O’s win it
all, as happened in both New York and Arizona). And you can’t call their rise a
fluke, not when they are coming to Yankee Stadium on the last day of August with
a chance to grab the division from the floundering Yankees hands.
Can the
Yankees manage to take two out of three this weekend to keep the O’s at bay,
then continue to play well against the Rays and the O’s again in Baltimore next
weekend? I never thought I would say this, but I’m not sure. With Alex
Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira out, the only reliable bats in the lineup belong to
Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher and they can’t drive themselves in all the time.
Sabathia has not pitched up to his ace billing, and Phil Hughes, who salvaged
the series against the Jays with another strong performance, doesn’t start
again until Monday. I feel confident that Hiroki Kuroda, who has been the best
starter on the Yankees over the last two months, will give the team a great
chance to win, but it’s anybody’s guess if his offense will give him any type
of run support.
The Yankees
are in for a brutal final stretch, starting for real tonight. It’s time to step
up and show the O’s and Rays who’s boss. If they can.
I am sick to my stomach. Cano looks as if he could care less most of the time. Every once in a while he makes a good play or you can see a spark. Chavez and Ibanez are old guys not meant for day to day, but at least they are showing a little heart. I wish we never got rid of Dewayne Wise. His bat was hot and he is doing great in Chicago. Ichiro has not lived up to his billing for speed and he stopped getting on base a while ago with any consistency.
ReplyDeleteThe team feels as if it is sleep walking. I heard a real catch in Jeter's voice when they traded Wise away for Ichiro. I never thought I would miss A-Rod, but I was finally starting to like him when they broke his wrist. He finally seemed to be coming into his potential. He was fielding well, hitting well, even stealing well before he went down.
Now with Tex off first and Cano in a dream, Swisher at first, and no one but Jeter and Swisher really hitting, we are in a very bad way. I don't know what happened to CC, but even Kuroda just seemed to give up and want it over. They all (except Jeter --who is losing his serene public face lately) and Swisher who is hyper anyway, seem to have just given up.
Maybe if Andy and A-Rod can get back--before it is too late there might be some hope, But it is looking bad.
Sorry for the late response (back injury that kept me off my computer), but I couldn't agree more. Cano is going to want a mega-payday but for whatever reason he hasn't been able to carry the team when it needed him to do that, which all great players should be able to do. CC is a completely mystery to me. People keep asking if he's hurt, to Girardi's annoyance, but it would explain why he hasn't been able to step up either. Even if the Yankees manage to win the division, I don't have a lot of hope for a long playoff run given the way they've played recently.
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