I’m trying to resist the temptation of reading too much into a sloppy loss on a cold rainy night. But there was so much wrong with the Yankee loss last night, and generally the Yankee play over the last two weeks, that Ican’t help but give in to worry: Is this the end of the modern Yankee dynasty?
What am I worried about?
Injuries, obviously, and the lack of quality bench depth. Yanks need to go get themselves an actual DH hitter–when the bottom of the order is Cervelli, Thames, Miranda, and Winn, and the only available pinch hitter is the good-field, no-hit Ramiro Pena something is wrong with the roster. Last night the team had a chance again against Papelbon in the 9th but had to count on Juan Miranda and Randy Winn for big hits they couldn’t deliver.
Defense. Yankee defense was atrocious last night. Yeah it was lousy weather–wet and cold–and maybe weather played a role in A-rod’s error, but it doesn’t explain Randy Winn playing silly shallow in left, or Marcus Thames dropping a pop up. God, Thames is an awful outfielder. He makes Nick Swisher look like Paul Blair.
The bullpen. What a disaster–Robertson can’t get anyone out. Chamberlain is wildly inconsistent: Does anyone have confidence seeing him coming in late to a tight game sweating out whether or not we’re going to get good Joba, with a 97 mph fastball and the ability to throw strikes, or bad Joba with no command, no control, and little velocity? And now, after some time off because of a rib cage strain, Rivera looks like Superman under the light of a red sun–no superpowers at all. Possibly the rib injury still nags, or maybe the ageless Rivera is reaching his final curtain. If he’s injured the team should just put him on the DL. If he’s done, well, I salute him and say so long to 2010.
Jeter. I’ve never seen Jeter look so bad at the plate. In the last week he has more strikeouts than hit. He’s 7 for 35 with one RBI, 5 runs scored, and 9 Ks. That’s good for a .200 average and .282 on-base percentage. Maybe Nate Silver was right after all about Jeter.
I know it’s true that teams never are as bad as the look at their worst or as good as they look at their best, and if the Yanks play through injuries around .500 but get back to a more or less full compliment in a month, things could turn around (though I’m not counting on seeing Nick Johnson again). But Yanks are pretty painful to watch right now and I wouldn’t be surprised to find them 5 games out going into the weekend.
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