This is the problem when you dig yourself a hole. A stretch where you lose four in five days can be brutal and all of the ground you made up over the past week goes up in smoke. That’s what happened to the Yankees. They were swept by Colorado then they lost two of three to the Giants. Those are both teams the Yankees should take care of while a lot of people will look at our head to head record against the Red Sox, it’s series like these that make or break your season.
So the Yankees site 11 1/2 back now but there’s some hope because the Yankees start a three game set with the last place Orioles beginning tomorrow. Two out of three is critical and a sweep would be nice. The Red Sox play three at Seattle beginning tonight and it sure would be nice to have that lead back into single digits heading to a weekend where a tough Oakland team rolls into town.
While the Yankees had a tough week, Alex Rodriguez didn’t and while he had only one homerun, he had two four hit games in the Giants series alone and he had three doubles and seven runs in the six game stretch.
Last night’s game made news because Roger Clemens came out of the pen. Maybe he should stick to starting because walked Bonds and he eventually came around to score after a single and a sac. fly. The run didn’t matter much but it made for some talk around the water cooler.
Here’s some interesting stuff from the Hardball Times team page. The Yankees have underperformed their expected win/loss by six games and the Red Sox have overperformed by two. So that turns that 11 1/2 game lead into a 3 1/3 game lead. I know it means squat but it goes to show you that the Yankees just haven’t gotten it done, especially in close games (6-22 in games decided by two runs or less). So the Yankees blow a team out when the win then lose a few by a run or two.
They still have the second best offense in the American Leauge with 5.45 runs per game. In fact they’re second to those Tigers in just everything on offense. And they’re pitching isn’t bad, it just seems to be good on the days the Yankees put ten runs on the board.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the Yankees revert to sellers at the trade deadline. If we’re at 11 1/2 games at the trade deadline, it’s worth considering. You wonder if this is some sort of Curse of Bernie Williams or something. We dump him like yesterday’s garbage and now it’s coming back to haunt us.
Andy Pettitte versus some Orioles pitcher I’ve never heard of. Roger Clemens against Erik Bedard should be a fun matchup on Wednesday. Wonder if that game will be ESPN.
