I am sorry I have not written for the longest stretch since I started this. There were a variety of reasons, but the main was the passing of my wife’s father suddenly and in our presence. This has led to a lot of extra time being diverted and along with my normal heavy workload, I just chose to take some time away. Further, this has been one of the most frustrating teams to watch that I can ever remember. To the Yankees credit, they keep hanging in there, even in the face of their annual absurd amount of people not available to the team.
After watching both games of the double header late last night, I wanted to just give a couple comments (and finally write a blog); I won’t go into great detail.
Some comments:
Boone has had an up and down year. He does a lot of things well, but seemed to miss a lot in some key spots. Overall, he has had a very difficult situation to deal with and has done a pretty good job. At the end of the day with almost every player under-performing (seems like it starting to even out), the blame should go to the players. What we don’t know is if they were struggling because of the coaching staff or environment? I blame the players mo
Some blame can go to Cashman as well. He made some questionable moves in the offseason and most have not worked out well. The Jay Bruce signing was not one I liked from the beginning and retiring after being awful showed it was a bad move. It was not a high price to pay, but everyone knew we needed some lefties who could hit righties well. I was not a fan of getting Odor, but he has hit much better of late because he has been going the other way more in the last week than he had in the entire year. That can help, but his defense is simply poor everywhere. His .731 OPS is nothing too exciting, but when you compare to what we were getting from many that is acceptable. My comment when we got him was that he will hit some big HR’s and not much else still has been pretty accurate. He is a great cheerleader though.
Higgy has really disappointed me. A .617 OPS is pretty weak and his defense has really slipped. His throwing has been bad and he has been letting a lot of balls get by him. Sanchez is frustrating as anything behind the plate, but he is our best option and his offense can be a huge plus (.771 OPS right now).
Stanton – He seems like he can’t pick up a slider. He has swung (more like waived and missed by a foot) at more sliders low and away than anyone I have seen (and Sanchez can rival him at times). Something is wrong with him as he is just not seeing the ball right. He is an extremely streaky hitter, but I have never seen him look so bad (hopefully this is what he needs to start ripping the ball) His .820 OPS isn’t horrible, but we need more from him and he needs to get hot like he did in the playoffs last year.
It is amazing that we had 5 starting pitchers out, including Severino (along with 4 or 5 players depending on if you count Hicks). The team stepped up well, but at the same time, our closing situation became terrible. Hard to count on anyone. Louisiga is the guy I have the most confidence in, but he needs to get his slider more consistent. That being said his 98-102 MPH running fastball is a great pitch.
Some shout
outs:
· Gardner and Wade have played really
well of late and this has helped our winning ways.
· How about the 23 year old Gil? He has started 3 games and while not going
deep into games has pitched 15.2 innings and has yet to allow a run!
· I really liked the pickups we got in
Gallo and Rizzo. I know the Voit thing
is an issue, but as we have seen, injuries happen a lot and Covid brings another
element into needing depth. We needed
good lefties and they are. I like that
they work counts as well. This team can
wear you out when we have the right lineup.
I also like the upgrade on defense they bring.
· While on defense, Velazquez has a
very weak stick, but anyone watching can see how quickly he gets to balls with
his quickness and great jumps. It is
like night and day compared to the defense we have had there.
· Cortes – he has given us 49.1 innings
of 2.55 ERA ball. He is a crafty lefty
for sure and his delayed/held windup throws guys off (so does him dropping
down).
· Judge misses a lot of time, but he is consistently solid everywhere! His .900 OPS has been the only consistency on offense all year.
As I write this, we are in the WC right now. A lot can happen, but we have people coming
back and imagine this lineup:
DJ – 2B
Judge - CF
Rizzo – 1B
Stanton - RF
Gallo - LF
Luke - DH
Gio – 3B
Sanchez - C
Torres - SS
Get a lead and bring in the defense.
I hope everyone is well!
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