Yanks bats have gone dead 
BRONX – Baseball is a funny game sometimes.
You can go from hammering arguably the best starting pitcher in the league in Roy Halladay, as the Yankees did on Tuesday night, to resembling a group of minor leaguers the next.
How they ever allowed Jamie Moyer, who singlehandedly drove up the stock in AARP with his eight-inning, two-run masterpiece on Wednesday is beyond anyone’s explanation.
This was then followed up a seven inning, one-run performance the next night by Kyle Kendrick, who despite pitching well as of late, has been up-and-down all year and made Yankee hitters look foolish.
However, nothing was worse than the ineptitude displayed by the offense last night as for the second time. They saw Hisanori Takahashi fool them with a repertoire of pitchers that would not remind anyone of Sandy Koufax, though effective enough once again for six scoreless innings as the Mets won the first game of Subway Series Part 2 at Yankee Stadium 4-0.
After Takahashi stymied them last month at Citi Field in his major league debut that also saw them hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings, to a man they felt the reason for their ineffectiveness was that they had never seen him before.
This has been a normal line of thought when an unknown starts against them and pitches well (of course, this is never said when they clobber an unknown), so coming into Friday night, the Yankees offense felt the story would be difference the second time around.
Instead, hitters came up to the plate looking to feast on the soft-tossing lefty and some found themselves swinging too early and some too late, amounting to weak hacks and numerous groundballs and fly balls that had very little lift to them.
There were not many good swings on the night and very few over the last three games. Of course, this could simply be a small sample size for the league’s best offense statistically. Yet, one would have to be a fool to see that this team in no way resembles the group from last season that was able to consistently score despite the occasional rough patch.
Injuries to Nick Johnson, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada have forced Joe Girardi to adjust his order. Add in the lack of production of the aforementioned Rodriguez along with Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson and the back-to-earth market correction by Francisco Cervelli, and it is no wonder why the team cannot always put runs up on the board.
The shuffling has given more at bats to Ramiro Pena, a less than part-time player. Marcus Thames’s injury, a recently released Randy Winn, and Granderson’s inability to consistently hit lefties has given the likes of Kevin Russo and last night’s left fielder Chad Huffman at-bats when they truly should not be out there.
Now, a pity party will not take place for the team with the best record in the sport, but it goes to show that how different the team is without its full complement of players and how dominant the starting pitching has been this year, as they have been the catalyst to this point.
You can get away with subpar offense as long as you have the pitching the Yankees have. In October, this same dominant pitching will win in the postseason as long as they can scratch out a few runs. Right now, scoring runs has been hit or miss, at least when the opponents do not include the Indians or Orioles, the dreads of baseball.
Teixeira is not hitting much and Rodriguez is not hitting for power. Not having the two best hitters in the middle of the lineup not providing the kind of impact that their hefty paycheck reflects provide a ripple effect to the entire lineup.
While Robinson Cano is having a career year, it is hard for him to produce when there are not men on base. The two-hole in the lineup has been a problem all year, starting from when Johnson’s batting average hovered below .200. Brett Gardner felt too much pressure in that spot and immediately saw his average dip. Granderson and Nick Swisher have alternated turns in that spot, but neither has consistently stuck to provide the same cohesion that Johnny Damon did.
So as the Yankees continued to make outs against Takahashi, it became frustrating. There was almost a look of disgust and disbelief around the team feeling that should get good swings off him, but instead were making very non-threatening outs.
It was not until the sixth inning when they finally had their first real threat. They loaded the bases after two singles and a walk. With two outs, Posada ground out on a barehanded play by David Wright on the infield grass to end the inning.
In the seventh, with the score still only 1-0, they got the tying run on second base after a double by Francisco Cervelli. Pedro Feliciano, a tough lefty specialist, entered the game and got a strikeout of Granderson and successive groundouts by Gardner and Derek Jeter shut down another potential rally.
BRONX – Baseball is a funny game sometimes.
You can go from hammering arguably the best starting pitcher in the league in Roy Halladay, as the Yankees did on Tuesday night, to resembling a group of minor leaguers the next.
How they ever allowed Jamie Moyer, who singlehandedly drove up the stock in AARP with his eight-inning, two-run masterpiece on Wednesday is beyond anyone’s explanation.
This was then followed up a seven inning, one-run performance the next night by Kyle Kendrick, who despite pitching well as of late, has been up-and-down all year and made Yankee hitters look foolish.
However, nothing was worse than the ineptitude displayed by the offense last night as for the second time. They saw Hisanori Takahashi fool them with a repertoire of pitchers that would not remind anyone of Sandy Koufax, though effective enough once again for six scoreless innings as the Mets won the first game of Subway Series Part 2 at Yankee Stadium 4-0.
After Takahashi stymied them last month at Citi Field in his major league debut that also saw them hold the Yankees scoreless for six innings, to a man they felt the reason for their ineffectiveness was that they had never seen him before.
This has been a normal line of thought when an unknown starts against them and pitches well (of course, this is never said when they clobber an unknown), so coming into Friday night, the Yankees offense felt the story would be difference the second time around.
Instead, hitters came up to the plate looking to feast on the soft-tossing lefty and some found themselves swinging too early and some too late, amounting to weak hacks and numerous groundballs and fly balls that had very little lift to them.
There were not many good swings on the night and very few over the last three games. Of course, this could simply be a small sample size for the league’s best offense statistically. Yet, one would have to be a fool to see that this team in no way resembles the group from last season that was able to consistently score despite the occasional rough patch.
Injuries to Nick Johnson, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada have forced Joe Girardi to adjust his order. Add in the lack of production of the aforementioned Rodriguez along with Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson and the back-to-earth market correction by Francisco Cervelli, and it is no wonder why the team cannot always put runs up on the board.
The shuffling has given more at bats to Ramiro Pena, a less than part-time player. Marcus Thames’s injury, a recently released Randy Winn, and Granderson’s inability to consistently hit lefties has given the likes of Kevin Russo and last night’s left fielder Chad Huffman at-bats when they truly should not be out there.
Now, a pity party will not take place for the team with the best record in the sport, but it goes to show that how different the team is without its full complement of players and how dominant the starting pitching has been this year, as they have been the catalyst to this point.
You can get away with subpar offense as long as you have the pitching the Yankees have. In October, this same dominant pitching will win in the postseason as long as they can scratch out a few runs. Right now, scoring runs has been hit or miss, at least when the opponents do not include the Indians or Orioles, the dreads of baseball.
Teixeira is not hitting much and Rodriguez is not hitting for power. Not having the two best hitters in the middle of the lineup not providing the kind of impact that their hefty paycheck reflects provide a ripple effect to the entire lineup.
While Robinson Cano is having a career year, it is hard for him to produce when there are not men on base. The two-hole in the lineup has been a problem all year, starting from when Johnson’s batting average hovered below .200. Brett Gardner felt too much pressure in that spot and immediately saw his average dip. Granderson and Nick Swisher have alternated turns in that spot, but neither has consistently stuck to provide the same cohesion that Johnny Damon did.
So as the Yankees continued to make outs against Takahashi, it became frustrating. There was almost a look of disgust and disbelief around the team feeling that should get good swings off him, but instead were making very non-threatening outs.
It was not until the sixth inning when they finally had their first real threat. They loaded the bases after two singles and a walk. With two outs, Posada ground out on a barehanded play by David Wright on the infield grass to end the inning.
In the seventh, with the score still only 1-0, they got the tying run on second base after a double by Francisco Cervelli. Pedro Feliciano, a tough lefty specialist, entered the game and got a strikeout of Granderson and successive groundouts by Gardner and Derek Jeter shut down another potential rally.
The final chance came in the ninth when the lead now 4-0 and with the help of the Mets, who brought in reliever Raul Valdes to get the final three outs instead of the previously warmed up Francisco Rodriguez, gave the Yankees hope.
Two singles and a walk with one out loaded the bases and brought the tying run to the plate. However, Jeter would strikeout swinging and Swisher would pop out to end the game.
In three games, the offense produced three on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and now zero Friday.
There is nowhere else to go from here but up.
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