NEW YORK, NY – The Yanks had a good week last week but this week has been a different story. Lost the last two to Detroit at The Stadium, then got swept by the Rockies in Denver. Last night the Bombers got back to winning ways, thanks to a strong performance from a resurgent CC Sabathia and some timely hitting from shortstop Didi Ggregorius. But the Yankees have issues at first base that they’ll need to sort out if they are going to make a push to get back in the AL East race and fight for a wild card slot.
The Pinstripers are currently playing their 5th string first baseman and they’ve even had to dust off Mets reject Ike Davis and sign him to fill in at first base. The Yankees are redefining the term “desperate times call for desperate measures”. Considering they’ve gone through first basemen like Spinal Tap goes through drummers, the desperation is understandable.
Greg Bird, who was supposed to be our everyday fill-in for the oft-injured Mark Teixeira, injured his shoulder in preseason in a mysterious gardening accident that authorities said was “best left unsolved.” He is going to miss the entire season.
“Mr. Glass” Teixeira is back on the DL and may stay there for the rest of the season. Dustin Ackley did a Greg Bird and his shoulder injury will keep him out the rest of the season as well. Chris “Who?” Parmelee blew a hammy stretching for a ball at first and he will miss a month or so. Now Ike is set to play everyday for the Yanks for the foreseeable future… depending on whether he can keep himself healthy.
CC Sabathia has been great the last month or so. Sabs will tell you that his stellar start to the season is due to a new knee brace that helps his plant leg and lets him pitch more comfortably. I would assume that copious amounts of gravy are helping keep CC in tip-top pitching form, though. The Yanks will need CC to keep pitching like this since the bats are as unreliable as a Different Matt column on Friday.
The entire rotation will need to keep putting up six-inning, one-run performances and pray that the offense puts up enough runs to get to the back end of the bullpen. If they can get to the 7th inning with a lead, Betances, Miller and Chapman will seal the deal more often than not. But the rest of the Bombers’ bullpen is suspect – to put it lightly.
There is hope as the top of the lineup is starting to perform and the team’s record is improving because of that. The success of Ellsbury and Gardner is a good bellwether for the Bronx boys’ success. The team has a stellar record when both players score in a game… Carlos Beltran has put together a great season so far. And he’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t see any curveballs in the playoffs… A-Rod is just going through the motions to collect his paycheck and it is clear he no longer cares about anything or anyone.
Outside of a rather lean lineup and poor starting pitching, the Yanks still are alive. We’ll see if the big arms can carry the team into the Wild Card.
That’s it for me. Come back tomorrow for Junoir Blaber, a man whose arms are extremely short, particularly when it comes to buying a round.
