Yanks’ shortcomings against mediocre pitchers

One theme we harp on a lot is the Yankees’ recent history of laying down against mediocre starters whom they haven’t seen yet. But is it a real trend, or like B-Jobbers are we falling victim to the confirmation bias? Jay at Fack Youk takes a look at a statement by Ken Singleton on last night’s YES broadcast:

In the past two years (since 5/27/07) the Yankees have faced 31 rookie pitchers for the first time. In that span, those pitchers have a combined record 3-18 in those games (after the Yanks beat Derek Holland last night).

But is the frustration limited to just rookie pitchers the team is seeing for the first time? No. It really extends to scrubs that the Yanks should dominate, but for some reason they end up going quietly. This is horribly frustrating. Yet Jay adds some interesting commentary:

When they [beat a mediocre starter], we think nothing of it. But when they don’t it tends to stick in our craw. When something goes according to plan, it’s easy to forget about. You can eat sushi 100 times from the same place and hardly be able to tell each one apart, but if you ever get sick from it, you will remember the exact order for years to come.

That’s some quality reasoning right there, and it’s easy to forget in the heat of the moment. Thankfully, we have minds like Jay to take a step back and see the forest for the trees.