When things are going well, no one wants to think about the bad times. When things are going poorly, no one can remember the good times. At least that what it seems like. The Yankees won 18 of 24 prior to the losing streak that hit three games on Tuesday, but all that good seems like a distant memory. The at-bats are now more ugly than productive, the pitches often hung, and the frustration apparent. With both the Rays and Red Sox winning, the Yankees are now in second place in the AL East for the first time since June 12th. They’re still five and a half games up in the Wild Card, if you want to look on the bright side.
Big Hit: Tex Puts Them Up Early
It’s become a familiar scene. For the third time in the last five games the Yankees have been on the business end of a two run first inning homer, but the caveat is that they’ve lost all three games. Mark Teixeira did the honors tonight following a Derek Jeter leadoff walk and a Nick Swisher line out, crushing a hanging changeup deep into the leftfield stands. I guess that’s really it, there’s not much to add about this homer. Or the offense in general.
If You’re Going To Lose, At Least Lose Efficiently
Dustin Moseley wasn’t great in this game by any stretch of the imagination, but all things considered he wasn’t terrible. He took the ball into the 8th inning on just 85 pitches, so if nothing else he was efficient. Moseley needed more than 13 pitches in an inning just once, when he used 17 to navigate the three run 4th, and he generated 16 of his 22 outs either on the ground or via the strikeout. That’s straight up Chien-Ming Wangian.
The big problems came with two outs, which seems to be an ongoing theme for the last, I don’t know, two or three years. Four of the five runs charged to Moseley came with (you guessed it) two outs, including all three in the 4th when the Jays had no one on and two away. The two run homer to Travis Snider was actually a pretty decent pitch off the plate, but the young Jay just hooked it into the bullpen. Dude’s rather strong.
I’m not going to get on Moseley for this one, frankly he was way better than I thought he would be. No one expects greatness out of Andy Pettitte’s replacement, and limiting the other team to five runs in seven-plus innings is usually a winnable game for the Yanks. Usually.
Overwhelmed
Ricky Romero had started against the Yankees twice already this season, once dominating them for eight innings and once getting smack around for eight runs. I expected something in the middle on Tuesday, but instead he turned in his best performance of the season. After the Yanks took the lead on Tex’s first inning homer, Romero retired 26 of the next 27 men he faced, straight through the final out of the game. That one exception was a Marcus Thames infield single to lead off the 5th. Just one of the final seven batters he faced managed to hit the ball out of the infield, so it’s not like the Jays’ ace ran into trouble as his pitch count climbed into the 110’s.
Even though he generated just four swings and misses all night, Romero kept the Yanks off balance by mixing his pitches like a fiend. He threw 56 fastballs, 30 changes, and 26 curveballs with a few sliders added in for good measure, and threw no more than nine pitches in four different innings. There was just nothing the Yankee bats could do, they got shut right down.
The bad news is that Shaun Marcum starts tomorrow, and at 2.89 runs above average per 100 pitches, he’s got the fifth best changeup in baseball. That pitch seems to be the Yanks’ kryptonite this season. They just can’t do anything with it.
Misc.
Forget about hitting his 600th career homer, Alex Rodriguez just needs a hit now. Any kind. He hasn’t picked up a knock since the last game of the Cleveland series, nearly 20 plate appearances go. His OBP is all the way down to .335, the lowest mark in any full season of his career, majors or minors. I’ll take a broken bat blooper tomorrow, please. Just to take the edge off.
Kerry Wood hung something, looked like a cutter, to Aaron Hill, who did what he was supposed to do and put it in the people. Wood then struck out the next two batters to end the 8th inning and has a nice and clean 27.0 K/9 as a Yankee.
Austin Kearns doesn’t get cheated up there, does he? Dude swings with a purpose, that’s for sure.
I’m kinda sick of Frankie Cervelli, what about you? He’s got a sub-.500 OPS since May 23rd and threw a ball into rightfield when he tried to a pick a runner off first with a snap throw in the 5th. If Jorge Posada is only going to be able to catch four out of every seven games going forward, they have to get something more out of their backup catcher, it’s that simple.
The Yanks have lost three in a row for the first time since June 16-18th. That was the Jamie Moyer-Kyle Kendrick-Hisanori Takahashi suckfest, which I’m sure you remember. They haven’t lost four in a row all season.
WPA Graph & Box Score
It started out oh so promising. Here’s the box, here’s the nerd.
Up Next
A three game losing streak in early August isn’t the end of the world, but the natives are getting restless. Phil Hughes will try to get the Yanks back on track tomorrow afternoon when he faces Marcum on a get away day. Thursday’s off day can’t come soon enough.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.