A topic which seemingly never fades from our collective conscience is the Yankees hitting with runners in scoring position. It’s an aspect of the game which seemed to plague the team throughout 2008, and we’ve seen them falter in those situations in 2009. How bad is it really, though?

Answer: not as bad as some make it out to be. The explanation for this is simple: certain memories stick in our heads, and if not checked with an objective account of what happened can define the situation for us. When we see the Yankees fail with runners in scoring position, we tend to harp on their constant failure, because those failures are the mind’s most prominent memories. That doesn’t mean that it is so.

The Yankees have put themselves in position to score plenty of runs. Not only do they lead the league in long balls, but they have the seventh most plate appearances with runners in scoring position. For the most part they’ve succeeded, as they have scored the second most runs in baseball, 12 ahead of third place Boston, but 22 behind first place Tampa.

(Yikes! 1-2-3 are all in the AL East. Toronto is 5th.)

In terms of converting on those chances with runners in scoring position, though, the Yankees rank 15th, or right in the middle of the league, with a .262 batting average. So while the Yankees aren’t horrible with runners in scoring position, they could certainly stand to improve a bit.

Last night, in a discussion of Nick Swisher with runners in scoring position, I chimed in with a simple model for the level of desired outcomes when hitting with RISP. I doubt there will be much arguing with the following:

Hit > Walk > Out

In terms of outs the Yankees are 7th in the league, with a .366 OBP. It would appear, then, that the Yankees are good at not making outs with RISP, which is a good thing. It would be better if they could raise that average, since hits drive in the ducks, not walks. But in terms of not making outs, the worst of all outcomes, the Yankees are better than three quarters of the league.

Where the Yankees are also proficient with RISP is RBI. They rank seventh in the league in RBI with RISP. In some ways, though, that’s not fair. The Yanks come to the plate with runners in scoring position more often than three quarters of the league, so it’s expected that they should drive in more runs, in pure counting terms. In terms of RBI per plate appearance, the Yankees rank 13th in the league.

So have the Yankees driven in runs with men in scoring position primarily because they’ve given themselves more opportunities than most of the league? In part, yes. Another part is that when they do get hits with RISP, they’re hard hits. While the Yanks are 15th in batting average, they’re sixth in slugging percentage. This is notable because slugging percentage includes singles. Iso-P, which removes singles from the equation, puts the Yanks third in the league.

The power angle is a bit interesting. The Yankees rank sixth in MLB with a .271 team batting average — which I suppose makes the number with RISP a bit more frustrating — but rank 11th with a .427 SLG. That puts them at 14th in the league in Iso-P. So most of their power comes with runners in scoring position, it would seem.

It’s easy to conclude, based on the numbers, that the Yanks need to start dropping some more singles with RISP. While that would be nice, it’s not exactly necessary. The Tampa Bay Rays, during their 97-win 2008 campaign, finished 28th in the league in average with RISP, last in the American League. Hitting with RISP counts, and counts for a lot. But in the end, it comes down to pitching, pitching, pitching. Funny how an article about numbers with RISP concludes that way, huh?

Following a crisp 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on June 8, the Yankees were sitting pretty. They had a one-game lead atop the AL East, and after a highly-anticipated series in Boston, the team faced a relatively easy slate of Interleague opponents. It all looked so good on paper.

Two weeks later, the outcome is much bleaker than anyone would have expected it to be. The Yankees went to Boston and got swept in a three-game set. They eked out a 2-1 series victory over the Mets thanks in large part to a freak play in the bottom of the 9th inning of the first game. Then, they dropped two out of three to both the Nationals and Marlins, the fifth and fourth place teams in the NL East, respectively. I predicted a 10-5 run through the NL. Already, the Yankees are 4-5 and 4-8 over their last 12.

Since holding onto that first place lead, the Yankees have lost five games in the standings to the Red Sox. They sit four out of first place, just one game ahead of the third-place Blue Jays and two ahead of the charging Rays. My, how times have changed.

While yesterday’s 1.1-inning outing from CC Sabathia provided an exclamation point on a bad stretch, the pitching has generally not been the problem. Yanks’ hurlers have a 3.84 ERA over their last 12 games and are striking out 8.4 men per 9 innings over that stretch. Opponents are hitting just .234/.316/.409 off the Yankees’ staff.

The problem has been the offense. While Yankee pitchers have done their jobs, the team is hitting just .248/.329/.409 over that same stretch of games. Ten double plays and a lack of timely hitting have left the Yanks on the wrong end of five one-run games since June 8. That’s just bad luck.

Meanwhile, the big bats are the ones slumping. Take a look at this sortable table below. It shows every Yankee with five or more plate appearances between June 9 and June 21 arranged in descending order of OPS.

As the chart shows, two-thirds of the Yankee lineup have been producing at OPS levels under .700 for the better part of two weeks. Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Melky Cabrera, Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez are dragging down the offense. More problematic as well is the prolonged absence of Hideki Matsui from the Yankee lineup. As Interleague play moved to the NL parks, the Yanks lost one of their hottest hitters.

For the optimists among us, this chart provides some comfort. These players won’t continue to perform at below-average rates for much longer. That these players ran into slumps as the pitchers heated up is the Yanks’ bad luck, though. It’s small comfort to look ahead and hope for the next hot streak, but it will come soon. When it does, the Yanks can charge up the standings just as swiftly as they fell.

First Pitch Update (3:15 p.m.): The Yankees have announced first pitch tentatively schedule for 4:05 p.m. We’ll bump the game thread back up once it’s clear this one is set to start. For now, though, please keep comments to this post on topic.

First Pitch Update Update (3:55 p.m.): The Yankees have just announced that “another round of showers is in the forecast. The start time for today’s game has been pushed back. First pitch time is TBA.” They should probably just pull the plug on this one.

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As the Yankees and Nationals wait for a storm to clear that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere yet, the Yanks’ manager has shed some light on one of his decisions from last night’s 9th inning. While speaking with the beat writers prior to the rain delay, he talked about the first-and-third situation with one out and why A-Rod did not attempt a steal of second.

I was watching the game from the Grandstand, and everyone sitting around me was wondering the same thing. After the game, Joe and I had a discussion about it, and as he wrote in the recap, we would have attempted to steal. Why didn’t Joe Girardi then? Well, here’s what the Yanks’ skipper had to say:

“We had talked about it. It’s kind of a double-edged sword. You figure he can hit into a line drive and you get doubled up. Then you have Cano and Posada, two pretty good RBI guys, and you lose the chance for Posada to hit. Even though Robbie’s not a huge pull hitter, you close that hole up if he steals, and then they play the infield in. There’s a lot of different things that you have. Al is physically probably not running as well as he was last year, but he’s fairly close. If we got a 3-2 situation, am I saying that I’d hold him up? I’m not saying that. But we talk about it. MacDougal is quicker than he used to be to home plate. There’s a lot of factors that went into it.”

According to Marc Carig, Girardi was also concerned that the Nats might walk Cano intentionally or throw out A-Rod. So there are some valid reasons in there and some terribly convenient excuses.

The valid reason is Mike MacDougal. He was throwing 97 and was quicker to the plate. The Yankees’ coaches weren’t sure A-Rod, with just two stolen base attempts all season, would make it against a pitcher quicker than they expected. Fine. I buy that.

But at the same time, not making it to second is just part of the stolen base attempt. Maybe if A-Rod goes, the Nationals don’t even throw through because Brett Gardner can fly home off of third. Maybe anyone who attempts to steal a base gets thrown out. That really can’t can’t enter into the equation unless the runner has no chance.

I also don’t see what the double-edged sword is. Maybe Cano hits a line drive double play with A-Rod going, but that wouldn’t be any worse than what happened to end the game. Maybe the Nats intentionally walk Cano, but then the Yanks have bases loaded with one out and Jorge Posada at the plate. Who could complain about that?

In the end, I still come out where I came out last night: Joe Girardi should have at least attempted a steal with Alex Rodriguez on first base. We’re definitely second-guessing a tough decision, but Girardi’s excuses for it don’t really fly.

And with that, I’m done obsessing over last night’s game. I was at the stadium, and it was a tough loss to take. The fans were doing all they could to will that third run across the plate, and the energy went out of the park like a popped balloon when Cano grounded into that double play. We’ll get ‘em the next time once this rain lightens up.