The Yankees finally return home from the worst roadtrip in recent memory, including four walk-off losses, two blown saves by Mo, a 1-3 record in extra inning games, and a 2-5 record in one-run games. Brutal for YFs to watch for sure. And yet things are undoubtedly looking up - Nick Swisher and Brett Gardner have returned to the lineup looking every bit as surprisingly-productive as they've been all year, A-Rod's two home runs on Saturday give hope that he may be on the verge of another late-season power-surge, and the Yanks somehow continue to maintain the best record in baseball, though barely.
But by far the most important development over this ugly stretch was the re-appearance of a healthy and effective Pettitte, who returned yesterday looking like he hasn't missed a beat from what was turning out to be his best season ever before he went down in July.
Certainly there is plenty to nitpick with this team as evidenced by the past two months of barely-.500 baseball: a very thin rotation, a village left on the bases nearly every night (punctuated by a bizarre inability to bring runners in from third with less than 2 outs), and continued underperformance from key spots, most notably the Captain. But if anything is clear from the past ten days it is that Girardi and Cashman have taken solace in the fall-back option of the wild-card and have been managing to first get this team healthy for October and only second to win the division. Every key player with a bump or bruise has gotten an extra day off – yesterday both A-Rod and Teixeira were held out of the line-up – and the Yanks return for their final homestand of the season probably feeling healthier across the board than they have in a while. As for the collective bruised ego accumulated over the past 10 days, it's hopefully nothing that a series-win against Tampa Bay won't cure.
Everyone knows that good teams make the playoffs and hot teams win them. Now that the Yankees look more or less whole again, it would sure be nice if they turned up the temperature.
2 replies on “Limping Home Healthy”
Like clockwork, the Yankee starting rotation returns to form and the bullpen – superb for the past 2 months – begins to fall apart. Yanks go up 4-0 tonight, give it all up in the 6th, then tack on another 4 in the bottom of the 6th. Granderson with 2 HRs and 5 RBIs. Yanks up 8-5 right now heading to the bottom of the 7th. As with past starts, Nova looks nearly unhittable through 4-5 innings and then falls apart. Judging by the last several match-ups between these two teams, an ALCS between them would be pretty great stuff.
yeah, i watched the game with a few friends, all of them have only a passing interest in baseball, largely due to their fondness for me…when the yanks went up 4-0, i got high fives and a round of attaboyz…when the yanks coughed up that lead just as quickly as they built it, i got blank stares and a bunch of wtf’s…then boop, just as quick, another 4 run lead, only to see the rays immediately start to chip away at that…wtf indeed…i agree though, this series is starting to feel more like the classic sox/yanks matchups every time out…
speaking of the sox, the boston media and some bitter fans seem overly concerned about the team continuing to brag about the consecutive sellout streak…this from nick cafardo’s blog in the globe:
“Sox go down in order in the 9th before 37,560, the 626th sellout at Fenway. Good night, folks.”
really nick?…37,560 fans were still there until the 9th inning…fact is it is unlikely that 37,560 even showed up in the first place…but, i’m gonna do something i’ve done a lot more this year, and defend the sox right to continue to promote this amazing streak…first the obvious: ticket sales have nothing to do with fannies in the seats…many of the tickets were probably sold months ago, and while i don’t think x thousand fans showed up disguised as empty seats, perhaps they changed their minds about attending given the sox current position in the standings…then there’s the controversy about ticket resellers, and whether their possession of tickets [not sold] should count as a sold ticket in the eyes of the sox marketing folks…i say, why not?…if the sox provide tickets to a reseller for some value, then the sox sold those tickets whether the reseller ever sells them to a real fan or not…