April (Sent to the) Showers

Yankees-Red Sox Round One: A Postmortem

By: Akino Yamashita
Special to Yankees Talk Shop
Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Hmm. Where shall I begin? I suppose I can start with the good news. That won't take me too much time...

The Yankees pitching staff actually did acquit themselves well against the Red Sox, at least in the second series -- with the exception of Jose "Control-less" Contreras, of course. I can't give myself credit for coining that -- my mother did. But Jose Vasquez and Kevin Brown both pitched very well this weekend, and decently in the series at Boston, although the Yankees still lost those games. The bullpen had a solid performance (specifically, Quantrill-White-Gordon-Rivera) on Sunday April 18th, the only Yankees win against the Red Sox so far, bailing out an apparently clueless Contreras.

The bad news is, the bullpen could not save the bacon for Contreras last Friday, a debacle which Russ has described in his essay on the "Cuban Assassin". Even more bad news: As Russ (as well as Sterling and Steiner during the game) has noted, at this point there appears to be no alternative to keeping Contreras in the rotation, with Lieber still on the DL, DePaula out for the season, and, so far, few AAA pitchers worth the plane ticket out of Columbus. Throw in a mediocre performance by Mike Mussina, who seems to be having control problems of his own, in the first series (at Boston), and the Yankee rotation appears to still be a question mark.

Getting to more bad news: The Yankee lineup, so far, is worse than a question mark (with the exception of Jorge Posada); it is a zero. Or, a .217. That is the collective Yankee BA so far. Here's another number for you: 29. The Yankees, right now, are 29th in the league in BA. Only the Expos are worse. Over the seven games with Boston, the Yankees were held to two runs for four of them...and zero runs in the last game, on Sunday, April 25th. While I still think that pitching is going to determine the ultimate fate of the Yankees, such an anemic offensive production is obviously not going to make for much success in the big leagues.

Now, while I'd like to think that this series is just going to give Boston false hope (again) and is totally meaningless to the Yankees (except the usual "well, they are games against the division" cliche), Boss George's "missive" on Monday suggests that he thinks otherwise. So do "panic moves" (can't take credit for this one either, heard it on Mike and the Mad Dog) like Torre bringing in Mariano Rivera to pitch the ninth with the Yankees not leading, or even tied, but down by two runs. It's also significant that Boston won six out of seven without even having Nomar Garciaparra or Trot Nixon in the lineup.

And while the Yankees of the past could sit quiet and expect to feast on mediocre or downright bad teams, the Yankees do not expect to face too many pushovers in the next two months. Tonight, Oakland comes to town, and will be starting Hudson, Mulder, and Zito...not exactly the best scenario for an offensive breakout. Then the Royals come to town, who are certainly not the putrid team they used to be. After the Royals, the month of May features match-ups with all of the AL West teams...Oakland, Seattle, Anaheim, and Texas. Only Texas seems to hold out hope of easy pickings. Then there will be a trip to Baltimore, currently first in the division, and Tampa Bay, which might be a bit more spunky this year than before.

The good news is, of course, that the Yankees can certainly afford to trade for a pitcher "down the stretch". Or a second baseman, or a first baseman who can field better than Giambi but hit better than Lee, or whatever other need crops up. What could be either good or bad news is that it is is "only April". The bad news, of course, is that it is not out of the realm of possibility that it might just be too late by then. The Yankees could get Randy Johnson, and it won't help that much if they are 10 games below .500 by then. While it is a quite different sport and league, the New York Rangers have certainly shown that trading for big-name players mid-season in a frantic attempt to preserve a postseason run doesn't always work. In fact, in their case, it hasn't worked at all for the past decade or so. The good news is, if the Yankees can turn it around in May, by June they will be in a situation not of desperation, but of relative strength, in a position to tinker with the team, not send it to the shop for a total overhaul.

While it is, indeed, "only April", only time will tell if May is filled with flowers, or more players sent to the showers, or perhaps, even revealed to be washed up. There is still a lot of room for hope, but as I stated before the season began, nothing is guaranteed. I suppose in a way that makes it more fun. What would be the point if the outcome was predetermined, as many Yankee-haters assumed when they groaned and stamped their feet over the Yankees' off-season moves? On the other hand, drinking shots of antacids every time I watch a game isn't my idea of fun either.

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