Don't Look Now, but There's a "B" In the Mirror

Worst loss in franchise history cuts Yankees' AL East lead to 3 1/2 games

By: Akino Yamashita
Special to Yankees Talk Shop
September 1, 2004

What a difference a month makes. On August 1, 2004, the New York Yankees beat their personal whipping boy of a team (that would be the Baltimore Orioles) 9-7 and had a 9 1/2 game lead over the Boston Red Sox. Comfortable? You could say that. You could even say, "I'm so relaxed I'm yawning, can you wake me in October?"

Now, on September 1, 2004, the Yankees find themselves only 3 1/2 games ahead of the Red Sox, and will take the field tonight hoping to erase the putrid aftertaste of a 22-0 drubbing administered by the Cleveland Indians yesterday. The game featured a Javier Vasquez implosion in which he didn't get out of the 2nd inning and gave up 6 runs, and the bullpen wasn't much better, giving up another 16 runs in total. The Yankee bats were frozen out, scoring zero runs and garnering only five hits (while the Indians collected 22 hits to match their run total). It all added up to the most one-sided loss in Yankees franchise history (the second worst margin of a loss was 18 runs). George Steinbrenner himself was in attendance for the game, and he was in all probability not pleased (despite his issuance of an upbeat "proclamation" today). Meanwhile, Boston is closing in on the Yankees with a hot seven-game winning streak.

A look at the records of the two teams over the dog days of August explains why a lead that seemed so insurmountable has shrunk to such an uncomfortable extent. The Yankees August record was a pedestrian 16-12, while the Red Sox had a 21-7 record, even though they traded away Nomar Garciaparra in a multi-team deal to the Chicago Cubs. The Red Sox pitching has been hot, second in the AL with a 3.71 ERA in the last 30 days, while the Yankees team ERA in the last 30 days was 5.12, tenth in the AL. In the last 30 days, Boston also led the AL with a team BA of .308 and a team SLG of .502. The Yankees batting for the most part is nothing to sneeze at, with a team BA of .281 and a team SLG of .479 in the last 30 days. While the bats were nowhere to be found yesterday, it's the pitching which is to blame for most of the Yankees' August woes.

If you look at the Yankees' losses in August, you won't find any hard-fought pitching duels, no agonizing 2-1 or 0-1 losses. The Yankees have given up at least 4 runs, and an average of 6.5 runs in each August loss without counting yesterday's 22-0 debacle. (If you do, the number goes up to 7.8). Another eye-raising fact is this: Until Kevin Brown's win on August 28 against Toronto, the Yankees had gone 14 games without a starter getting a win. Only 7 of the Yankees 16 wins in August were earned by starting pitchers, and 4 of those wins came in the first week of August. Yankee starters have been leaving games either with losing or tied scores, or too early in the game to qualify as a WP.

Ironically, the Yankees starter with the most wins in August (with three) was Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, whose stamina I questioned in my last entry here. El Duque was also the last Yankee starter before Brown to get a win (on August 12), and he will pitch tonight against C.C. Sabathia with a 5-0 record and a 2.81 ERA to date. El Duque's August ERA of 2.63 was the best by far of all Yankee starters; Kevin Brown was second with an August ERA of 4.05, followed by John Lieber at 4.50. Mike Mussina and Javier Vasquez both had August ERAs above 7 (though the numbers might be somewhat misleading considering Mussina's limited action in August, and the skewing of Vasquez's numbers by yesterday's game). As for Esteban Loaiza, his ERA was over 8.0 after he was shelled in mop-up duties yesterday. And to think I cheered the Jose Contreras trade...

Before anyone starts to run out to the window ledges and fire escapes, I want to emphasize that I don't want to sound the alarms just yet. It is certainly possible that the Yankees will get everything turned around in September, and that Boston's hot streak is due to cool off soon. The Yankees have a rather easy September schedule, with games against mediocre to weak teams; after finishing the 3-game series with the Indians, they will be looking at Baltimore, Tampa Bay, and Kansas City before meeting up with the Red Sox on September 17. The Red Sox, on the other hand, start September off with games against Anaheim, Texas, and Oakland, all teams in playoff contention.

If the Yankees have a good showing against the Red Sox during their last six direct match-ups in September, the worries about the shrinking division lead will probably drift away. But right now, it seems that the September games between the Yankees and the Red Sox may have much more of a buzz than anyone would have imagined on July 1, when the Yankees swept the Red Sox at home to grab a 8 1/2 division lead. That pesky "B" is starting to loom large in the rear-view mirror.




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