Friday, October 12, 2012

Is It Me, Or Is This Offense Really Embarrasing?

The Good

Phil Hughes grew to the occasion of pitching in the post season throwing 6.2 innings of 1 run ball, and striking out 8 in the process.  Jeter and Nix both had a single and a double in the game, and that pretty much describes the bulk of our offensive output.

The Bad

Every year, there are guys who help get us a division, and then there's guys who help get us a world series.  The guys who help get us a division are the guys who perform well during the season, put up good numbers, and drive in plenty of runs.  The guys who help us win world series are the ones who grow to the occasion, and perform when it matters most.  The Yankee lineup is full of the former.  Just a quick glance at Swisher, Granderson, Cano, and A-Rod's performances, and you see guys who are all hitting under .150 through these 4 games.  Granderson's average sits at .063! 

Lets go through it:

-Granderson, who hit 43 homeruns this season, has gone 1-16 in the post season (a single), and has struck out 9 times.
-Swisher who hit .272 with 24 homeruns and 93 runs driven in, has gone 2-15, without a single extra base hit.
-A-Rod didn't do so well in the regular season, but Girardi is still batting him like he's a key contributor.  He's gone 2-16, without an extra base hit and 9 strikeouts.
-And Robinson Cano, who went .313 in the regular season with 33 homeruns, 94 RBI's and a .379 OBP, has gone 2-18 in the post season.

Mark Teixeira's been batting well, but he's batting more like a number 2 hitter.  Gets on base a lot, hits lots of singles, not exactly the number 3 guy we hope for.

Long story short, this team is incredibly dissapointing.  Our pitching, which was seen as the weak link this year, has been amazing.  But we keep playing like we're being fined for scoring runs.  1 run through 13 innings, with the offense that led the majors in homeruns?  Really?

If the Yankees hope for a chance in winning this, we need Ibanez, Chavez and Gardner taking at bats for Swisher, A-Rod, and Granderson.  I'd take Nix over A-Rod too.  Nix was seeing the ball well yesterday, and we can't afford to pull guys like that out of the lineup.

The Ugly

Now we're going to game 5 with all the momentum swinging in favor of Baltimore.  The Yankee offense is a joke, and Sabathia who has a history of choking in the post season, is getting the start.  This is the exact scenario we wanted to avoid.  If Sabathia pitches like he did in game 1, will the offense show up? 

Will the Yankees Please Think of the Children?

Not yesterday.

Russel Martin 1hr = $2
Raul Ibanez 2hr = $4  
Total Postseason Home runs 3hr = $6

4 comments:

Rich Mahogany said...

Even Babe Ruth had a bad playoff series once. But how can Cano, Granderson, ARod and Swisher all go ice cold, and Teixeira lose his power, at the same time when Baltimore's pitching isn't anything special?

Swisher makes me especially disappointed. He has established himself as a consistently awful playoff hitter.

I wouldn't go so far as to say a Sabathia game 5 is the scenario we wanted to avoid. He was excellent in game 1 and has come up big in critical playoff games before.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Yeah, but you forgot that Ron Washington did cocaine.

Rich Mahogany said...

The Rangers flamed out, like so many other cocaine users.

Roberto E. Alejandro said...

Could it be that Cano, Granderson, A-Rod, Swish, and Teixeira are all cocaine users? Probably.