Have the Yankees upset Jobu? If last night’s game is an indicator, than maybe they have.
The other day I posted about the Yankees all-or-nothing offense and pointed out who I think are the three main culprits behind the inconsistency: Derek Jeter, Brett Gardner and Jorge Posada. As I mentioned, I’m not so worried about Jeter and Gardner is fine in the 9th spot in the order. However, Posada is positively killing the team right now. Mike Axisa at RAB also has a piece on Posada’s horrible season thus far.
Since that article posted, I’ve received numerous comments through Facebook
and Twitter
about other Yankee sluggers who haven’t done the job lately. Their lack of production is, as far as I can tell, more due to messed up mechanics than anything else. Has Alex Rodriguez slumped terribly over the past ten games? Sure – and if you watch his at-bats, you notice his head flying open before the bat head on breaking balls. Nick Swisher? From the left-hand side, Nick is holding his bat lower and diving into the plate too much; he can’t get decent wood on anything on the inner half.
The point is, every major leaguer in history has had slumps. 98% of them make their peace with Jobu and resume hitting. The rest end up behind the counter at your local Wendy’s.
I strongly suspect that the Yankees principle culprit is plain old exhaustion. They’re in the middle of a stretch where they will play 32 games in 33 days. That kind of grind will take its toll on anyone. Which brings up a point not totally off kilter that I’ll expand on in a later post, the decline in offense generally (overall AL OPS is at .714, 20 points lower than last season and 62 points lower than in 2006). I personally think it has to do with two things: the number and quality of pitchers each team carries –and the number of quality reserves on each team’s bench. Stay tuned…
M. B. Rozell
Kevin Rozell
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