Diagnosing the 2007 Yankees:
NEW YORK — It is one thing to have bad luck. It is another to have bad performances. But when you have both bad luck and bad performances, you’re going to be at 10 least games out of first place by the middle of May.
Welcome to the New York Yankees’ 2007 season. The Yankees have certainly had more than their share of misfortune in the young season, particularly with injuries to pitchers.
Another one occurred on Saturday, when starting pitcher Darrell Rasner took a one-hop smash from Endy Chavez off his right hand and had to leave the game, just two batters into his start, with a fractured index finger. Just 20 days earlier, the Yankees had lost another young starter in strikingly similar circumstances, when Jeff Karstens had his right fibia fractured by a batted ball.
This is misfortune, and so is the larger pitching picture, with a total of six Yankees starters on the disabled list at one time or another. There is no need to understate or overstate; most of this is bad luck of the pure and simple variety.
But the rest of it, the 18-23 record, the double-digit deficit to the Boston Red Sox in the American League East, is the product of inadequate baseball. It is the product of the Yankees playing in such a way that they no longer resemble themselves.
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The Yankees have had the kind of season in which a portion of their game has usually been lacking, but it hasn’t been the same portion. When they hit early, they did not pitch adequately. When the pitching improved, the hitting slumped. This sort of thing — talent on hand, but inconsistent performance in all categories — is generally a recipe for something like a .500 season. At this point, the Yankees would have to pick it up a bit to get to even that modest level.
And while we grant that the Yankees have been hit with a giant-sized portion of bad breaks this season, one of those pitching problems is more in the category of a serious lapse in judgment. When Carl Pavano goes on the disabled list, this is not bad luck. This is what happens to Carl Pavano.
As the article points out, there is still time to turn the season around, but it’s going to require some drastic changes in the way these guys are playing.
H/T: OTB Sports
