After last night’s game, I am ready to officially announce that I have no hope left for the Yankees putting together a streak of out-of-their-minds baseball that will vault them into the 2008 playoffs. It is not going to happen. I drew up a 5-point plan for making it happen eight days ago, and that plan has somewhat come to fruition: Melky got demoted, Matsui had a clean rehab and returned to the lineup. Hughes, however, did not excel at Scranton and may end up staying there through this weekend, so I was wrong about that one. Chamberlain is trying to come back, but it is extremely unclear when his return will happen, if at all.
The fifth point, though, is the problem:
“Jason Giambi, Robinson Cano and Derek Jeter's offensive games come alive, and with the re-insertion of Matsui, the lineup consistently performs to the level that they were expected to coming in to the season.”
Jeter and Cano’s bats have looked a little livelier of late, but The Big G is just an abomination. It has gotten to the point where he is literally only good for one of the three true outcomes in each of his at-bats: a walk, a strikeout or a homerun. Regardless of the statistical analysis camps that will claim that these types of players are useful and helpful for offenses, having this version of Jason Giambi as the #5 hitter in the lineup is doing absolutely nothing for the Yankees.
Last night’s game was lost by Johnny Damon’s inability to remember how to play center field. However, more games this season have been lost thanks to major failures by his buddy The Giambino in situations hitting with men on base. The fact that he has remained implanted in the lineup, consistently hitting right behind A-Rod no less, boggles my mind. Yes, there was one month of this season when Giambi was killing the ball to all fields—but those days have quickly vanished, replaced by his pull-happy “swing for the fences” mental approach to hitting. Kevin Long has been quoted before saying that he tells Jason all the time to hit to left field, but for whatever reason he just simply can’t do it.
Giambi is synonymous with the entire 2008 team. They both have had limited moments of success this year, but neither have come close to sustaining them. They have had a ton of opportunities to produce runs in ways that aren’t home runs, and yet they can never get it done on any type of consistent basis. Defensively neither has been very good, but the defense has not cost them as many games as the poor offense. Thankfully, they will no longer be around once the calendar hits October.
It’s funny, Giambi came to New York talking a big talk about wanting to win a championship, loving the Yankees tradition, etc. Yet he has never changed his game to win a championship. He couldn’t adjust to being a DH, even though he gets paid tens of millions (now twenties of millions) of dollars a year to basically do what the Yankees need him to do to help them. He brought the BALCO baggage with him but at least handled that media firestorm carefully and decently. As a result of his BALCO baggage, he has been on the DL or banged up or somehow incapacitated for most of his time in pinstripes.
And, of course, the team hasn’t won anything in the life of his 7 year deal. That World Series in 2003, the only one he (hopefully) will ever be a part of, he was mysteriously out of the lineup to start Game 5 with some type of phantom injury, even though it was oh, the WORLD SERIES and the Yankees were coming off a heartbreaking extra-inning loss in Game 4. Not to mention he was one of their biggest offensive players that year (that game somehow had Giambi AND Alfonso Soriano out of the lineup, by the way).
Of course, in that game he pinch hits and hits a meaningless home run in the 9th inning, so apparently he wasn’t hurt badly enough to not be able to jack a meaningless home run out of the park.
That kind of thing will be what I remember of The Jason Giambi Era—meaningless home runs that don’t provide much beyond letting Jason pose and still have the numbers that make him out to be a dangerous power hitter. Really, he is a selfish player who made zero adjustments or sacrifices for this team in his 7 years with the Yankees. This year the coaching staff put all their faith behind Giambi being able to stay healthy and play first and be a middle of the order hitter.
He’s stayed healthy, he’s played first…but he hasn’t rewarded the Yankees’ faith with any real production. All in all, a bad case of misplaced faith in The Great Giambino, a Yankee that will not be missed when he’s in another team’s uniform come 2009.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Brian Bannister brought out the best in the Yankees’ offense. His line was pretty impressive:
1 IP 10 H 10 ER 3 BB 0 K 3 HR
Top to bottom, the offense did what many have been waiting for: exploded, and beat a team with a mediocre pitching staff to a pulp. Granted, something can be said for how bad the offense looked the first two games of the series against bona fide AL starters Gil Meche and Zack Greinke. However, even in those two low-scoring, hotly contested games, the Yankees had plenty of men on base and therefore had plenty of opportunities to push runs across.
Sunday could not have started worse for the struggling lineup, either: Mike Mussina immediately put the cold-swinging hitters at a 3-0 disadvantage as a result of a soft rally by the Royals that featured a lot of bleeders and bloops. A-Rod, however, turned the momentum around in the bottom of the 1st, when he launched a game-tying three-run home run off Bannister, the first of those three homers he would allow.
Mussina wouldn’t surrender another run on the day, and the Yankees pretty much kept their foot down on the gas offensively and bludgeoned Kansas City to earn an even split of the season series. As I said, top to bottom is how the production spread out. Be it Derek Jeter going 4-for-4 (they were all singles, though, so I guess he still stinks and can’t hit with any authority), or A-Rod’s 3-for-3, or Jason Giambi actually getting a big hit with numerous runners on base (a grand slam, no less). Brett Gardner had a 2-out RBI triple, Xavier Nady ended a small slump by going 2-for-4 and hitting the go-ahead longball in the bottom of the 1st, and even Cody Ransom blasted his first home run as a Yankee.
The team goes into the off day having gained 2 games on Boston in the Wild Card race this weekend after Josh Beckett had a disastrous 2.1 inning performance (8 hits, 8 runs) against Toronto in Fenway, as the Red Sox fell 15-4.
Those same Toronto Blue Jays are the next foe for the Yankees, as they start a 3-game set north of the border tomorrow night. The Yankees have drawn some tough pitching match-ups for the upcoming series, which I will spend more time in previewing tomorrow.
For now, though, yesterday was a good day in the Bronx. The Wild Card race will continue to include the Yankees as long as they continue to win series and perhaps begin to play some consistent offensive baseball. Help may or may not be on the way with Hideki Matsui set to return in Toronto, although it is unknown what his swing will look like and how he’ll perform after a lengthy time disabled, as well as how his knee will hold up.
Still, at least today is another day that the Yankees didn’t lose. Tomorrow may be a different story.
