What the Yanks Need To Fix Before October

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Unlikely as it seems, the Yankees are right now in about the same position as the Mets. It’s time to rest up the weary, fine-tune the pitchers, scrutinize the scrubs, and start scouting the Tigers, Athletics, White Sox, and Twins very carefully.The Yankees are going to the playoffs.

With four games upcoming against Boston in September, it’s certainly possible the Yankees could miss out on October, but it would be a sucker’s bet. Boston has all the same problems they did last week and couldn’t make up any ground even with the Yanks losing four of five in a post-sweep hangover.A 5.5-,6-, or 6.5-game lead with a month to play is nearly insurmountable. Statistically, Joe Torre’s men have better than a 90% chance of winning the division, and that’s without really taking into account that Boston doesn’t have any pitchers, Manny Ramirez’s injuries, and so on. If there is a collapse, it will be a historic one.

None of this, of course, means that Torre can bench Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, and Johnny Damon and spend next month playing sudoku, but as things go, he’s in pretty good shape. This leaves the Yankees with three big structural issues to handle over the next few weeks,

First, who’s who in the bullpen? The closer is decent enough, but past that things are, in October terms at least, a bit of a puzzle. As outstanding as Scott Proctor has been all year — and he’s showing no signs of slowing down, with a 1.83 ERA this month — I doubt he strikes anyone as the menacing (and reliable) presence one would ideally want on the mound in the 8th inning of a playoff game with Paul Konerko, Jim Thome, and Jermaine Dye coming up.

And Ron Villone, so unexpectedly effective all season, is showing every sign of becoming the latest casualty of Torre’s complete inability to resist overusing his better relievers, as he’s given up runs in a third of his appearances this month and seems to have lost a bit of whatever zip there was on his pitches.Resting these two while still keeping them sharp will probably be the most important thing for the teams’ playoff hopes over the next month.

This leaves the mystery man, Kyle Farnsworth. Farnsworth has been exactly what anyone who followed his career before this year would have told you he’d be: alternating between brilliant and clueless, a perfect example of why being able to pop 99 mph fastballs at will isn’t the goal of pitching. The key is to get him in one of his mysterious grooves where he stops thinking (make your own joke) and thus stops giving up runs. If the Yanks can coax him into a perfectly blank state he can absolutely be that Jeff Nelson-type shutdown presence in the 8th inning. I wouldn’t bet on it.

Second is of course the mystery of Alex Rodriguez. As far as I’m concerned, the main mystery should be whether or not the people who are convinced he’s singlehandedly responsible for crippling the American economy along with his team, actually watch Yankees games. His batting line this month is .280 BA/.381 OBA/.494 SLG, enviable numbers in line with Derek Jeter’s career averages, but then again striking out 10 times in three games does raise questions.

Assuming that we can find the root cause of his woes somewhere between his mysterious injuries and the pressure of being labeled a failure whenever he doesn’t hit four home runs in a game, it would probably be for the best to continue the unexpected but entertaining Nick Green experience as much as possible in hopes that a rejuvenated and refreshed Rodriguez can come out strong a month from now.

As things go, however, were Rodriguez actually to sit out a substantial number of games he’d probably be labeled a fraud, and so we’ll continue to see a fried A-Rod swinging through pitches he shouldn’t even be offering at. A hearty hand to all those who have kicked the man while he’s down.

Finally, we have the ever-revolving bottom of the lineup.I’m actually rather surprised at how much leeway Torre has extended Craig Wilson, exactly the sort of streaky hitter who looks horrible when he’s not right and usually drives the skipper nuts, but it’s a good thing; the more at-bats Wilson gets, the better the odds of him getting his stroke down and lengthening the lineup when called upon to do so.

I’m less surprised at the omnipresence of Nick Green, whose hot hitting as a Yankee has brought his seasonal average all the way up to .198. I’m still less surprised at such things as Aaron Guiel, first baseman.This is the usual array of shrewd moves and head-scratchers; it doesn’t do much to help or hurt right now, but if roles don’t get a bit more settled soon, the Yanks will end up taking the usual incoherent bench into the playoffs again.

It won’t make or break them there, but there are a lot of good teams in the American League right now. Just because you smack the Red Sox down doesn’t mean you don’t need every edge you can get against even fiercer foes.

tmarchman@nysun.com


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