The Yankees play over the past two weeks has been down right terrible, especially for a team that thinks itself a World Series contender. After dominating in May the team as been in a swoon that has dropped them out of first and put them on the precipice of third place with the Jays charging through the Phillies this week.
It is unacceptable and embarrassing that the Yankees didn't sweep the lowly Nats. So you can imagine how bad it is for them to lose the series to them nevermind get shut out in one of the games.
Joba Chamberlain wasn't great over his six innings of work allowing 11 baserunners, but allowing three runs should have put him in line for a victory against the worst pitching team in baseball. The same goes for Chien-Ming Wang who wasn't that good. He wasn't helped by an awful call by the first base umpire or an awful play by Melky Cabrera in center. But all of the blame for these defeats has to fall on the bats. John Lannan pitched a good game on Wednesday as the Yankees failed to put together any at bats that lasted more than four pitches.
The same goes for Thursday as Craig Stammen shut down the Yankees for six innings before they finally started to take some pitches and work the count. If not for a great play by Willie Harris then the Yankees probably would have gotten back in the game.
The Yankees need to do something. Losing two out of three to the Nationals is unacceptable and if not for a rain shortened game for the Red Sox they would likely be four games back than three. I can imagine things getting much better for the Yanks though. The Marlins seem to be one of those teams that gets under their skin. They have good young pitching the Yankees haven't seen before and that seems to be the their kryptonite.
The Yanks were undefeated when allowing three runs or less. Who would have thought their first two losses would come against the Nats. Disgraceful.
3 comments:
About that shortened game against the Marlins...What crap! As soon as the Florida bullpen reared it's head, the Sox would've jumped all over them. It's also completely unfair to Jon Lester, who only gave up 2 runs over 5 innings and got the loss.
Unfamiliar pitching that throws strikes consistently is usually the Sox undoing as well. In those situations, a strength becomes a weakness. You can't be as selective against a pitcher like that. You'll be behind in the count all night.
Well thats the miracle of interleague play. Its one of the reasons i hate it.
One other thing about Yanks v Nats, good teams win the games they should win against awful teams. I would expect nothing less than a sweep when the Sox hook up with the Nats and right now thats the difference between these two teams. Sox are winning the games they are suppose too.
The season is 162 games, and no matter how good a team is they have spells in which they play poorly. Every team gets swept by the Royals, or loses 2 of 3 to the Nationals at some point. That is baseball.
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