State of the Yankees, Issue 3

Once again, this State of the Yankees is brought to you by fellow blogger Jeff Winston. You can find his other work on the world of sports here.

Thursday already? Yep, so that means another edition of “State of the Yankees.” Where we last left our heroes in pinstripes, they were struggling in Chicago, and preparing for a matchup against their hated rivals in Boston; looking for that first win of the year against them. Trying to look at the series last week realistically, I was hoping that the Yankees would be able to have the Red Sox leave town with a split in the series. Well, that’s not exactly how it went…

Instead, the Yankees experienced their most successful group of 4 games against their arch enemies since the Boston Massacre of 2006. Entering the series 2 ½ games up on the Red Sox in the division standings, Boston headed back home on Sunday with a 6 ½ game deficit, and a lot more problems than they entered the series with. John Smoltz has since been designated for assignment following his atrocious start against the Yankees on Thursday. Following Thursday night’s disaster for Boston, they then went the next 30 innings without scoring a run; which meant no run support despite good starts out of their front two Josh Beckett and Jon Lester. The only time during the entire series that the Yankees even felt the need to sweat was following a 2-run home run off the bat of Victor Martinez, whose results were quickly erased the following inning by back to back home runs from Damon and Teixeira.

So where do the Yankees stand? Entering the series 0-8 against the Red Sox, they are now only 4-8, but there is little doubt as to who the better team of the two is at this point. The Yankees did it all this series. They won a slugfest (Thursday). They won a nail biting 15 inning 2-0 marathon. And their front 3 starters showed everyone over in Kenmore Square who the better front end of the rotation is. Let’s take another look at the stat lines from Burnett, Sabathia and Pettitte from the past weekend:

Burnett: 7.2 IP, 1 hit, 0 ER, 6 BB, 6 K’s

Sabathia: 7.2 IP, 2 hits, 0 ER, 2 BB, 9 K’s

Pettitte: 7.0 IP, 5 hits, 0 ER, 2 BB, 4 K’s

Even more impressive is the outstanding work from the Yankees bullpen during the series.

Yankees bullpen: 14.2 IP, 11 hits, 4 ER, 6 BB, 17 k’s

Noticeably one of their weaknesses during the first 8 games against Boston this year, their ability to limit Boston to only 4 runs during 14.2 innings pitched is just the cover story of a vastly improved bullpen.

The Yankees seem to be headed in the right direction, and have managed to take one of the monkeys off their back by beating a playoff worthy team, no less the Red Sox, 4 games in a row. Amazing work from the boys in pinstripes this past weekend, and hopefully there will be more happy news to report in next week’s edition.

Yankees Player of the Week: I really want to give this award to David Robertson, who managed a .2IP, 3K stat line during an appearance against Boston this weekend, but it would be stealing from the weekend as a whole to award Robertson for managing 3 K’s while only pitching 2/3 of an inning. Instead, this highly esteemed award to Alex Rodriguez, who in the series against Boston hit two very key home runs; one to win the game Friday night off highly touted Red Sox prospect Junichi Tazawa, and then breaking the scoreless tie Sunday night with a solo shot off of Jon Lester. Both would have stood as game winners if not for Victor Martinez’s home run Sunday night, but Alex is starting to show the fans that he can in fact come up with the big hit when necessary.

Non-Yankees Fun Fact of the Week: Blue Jays General Manager JP Riccardi refused to trade face-of-the-franchise all star pitcher Roy Halladay because he could not get enough trade bait in return, but then responded to the fans in Toronto by trading away star outfielder Alex Rios for… NOTHING. I call this waiver claim a steal for White Sox GM Kenny Williams, and an Epic Fail on the part of JP Riccardi.

Well, that wraps up this edition of “State of the Yankees.” Tune in next week, where this author will hopefully be able to report that the train of success for the Bronx Bombers continues to roll. Until then, Let’s Go Yankees!