Boy, am I glad to see the Yankees get out of Dodge the Bronx. Yes, they won one of the three games against the Astros – by a hair – but the offense went back into a slumber and the pitching, with the exception of Evo, never woke up. Pineda and Nova didn’t have it, which would be worrisome enough but now with CC out indefinitely it’s extra worrisome. Capuano was DFA-ed for the 100th time and Adam Warren hasn’t been the same since he was shuttled back and forth between the starting rotation and the bullpen. That leaves the kid with the fractured nose. I hate to keep saying it, but it would have been nice to have acquired a veteran arm (a good one).
What to make of the slumping offense? Girardi talks about how everybody’s “banged up” at this time of the year, and I don’t doubt it. Not having a healthy Teixeira in the lineup has made a difference. Ellsbury hasn’t caught fire since coming back from the DL. Didi was bound to taper off at some point. A-Rod couldn’t possibly stay hot through the entire season. Beltran has been surprisingly resilient and McCann’s had some pivotal hits. But now we’re down in the standings again to the Blue Jays and I liked it better when we weren’t.
I do have to say it was fun watching Brendan Ryan pitch a couple of innings in that blow-out game. He was good!
Will the series against the Braves bring everybody back to life? It happened once before after Girardi had a tizzy on the field in Atlanta and got tossed. I think there was a team meeting down there too. We need some kind of shove to get going again.
