Big Deal!
Sometimes small wins come in large packages. Indeed, the Yankees are becoming masters of this formula. Today they found a pitcher that even Kelly Stinnet can hit and they brutalized him. Hey, if you need 2 home runs on the way to an 11 run margin of victory, AROD is your man.
Would any win satisfy after last night's debacle, where the Yanks managed to lose the same game to the world's worst team no less than three times? Probably not, at least not one against these Royals. But it is interesting to speculate as to the kind of win that would be relatively palliating under the circumstances.
Clearly, it is not this sort of bludgeoning. The Yankees do this all the time only to blow close games the next day. I would even argue that the bludgeoning serves to enable the blown games. The big margins make them over confident or at least over comfortable and then they feel the sudden pressure of a late inning nailbiter all the more. But even a win that featured virtues the Yankees too often lack, such as sparkling glovework or timely hitting, would not do the trick either. We'd all suspect, rightly, that they would be back in their old bad habits soon enough.
No the only win that could possibly have gratified, by giving reason for hope, would have been one indicating that something had been learned from last night's loss and that the point of instruction might work a permanent change in their way of playing the game. That something would have to be tactical, the educated party would have to be slow Joe, dunce cap and all, and the knowledge would have to involve an awareness that his continued passivity and timidity, particularly in the area of offensive strategy, was costing them games now and a playoff shot later. The win, then, that really would have been a big deal, and not just a big package, would have come by dint of daring, by way of a rational assessment of risk instead of the phobic avoidance that Torre regularly displays. This particular game of course did not call for a newly venturesome approach. Unfortunately, the kind of overkill the Yankees once again perpetrated makes the adoption of such an approach all the less likely in the near term. All of which means this was a victory not only small but Phyrric.
Would any win satisfy after last night's debacle, where the Yanks managed to lose the same game to the world's worst team no less than three times? Probably not, at least not one against these Royals. But it is interesting to speculate as to the kind of win that would be relatively palliating under the circumstances.
Clearly, it is not this sort of bludgeoning. The Yankees do this all the time only to blow close games the next day. I would even argue that the bludgeoning serves to enable the blown games. The big margins make them over confident or at least over comfortable and then they feel the sudden pressure of a late inning nailbiter all the more. But even a win that featured virtues the Yankees too often lack, such as sparkling glovework or timely hitting, would not do the trick either. We'd all suspect, rightly, that they would be back in their old bad habits soon enough.
No the only win that could possibly have gratified, by giving reason for hope, would have been one indicating that something had been learned from last night's loss and that the point of instruction might work a permanent change in their way of playing the game. That something would have to be tactical, the educated party would have to be slow Joe, dunce cap and all, and the knowledge would have to involve an awareness that his continued passivity and timidity, particularly in the area of offensive strategy, was costing them games now and a playoff shot later. The win, then, that really would have been a big deal, and not just a big package, would have come by dint of daring, by way of a rational assessment of risk instead of the phobic avoidance that Torre regularly displays. This particular game of course did not call for a newly venturesome approach. Unfortunately, the kind of overkill the Yankees once again perpetrated makes the adoption of such an approach all the less likely in the near term. All of which means this was a victory not only small but Phyrric.
posted by joe valente | 12:57 AM
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