No Jack Kerouac

Being on the road has rather cramped my blogging stream of consciousness, for which I apologize to Z. While the Yankees have been showing alot of fight recently, comiong back to win games in the late innings or holding off teams in great pitchers duels, they have proven incapable of sweeping even the weak NL teams (Braves, Phils, Marlins) dropping a game in each series (let's not even talk about the Nats). The game they drop tends to be almost phoned in, as if they don't have the energy to sustain three games of hard play consecutively. Mad Dog seems to think this tendency goes to their age and decrepitude. But I believe another answer is possible. The truth is the Yankees have become a pretty weak offensive team. Their propensity for poor situational hitting has now worsened in the absence of Matsui and Sheffield rather than improved. Every game seems to turn on whether or not Giambi hitsa one out and how manyt men are on when he does. Despite his dramatic walk-off, AROD remains not just a poor clutch hitter but an unreliable factor at any time and in every phase of the game. Their recent spate of winning, while insufficient to keep pace with the Sox, who are beginning to look like a very good team, proves the value of starting pitching, in both a negative and positive sense. Johnson, Mussina, and Wang are now so good they give the Yanks a legitimate chance to win, even with fairly meagre run support. What the Yankees lack at this point, and the reason they can't sweep series, is a number four starter and any kind of relief. Wright has been ok as a no. 5. He scuffles for 5-6 innings, but gets decent results before he eats up you bullpen. With a no. 4 who could go 7 innings and a decent reliever to fill the role that Proctor is failing, the Yankees might have a shot at staying in the race until Sheffield gets back. Maybe Dotel will be that reliever, if he ever gets well--but then we're still waiting for Godot, er Pavano, to be that no. 4. Certainly it can't be Chacon. He's lost his curve, which set up his fastball. At 89 MPH, that heater isn't going to get batters out if they're sitting on it. Chacon compensates by throwing it off the plate, which gets him into deeper trouble and deeper pitch counts. As a result he eats the bullpen even faster than Wright, and you can't have 2 like that. Not when Scott Proctor is your go to guy in the 6th inning. I mean their most heroic victories have been all about climbing out of the hole he puts them in. I propose bringing up Phillip Hughes. What Lester, Papelbon, Clemens and Wang have all shown, albeit in different ways, is that your success at getting batters out in the minors, once it reaches a certain level, correlates with your success at getting them out in the majors. give Hughes a try. Maybe Chacon will be better ( and better than Proctor) in the bullpen.

HAving said all of that one intractable fact remains. If you look at the Sox rotation and the Sox bullpen, both strengths and weaknesses, each uncannily mirrors the Yankees situation. If you go around the diamond, the balance postion by position--with the exception of SS and LF--is similarly striking. The difference between these teams, and I fear it is growing wider, comes down to fundamentals. The Sox field their postions better and field better as a team; they hit better situationally; they know how to bunt and do it at opportune times; they hold runners on better, pick them off more, and throw them out stealing at a better clip. I saw the entire series against the Mets and they dismantled them with fundamentals. And I could only think what a thing of beauty I would find such play were the Yankees responsible.