Another Title Looms
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by user Harold Friend
It is May 4, 2007. The Yankees have played 26 games, which incidentally, is the number of World Championships they have won since 1923. The 2007 Yankees have won only 12 of those 26 games, which is bad enough to place them 5 1/2 games behind the vastly overrated Red Sox from Boston. The Yankees will win the Eastern Division, as they usually do, and then the real season will start. The days of pennant races are long since gone, never again to return. Now the second best team in a division and the fourth best team in the league can become the World Champion. Ain't progress great?
The Yankees have had their "regular" pitching rotation of Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, and Mike Mussina for a few days since the beginning of April. They are just about ready to pitch regularly. The fourth starter, Kei Igawa, has a 6.08 ERA. To say he has been ineffective is akin to saying Texas representative Ron Paul supports the U.S. Constitution. Who is the Yankees' fifth starter? It will probably wind up being either Jeff Karstens, Darrell Rasner, or, in July, Philip Hughes. The key is Wang, Pettitte, and Mussina. If they remain healthy, they will win a lot of games, enough to make the games the fourth and fifth starters pitch contests that must merely be split for the Yankees to win the division. The wild card (please excuse the expression) is Hughes. By July, he can provide the stability that will allow the Yankees to become a real October threat.
If Wang, Pettitte and Mussina can pitch regularly, then Joe Torre will be given the opportunity to use the bullpen properly. Scott Proctor, Luis Vizcaino, Brian Bruney, Mike Meyers, and Sean Henn will get enough rest so that they will not have to crawl to the mound at the end of the regular season. But that is a major variable since Torre has a tendency of selecting one or two favorites and using them over and over until there is little left to use. All that must said of Mariano Rivera is that he is Mariano Rivera.
The offense is offensive, which is good. It should provide enough runs to support the shaky fourth and fifth starters, and is the team's strength, which is bad because pitching and defense, not offense, wins championships. The infield defense, when Doug Mientkiewicz plays first base, is excellent. Alex Rodriguez has improved at third, Jeter is Jeter, and Cano has great range and a fine arm. When Jason Giambi plays first base, pennants can be lost.
The outfielders all have arms, but the problem is that only Bobby Abreu and swing man Melky Cabrera have arms that are strong enough to be effective. Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon have arms that remind one of the joke about the little boy who wanted to live with the an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Bush, who were known to take in any child in need of a home, no matter how incorrigible the child. The judge asked the little boy if he wanted to live with his mother and the boy replied "No, because when I misbehave, she always throws me out." When asked if he wanted to live with his father, the little boy replied, "No, because when I misbehave, he throws me out." Finally, the judge asked the little boy with whom he wanted to live. The child replied, "With Mr. and Mrs. Bush , because they don't throw anyone out." Matsui and Damon are like the Bushes. They don't throw anyone out.
The Yankees are not a good team, but there is not a really good team in baseball. The Red Sox are the current favorites to win the World Series, but their rotation is questionable. Curt Schilling is 40 years old, Josh Beckett is, according to some reports, arrogant and is certainly inconsistent and he pitched to a 5.01 ERA last season. Daisuke Matsuzaka has been Boston's version of Kei Igawa. Any team that has Julian (pronounce that JULIAN, not HOOLIAN) Taveras in the rotation is asking for trouble. Jonathan Papelbon's health may be more of a problem than the Red Sox will admit.
The Yankees have suffered one of the most bizarre April's of any contender in recent history. It is not likely that the pattern will exist. If that turns out to be true, then two of the most overrated of all Yankees' employees, Brian Cashman and Joe Torre, will finish the regular season being able to tell the New York media that they told them so. October might be another story.
