George's Yankees Blog

The Yankees lost a chance to win the A.L. East title yesterday after being swept by the Red Sox in the Bronx. Boston won the opener by a 6-3 score and the nightcap 5-4. The Yanks had a chance to win both games of the rivals’ third doubleheader of the season and second in two days. A sweep would have clinched a ninth consecutive division title for the Bronx Bombers. Instead, the celebration was delayed for a few days at least.

The key point of the first game came in the top of the 7th inning. The score was tied 2-2 as Jaret Wright and Kyle Snyder had both pitched superb games. Coco Crisp stood at first base with 2 outs and Ron Villone on the mound. Villone made a great pickoff move, freezing Crisp well off first base. Craig Wilson ran out to tag Coco, and Crisp went well outside the basepath to evade the tag and return to first. When a runner leaves the designated basepath to avoid a tag, he should be ruled out. However, Mike Estabrook disregarded this rule and called Crisp safe back at first. This was an egregious call that cost the Yankees dearly as Boston roughed up Villone for 4 runs after the pickoff that should have ended the inning. The game was pretty much over from there as Villone continued his recent tailspin. Ron has struggled so greatly that he should no longer be counted on in big spots. The performance of most relievers is very volatile. There can be dominant for stretches as Villone was earlier in 2006 and simply awful for others as Villone is now. Managers need to play the hot hand when dealing with their bullpens except for elite guys like Mariano Rivera. Ron should be banished to mopup duty until he regains his form. He has fallen off a cliff, possibly due in part to being arguably overused. At any rate, the new hot guy, Brian Bruney needs to slide into Villone’s spot as the games get bigger. There’s no question that the atrocious umpiring was the biggest reason for that loss, but Villone has to overcome that kind of adversity. His inability to makes him a major liability as we head into October unless he can get his act together in a hurry. The Yankees also have 9 men left on base to blame for the loss, including 3 in the 4th when New York loaded the bases with no outs against Snyder but could not deliver the knockout blow. 

The second game appeared to be going better for New York during most of the night. Mike Mussina was at his best, allowing 2 runs in 6 innings of work. His only blemish was a 2 run homer by Trot Nixon. Seeing Moose tune up for the postseason like that is a very welcomed sign. Unfortunately for the Yanks, their bats were cold against Kevin Jarvis. The young righty was able to lower his astronomical ERA to 8.00 by holding the Yanks to 3 earned runs in 5.2 innings.  New York was still in a position to win, but the team was let down by the bullpen as Scott Proctor, Mike Myers, and Kyle Farnsworth each gave up 1 run in 1 inning of work, turning a 4-2 lead into a 5-4 loss. Mariano Rivera cannot get back soon enough from an elbow injury that seems mild but is still alarming considering it deals with the elbow.

There really was not much to say about either of Sunday’s games. The Yanks let both get away from them thanks to a lack of situational hitting, poor relief pitching, and bad luck. It’s a good thing that they are so far ahead in the East because had these games been significant, the team would be reeling at this point, trying to recover for the stretch run. The Yanks can just brush these off, however. They still are in total control of their own destiny. At this point, the focus is October. This team just needs to work out all of the kinks.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this