George's Yankees Blog

The Yankees were routed by the Devil Rays on both Saturday and Sunday at Tropicana Field. Tampa Bay won Saturday’s game by an 8-0 score and Sunday’s contest by an 11-4 margin. Neither of these games matters all that much in the grand scheme of things aside from the race for homefield advantage in the American League postseason. There were, however, a few disturbing developments.

The pair of losses reflected directly on the pitching. Randy Johnson gave up 5 runs in 6 innings of work on Saturday. Joe Torre opted to give his big guns in the bullpen Saturday night off since the games were meaningless, and backend guys, Jose Veras and Octavio Dotel combined to give up 3 runs in 2 innings. Mike Mussina went on to be roughed up for 6 runs in 4.2 innings on Sunday. Ron Villone came in after Moose and threw gasoline on the fire by giving up 4 runs in only 0.2 innings. It’s almost impossible to win pitching like that. However, this should not be too much of a concern. These games will not be too damaging to either Johnson or Mussina, and Dotel, Veras, and Villone should play a minimal role on the postseason roster.

What should be something of a concern is that Mike Mussina had to leave Sunday’s game in the 5th inning after taking a liner off his left thumb. Mike was diagnosed with a bruised left thumb. He sounded optimistic that it would not cause him to miss time. It was not on his pitching hand so the assertation seems justified. However, the fact that a pitcher as important to the Yanks as Moose is absorbed an injury so close to the postseason is troubling. With Mussina in there, the top of New York’s rotation is tough to beat. Without him, Randy Johnson becomes the number 2 starter, and both Cory Lidle and Jaret Wright probably will have to be in the postseason rotation. Given how important pitching is in October, losing Mike for any period of time could be a deathblow.

Gary Sheffield had a very rough Sunday afternoon at first base, especially in Tampa Bay’s 6 run 4th inning against Mussina. Sheff came off the bag trying to catch an errant Derek Jeter throw, which resulted in an error on D.J. First basemen have to be adept at receiving bad throws and staying on the base to record the out whenever possible. Gary also showed his inexperience at the position, hesitating because he was unsure what base to throw to on a Carl Crawford grounder. This was scored a hit because it he fielded the ball cleanly, but in reality it was an error. The same can be said about a grounder later in the inning when Sheff came too far off the bag to try and field the ball. Robinson Cano picked it up, but nobody was covering first because Gary had ventured so far off the base. Those are plays that can kill teams in close games. The Yanks are giving Sheff a baptism by fire in the last week because they want him to start at the position in the postseason. These next few days will be a critical test for him. Sheff needs to show that he is a quick learner. If he makes any of these mistakes again or does not completely master most of the position’s nuisances by next weekend, Joe Torre will have to pull the plug on this experiment. Gary is a bright guy and a good athlete. He definitely can help the team at first base. Whether he can figure the position out in time for October probably will be a photo finish.

The Yanks send Jaret Wright to the mound today to try and leave Florida with a split. The Yanks are not making homefield advantage a key point. They have an experienced and battle-tested team that has proven that it can win in hostile environments. Resting key guys and seeing who can do what is more important. Still, having the decisive game in Yankee Stadium would be a nice luxury. The guys who do take the field on a given night need to show a little more urgency to make it happen.

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