Bubba Links
Baseball Links
I'm still riding high on yesterday's OT win. Very sweet. And I'm so happy for A-Rod. I hope the fans give him a standing ovation when he comes to the plate tomorrow.
The Mets series starts tomorrow night. The currently red-hot Red Sox swept the Mets, and they might be hungry for a win. It's not going to be easy to beat them. The last series, each game was razor-close.
The Boss likes to beat the Mets, for the sake of Big Apple bragging rights, so Torre will be under pressure to produce. If we lose, who knows what will happen? Steinbrenner hasn't been meddling like he used to. Hasn't even been coming to games very often. But if the Mets embarrass us, who knows what he'll do? Trade Hughes for Reggie Sanders, maybe? o_O
A sweep would be nice, but I'll settle for taking two out of three. If I were in charge, Bubba would start in all three games. All the pitchers are right-handed. Bubba's numbers against righties are almost identical to Bernie's, and his defense is light-years better.
The past week or so, Bernie has done nothing on offense but cost us a lot on defense. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Defense wins championships.
A look back at the Yankees' "defensive efficiency" (from Baseball Prospectus):
YEAR RANK RESULT
1998 1 World Series Champs
1999 7 World Series Champs
2000 10 World Series Champs
2001 25 Lost World Series
2002 17 Lost Division Series
2003 28 Lost World Series
2004 24 Lost AL championship series (Boston ranked #8)
2005 22 Lost Division Series
2006 7 ???
They haven't won the World Series unless they were ranked in the top ten defensively. It's defense this team has been lacking.
The good news is that they are doing better this season. They've dropped off sharply this month, but it's hopefully just temporary.
Yu-Hsing posted some interesting stats at Bronx Banter this morning. The Yanks have pretty good stats on offense, but they haven't translated into runs scored.
The Yankees are getting on base a lot. They are getting the big hits. Just not together.
They hit the third most homers in the AL in June. But most were solo shots. They have the fifth highest OPS in the AL for June, but they are in the bottom 3 in runs scored.
One of the reasons? Robby Cano. He was one of the Yankees' best hitters in June, but drove in fewer runs than Melky Cabrera, who had an awful June.
And the Yankees starting pitchers are doing fine. We are ranked #2 in team ERA.
Overall, the numbers suggest that we don't need any big fixes, just some small tweaks. Start Andy at 1B every day. Start Bubba in RF every day. Teach Robbie about situational hitting. Maybe put him lower down in the lineup, where he'll have more protection.
And wait for the Sox to cool off. Which they inevitably will.
