Really good baseball teams lose baseball games. So do great teams.
We have yet to learn which one describes the 2020 Yankees. As they bounce between the two, they will pummel most of the clubs they face this year. But last night, they had to salvage a doubleheader after getting clubbed by a Phillies team in naked disarray, one that just went a week without playing a game and was being blamed for everything but global warming.
But the Yankees are so deep and dangerous that they can club their way to 9-2, while setting a team record with a homer in each of their first 11 games. Leading the way is Aaron Judge, already with seven bombs. The Yankees are so good that they kept a bona fide star, Miguel Andujar, on the bench for the bulk of the young season, and actually optioned him to the Alternate Site Thursday when rosters had to be pared from 30 to 28.
Still, if there's a soft spot, a loose wire in the hulking machine, it was briefly exposed in the first game of the doubleheader. J.A. Happ, a regular member of the starting staff, walked six batters in three innings, a dubious feat unmatched since A.J. Burnett did it a decade ago. Happ left the game with a 10.29 ERA for the year.
Indeed. The Yankees will feast on the Marlins and Orioles and Red Sox. And they will likely finish with the best or second-best record in baseball. But they won 100 games two years ago, and 103 last year. How'd that go? The Yanks led MLB in runs scored last year. They are second in runs per game this year. They were second in homers last year, just one behind the Twins. They are first this year, one ahead of the Dodgers despite having 138 fewer plate appearances.
Even with their conveyor belt of big bats and lofty hitting stats, the Yankees will still go as far as their pitching allows. They had a 4.31 ERA as a team last year, good for 14th in MLB. They have a 4.20 ERA this year, which ranks 15th. So while you see Judge bash balls that bounce off space stations, and DJ LeMahieu hit like Stan Musial, it's the stuff that doesn't Bogart the bold ink that could bite their pinstriped posteriors.
They can lose a sublime reliever like Tommy Kahnle because their fertile bullpen can absorb it. They can lose a batter or fielder, no matter his name, and still stampede on like an ancient buffalo herd. They may have lost with a starter, but they bounced back and won a game with relief pitcher Jonathan Loaisiga as the starter.
But do you trust Happ or Loaisiga to start a vital playoff game? Or even James Paxton? While the Yanks have barreled through their first 11 games, the pitcher who won 11 straight games at the end of last season (Paxton) has been abysmal. A key member of this rotation, Paxton is 0-1 with a 3.25 WHIP, and hasn't registered an out after the third inning.
With Luis Severino out for the season, Paxton was supposed to step up and join Gerrit Cole and Masahiro Tanaka to make a big-time playoff pitching triumvirate. If you go up 3-0 in a series then you can lose with Happ or a spot starter with little impact. But with Severino gone, Paxton pitching like he forgot about last year, and Happ struggling so far, you'd be fair to wonder where the innings will come from.
Even though they split two games with the Phillies, a seven-inning game over time would make the Bombers almost impossible to beat. They could spell their starters after three or four innings and dig into their deep bullpen. But the games that count the most, in October, will surely be nine innings. And that's where things get slippery for this starting staff. Loaisiga looked fine yesterday. But do you trust him against Houston in the playoffs? Or against the Dodgers if they played in the World Series?
Normally, we would need more data to even mention such concerns. Over 162 games the first 11 comprise just six percent of the season. But after tonight's game, the Yanks will have played 20 percent of this truncated season. There's much less time for patience, prudence, or correction.
Paxton has maybe 10 more starts to get his act together. Tanaka needs to show the team and town that he's really recovered from the line drive that drilled his head. And Happ is, well, Happ, so that only leaves Cole as the lone star and clear ace of the rotation and a wild card in Jordan Montgomery. And while Cole (3-0) is earning his keep, he can't do this alone, and the Yanks proved you can't just pound the ball all the way to the Fall Classic. They've reached the playoffs each of the last three seasons, and each time they lost to a team with a better rotation.
If you take an objective lens to the Yankees’ bejeweled history, you'd see that pitching drove all those great Joe Torre teams; that pitching was the biggest cog of the Bronx Zoo clubs; and that the Bronx Bombers, so renowned for the long ball, have relied on pitching since the days of Whitey Ford, Eddie Lopat, Lefty Gomes, and Red Ruffing. That kind of pitcher led the Yanks to most of their 27 World Series titles. If they want No. 28, they need more than Gerrit Cole.
Follow WFAN on Social MediaTwitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch