As I started to write this blog, I actually thought of putting on the Braves-Cubs game from Wrigley Field as background noise. While I opted for a relatively tame The Best Of Carly Simon, a time-warped album from 1975, my anger and angst over MLB is real.
The fact that I was looking for comfort in a meaningless NL Friday afternoon contest in 48 degree Chicago North Side weather and without the always expected full house of rabid Cubs fans bespeaks my mindset. And I have the team of my youth and adulthood, the New York Yankees, to thank for putting me into such a funk.
The Bombers returned to the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium to open a homestand with a three game set against their intense AL East rivals, the 5-8 Tampa Bay Rays, which dropped 3 of 4 to the 6-7 Texas Rangers earlier in the week. The Yankees just-concluded trip to Florida resulted in dispiriting losses to the Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays, which have made their Spring Training site in Dunedin home, as they are not permitted back in Ontario due to COVID restrictions.
Aaron Judge has begun to hit. He powered two homers, the last one nearly leaving the open spaces of the TD Ballpark which looks every bit as minor league as it is—so much so that the Jays had to import temporary lights to bring the facility closer to MLB standards.
So Judge is doing okay at this early stage. Even so, he is looking a bit awkward in the field, and he is angry at himself when he does not have a productive at bat. It’s probably wishful thinking, but it feels like Judge, hitting .308, is coming into form as the feared hitter who terrorizes MLB pitchers.
As is the all-worldly Gerrit Cole, who is simply the best pitcher in baseball. He started off roughly (for him) by giving up a run to the Jays in the bottom of the first inning in his last start. That led to his inner competitiveness kicking in as he shut down the Jays over the next 5 innings, allowing one more hit in the course of a 3 hit, 8 strikeout, 1 walk performance on 98 pitches, 65 of them in the strike zone AND 19 out of 22 pitches were first-pitch strikes. His early E.R.A. sits at a minuscule 1.47.
The problem is with the rest of the squad. Reigning A.L batting champ D.J.LeMahieu, while accumulating a couple of multi-hit games and slugging 4 doubles, is mired at an unfathomable .295 average, which led to Manager Aaron Boone sitting him Wednesday afternoon. I am thinking that he will perk up as the season progresses—especially if he hits in front of a very productive Aaron Judge.
Along with closer Aroldis Chapman, these two are the current core of the Yankees team. Which isn’t very good.
I don’t look for Kyle Higashioka to be more than Cole’s personal catcher and to allow periodic rest for regular catcher Gary Sanchez. This is despite Higashioka crushing two homers versus the Jays—his third multiple homer game in his career out of a total of 12 home runs, which is a MLB record for a catcher. Two of the three multi-homer games have come against Toronto—in September Higgy blasted three against Toronto.
Look at the averages. Aaron Hicks is awful at .179. Brett Gardner comes in with a .286 average. Gleyber Torres, dealing with a jammed pinkie, is hitting a paltry .220. Purported left fielder Clint Frazier checks in at .200. Gio Urshela had COVID vaccine issues and is mired at .262. DH Giancarlo Stanton is at a robust .175 when he makes contact with the ball; his 9 R.B.I. leads the team—4 coming on a grand slam home run.
The team batting average is .231—92 hits in 399 plate appearances. The Yankees have scored 48 runs—a 4.0 average/game. Collectively, the team has struck 17 doubles and 13 home runs. Compare the 45 R.B.I. the team has managed with the 102 strikeouts they have accumulated.
It is too early a sample for newly-acquired Rougned Odor. His .133 average and 2 R.B.I falls nicely into place.
I have left my real ire for two Yankees. For they stink. Badly. Which is much nicer language that Yankees fans have been showering these two players with for their underwhelming performances.
First up is Jay Bruce. Signed as a free agent with no guarantees to make the major league roster, Bruce was thrust into a starting role with the surgery to reigning A.L. Home Run champion Luke Voit. Normally an outfielder for the majority of his career, Bruce is playing first base unless relieved by LeMahieu.
Bruce is hitting a resounding .118. In 34 at bats, he has 4 hits, 1 of which was a home run, 1 a double, 3 R.B.I. and a team-leading 13 strikeouts. He has looked slow and ponderous at the plate, unable to catch up with fastballs that pitchers know he cannot hit.
In the midst of his career as an outfielder for Cincinnati, Jay Bruce was a feared hitter. That is where he launched the bulk of his 319 homers and drove in 600 runs. After his trade to the Mets in 2016, Bruce had a good year in 2017, blasting 29 homers while driving in 75 Mets.
In 2018, his production began to plummet. The Phillies parted ways with Bruce after the 2020 season, when he hit .198.
This version of Jay Bruce is sad and unproductive. At age 34, he seems to be washed up. It got so bad for Bruce that when he routinely threw to home for a bases-loaded force out, the Yankee announcers lauded him for his two good throws in that kind of situation. Whoa.
GM Brian Cashman opted to keep Bruce while sending 1B Mike Ford, the New Jersey native and Princeton alum who had 14 homers in 2019-20, to Scranton-Wilkes Barre. Obviously, this was a bad decision. But one which can be rectified with a recall. Ford cannot play or hit any worse than Bruce.
The Jay Bruce debacle is easy. The Gary Sanchez one is not. Painfully so.
Sanchez is hitting a respectable .265. He has 2 homers and 4 R.B.I. For Sanchez, his 7 strikeouts in 34 at bats is actually pretty good for him. But it isn’t what fans came to expect, with his prodigious homers at Yankee Stadium.
Sanchez was so bad last year that he was replaced in the playoff lineup by Higashioka. Sanchez opened the 2021 season catching Cole. That resulted in a no decision for the Yankees’ ace. With Higashioka behind the plate, Cole has blossomed, running his record to 2-0 with 29 strikeouts, a 14.2 K/9 innings average. And Higashioka is hitting .400—which isn’t expected to last.
What epitomized every Yankees’ fan’s dilemma about Sanchez occurred on Tuesday night. Behind the Jays and looking listless, suddenly the Yankees flirted with something akin to a rally. With Stanton on second base and Sanchez on first in the top of the eight inning and two outs, a pitch evaded the Toronto catcher. Stanton took off and headed to third, which he made easily with some heads up base running.
Not Gary Sanchez. He took off and then inexplicably hesitated and halted in between first and second bases. The catcher recovered the ball, threw to second and Sanchez was tagged out in between bags.
Inning over. Rally over. On deck hitter Aaron Hicks slammed his bat to the ground in apparent frustration. The Yankees surrendered a homer in the bottom of the inning and meekly were retired in the top of the ninth for another painful loss.
Sanchez’s gaffe was compared to high school baseball, with the writer noting that this might not happen so much even at that level. In the post-game interviews, Sanchez shrugged his shoulders and said “That’s baseball.” Evidently that is his go to line when he screws up. Boone said some things supporting his player, too.
Fans were told that Sanchez had worked hard in the off season, improving his catching, especially his defense. We were also told that he was a sleeker and stronger version of Gary Sanchez, ready to disprove his doubters.
Except he hasn’t. While he was the DH on Wednesday to “rest” the struggling Stanton, Sanchez should be in the lineup when Mike King, who authored 6 innings of one hit relief on Opening Day with Sanchez catching, takes the mound versus Tampa Bay. Cole is back on the mound on Saturday—will Boone risk destroying the obvious karma between childhood buddies and not start Higashioka as the catcher?
Look, I am as deeply frustrated with Sanchez as any other Yankees fan. He is the biggest enigma on a roster full of enigmas. Sanchez may need to be traded at some point—the guy is now 28, which is getting old for a catcher. I don’t see a switch to first base or the outfield in the cards.
Or Sanchez can bust out of the doldrums and have significant numbers as the season progresses. Which would be monumental in jump starting this moribund Yankees offense. He has caught the bulk of the games thus far and the bullpen, with the exception of Chad Green surrendering a walkout homer to Bo Bichette in the Wednesday loss to Toronto, has by and large excelled.
I want him to succeed. Why wouldn’t I? Sanchez is integral to the Yankees success this season.
Still, on Friday night the team laid another egg. Three hits and two runs—the scoring came from a homer by Stanton. This prompted a rare explosion by their manager, as he wet them know how he felt about their effort.
There is added pressure to right the ship. Boston stumbled out of the gates, losing the opening series to Baltimore at home. Then the Red Sox ran off 9 straight victories before finally losing to Minnesota on Wednesday. That was an MLB record—reeling off a streak of 9 or more wins after beginning the season with 3 or more losses. The young talent in Boston is playing well, so don’t write off Boston in the AL East. Toronto is young and talented and missing their center fielder, former Houston Astros star George Springer. Tampa always plays the Yankees hard—the teams insanely dislike each other. Plus the Orioles are better.
There are no gimmes in the AL East. The Angels are playing well to start. So is Kansas City and Seattle. For now. Outside of he AL East, the worst record of any team is 6-7. Thus there is nobody for the Yankees to feast on—at this point.
I have found myself attracted to the Los Angeles Dodgers because they are playing like a dynasty. Mookie Betts has returned from injury. The hitting is great. The pitching is even better. Clayton Kershaw has the second best career E.R.A. at Dodger Stadium—not far behind legendary Dodger lefty Sandy Koufax. They play exciting baseball. And in their division looms San Diego, who host LA this weekend, and the surprising Arizona Diamondbacks. The Dodgers-Padres game on Friday night was a playoff-like contest, settled in extra innings. That’s the way baseball should be.
Even the Mets are at 5-3. They are playing way better than the Yankees, too. There are a whole host of reasons to switch the channel if the Yankees can’t get untracked. I just don’t want to.
One more thing to cover. Steph Curry is on fire. His points in his last three games are 53, 42 and a measly 33. On Monday night he broke the Warriors all-time career scoring record, passing the late Wilt Chamberlain. Curry went out and scored 21 points in the first quarter in an amazing display to secure the record.
Curry is keeping a very shoddy Warriors team in the hunt for the play-in games, which are a prelude to the NBA Playoffs. His play is like the two years he was voted league M.V.P. Yet the trophy has been ceded to Nikola Jokic of Denver or the injured James Harden of the Nets. Curry is a distant 10th on the list. If he can get the team into the play-in tournament, with the lack of any real supporting cast, he should receive more acknowledgement.
Steph Curry will set records for the Warriors. He will hold the all-time three point goals record when he finishes his brilliant career. Plus a number of other achievements on his way to the Hall of Fame. He changed the way basketball is played by the way he shoots and how he attacks the basket from the three-point line and in.
But as many a sportswriter has noted, while Curry has changed the current NBA, Wilt Chamberlain had a greater impact on the league. Two rule changes were implemented with him in the league—the goaltending rule and the widening of the free throw lane. Wilt averaged 41.5 points per game while with the Philadelphia and San Francisco Warriors from 1959-60 to 1964-65. His 50.4 average in 1961-62 still stands as the best ever.
Two iconic basketball players. Two superlative talents.
Yet I remain fixated on Gary Sanchez.
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