Congratulations to Bryan Bullington on picking up his first career Major League win on the strength of an amazing performance: eight innings of two-hit, shutout ball in a 1-0 victory against the New York Yankees.It's no secret that the Yankees suck against pitchers they've never previously faced, and I unfortunately called this game from a mile away in my Series Preview on Thursday: "Having never before faced the Yankees, Bullington could spell disaster for the Bombers." Not only did Bullington spell disaster for the Yankees, he blew Josh Tomlin's effort several weeks ago in his Major League debut against the Yanks (7 IP, 3 H, 1 ER) out of the water -- .612(!) WPA to Tomlin's .347. Granted, Bullington wasn't making his MLB debut, but the Yankees treated him like he was.
I thought about spending more time bashing the offense in this recap, but at this point there's not a whole lot more to say. The bats have been nonexistent in August, and the Yankees have been held to three runs or less in eight of their last 16 contests. Hard to win ballgames when you're not scoring runs.
The only positive to be drawn from this game was another strong performance from A.J. Burnett, who went 8 innings and only gave up one run on four hits. We could play the What-If game all day, but I do wonder whether Willie Bloomquist ends up scoring if the utterly useless Francisco Cervelli doesn't airmail his throw into center field. Regardless, Cervelli's error doesn't mean anything considering the Yankee offense couldn't score any runs.
This is the 6th time the Yankees have been shutout this season. They were only shutout five times all year in 2009. Not that one has anything to do with the other, but the former underscores the 2010 version of this team's continued offensive struggles.
A couple of random observations/thoughts:
- Joakim Soria is really freaking good at pitching.
- A note to the managers of all potential MLB 2010 Postseason entrants: If you're serious about beating the Yankees in the playoffs this year, and I mean really serious, just call up four of your least-experienced minor league starters -- guys who are so green they've never even seen a Major League ballpark -- and slot them 1-4 against New York in any order, it doesn't matter. You will sweep the Yankees. Bonus points if each of your starters' primary weapon is a changeup among an arsenal of slow-pitch off-speed junk. I look forward to a thank-you note in the mail come November.
The ML debuts thing is weird, but pitchers always have the advantage when you have never seen them before. For what it's worth, the Yankees hammered Trevor Cahill in his first ever outing against them (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK201007060.shtml ), and he is one of the best young pitchers in the league.
ReplyDeleteCertainly the pitcher has the advantage when a team hasn't seen him before, but I wonder if other teams fold like a house of cards the way the Yankees do when facing said new pitchers.
ReplyDeleteIt really is becoming a tired act. Jeter and Swisher combined for 17 pitches over the course of the game. It'd be really nice if they at least worked the count at the very least. This is the guy who was projected to be a middle of the rotation type of guy for the Pirates 8 years ago. One of the ESPN radio announcers I heard the other day quipped that whoever plays the Yanks in the playoffs should just call up their AAA guys. Obviously, he was being facetious but it does make you wonder how the Yanks would fare.
ReplyDeleteThis Team is in trouble. How can you continuously lose to pitchers you have never faced before? This shows a lack of concentration. This team has lost 4 one run games within the last two weeks. All four of them could have easiy won. Two of these losses were to Kansas City, a team that is twenty games under .500. This team continues to falter in the clutch. How many times, with runner on third with less than two out, do we not score? How many times with runners on first and second with less than two or even nobody out and not score? Against Boston, the bases loaded and nobody out and all we needed was a ground ball from Granderson or a fly ball from Jeter to tie the game. Instead, we get three in a row strikeouts. Very poor performance from a championship team. Brett Gardner has struck out looking more than any player that I have seen all season. Derek Jeter continues to strike out at least once a game and many times in clutch situations. The Yankees as a team have to be leading baseball in srikeouts. It is disgusting. Curtis Granderson, while better the last few games, continues to strike out way too much. This team does not pick each other up like last year's team. We definitely miss Damon, Matsui, and Melky. All clutch performers. This team had better get going or they are going to find themselves in third place and out of the playoffs. Way too much talent for that but it is going to happen if heads aren't pulled from where the sun don't shine.
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