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Yankees’ Editorial: The Bronx is Boiling: Week One

By Wayne Cavadi

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Week one is in the books and it wasn’t a very pretty one for the New York Yankees. At the very least it ended on a quality note with a 14-4 thrashing of the Boston Red Sox, which made everyone forget about the rest of the week. It’s always good to head into Monday with renewed hope.

At 2-4 was it all bad? The Yankees are in last place, and it came at the expense of the two teams many feel are the favorites to win the American League East. But, that means one thing. There is room for improvement. The Bronx is boiling and I need to blow some steam.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

This past week did see some good things happen, despite many Yankees’ fans declaring the end of the world in just six games. Unfortunately, the Yankees had more ugly that outweighed the good, which led to four losses.

THE GOOD

Alex Rodriguez got off to the start the New York Yankees needed him to: a good one. He went 6-for-20 in his first action in over a year. Three of those hits went for extra bases and he drove in six runs. He is drawing walks and getting on base at a .417 lick. 

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A-Rod never needed to get back to his MVP caliber self for the Yankees to succeed this season. He simply needed to show that he could still play the game, and the first week of the season showed that. If A-Rod is in the five hole all season, the Yankees will be just fine.

Kudos to Brian McCann as well. He came out and looks sharp offensively, blasting the 200th home run of his career last night. He needs to settle down behind home plate, as he committed an error (who didn’t) and allowed both base thieves to swipe bases, but he got off on the right foot to put a mediocre 2014 behind him.

THE BAD

Masahiro Tanaka and C.C Sabathia need to step back and let Michael Pineda become the ace of this team. It’s not that they simply pitched poorly over the their debut week of 2015, it’s that they pitched exactly how Yankees’ fans expected they would.

Tanaka looked better last night against the Red Sox, but just because he walked away victorious does not mean he pitched well. His velocity is down and he pitched to the same spot almost every time. He has allowed seven baserunners in each game, and these haven’t been the dominating 8 inning performances he started 2014 off, these are 5 inning efforts.

Tanaka doesn’t look the same and it’s curious to see what the Yankees are going to do. If he comes out next start and can’t get through five while allowing another three or four runs to cross, the Yanks need to take a look at that right arm and access the situatuon.

Sabathia is at the end of the road. He needs to become the fourth or fifth starter in the rotation and limit his innings and appearances. Sabathia had the same performance he had last year in his debut: a ton of strikeouts, but a ton of hits leading to too many runs. If he gets ahead of you, he can still finish you off, but he doesn’t get ahead that often. At least he didn’t walk anyone, so he does bring positives into Tuesday’s start. We shall see how he fares at power happy Camden Yards.

THE UGLY

All the talk was how the Yankees’ infield was improved this season. All the talk was how defensively they would be better, and in turn help the pitching staff out by saving runs that crept through the middle and right side last year due to an aging and banged up infield. Week one did not show that at all.

NINE ERRORS? I thought the whole reason Stephen Drew won the second base job over Jose Pirela and Rob Refsnyder was because their fielding was under par and not ready yet? I thought the reason Chase Headley was so important was because of his Gold Glove caliber play at the hot corner and the heir apparent to A-Rod who could no longer handle third base?

The Yankees’ pitching staff is shaky at best and the last thing they need is base runners reaching the bags when they should have been out. Averaging over one error a game, and committing at least one error over their first six games, is unacceptible. Especially when in return NINE unearned runs have been scored thus far this season on the Yankees. That changes a 2-4 week to a winning week rather easily.

These are the New York Yankees. The hitting woes and pitching woes are actually rather normal at the onset of a season. But the silly errors they made this week need to stop and stop fast. The Yankees face off against the rest of the AL East this week, and they need to come out ahead to show that they stand a chance in 2015.

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