Yankees: A new strategy, Blast a player in the media, get a win

The Yankees seem to have adopted yet another winning formula. Pick a player, any player, write something derogatory about him, and sure enough, he’ll come back the next day with something big to help the team.

Yankees fans should be lining up at the door waiting to say or write something negative about one of the players on the team. Because it seems like anytime some does, the player comes back with a “So, there!” game to help the Bombers.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Joel Sherman writing in the New York Post today about the lame bat of Chase Headley:

"Headley is no small guy – 6-foot-2, 215. He takes more than 72 percent of his plate appearances left-handed and plays home games at Yankee Stadium – you know, short right-field porch and all.Yet, in a season in which the ball is flying – Brett Gardner had 19 homers entering Saturday for goodness sake – Headley had not hit a ball over a fence since June 13"

Of course, only a few minutes ago, Sherman updated his story to add “until this Saturday” to the very end of his last sentence. The home run he is referring to is the one he hit to the opposite field as a pinch-hitter to put the Yankees up by a run in a see-saw game at the Stadium this afternoon. Watch the video here.

And then, of course, you have Steve Contursi, the prolific writer for Yanks Go Yard, who publishes a story titled, How can the Yankees dump Tanaka?, only to watch later as Masahiro Tanaka pitches, perhaps, the game of his life striking out more than half of the 26 batters he faced, leading the Yankees to a win and first place.

Leaving Contursi with no other choice but to come back Saturday morning with another story, this one less biting and wondering if Tanaka had just pitched Sonny Gray out of his Pinstripes. I’m telling ya, these are tough times for sports writers. You can’t count on anything.

Why stop here?

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You know what, though. There is something you can count on. You can be sure that Matt Holliday will not hit a ball out of the infield in his next ten at-bats and Joe Girardi will insist on playing him every day until his bat wakes up in September (maybe). Check that; it won’t work because he had two hits today.

Alright then, how about the Yankee’s miserable excuse for a catcher, Gary Sanchez, who made his tenth error of the season on a ridiculous catcher’s interference play. No, that won’t work either because he also hit a game-tying home run.

Stop it, Steve! – the Yankees win!

Yessiree, the Yankees squeezed out a bottom of the ninth inning win, their third consecutive over the Tampa Bay Rays, on a base hit by veteran left-fielder, Brett Gardner, scoring Jacoby Ellsbury before an ecstatic crowd of 43,015 at Yankee Stadium.

And that’s the way it’s been for the team over the last week or so. A new hero every day and a Bullpen By Committee that can’t be beaten.

And we might as well get used to seeing the same names of pitchers in the box score because that’s the way Girardi is going to manage this team from here on in and through the playoffs.

Next: Will the Yankees eliminate starting pitchers altogether?

If you are going to be Caleb Smith and throw 70 pitches with three base-on-balls over only 3.1 innings, the hook is coming, and it’s going to come quickly, just as it did for Smith today.

With the win today, the Yankees assured themselves of being in first place, no matter what the Red Sox do against the red hot Royals tonight.

This, Yankees fans, is the run the team has needed and the one we’ve all been looking for.

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