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Five Players Most to Blame for Woeful New York Yankees Season
Five New York Yankees Players to Blame for Disappointing Season
The New York Yankees will most likely not make the playoffs. They are now nine games behind the Boston Red Sox who are first in the American League East and five-and-a-half games out of the second wildcard spot after losing today. Sure, there are still 42 games left in the season and they looked unbeatable the past two days, but Alfonso Soriano can’t hit two home runs and six RBI every night.
The whole Yankees season has been a malfunctioning product. Injuries have plagued them all year, which caused so many lineup changes that Lyle Overbay, who batted eighth in the lineup today, has hit in the cleanup spot as well this season. Other deficiencies have come from inconsistencies in the starting pitching and lack of overall lineup depth, leading to a lot of low-scoring losses.
This lost season is due to many instances and players, but some of the Yankees have more to do with a year that will most likely end in September than others. Whether it is because of their play on the diamond or their lack of being on it, there are players who deserve more of the credit for a failed season. The longer they’ve been off the field or the longer they have stunk up the field, these players are at fault for what has been an unfortunate season of mishaps and grievances. The following is a list of players that I think are most at fault, which will result in the second time in Derek Jeter’s career that the Yanks won’t be playing in October.
Phil Hughes
Phil Hughes is in his walk year, and he isn’t giving the Yankees a good reason to try and re-sign him. Being a fly-ball pitcher doesn’t equate to being effective in the small and home run prone Yankee Stadium.
Andy Pettitte
Andy Pettitte has been showing his age. If the season ended today, it would be the first time that he would have a losing record in his entire career. He also only had one season with a worse ERA, but that was in 1999 and the Yankees happened to win the World Series that year.
CC Sabathia
CC Sabathia has not pitched well at all this year, posting a 4.66 ERA and is one loss away from tying his career high. His fastball velocity is down and he hasn’t figured out how to pitch around the fact that he can’t blow it by people anymore.
Mark Teixeira
Mark Teixeira only played in 15 games this year and won’t see the field until 2014. His switch-hitting ability has been sorely missed this year, because the Yankees haven’t found a viable solution to a starting first baseman when opponents start a lefty.
Derek Jeter
Derek Jeter started the year on the disabled list, came back, and then was put back on the DL only to repeat that same sequence once again. He’s been in the dugout during recent games, but his lead-by-example presence can’t be duplicated and Eduardo Nunez isn’t the hitter that Jeter is.
