Yankees Hopes are Dying Out [Michael Vinciguerra]

I would like to welcome back Michael Vinciguerra as a writer for this blog. He had to take some time off to deal with college, but he is back and ready to speak his mind.

Normally, scoring 8 runs in a baseball game should be sufficient enough to earn a win. However, when a team has a tendency to give up 10 runs, as is the case with the Yankees, winning is out of the question. Scoring runs with their all-star lineup of speed and power has not been the problem. The problem lies in their pitching and the number of minor league starters they brought up to pitch. The Yankees have started more inexperienced AAA pitchers this season than any other team in the history of baseball and failed miserably doing this. In addition, even their experienced veteran pitchers can not be relied on for a win and even if they have a lead going into the later innings, the pitchers in the Yankee’s bullpen (yes, even Mariano Rivera) can not be relied on to save the game. Now, the Yankees have brought back Roger Clemens from the shadows and payed him a ridiculous amount of money (slightly over $1 million per game) to pitch. This raises two issues for me. First, do the Yankees really believe investing a load of money into one player, who can only pitch once every 5 days anyway, is really going to help them recover from their 14.5 game deficit from Boston? They should have divided up the amount they were willing to spend on Clemens for a crop of young pitching prospects or trade for a couple of decent pitchers. Second, after the Yankees invested all this money in one player, it isn’t even guaranteed Clemens will win half his games. Clearly, this was a poor move by the Yankees.

Aside from pitching woes, the Yankees have been plagued by off the field issues, such as Giambi’s praise of busting MLB players for using steroids as a cover up to save himself and the exposure of Alex Rodriguez with a blond girl in a strip club. As usual, I always believe in the final month of the season the Yankees can overcome any deficit simply because they are the Yankees, but with Boston as productive as they are and unreliable pitching that shows no signs of recuperating, the Yankees have dug themselves to deep in a hole to surface this season.