The Yankees haven't exactly been lighting it up on the road this year. While they boast a .646 winning percentage at home, they are doing less than .500 on the road. So in the week that was, it was expected the Yankees would be lucky to come back with a winning record on the 7 game road trip. And they did just that; got lucky enough to win 4 of 7. The bad news is they split a series in Seattle, the good news was they won the 3 game series with Oakland.
The guy you see lying face down is Jaret Wright, who took a liner off Raul Ibanez, and that line drive to the collarbone knocked him out of a game he was pitching well in. How unlucky is this guy? Did he torture little furry creatures in his last life for such bad karma? I don't know. If the Line-drive-to-the-neck-in-Seattle was the bad karma start of the road-trip, then the 'asking to be hit' start was Al Leiter against Oakland where he pitched so bad Torre pulled his regulars by the 3rd inning. The Yanks went down 12-0 in that one and lord-only-knows what profanities were heard in Tampa from Big George's house.
However, in the last 2 games, the Yankees got a gem from Aaron Small and a very serviceable good start from Shawn Chacon (above) to win 7-0 and 7-3. It still seems to me these Yankees are either really good or really bad, but you just can't tell what they're going to do on any given game day. Then, they streak. they streak good wins then strong bad losses. Not that there's such a thing as a 'good' loss, but a valiant loss is encouraging. Well, those losses are few and far in between. When the 2005 Yanks string together losses, they string together really abysmal, soul-destroying ones. Even though they are in the thick of the penant race, there's nothing that makes me feel comfortable with the way they're playing.
Right now, I'm thinking, even if they get to the post-season, what is their rotation going to look like?
The pitchers still standing are:
- Randy Johnson
- Shawn Chacon
- Aaron Small
- Al (fuel on fire) Leiter
- Jaret Wright
This is really scary.
Moose is on the DL. Kevin Brown is also on the DL, perhaps ending his career there (which is no great loss because he wasn't contributing much). Chien-Ming Wang ain't back yet, and who knows who is going to go down between now and the end of the season.
Anyway, the pennant race in the AL is going to be interesting right down to the finish.
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