http://schteeve.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/its-the-offense-stupid/

Check it out.

On the reverse side, our pitchers have been solid but we always seem to go three balls in the majority of the counts.

Bruney looked good. Still, the list of PYDNWIBS (Pitchers You Do Not Want In Big Spots) seems to be growing, not shrinking:

Farnsworth
Mussina
Kennedy (Moose Jr.)

Does anybody feel physical pain watching Kennedy pitch? It’s like the guy’s absolutely terrified of hitters putting bats to his pitches.

It’s only a matter of time before Traber and Hawkins make that list. I’d put Hawkins there already. If Hughes finds his way on the list, we are in for an ugly season.

Those who have called the pitching good so far (this includes Girardi) are missing an important point. It’s not about how many or how few runs you give up. Sure, the Yankee pitchers haven’t given up a ton of runs, but they also haven’t locked teams down when they needed to. Only Wang, Joba and Mo have done that for a total of two games. That’s it.

Pitching well means pitching to win and the team isn’t pitching to win nearly enough.

2) Cano is Cano. A great hitter, in spite of a defiant lack of plate discipline. Every year I hope he develops it; every year he disappoints me. As a consequence, he prolongs his own slumps by trying to hack his way out them. Notice that Giambi, in contrast, at least walks when he’s slumping. Still Cano will hit well over .300 by the end of the year. He just doesn’t belong in the 2 hole, not right now anyway.

3) Girardi should move Abreu in the 2 hole and either move Alex up to the third slot or put Matsui there, until Jeter returns.

4) Betemit is what he is—a utility player. His shortcoming are only more pronounced at the moment because the Yankees aren’t hitting and because there are two or more reserves sap the lineup at the moment with both Jeter and Posada on the bench. Betemit may not get the clutch hit Cairo once did but he compensates with his power.

5) The only player I worry about is Damon. Not only did he start poorly last season, but his entire season was sub-par. Which raises the question whether his skills have begun to decline. I’m still betting Damon will be a productive player this year. As long as Yankee fans don’t expect him to equal the player he was for the Sux. Samson Damon perished when King George cut off his hair.

I think it was a blow to Kennedy’s confidence to have to sit around and then show up in the 6th, behind by 2.

Meanwhile, it may have even been a confidence boost to Grienke. As a starter, the guy knew he would be facing a collage of relief pitchers for the first few innings.

Worst case scenario if Kennedy starts? A delay after the 1st or 2nd inning, causing him not to return and a collage of relief pitchers gets thru the remainder of the game.

In the end, you need to score runs to win. But I still don’t agree with how the pitching was run, even if it wasn’t the sole cause of the loss.

Bruney, Traber and, yes, Farnsworth, kept us in that ballgame, though. Again, our bats take too long to show up in the beginning of the season. Didn’t we use to light up Grienke every time we saw him before?

Our bats need to be ready on Day One…..”

I agreed with Girardi’s move, and disagree with the Royals’. I would not be surprised if Greinke is absolutely horrible in his next outing (several walks and a couple HRs).

Also, this Greinke is not your old Greinke. He took a year off to deal with his depression/anxiety, was a bullpen guy then a starter last year. He ended last year with an ERA under 4. Not bad for an AL pitcher.

At least someone gets it. Thanks Elizabeth. This was the same situation last season. The Yankees would score 100 runs in 3 games, and then they would get 1-hit in each of the next 3. You can’t blame that on pitching.

Yeah, the Yankees scored almost 1000 runs last season, but the runs were scored pretty lopsided. It wasn’t a continuous 6ish runs a game… it would be more like… 10 one game, 15 another, 16 another, and then 0, 1, 0.

It doesn’t matter how great or terrible your pitching is, you can’t win games if you don’t score runs.