Silverman: Yankees' Slump Is Just One Of Those Baseball Things
By Steve Silverman
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Are Yankees fans in a state of panic after the team lost seven straight? Is the sky falling?
I'll answer my own question with a resounding no.
The losing streak is now over after the Yankees laid an 8-4 beating on the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night. However, that does not mean a long winning streak will follow and all problems have been righted in the Bronx.
But let's get back to the first point. The Yankees dropped seven games in a row and played awful, uninspired baseball on their West Coast trip. OK, it happened. Deal with it.
This is Major League Baseball, and teams go through streaks. Good teams will suffer through losing streaks, and bad teams will get hot from time to time and create the illusion that they are strong and competitive.
That Yankees' losing streak was just part of the rhythm of the baseball season. From this corner, the biggest reason not to panic is the quality of the opposition in the American League East.
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The wheels have fallen off the bus in Baltimore, and the Orioles are now tied with the disappointing Toronto Blue Jays for last place in the division. Both teams were playoff teams a year ago, and while the talent on their rosters looks good, they are not as effective as they were a year ago.
Can Manny Machado and Adam Jones get hot and spark a Baltimore winning streak? Of course they can. However, they can't play on the road, and the Orioles are not going anywhere in the standings.
The Blue Jays lost slugger Edwin Encarnacion to the Indians, and they are not the same team. Toronto started the season with great aspirations, but the Blue Jays had a brutal start and they are a one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of team. Toronto fans will soon put their Blue Jays aspirations on hold and turn their full attention to the beloved Maple Leafs.
The Tampa Bay Rays are what they always are – a hard-trying group of overachievers. They should be at the bottom of the division about 10 games below .500, but manager Kevin Cash won't let that happen. Joe Maddon got everything he could out of the team when he managed the Rays, and so does Cash.
Which leaves us with the Boston Red Sox, a team that was in first place Wednesday morning because they had played decent baseball while the Yankees were slumping. The Red Sox, however, were not in first place Thursday morning.
It's hard for most Yankees fans to be objective about the Red Sox because of the many decades of hate that flow in both directions. Baseball's best rivalry is ratcheting up once again this season.
But here's the thing about the Red Sox: They are a good team capable of winning games and causing problems for the Yankees. However, they are not the team they were a year ago when David Ortiz was in the lineup. When they finish playing 162 games, they are going to find themselves looking up at the Yankees.
The absence of Big Papi leaves a power void in the lineup, and the Red Sox have been at the bottom of the home run charts in the American League all season.
They also have a huge hole at third base that is not going away any time soon. Pablo Sandoval has been a disaster, and the injury to Brock Holt has tied manager John Farrell's hands.
The Red Sox have the best pitcher in the league in Chris Sale, and he has acclimated himself to Fenway quite well. Sale is going to give Boston seven or eight innings every time out and strike out at least 10 hitters.
However, it takes more than one great pitcher to win. Rick Porcello is getting hit hard in nearly every start after winning the Cy Young a year ago. Do you remember David Price, the power pitcher who won huge games for the Rays? So do the Red Sox, but he longer resembles the pitcher he once was. The Boston Price has no clue how to get batters to swing and miss.
If he can give the Red Sox six innings and allow three runs, they can celebrate. However, Price seems to have lost his way. So much for Boston's Big Three.
Mookie Betts is a great player in right field, and Andrew Benintendi is on his way. However, he's not there yet, and the same can be said about Jackie Bradley Jr. He's an exceptional fielder, but he's a streaky hitter who can carry a team for two weeks and disappear for three.
The Red Sox would really be in trouble without former Ranger Mitch Moreland, because Hanley Ramirez has not played back to his 2016 level when he slugged 30 homers and drove in 111 runs. He has bordered on awful with nine homers and a pitiful 26 RBIs in 2017.
That brings us to 33-year-old Dustin Pedroia, the heart and soul of the team. Pedroia is hitting .296 with a .368 slugging percentage, but he has been hurt three times this season – spiked by Machado, collided into by the White Sox's Jose Abreu and hit by a pitch against the Astros – and you wonder when he's going to get hurt again.
The Red Sox have very little infield depth, and they will go through their difficulties.
Other than Betts, Sale and closer Craig Kimbrel, the Red Sox have holes.
The Yankees, meanwhile, have been through their difficulties, and they are clearly not a perfect team. But they are better than their traditional rivals, and there is no reason to panic.
Follow Steve on Twitter at @Profootballboy
