No excuses: Yankees need to bury Boston this weekend

Friday, August 06, 2010

Mike Parente, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

A year ago on this date, the Yankees began a four-game series against the Boston Red Sox on a Thursday night in the Bronx clinging to a 2 ½-game lead in the American League East.

At the end of Sunday’s series’ finale, the Red Sox were all but buried in the division race following four demoralizing losses to their arch-rivals, which included a woeful stretch of 31 consecutive innings in which they failed to score a run.

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In what can only be described as an eerie case of symmetry, the Yankees will welcome Boston to town again tonight for the first of four critical games in the Bronx. This time around, the Red Sox are already 5 ½ games behind New York while the Yankees are a mere half game ahead of Tampa Bay for the AL East lead, so the landscape of the division has changed considerably in the past year, yet the Yankees should be playing with the same sense of urgency they had on this exact date in 2009.

After wasting a golden opportunity to distance themselves from the Rays this past weekend – thanks in large part to manager Joe Girardi forfeiting the series’ finale by resting three starters against James Shields – the Yankees need to man up and pull the plug on Boston’s respirator.

The Red Sox are begging for an ass-kicking; they’re just teetering on the edge waiting for someone to push them off the cliff. They haven’t won more than three consecutive games since the middle of June and entered last night’s series’ finale at home against the dreadful Indians (third worst record in the American League) looking to just salvage a split in what should’ve been an easy four-game set.

Kevin Youkilis – the annoying, yet highly-productive, heart and soul of Boston’s lineup – is out for the season after tearing a muscle in his right thumb, staff ace Jon Lester has lost four consecutive starts and Dustin Pedroia remains plastered on the side of a milk carton while rehabilitating his broken left foot. The bottom line is there’s no excuse for the Yankees to not swipe at least three of the four games this weekend, even with weekly piñata Javier Vazquez starting Friday’s opener and veteran journeyman/junk-baller Dustin Moseley pitching in place of injured veteran Andy Pettitte in Monday’s finale.

Great teams find ways to win regardless of who’s in or out of the lineup and if the Yankees want to establish themselves as one of the league’s elite contenders, they need to stomp out the Red Sox once and for all. There’s no mercy in sensei John Kreese’s dojo and there should be no mercy in the Bronx this weekend.

Some would argue that the Yankees are already among baseball’s upper crust, which wouldn’t be a stretch considering they own the league’s best record by a few percentage points over Tampa Bay, but they’re a pedestrian 11-11 in their last 22 at home and recently lost three games in the standings in less than a week. Just when you think they’re about to run away with the pirate’s booty, in walks Ricky Romero pitching a complete-game, two-hit shutout against the league’s highest-scoring offense.

Allowing a team on life support to walk into your home and wipe its dirty feet on your carpet is sacrilege; the Red Sox are a slightly above-average team on the road and, despite having the pitching edge in three of the four match-ups, are in no position to climb back into this race at the expense of the Yankees.

Boston’s best chance would be to hope Girardi continues to outthink himself. As well as he’s managed the bullpen in his three seasons in New York, Girardi acts like a child with a short attention span and too many toys in his sandbox when it comes to constructing lineups. I was under the impression the acquisitions of Lance Berkman and Austin Kearns were made to help bolster the bench, yet Girardi has stuck Berkman and his career-low .786 OPS into the starting lineup in four of the last five game, where he’s promptly gone 2-for-7. What’s worse is he has Berkman batting second behind Derek Jeter, the spot normally reserved for red-hot Nick Swisher, who is currently second among all Yankee regulars with a .388 OBP. Wouldn’t you want someone like Swisher getting more at-bats than Berkman?

Stuff like this is what makes Girardi a micromanager and it’s what could ultimately prevent the Yankees from being more than just an expensive playoff team ticketed for a first-round exit. Aside from the possibility of kicking dirt on Boston’s coffin, the Yankees are in must-win mode from here on out because they need to win the division and secure home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Wild Card – while a safe bet at this point – is not good enough.

The Yankees are a solid 32-22 on the road this year, but most of their big hitters are significantly worse away from home. Derek Jeter’s OPS drops from .869 at Yankee Stadium to .610 on the road. Jorge Posada boasts a .995 OPS at home, but that number drops considerably to .676 away from the Bronx. The same goes for Mark Teixeira (.962 at home, .768 on the road) and Alex Rodriguez (.898 to .729). When you factor in A.J. Burnett’s woeful 5.50 ERA on the road, it’s clear why the Yankees need to open any and all playoff series at home, if not for the opportunity to jump out to a quick start, then at least for the chance to host a winner-take-all finale in the Bronx as well.

The Red Sox are entering the New York tonight primed for major wreckage and it’s up to the Yankees to keep them in their place, which happens to be a nice, warm spot behind themselves and Tampa Bay. The pressure’s on them, not Boston. Given the number of injuries and various inconsistencies, the bar has been lowered so much on the Red Sox that it's practically collecting dust from the floor. Let’s see if the Yankees respond like the champions of ’09 or the chumps of ’10.