This Could Be Your Ad!
Become A Sponsor of BaseballEvolution.com! Advertise your business, or send a shout out to your team! |
5. Red Sox Injuries
4. Trades
On the day
before the deadline, the Yankees acquired Abreu and Lidle for a few minor leaguers and a wad of cash. The next
day they acquired Craig Wilson for the Garbage Man. Since then, Wilson and Abreu have combined to go .301/.397/.505, and Lidle is 1-1 with an ERA of 3.60. The Sox did absolutely
nothing. Their pitching staff has been in shambles all year and they were
unable to improve it. They talked about getting Roy Oswalt
and talked about getting Andruw Jones, but they
couldn’t do either. While the Yankees were out improving their team, the Sox
sat on their hands.
3. Red Sox Rotation
The Red Sox
biggest pickup in the off-season has done nothing but stink. Don’t be fooled by
his 13 wins, because he sports a 5.02 ERA to go along with it. He has allowed a
mind boggling 31 HR, which is the most in the league. His K/BB ratio is also
down a bit. Lester is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. He has given up
more hits than innings and his K/BB ratio is a dangerous 1.6:1. Since July 23rd,
his ERA is a bloated 6.97. I think most of us can agree that Wells is done
despite the fact he just recently pitched a quality game. Jason Johnson is just
terrible. Since posting a respectable 3.43 in April, he has been awful. In May
and June he went 1-8 with an ERA over 8. The Indians immediately cut him and
Look, I’m not
trying to make the Yankees rotation out to be the 1970 O’s or the 1906 Cubs for
that matter, but they are vastly better than whatever slop
the Sox will put out there.
2. Lineup Depth
After the
trading deadline, the Yankees added two good hitters to make an already good
lineup very good. They added Bobby Abreu who is
probably one of the best all around batters in the game and Craig Wilson, a
right handed batter who has an .875 OPS against
lefties. While the Yankees added two key pieces to their lineup,
1. Mariano Rivera
Yes, the great
Mariano is the number one reason. He has
dominated his role like in the past decade like no one ever has, and hasn’t
shown any sign of slowing up. He has posted a minuscule ERA of 1.86 and is on
pace to post an ERA below 2 and a WHIP below 1.1 for the fourth consecutive
year. I understand that Papelbon has pitched
brilliantly all year, but he has blown 5 saves, two of which came in
consecutive games, something that Mariano hasn’t done in 9 years. If you needed
someone to close any particular game, who would you pick?
Disagree with something? Got something to add? Wanna bring up something totally new? Tony Aubry lives in Queens, New York, and can be reached at tony@baseballevolution.com.