Friday, May 8, 2009

The Return of A-Rod

Tonight A-Rod rejoins the Yankees and a huge piece of the puzzle falls into place. The Yankees have been bad without A-Rod. They haven't hit with runners in scoring position and to many rallies have ended because pitchers have reached the underbelly of the Yankee lineup that had the likes of Ramiro Pena and Jose Molina. Tonight's lineup looks closer to what it idealy would look like. Here it is courtesy of Pete Abraham:

Jeter SS
Damon LF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Matsui DH
Swisher RF
Cano 2B
Cabrera CF
Cervelli C

That lineup is deeper and more dangerous than anything they have thrown out there this season.

But problems remain. With Molina hitting the DL they Yankees find themselves devoid of almost any catching that could play everyday. Aside from the offensive hole left when Posada went down (Molina never hit much anyway), not having either of those guys means that the two new catchers, Kevin Cash and Fransisco Cervelli, have little to no experience catching any of the Yankees pitchers.

That is a huge problem as the Yankees need their pitching to turn into the dominant force it was suppose to be or the return of A-Rod will be bittersweet.

1 comment:

Dennis said...

You know, the Yankees as a team are 5th in MLB with 158 runs scored. They are batting .275 with a .356 OBP. They are also 3rd in MLB with 41 HR. They are scoring 5.6 runs per game and will continue to do so, that is not their problem.

Their problem is a thin bench and horrible bullpen. A-Rod's return means Pena, Ransom, and/or Beroa come off the bench, which doesn't really help because none of them can hit. And the bullpen still sucks.

Don't get me wrong, he is one of the best hitters in the game and it will be nice to have him back, but he doesn't really solve the team's problems.