As it's turned out however, the pitching wasn't the issue at all. Jonathan Loaisiga, not really a starter, got the start, and went 4 innings. Jonathan Holder pitched the 5th and the 6th, Chad Green the 7th and the 8th, and Zach Britton the 9th. Between them, they allowed to just 2 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks, striking out 8.
The Tigers' Christin Stewart drove in a run with a sacrifice fly in the 4rth, and Gordon Beckham hit a home run off Green in the 8th. That was it. If 1 single pitcher had pitched all 9 innings and done that, we would have been ecstatic.
The problem was that the Yankees, billed as the team that could bomb other teams out of the yard, outscoring anybody anytime, couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.
In the 2nd inning, Greg Bird singled and Clint Frazier drew a walk, but were both stranded. In the 3rd, DJ LeMahieu doubled, and Aaron Judge singled him home. Gary Sanchez walked, and it looked like it could be a big inning.
Gleyber Torres reached on infield single, but the reason the Tigers couldn't throw him out is that the ball hit Judge, trying to get from 2nd to 3rd, and the rule meant that he was out, through no fault of his own. End of the threat.
Judge drew a walk in the 5th, but was stranded. Sanchez led off the 6th by reaching on an error, and Frazier singled, but w're stranded. Luke Voit led off the 8th with a walk, but, this time, the cliche that walks can kill you, especially the leadoff variety, did not work in our favor.
Those were all the baserunners the Yankees had. The team set a record with 18 strikeouts. Tigers starter Matthew Boyd pitched into the 7th, and got 13 of them. This pathetic performance broke the record of 17 that Pedro Martinez of the Boston Red Sox got against us in 1999.
18 strikeouts. And Giancarlo Stanton isn't even playing!
At least, unlike Pedro, the Tiger pitchers weren't trying to injure our hitters. As it turned out, though, that didn't matter much, because we got another injury anyway. Troy Tulowitzki, signed to take the place of Didi Gregorius, who is out with an injury, probably until at least the All-Star Break, hurt his hamstring, and who knows how long he'll be out?
At any rate, Tigers 2, Yankees 1. WP: Buck Farmer, who took over for Boyd in the bottom of the 7th, and was thus the Tiger pitcher of record when Beckham hit the home run in the 8th (1-0). SV: Shane Greene (4, including the last 2 days against his former team, the Yankees). LP: Chad Green (0-1).
The Yankees are now 2-4, as they begin a road trip, including the home opener of the Baltimore Orioles this afternoon at 3:05. To make matters worse, the Mets are cruising, as, yesterday, Jacob deGrom not only won, but hit a home run. The Mets are 5-1: Only the Seattle Mariners (7-1) and the Milwaukee Brewers (6-1) have better records.
Only the Red Sox (one saving grace to this 1st week, the Houston Astros, the Miami Marlins, the San Francisco Giants, the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds, the Los Angeles Angels have a worse record than the Yankees: The Sox, Astros, Marlins and Giants are all 2-5; the Cubs and Reds 1-4. and the Angels 1-5.
As it turned out, only one more man was needed to make the Mets better than the Yankees. And his name was Brian Cashman.
It's all his fault. He's the guy who ignored everything Gene Michael taught him in assembling the 1996-2003 dynasty: You can never have too much pitching, and it's better to have contact hitters who can hit to all fields than a bunch of big boomers.
It worked so well. Never in the 150-year history of professional baseball has a team had so many guys who could not only hit, but do it to the opposite field, as well as those Yankees. Righthanded hitters Derek Jeter and Chuck Knoblauch. Lefthanded hitters Paul O'Neill, Tino Martinez, and, at least at the beginning, Wade Boggs. They had Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada, who could hit to all fields from both sides of the plate.
Cashman wanted "prospects" who would bomb balls out of the yard for the next 10 to 15 years. Instead, he's built a team that always swings for the fences, and doesn't connect nearly enough.
He's created a monster. And not in our favor.
No Division titles in 7 years. No Pennants or World Championships in 10 years. 1 Pennant in 16 years. 1 World Championship in 19 years.
Think about that: A child born in November 2000 would now be in his or her freshman year of college, and have seen the Yankees take the massive resources at their disposal, and go all the way only once in his or her lifetime.
I have twin nieces that will turn 12 in July. They know the Yankees have won the World Series in their lifetime, but not in their memory. To them, the Yankees' 27 World Championships are history, but not history that they witnessed.
And even that 2009 title was won with a core of Stick's players, and George Steinbrenner's money. The next year, George died, and Cashman began to break it up. Since then: 3 losses in the American League Championship Series, 2 losses in the AL Division Series, a loss in the AL Wild Card Game, and 3 seasons in which the Yankees missed the Playoffs completely.
Brian Cashman has built this legacy, and he has built this current team, which is on a pace to finish 54-108.
It is time for him to go. And to bring in a general manager who will clean up this mess.
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