I’m Seriously Ashamed to Be a Yankees Fan Right Now.

Some insights into what the hell is going wrong with the most-American team in baseball.

Supreme Yankees photographed at Yankees Stadium by Shihab Chowdhury on Unsplash

Yay, we’re going to the World Series — only, holy crap, now I wish we hadn’t. This has been a truly painful series to watch against the Dodgers, and if I’m being honest it bothers me a lot less that the Yankees are losing than it does to see the way they are playing. Sometimes you lose, but if you play hard and are shooting for the win, then sometimes that’s how it plays out regardless. However, this doesn’t look like a team that should have made it to the World Series. They don’t look energized to be there, and the coaching is either inept or nonexistent. Meanwhile, the Dodgers look like what you’d hope to see out of a championship team, although they ARE beatable with some smart play (which the Yankees clearly aren’t up to right now).

So although I may get accused of armchair commentary here (but what other kind is there?), I just have to point out some of the things I can’t believe the Yankees are leaving unattended in the vain hope that by putting them put into the world, some sort of divine course correction will occur.

1. Soto needs to be out of these games. He’s hands-down the biggest liability. He might be getting on base but his non-effort on defense has been responsible for several preventable Dodger runs. Does the man know how to dive for a ball? Can he run down a fly ball at the track? Can he pipe a ball home from shallow right field to stop a run? Can he make an easy catch in foul territory? Apparently not. He’s gold glove material as long as you hit it right to him. Of all the players on the field, he seems completely disinterested in the Yankees winning. Bench.
2. Aaron Judge is stepping waaaaaay into the bucket on every swing and apparently none of the coaches have had him run corrective drills. That’s a little league type of mechanics issue that is easy to correct with some tee work. Is it happening? No. People are just saying things like “he’s in a slump and he just needs one good hit to get out of it for his confidence.” There are definitely times where that’s true. Slump busters are real. But mechanics are more real, and what he needs is a simple fundamentals adjustment. His eye is clearly on the ball but he’s pulling out of the box on every swing. Call me crazy but if I was one of his coaches I’d literally strap his left arm to his body, and have him take 100 swings a day on a tee. That’s how you fix it — force him to keep the front foot and shoulder in, rebuild that muscle memory. I’d also tell him that he should just try to hit an opposite side ground ball. No more home run swinging. By the way, Ohtani is doing this a bit too and the Dodgers ought to give him a heads up to correct.
3. The pitching. Game two really killed me here. I saw one at bat from Rodan and I told my wife he’d get lit up in no time. Why? Because he can’t pitch low. I don’t know when everyone got enamored with high heat, but anyone who ever pitched can tell you that 97mph flat fastballs at chest height are like chum in the ocean. Your effing dead meat. Sure enough that’s all he was bringing and he got smoked in 2-2/3 innings. Contrast that to Yamamoto who kept it at the bottom end of the zone and painted his corners. Well you saw the result. I will say that game 3 pitching from the Yankees was a bit improved in this sense but they couldn’t hit their spots and ended up with a bazillion walks. Meanwhile the Dodgers are making sure to rotate their bullpen constantly with no shot of a repeat opportunity against any relievers, all of whom seem to have really drilled on hitting their spots with pinpoint accuracy. They totally have the Yankees off balance. Solid coaching.
4. More pitching… did no one tell the Yankees how to pitch lefties? How could they not know when they used to have a notoriously heavy lefthanded lineup themselves? If you serve up inside fastballs, you will be cranked and Freeman is doing a masterclass on that right now. Look, lefties are weird, unnatural creatures and they basically all work their way up as power hitters for the simple fact that only 10% of people are left-handed and at younger ages that tends to make them weird to pitch against, and they then tend to become power hitters. So, they love to pull a ball. The way to play against them is to live on the outside with your fastball, change up, or slider. Only come inside with a curveball off the back foot — start it in the zone looking juicy but with a drop off to the dirt to get them golfing. But don’t hang that obviously. Surely any of the Yankee pitching coaches would have prepped their pitchers for the mostly left-handed Dodger lineup? But not based on how they are pitching Freeman, which has turned out devastatingly.
5. Base running. I mean I’m sorry but this is on the coaches. Game 3, with the left fielder in possession at shallow depth and you send your man home? I’m not a jump up and shout at the TV kind of person but that had me. This and the pitching have me convinced that the coaches are just as much to blame as anyone out there. It’s like they think every other team has outfielders like Soto with little fairy-princess arms who can barely make it to the cutoff.

Win or lose is really not the issue here for me. The Dodgers have an undeniably great team, so you expect a fight. I just hate to have to watch my team basically slouch their way through this and make a mockery of the sport. I’ll be watching tonight and expecting to be swept, but even if a miracle happens and the Yankees come all the way back to win it in game 7 it would have to be a radically different team than we’ve been seeing.

Note: Jazz is the only person I think is bringing world series effort. Yes he had an error, but he’s also had some killer plays and he’s getting contact with every at bat.

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