Unbelievable that we had to rely on Javy to avoid a sweep.  My post last week was prophetic.  Jose Bautista beat A.J. like a red-headed stepchild which put the weak-hitting Yankees at a big disadvantage.  Pettitte pitched great on Saturday but because the only guy that hits on this team is Cano, the they couldn’t score more than 2 runs in 14 innings.   In fact, until the 8th yesterday, the Yankees had scored 3 runs in 30 innings.

Teixeira is absolutely killing every rally.  They get him out on low breaking pitches repeatedly, and the shift works perfectly because (unlike Cano) Teix appears incapable of going the other way.   Mattingly’s old saying of trying to hit the ball up the middle never works with Tex because the 3rd basemen is staning on second base.  This is one instance where I think Tex needs to actually work on the choke up on the bat and knock a few balls down third base to lift the shift, get on base and let Alex and Cano make them pay. 

By the way, to make myself feel even worse, here’s the stats of my first two fantasy Baseball picks, vs the two players I could have taken.

  • Teixeira – .211 AVG – 35 R, 8 HR, 34 RBI, 0 SB
  • J. Upton – .249 AVG – 34 R, 9 HR, 29 RBI, 8 SB

VS

  • M. Cabrera – .351 AVG – 40 R, 17 HR, 52 RBI, 2 SB
  • Longoria – .312 AVG – 37 R, 11 HR, 44 RBI, 10 SB

That basically works out to 100 points lower in AVG  (which translates to about 4 points in our standings), -8 Runs (no points since we lead in runs), -11 HR (-3.5 points in HR), -33 RBI (- 4 points), -4 SB (no points since we lead in SB).   We would probably be in solid 3rd place (with others losing points we might be higher), instead of 7th. 

So to recap.  AJ sucks.  Yankees can’t score.  Russ and I are dopes.