Bronx Bomber Ball

  Something special is happening in the Bronx this summer.   I know, I know, it’s only June 17.   We’re only 63 games into a 162-game marathon season. I know I’m not the guy you expected to hear any optimism out of.   But here we are, just under 39% of the way into a season I was sure was destined for a fourth-place finish, with the Yankees holders of the best record in Major League Baseball and the third-best 63 game start in franchise history. Photo Credit: Getty Images Yes, this team. The team that routinely rolls out lineups laden with the likes of Joey Gallo, Aaron Hicks, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Kyle Higashioka. The team that is currently down it’s top-four bullpen weapons from last season (Aroldis Chapman on the IL recovering from achilles tendonitis, Jonathan Loaisiga out with shoulder inflammation, Chad Green out for the year after undergoing Tommy John Surgery, Zack Britton on the mend from 2021 Tommy John Surgery).   But what’s special about thi...

We've finally arrived. Opening Day is upon us.  It's coming a week later than expected. The team doesn't look the way we expected them to when the offseason began six long months ago.  But here we are.  The Yankees chose not to make any of the marquee acquisitions Twitter lost their mind over all Winter, but at the end of the day they plugged some holes, and bring a much more versatile and athletic club into the 2022 season.  Did they do enough to dethrone the likes of Boston or Tampa or keep the quickly ascending Toronto Blue Jays at bay? Only time will tell.  In "The Late Show with David Letterman" fashion, here are our Top 10 factors to the Yankees getting off to a fast start. Photo Credit: Adam Hunger/Associated Press 10.      Playing strong defense It’s no shock that the New York Yankees were a defensive nightmare at times during the 2021 season and they made a point of addressing those issues in the offseason.   According to...

  With mere hours to go before the Yankees kick off their 2022 campaign, we’ve reached the point that even a few weeks ago we thought may never come. We finally get to witness Yankee baseball today! An added bonus on top of that is that today’s season opener comes against the rival Boston Red Sox, the team that booted the Yankees out of last season’s playoffs. The Yankees’ season begins with a tough 10 game stretch against division opponents and this season opening series against the Red Sox at home provides the Yankees with a golden opportunity to make a statement and get off to a great start. The team has come under scrutiny for their approach to free agency and team building this offseason. In spite of all that noise, the team performed well this spring and now stands ready to take the field in the Bronx. Lets take a look at some matchups. NY Charles Wenzelberg Friday 4/8. 1:05pm EST: Gerrit Cole vs Nathan Eovaldi   The Yankees will step into the batters box on Friday again...

Photo credit: NY Daily News

Photo credit: Washington Post

 

Through all the troubles and frustrations in this Yankees season, the time is finally here. Playoffs. Thanks to the first ever walk off hit in the career of Aaron Judge, the Yankees beat the Rays in Game 162 to give the Bombers a playoff berth and send them to the Wild Card Game. 

  Just ten short days ago, this team looked on death’s door, dropping back-to-back games to the Cleveland Indians at home by a combined score of 22-4.   They had fallen out of a wild card spot by 1.5 games, and trailed Boston for the top spot by 2.5 games.   All of the good vibes and positivity accrued during their 13-game winning streak from August 14-27 was seemingly out the window.   They appeared headed for an early end to their season – one that began with lofty expectations of a World Series title.

  The Yankees are heading to the west coast, and they head off on this seven-game west coast swing as the hottest team in baseball. They are the owners of an 11-game winning streak and have won their last 10 consecutive series. It has been a remarkable turnaround for a team that looked like it was asleep for the first half of this season, but there is still work to be done. The Yankees current 11 game winning streak is their longest since 1985 and it has seen them go from trailing both the Red Sox and the Oakland A’s in the Wild Card standings, to leading both by four and five games respectively in the loss column. The Yankees flipped a switch in mid-July and now have ridden an impressive white hot winning streak into the driver’s seat for a playoff stretch as we head to the stretch run of the regular season. The first series up in this all-important stretch run, is the aforementioned Oakland A’s. The A’s are a talented team that had an impressive 13 game winning streak of their ow...

The New York Yankees have essentially completely transformed themselves here in the second half of the season. Since they were 41-41 (1 more game than halfway through the 162-game season) the Bombers are 29-11 giving them the best record in the league over that span. 

  The Yankees finally wrapped up their home series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Monday night, evening the season series at two games apiece with a 2-1 victory.   The Yankees continued to struggle at the plate on Monday night, but a two-run first inning home run off the bat of Joey Gallo was all the offense required in this one.

  After another crushing defeat in the Field of Dreams game last night, the Yankees and White Sox are off on Friday as they travel to Chicago to complete their three-game series.   Let’s use the off-day as an opportunity to check-in on the Yankees’ laundry list of injured and COVID-afflicted players.

Here we go again. Photo credit: Talkin' Jake

The Yankees aren’t boring anymore! Well, maybe they still are, but not for the same reasons as they were previously.   The Yankees have been in a rut most of the season of bland, vanilla, stale – whatever you want to call it – baseball and were dealt another series of blows this weekend to start the second half, losing Jonathan Loaisiga, Wandy Peralta, Nestor Cortes, Aaron Judge, Gio Urshela and Kyle Higashioka to the COVID IL. Loaisiga is set to return later this week against Boston, however, news broke on Sunday afternoon that Darren O’Day’s hamstring injury will cost him the remainder of the season. Zack Britton returned from the IL, but Tim Locastro tore his ACL on Saturday, and his season is done.   Rougned Odor is showing some signs of life, but Luke Voit is back on the IL.  One step forward, one step back.

***Edit*** This was supposed to be a Series Preview before the Yankees got fucked up by Covid, so maybe enjoy the little bit of optimism I had before this news, if you want to, and watch my reaction to the news as it came out *s show order of edits  Photo by Alex Trautwig/MLB Photos Yankees vs Red Sox Preview 7/15-7/18 The Bombers start their second half tonight  tomorrow night, beginning a four game series with the first  place Red Sox. The Yankees (46-43) enter the second half of their schedule 8 games behind the Red Sox (55-36) for first place in the AL East and 4.5 games behind the Oakland Athletics (52-40) for the second Wild Card spot after their nightmare first half of the year. Winners of five of their last seven games entering the All Star Break, this series will be a play a huge factor in determining how they play out the rest of their season. Will they look like the confident team, who was having fun playing baseball, that we saw about to sweep the Astros this ...

  The question on everyone’s mind as we head into this week is: Are the Yankees back? 

The Yankees have chosen to Get Higgy with it -- as they’ve made the decision to largely start Kyle Higashioka as their starting catcher. Photo credit: MLB.com

  In an exciting weekday series in the Bronx, Giancarlo Stanton led the Bombers to taking two out of three from the Astros. The series ended on somewhat of a sour note, as the Yankees definitely could have completed the sweep, but I’m not going to harp on the team’s first loss in a week. Chad Green had a pretty rough outing, which isn’t going to happen often. It just sucks that it was the short man Altuve who took him deep after the sh*t he got from fans all week. Before that homer, Altuve was 2-12 on the series, and heard enough “F*ck Altuve” chants from fans to make Manager Dusty Baker cry to the media about it. Fans even chanted “F*ck your birthday” yesterday for the Houston Second Baseman’s 31 st  birthday. I got to go to the game Wednesday night and it was incredible getting to go to the stadium and be a part of that for the only time Houston comes to the Bronx this season (unless they meet in the postseason).   Anyway, what hurts more than the loss itself, is the in...