Bronx Bomber Ball

It’s the matchup we’ve been waiting for, the matchup we’ve been anticipating all year long. The 3 rd  entry into a so far closely contested but one-sided playoff rivalry. Its Yankees – Astros Part 3 in the 2022 ALCS. The Astros posted the best record in the AL this season and swept through their ALDS series against the Seattle Mariners. The Yankees struggled through much of the second half of their season, squandering their chance at home field advantage in the process, and were pushed to the brink in their ALDS series against the Cleveland Guardians. In spite of the trials they’ve endured so far, the Yankees have made it to where they wanted to be, with a chance to avenge their previous losses and get over the mountain they have not yet been able to scale. The Yankees take the field tonight in game 1, with a chance to beat the Houston Astros and advance to their first World Series since 2009. The Astros will likely be regarded as a comfortable favorite heading into the series, let...

Photo credit: @Yankees on Twitter

  The Yankees remained hot against the second-best team in the AL East this week, extending their winning streak to 11 before dropping the final game of the series last night. Coming into the off day, the Yankees are tied for the most wins in the MLB with the Mets and hold the best record in the league courtesy of the Mets’ two extra losses. Photo Credit: AP Photo

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...

 

  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.

Photo Credit: USA Today

Except for presumably Tropical Storm Henri, nothing, of late, has stopped the "New" New York Yankees from pursuing their path to a postseason spot. Photo credit: New York Post

Well, what a difference a month makes. On the fourth of July the Yanks were a .500 baseball team, while the Red Sox had the best record in the A.L. Fast forward to now and the Yanks are a full game ahead of the Red Sox after completing a three-game sweep of their arch rivals in the Bronx. As usual, none of the three wins were easy and all three games seemed to be heading off the rails at one point or another. However, a win is a win and the Yanks just keep getting it done, improving their record to 23-9 since the All-Star break.

Here we go again. Photo credit: Talkin' Jake

  The Yankees wrapped up their nine-game homestand this weekend taking two of three from the Washington Nationals, finishing the homestand 7-2 overall.   Both of the Yankees’ wins came in walk-off fashion, following an ugly loss on Friday night in the series’ first game.  The Yankees will hit the road at 18-16, in second place in the AL East, 3.5 games back of Boston.

  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...

  Fresh off a weekend sweep against the lowly Detroit Tigers, the Yankees welcome the Houston Astros to the Bronx in a long-awaited rematch.   This will be the first time since the 2019 ALCS that the two teams have faced off against one another, the first time since the Astros were caught cheating during their 2017 World Championship campaign, and the first time fans will be in attendance to hopefully boo the ever living shit out of them.   Following the three-game set against the Astros, the Yankees will wrap up their homestand with a weekend series against the Washington Nationals.

Photo credit: Rome Sentinel

The Yankees offense looks f***ing dead. Every single one of them. Even DJ LeMahieu, the Yankees’ best hitter by leaps and bounds, is in the middle of an uncanny stretch of bad hitting. Of the Yankees every day starters (Higgy is 4-for-13 for a .308 avg  and also Tyler Wade is 1-for-3 apparently lol ), the three highest batting averages are: DJ (.277), Gio Urshela (.276), and Aaron Judge (.268). The next highest… Gary Sanchez with a .200 average, unless you want to count Brett Gardner as every day, in which case the next highest is a .214 average (which props up the team average of .205). And that isn’t even a knock on Gardy, who still puts up Gardy at-bats whenever he’s in the lineup (plus, of his six hits, two of them are doubles) or Gary, who I think has actually put up some really nice at-bats; and, of the team’s 17 grounders into a double play (tied for 3 rd worst in the league), he has grounded into zero (also Gary has walked 7 times and has a .321 OBP, which is third among ev...

  Don’t let Sunday’s gritty come-from-behind win fool you. This Yankees team is still highly flawed and until they can prove otherwise, should not be counted on to win more games like they did on Sunday.

After a not-so-fun opening weekend against Toronto, the Bombers have turned it around a little bit, taking two of three from the red hot Baltimore Orioles this week. The Yanks finally started to get the bats going, with some big contributions from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Pitching was strong as well all around, with possibly Gerrit Cole’s best start in pinstripes on Tuesday.

It’s been a long winter but opening day is approaching fast. We are most of the way through spring training at this point and because of that, we’re getting to the point where we can probably make some solid predictions about roster decisions that will be made soon. While the Yankees outfield on paper seems pretty set, this is a group that has not been easy to predict the last few seasons. Injuries have played a big role in determining playing time with this group and while that will remain a concern until it is proven to not be an issue anymore, there is real reason for optimism heading into this season. Let's take a look at how the Yankees might line up their outfielders this season.   Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Wiliiams Jr.