Bronx Bomber Ball

  Photo credit: MLB.com

  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

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 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.

In an otherwise bleak season for the 2021 New York Yankees, one bright spot in the bullpen comes in middle relief: Jonathan Loaisiga. 

  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...

The New York Yankees opened up their 2021 campaign this weekend in unsatisfactory fashion, dropping two of three games at home to the rival Toronto Blue Jays.   The New York offense was held to just eight runs over the three games and only Gary Sanchez was able to put the ball into the seats over the three games.   The big story in this series was the total ineptitude of the Yankees’ offense, particularly in the clutch.

Can you believe we’ve finally made it?   Despite all the animosity and ugliness surrounding the labor negotiations the past few months, the Major League Baseball Players association and MLB owners finally came to terms on the provisions to allow for a 60-game regular season in 2020 in the face of this global COVID-19 pandemic.   The 2020 season will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, with a shortened season, new rules, no fans in attendance, and a unique schedule that has teams only play other clubs in their geographic area.   But the important thing is we’re finally going to get real, meaningful baseball back in our lives this week, and I for one could not be happier. Photo Credit: Major League Baseball via Twitter

Following an injury-riddled season in 2019 where fans saw just one outing from 6’8” right-hander Dellin Betances, Yankees nation caught a case of the Christmas blues when word broke that he had signed a one-year deal that would send him across the East River to play in Queens. As a result of suffering a bone spur injury behind his right shoulder before Opening Day, along with tearing his Achilles tendon in his return on September 15, Betances missed virtually the entire season. Though the Yankees bullpen performed at an elite level in 2019 despite Betances’ absence, he is still one of the best relievers in baseball when healthy. Brad Penner / USA Today Sports

Despite being one of the team’s top starting pitchers for the entirety of the 2019 season, Domingo German was not a part of the Yankees’ postseason run due to his suspension under Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy.  German was held out of the final week of the regular season, and the entirety of the playoffs - a total of 18 games in all - before finally getting hit with an 81-game suspension this winter that will carry into June.     Photo Credit: Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports

Last year we delved into various trade opportunities for the Yankees, and they ended up acquiring one of our proposed targets of J.A. Happ. In 2019, the first place Bombers will again look to the trade market for rotation help. The IL-Yankees of 2019 have lost Luis Severino, Domingo German, James Paxton, and C.C. Sabathia to injury at some point this year, and Severino is still on the IL. With the uncertainty of Severino's return to form and the heaps of question marks surrounding the rest of the rotation, it is obvious the Yankees could use another arm to the rotation.  AP

Prior to Monday night’s rainout, Jonathan Loaisiga became the seventeenth Yankee to land on the I.L. this season, succumbing to a rotator cuff strain. Loaisiga had only taken one turn in the rotation to this point in place of the injured James Paxton, but will now be shut down for at least a month. The Yanks will now look to Chance Adams, who was recalled from Triple-A to take his place on the roster. So now the question: what does he bring to the table?

After a quick trip down to Tampa which saw the Yankees take a three-game series from the Rays 2-1, they return to the Bronx for three games against the Baltimore Orioles. After struggling against Seattle and righting the ship a bit in Tampa, the Bombers find themselves at  24-16  on the year and only a half game out of first place.   This will be a six-game homestand for New York with three against Baltimore and three against Tampa. Baltimore is 3-7 in their last 10 and, as predicted, find themselves at or near the bottom of most major offensive and pitching categories. Oriole pitching has given up the most runs and homers in the majors and has the second least number of strikeouts. On the other side of the ball, they are well below average in runs per game, walks, and team on-base percentage.   Game One-Monday, May 13, 6:35pm EST   David Hess (1.4, 5.50 ERA) vs Jonathan  Loaisiga  (1-1, 4.50 ERA)   With James Paxton’s k...

I’ve always been of the opinion that good pitching defeats strong, slugger-level batting, especially in a playoff situation.   I’m not alone in that opinion, either. Of course, it helps in the regular season, too.   Let’s face it -- the starting rotation has been an issue for a while, and by “a while” I mean “prior to the 2019 season”. The bullpen, slated prior to the 2019 season as the best bullpen in MLB, is not the bigger issue here.   Even with the recent (and necessary) departure of Chad Green to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, as well as the injury to Dellin Betances, the bullpen still shouldn’t be the area of focus for improvement on the Yankees’ pitching staff.                              The starting rotation, however, is growing more and more problematic by the day, and I mean that in the most literal sense. ...

The Yankees looked to clinch the series win over the Mariners on Wednesday night, but ran into the buzzsaw that was Seattle LHP Yusei Kikuchi.   Jonathan Loaisiga took the mound for New York, filling in for the injured James Paxton.  Loaisiga did not have his best stuff tonight, allowing four runs and six hits in only four  innings in the 10-1 defeat. Photo Credit: Kathy Willens/AP Photo

On the heels of a nerve-wracking Easter Sunday victory, the Yankees head to the west coast to open up a three-series road trip - the first being a four-game set against the Los Angeles Angels. Winners of five of their last six and two straight series, the beaten down Yanks will look to ride their momentum forward as the returns of lineup stalwarts Gary Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton inch closer.

The Yankees looked to rebound from their ugly loss in game one of their series against the Astros. Even though they did lead two different times, but weren’t able to hold on to it. The bullpen wasn’t good enough yet again, the defense wasn’t sound, and they only managed to get five hits. At the end of the day there was a very similar feel to the first game.  Photo Credit: AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith

The Yankees came into the rubber game looking to get their offense going and their first series win of the year. However, neither one of those things happened as the bats continued to struggle, leading to the Yankees losing their second consecutive game and series by a score of 2-1.     Frank Franklin | AP