Yankees - Week 18

After a 3-4 week which ended in a sweep at the hands of the Blue Jays, thing have gotten very interesting for the wrong reasons in Yankee country. The once expandable lead has dwindled just 1.5 games and opened the door for both Toronto and Baltimore to fight for the top spot. How the Yankees handle this adversity will go a long way in determining their fate for the 2015 season

The Good

The Yankees starters turned in quality outings all week long, including an impressive debut from the highly touted Luis Severino whom looks as if he could live up to his hype.  It was also nice to see Sabathia's strong showing against Boston, one he needed in the worst way.

The Bad

The Yankees offense started out strong with a 13-3 drumming of the Red Sox, however it could only muster 4 runs in the weeks final 5 games, including suffering back to back shutout losses for the first time since 1999. This sudden ineptitude has to be frustrating for a lot of people, especially since there was a smorgasbord of runs tom go around just a week ago.

Jacoby Ellsbury went just 3-25 (.120) this week and more times than not looked completely baffled at the plate. Since he is a vital part of the offensive attack, it is crucial that he come out of this slide hastily. The Yankees simply cannot afford to watch their $153 million acquisitions fall off in the all important stretch run, where he'll be expected to step up and earn that high salary.

Brian McCann, Alex Rodriguez, and Brett Gardner did not have good performances this week, exacerbating woes that were all too prevalent. One hopes that this was just a bad week for McCann and Rodriguez, however Gardner has been struggling mightily for over two weeks. As long as he and Ellsbury cannot get on base, it will make any production that much harder for the Yankees.

The glaring absence of the stolen base is something that cannot be tolerated for much longer. The fact that the Yankees have just one attempted stolen base (by Mark Teixeira) since june 12 is mind boggling to say the least. If the team wishes to make the playoffs and succeed, the running game must make a reappearance. It's often the little things that make a big difference in championship runs, the club simply cannot afford to abandon this part of the game any longer.