Rock DJ

 

Then, at the exact moment when absolutely nothing could be gained from it, the New York Yankees started playing well.

It occurred to me far too late what the 2023 Yankees had been reminding me of, and ironically it was the 2016 Yankees. The season consisted of division rivals outdoing us, contracted players either leaving or not playing to standard, a weighty injury or two, decidedly slim chances headed into the last rung of the season, and major pieces brought up from the minors to join a similar high-ranked prospect that had been with the team for the majority of the season. 2016 brought us Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin, and 2023 brought us Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Jasson Dominguez. 

And just like in 2016, the Yankees are heating up after the towel has basically already been thrown in.

August was excruciating to watch as a Yankee fan because nothing was being accomplished and things kept getting worse and worse. The pitching is still dire in every game not pitched by Cole; Severino will have occasional spurts of having his shit together but he is not the pitcher he was in 2017. Schmidt is learning but still struggles, Brito and Vazquez are improving but not prime options. Rodon is...I guess he's doing alright, but this has not been the kind of season we signed him for. Mike King had a nice starting appearance last night, he could be an option. But, like...is that something we use going forward, or is that yet another 'break in case 5 guys get injured' thing?

Even worse, D.J. LeMahieu was still skidding last month, and disappointing us after several years of excellent work in New York. And yet in recent weeks he's been his old self, hitting .291 last month with an .898 OPS. He's already doing well in September, too, and was the first to put runs on the board last night. Having him playing well is always a good thing, but it does suck that it took so long to get there.

Yet that's honestly where the rest of the team is at right now- doing relatively well, and blasting through one of the best teams in baseball. When I saw the Houston series was up next, I got very worried, because we'd done so well against a worse team in the Tigers, and I just figured we'd get embarrassed. Or, I figured, there was a chance we'd somehow embarrass the Astros. And that's basically what's happened. Justin Verlander, Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier all got lit up by the Yankee offense, which is something that never happens in the postseason with better teams. Jasson Dominguez already has 2 home runs, and has them both against pitchers that have shut out this team. Aaron Judge is somehow still climbing the home run leaderboards despite missing a couple months, and is shooting for his fourth career 35+ homer season, which looks very attainable. 

And we still have the fact that Giancarlo Stanton is one long ball away from 400, and could very well reach that mark in the next week. True, by the pace he was going in Miami he should have been closer to 500 by now, but I'm not sure the next time someone will hit 400, especially with Trout missing 60 games a season at this rate. At the end of this season, Stanton will become the active home run leader, and the closest of anyone to 500. Then again, this means Bryce Harper will join the active top 10 next year with a little over 300, so it does say a lot about cumulative power hitting in this era of baseball.

The Yankees are playing the kind of baseball I wish they played more consistently. They're not perfect, but they're chasing great teams, and could at least finish the season over .500, which I think is a reasonable goal for them at this point. It won't be a dignified end to the year, especially considering what they could have been, but it'll be a better standard to beat next year when all these kids have full, confident seasons to play.

Coming Tonight: A catcher who's at least making things interesting while his team's in last.