Relax, It's Only April!

By Ryan Dugan

While tidying up my apartment late Sunday night, my thoughts were with the New York Yankees.

I was cleaning my kitchen counters with a dust rag I keep in a cabinet below the sink. Thinking about the first month of the 2007 baseball season, I looked down at the rag, and noticed that it was an old T-shirt. It was my 1996 New York Yankees World Series T-Shirt. I was 16 years old in 1996 when the Yankees won their first World Series in my lifetime. I regularly sported the World Series t-shirt in my wardrobe. I wore it to High School, ball games, and family functions. Probably somewhere around 2000 the shirt began to fade. Shortly after, it probably started to get holes around the shoulders (where all my shirts inevitably develop holes). I probably kept it on a hanger or in a shelf well past its life, until one day in the last three years, while living in my studio in Voorhees; it turned it into a dust rag. As I threw my Yankees dust rag back under the sink, I began connect the rag with the first month of the Yankees 2007 season. Both the rag and the Yankees are beat up, warn down, and far removed form 1996.

Now although I am distraught as a Yankees fan, as a journalist and anylist, I am far from placing my hand over the “Bronx Bomber Panic Button”. However my colleagues in the New York media are beginning to freak out, as they always do when the Yankees go on long losing streaks.

It’s bad enough Derek Jeter has begun playing the part of the “Angry Captain” in his post game interviews, defending his boss Joe Torre, whose head is on the chopping block. Equally unpleasant, is the written statement from owner George Stienbrenner, expressing his concern. The bosses statements have become as steady as clockwork. But if fans believe what they read in the news papers, hear on the radio, and watch on TV, the season is lost! Yankees Stadium is going to blow up, (not until winter of 2008 in actuality) players and executives are seconds from being canned, goats and monkeys are flying around the sky all Willie-Nillie, dog and cats are living together, and it all going to end with a last place finish for the Yankees this season!

All Total Nonsense!

Lets take a look for a moment at the trouble areas for the Yankees in the first 23 games.

First off they are 9-14, which is not as bad as it looks. There are three games already this season that they should have won; April 8th against Baltimore, the 15th against Oakland, and the 20th against Boston. But there are also two games they should have lost. Those two games are the “A-Rod Walk Off Homerun Games”, April 7th against Baltimore, and April 19th against Cleveland. So if those five games had slightly different turnouts the Yankees record would be hovering somewhere around .500.

The big concern of course is the pitching which has been absolutely awful!

Ninety-six times in twenty-three games, Joe Torre has changed pitchers! That is an average of once every 2.25 innings! The average starter for the Yanks has lasted only 4.5 innings over the last eight games. The bullpen has been over worked and it's weaknesses have been over exposed. The team ERA is 5.02 ranking them 27th in all of baseball. Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Chin-Ming Wang, Carl Povanao, and Kei Igawa have all missed starts. Their backups Phil Hughes, Jeff Karstens, Darryl Rasner, and Chase Wright have pitched more like independent leaguers then minor-leaguers!

Then there is Mariano Rivera. The Yankees Hall-Of-Fame closer and all time team saves leader. Rivera has yet to hit his stride to put it nicely, and some are beginning to think his career maybe reaching its twilight.

Maybe the most disturbing thing about this recent skid of losing eight of nine, has been watching the offense come out of their game. The Yankees hitters have been pressing. They have gotten off balance, and are trying to do too much to help get the team out of this funk.

So what is the remedy to the awful April numbers and worst Yankees start in over two decades?

Patients!

Just A Little Patients!

First off the Yankees start the month of May on the road in Texas, which is exactly what they need. They need to get out of New York, out of the American League East, and away from the Boston Red Sox for a few weeks.

That’s exactly what they are getting!

They also need good pitching, and they need their starters to pitch deep into some games. This all starts Tuesday night with Phil Hughes. Then Mussina will return Thursday, and by the weekend it will be back to business as usual for the Yankees.


This team has been here before, and has always rebounded. The core of this team has seen bad starts the last three Aprils in a row. I give anyone reading this (the one or two of you) a money back guarantee that come September the Yankees will battling right at the top of the Division.

The Yankees will be contending for the AL East Title, with or without the

Rocket Roger Clemens.