The Yankees have defied the general principles of sports this year by playing better and better in conjunction with losing more and more players.
They have been the Bizarro Yankees. Their roster got uglier and their record got prettier. It made no sense. Their players dropped and their fortunes rose.
It took, of all things, being on the same field with the worst team in the American League, maybe one of the worst teams ever, to serve as a harsh reminder just how depleted the Yankees’ lineup is these days.
When I pointed out the posted batting orders on a TV to a scout before last night’s Astros-Yankees game, he responded with, “Wow, I really hadn’t looked at them side-by-side until now.”
And that was not the “wow” of someone impressed by the overall skill. It was the “wow” of seeing two lineups more befitting Kissimmee or Steinbrenner Field in early March. The microscopic size of the crowd — ignore the announced number of 34,262 — brought even a greater spring training tinge to the proceedings.
Still, on the next-to-last day of April, you figured a combination of the Yankees’ pixie dust and Andy Pettitte would be enough to subdue a team that just scored 10 runs total while being swept four games at Fenway. Houston’s offense is so bad it deeply feels the loss of Yankees castoff Justin Maxwell (fractured left hand) and uses perennial Yankees minor leaguer Brandon Laird to hit third.
The Astros are so young and talent-deprived they are well on their way to easily breaking the major league strikeout record. Thus, they seemed ready-made for the savvy Pettitte to seduce and reduce them to a conveyer belt of incompetent outs.
Instead, considering the opposition, he had one of his worst outings ever, one that made him “sick to his stomach.” Seven runs on 10 hits in 4 1/3 innings. In what would become a 9-1 Astros triumph, Adam Warren and Vidal Nuno followed Pettitte to the mound to pitch to Austin Romine, making this feel even more like the Scranton/Wilkes-Bronx Yankees.
Obviously this is just one game. The Yankees were not going to win ’em all and the Astros were not going to lose ’em all — though they are probably going to lose 100 quite easily. This is more about just remembering the basic laws of sport are that you cannot keep losing your first-string players and expect to keep winning same as ever. Right?
There was a time when losing Francisco Cervelli and Kevin Youkilis would have seemed rather inconsequential in the Yankees’ big picture. Not now. Not when the Yanks have been all but marching two by two to New York Presbyterian. Not when the 2013 Yankees are known more for MRIs than RBIs. When Romine was hit near his left hip in the seventh inning last night, the Yankees were in collective breath-holding form because Joe Girardi was pretty much next up on the catching depth chart.
In the first month, the Yanks have prospered by hitting more home runs than expected, getting pretty good pitching and playing the horrible Blue Jays a bunch.
But you wonder if there is a tipping point, where there are just too many Yankees out for too long. The hope was the Yankees were using April to survive and advance and the injured cavalry of players would begin to return around May 1. Instead, they are getting less healthy. Derek Jeter’s ankle went from bad to terrible. Cervelli is down for six weeks. And last night Girardi said Youkilis needs an epidural for his injured back, and it seemed he, too, was headed for the DL.
As for the cavalry, Curtis Granderson seems at least two weeks away and there is no good guess yet on Mark Teixeira. Alex Rodriguez? The Yankees update Yogi Berra’s medical condition more than A-Rod’s.
It has left the Yankees with a lineup that looks better than Houston’s — but that is the smallest triumph in baseball history. The question is with so many Nixes and Nunezes, Romines and Boesches running around, can the Yankees survive and advance through May with the success they have had in April?
Being on the same field as the Astros reminded us this about the state of the Yankees lineup: Houston, we have a problem.