So much has been made about the Mets troubles at Citi Field, but take a look at the Yankees at home.
With Friday night’s lifeless 6-1 loss to the lightweight Twins, the Yankees dropped to 11-12 at Yankee Stadium this season. Over their last 11 home games, they are 3-8.
It was the Twins who took advantage of the ballpark Friday night, blasting three home runs off Vidal Nuno, who has been terrible at the Stadium. He dropped to 0-2 at home and the Yankees have lost five of his six starts here.
And you thought Phil Hughes had his issues at Yankee Stadium.
This home funk is much more than Nuno. Yankees bats were kept quiet by Ricky Nolasco and three relievers. The Yankees have not homered in four straight games and have only three home runs over their last 10 games.
This is a stadium built for home runs, and right now these Yankees are not built to hit home runs.
The Yankees are in the middle of the pack with 47 home runs, 16th in the majors. The AL East-leading Blue Jays are on top with 80 home runs.
The top three hitters for the Yankees, Brett Gardner, Derek Jeter and Jacoby Ellsbury have a combined six home runs. Home runs are not their game, but with the loss of Robinson Cano this season to the Mariners, they also have little power at second base. Friday night the Yankees started Ichiro Suzuki in right, so they essentially had six players in the starting lineup who have shown little home run power.
That is not taking advantage of what Yankee Stadium offers. Bronx Bombers they are not.
Manager Joe Girardi tried to deflect the lack of power, saying: “A couple [of] years ago people asked me, ‘Well, all you do is score runs with home runs?’ Now we’re hitting singles and we’re not hitting home runs and now I’m being asked why we’re not hitting home runs. The bottom line is scoring runs, however you are going to do it.’’
Then Girardi got to the heart of the matter.
“This is not a lineup that is filled with a ton of power,” he said, “so we are going to have to put hits together, hit doubles and steal some bases.’’
Mark Teixeira returned to the lineup after being sidelined with tendinitis in his surgically repaired right wrist and walked three times. Brian McCann (.225) was hitless his first three at-bats before singling in the eighth.
Old age teams have age-old problems. The Yankees have a bunch. Carlos Beltran is still out with a bone spur in his right elbow, but is not feeling pain in the elbow when he swings, so he is getting closer to returning to action.
Winning at home has become an issue throughout the majors. Going into the night, 17 teams owned .500 or sub-.500 records at home. Teams don’t protect their home turf like they used to do. In the AL East, everyone but first-place Toronto was under .500 at home.
In this new age of baseball, teams aren’t built for their home parks the way they used to be built and as a result more than half the major league teams are .500 or under .500 at home.
So, this is not just a Mets issue.
The Yankees are 17-13 on the road. Ever since the Yankees moved into the new Yankee Stadium, they have dominated here. When they won the World Series back in 2009 they were 57-24 at home, followed by home records of 52-29 in 2010 and 2011, 51-30 in 2012 and 46-35 last season.
It’s early in the year and the Yankees are battling injury issues. This new team of Yankees has yet to show it will take advantage of playing at home.
In the top of the eighth Friday night, the Twins were in the process of adding two more runs to pad their lead while the announced crowd of 42,245 fans happily did the wave.
Let the good times roll.