Perish the Thought

With Nomar back for a while now and Trot Nixon debuting today, it’s time for us to realize that June is a transition month. Everyone needs to find their niche, their spot in the lineup, their role. The players have to adjust to the kind of pitches they will see (Nomar sees different pitches hitting ahead of Manny than he does behind Manny). With the remaining two weeks, all the added offensive power we are adding (although the rotation and therefore subtraction of Pokey, Bellhorn and Youkilis could be said to equal Nomar) might not amount to anything because of the adjustment period.
Put it this way. No one expects a team to come out guns ablazing in April, as people need to click together. In June, we are starting to do this. We will have to make another adjustment when Ellis Burks comes back, but not as radical as Nomar and Trot. Nomar, the starting shortstop and Trot Nixon, the starting right fielder. This is going to take Millar out of the equation as Ortiz is certainly not going to take a backseat to Millar for playing time, the way the two have been playing.
David Ortiz is batting .272 with a .284 on-base percentage against lefties, and Millar is at .269/.347, so we all know who will be tabbed for first base/DH duties against lefties. Francona is also having Kevin Youkilis and Mark Bellhorn take grounders at first, so hopefully Terry has an eye towards Millar becoming a bat off the bench and keeping Bellhorn/Youkilis in the rotation with David Ortiz. But then again, Millar (overall: .266 AVG/.343 OBP/.388 SLG) does have a very good OBP (the name of the game) and has been predicted by The Sporting News to heat up, as some of the offensive production pressure will be taken off Millar with the return of Nomar and Nixon.
Does anyone else think this prediction rings hollow? They say that Millar has been trying to yank balls, to pull them for power. This is only hurting him, not helping him. He is a line-drive hitter who sprays them up the middle. I sincerely doubt that his woes this year have anything to do with ‘trying to do too much’, the worst cliche in the game. If you are successful the way you are, an injury should not change your methods. If Ortiz gets injured, I don’t expect (and hope not to) to see Johnny Damon pop some BALCO-approved products and start using a Jim Thome swing. Same the other way around. If Damon gets injured, I don’t want to see Ortiz start going to Weight Watchers and start chasing cars as Damon did in the offseason.
Now that that specific rant is over, the annual ‘June swoon’ (6-6) has thankfully been only an ‘average June’. Not good for an expected playoff team, but we’ll take it at this point in time, even though we quite easily could be 8-4, but no crying over spilt milk. We are where we are – 4.5 games behind the Yankees. If we can finish June with a .500 record, I will be happy considering it’s supposed to be a transition month. It is July where we really need to be on all gears clicking, for this is how the schedule pans out in July.
1 game @ NYY
3 @ ATL
3 vs. OAK
3 vs. TEX
4 @ ANA
2 @ SEA
3 vs. BAL
3 vs. NYY
3 @ BAL
2 @ MIN
To break it up even further:
ABOVE .500 AS OF JUNE 15
16 (Atlanta, Oakland, Texas, Anaheim, New York, Minnesota)
BELOW .500 AS OF JUNE 15
12 (Atlanta, Seattle, Baltimore)
We are going to have our work cut out for us, and seeing as the Yankees play 4 GAMES WITH TEAMS OVER .500 (as of games played after June 15) and 24 GAMES WITH TEAMS UNDER .500, we pretty much know how things are going to shake out over the rest of the season after July.
Even if we go .500 in July, we can quite easily be 20 games out of first by the time July wraps up. (Can you believe that split!?) Considering the Yankees have a record of 41-21, the best in baseball (the only team with a winning percentage above .600 at .661), we really need to click on all cylinders in July.
Even a Yankee team that has Brown on the DL and Mussina with woes is still one to reckon with. A makeshift pitching rotation of Jon Lieber (injury prone), Jose Contreras (easily rattled), Javier Vazquez (low run support … and any Yankee fans reading this will get zero sympathy for this as you gave us none when Pedro was among lowest run support leaders), Tanyon Sturtze (I love him as a person considering he hails from my birthtown but facts are facts, he’s not very good), and Mike Mussina (Mr. Overrated coupled with a balky right groin), will still get by with the offense the way it is. Even though the offense is not even close to our 2003 record-setting offense, it’s good enough as their 11-2 record in June shows. Ouch, ouch, and some more ouch. Perhaps we should hope Nomar and Trot have a quick transition. What is with these Yankees? No, really. It seems as though they keep getting one gift after another. Is this really THEIR year?
Perish the thought.
On a side note, MVN has a new writer who writes about general baseball over at The Catbird in the Nosebleed Seats (formerly from here), and he has two very good columns about the Red Sox so far.
Article One: An extremely well-done summary of Byung-Hyun Kim’s woes and recovery.
Article Two: A short summary of the game last night plus a review of Eric Wilbur’s latest Boston.com blog.