Thursday, April 28, 2005

Shemp's Mini-Slump

The Yankees' offense has been hot-and-cold lately. Hot in game 1 against the Angels, when A-Schmuck had his big night. Cold, as they scored 2 runs the rest of the series, the latest a loss against John Lackey, who hasn't lived up to his promise since that famous start in Game 7 of the '02 series. Of course, when a team scores one run, you can't pin it on one guy, but Shemp has stunk lately. He's 3 for his last 23. Do the math. That isn't good.

In a way, Shemp is the guy that gets the Yankees going. He and Jeter (and maybe Sierra) are the only Junkees who can still hit in the clutch, and when he struggles, the team is in trouble. Sure, he got an RBI double tonight, but it wasn't enough. And Shemp was a glaring 0-for-4 on Wednesday night, fanning twice.

And after leaving 10 runners on base tonight, you gotta admit this Yankee team can use some clutch hitting. Otherwise, they'll never get into that groove they're itching to get into.

Friday night, good pitching matchup as Johnson goes against Halladay. Then Wang on Saturday, and a Pavano-Lilly rematch. Pavano may be getting his act together - let's hope the Jays stop that.

1 comment:

Roberto Iza Valdés said...
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