REALITY CHECK

We have been silent this week, partly because we were busy watching son #2 graduate from law school, but mostly because the Yanks were winning nine in a row, and we did not want to disturb the karma.

That streak came to an end tonight, as the Phils drubbed the Yankees 7-3.  A few observations on the past ten days are in order.

First, taking two out of three from Toronto pretty much burst the Blue Jay’s bubble.  After losing the Halladay game (everybody lose to Halladay), the Yanks showed the Blue Jays to be a paper tiger.  The Red Sox finished the job this week with a sweep against the floundering boys from north of the border.

Second, the Yankees showed real grit in their four comeback wins against the Twins.  Since their collapse in the 2004 playoffs, coming from behind has not been their strong suit.  Their performance against the Twins was heartening.

But third, the sweep of Baltimore means little.  Your local nursery school has a better pitching staff than the Orioles.  Anyone who doubts that proposition need only remember that Jeremy Guthrie is their ace, and Adam Eaton is part of their starting rotation.  Any staff that includes Adam Eaton has to be awful.

So the Yankee streak is not quite as impressive as Michael Kay would have you believe.  The team’s inherent weakness was demonstrated tonight. The Yankees have yet to show they can hit good pitching.  This evening they were totally shut down by Brett Myers.  Now Myers is a nice pitcher when he’s on, but nobody has ever accused him of being the second coming of Grover Cleveland Alexander.  Or even Dick Ruthven.  Yet the Yankees couldn’t do a thing with him until the 8th inning, after he had thrown a hundred pitches.

The Yankee offense still contains too many old bats, and too often old bats are slow bats.  All too frequently, those old bats have looked overmatched against real pitchers – a commodity the Jays, Twins and Orioles lack.  Until the Yankees show they can hit the hard throwers who populate the top teams, they cannot be considered a true title threat.

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