THE YANKEES & TRYING TO WIN GAMES COMFORTABLY

The Yankees have played a lot of close games through the entire course of the 2012 season. Whether it’s anxiously waiting for Rafael Soriano to record the final three outs of a save, or if the offense can get a big hit to win a game, we are all on the edge of our seats almost every night. The nail-biting wins can be fun, but a season full of them can be quite annoying, especially if you compare this team to last year’s.

An easy way to see that the Yankees are playing closer games this year is comparing the team’s run differential from this year to last year. Through 151 games in 2011, the Yankees had a 91-60 record with a +203 run-differential. In 2012 through their 151 games played, they have an 88-63 record with a +105 run-differential. That’s only a three game difference between the two years, but they’ve outscored their opponents by 98 less runs.

You can also look at the number of “blowout games” (Games in which the winning team outscored the losing team by five or more runs) the Yankees have played. So far in 2012 the Yankees have been a part of 31 such games (20-11 record, .645 win%), whereas they played 47 of those games (34-13 record, .723 win%) the previous season. This year the Yanks have also been a part of 43 one-run games (21-22 record, .488 win%) compared to playing 45 of those (21-24 record, .467 win%) contests last season. The number of one-run games are virtually the same, but man, the number of blowout games the Yanks have played in and won is really an indicator that this team just plays too many close games.

Finally, look at the number of games the Yankees scored and gave up double-digit runs. This season they’ve scored double-digit runs 10 times while doing so 17 times the previous season, which is a pretty significant difference. You can attribute that to injuries and struggling with RISP (.274 BA w/ RISP in 2011 vs. .251 BA w/RISP in 2012), to be fair. In terms of allowing double-digit runs, they have done so seven times this year, though they did it nine times last year.

You can crunch the numbers all you want, which I just did, but the fact of the matter is that life would be much more tolerable if the Yankees could win some of these blowout kinds of games more often. I’m not asking for them to do this every night, though that would be awesome, but maybe once or twice a week. In fact, since the start of the month, the Yanks have played 20 games and only two of those (9/2 loss vs. Orioles, 9/9 win at Orioles) have been blowouts.

It takes a team hitting on all cylinders to blow a team out, and the Yanks have been playing better ball of late, so one would think that everything will eventually click all at once and they could steamroll through a few opponents. I could be nitpicking at this whole thing, though, since wins are very valuable this time of year no matter how you get them, but blowing teams out can be very helpful to this team, especially the bullpen. The main guys like Soriano, David Robertson, Boone Logan, and Joba Chamberlain, have been relied on very heavily over the past several weeks. I know injuries and trouble with RISP have played a role into this, but to be able to cruise through some games without using the main relievers too much should really help them, this team, and even the fans going forward and into the postseason.




--Jesse Schindler, BYB Lead Staff Writer
Follow me on Twitter @SchindlerJesse


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