HEY YANKEES, SCORING RUNS STARTS AT THE TOP!

Many look at this Yankee lineup lately and the first thing they want to decide on is who's batting 3rd and batting cleanup. Why? Because most want to see who the big bats are. It's obvious, but it's oh so important! But my question is, what happens when you don't have your big bats? Then what?

With the Yankees missing significant bats right now, we tend to wonder, how can this team be a vital scoring machine? Clearly nothing's happened so far right? Well, the answer is simple, we start from the top.

There needs to be a change, there needs to be a spark plug... there needs to be Ichiro. That's right. Ichiro has been a solid contact hitter his entire career.  Plus, we have Brett Gardner, so we need to of course get him into the mix.  It's about strategy right now, NOT big boppers!

It's my opinion that when Ichiro gets on base, it gives batters behind him a good look at what pitchers are throwing in sequence. These are important credentials to being a good lead off guy and he has the resume. In this case, it's more important than ever.  Ichiro and Brett Gardner have to be those guys to get on base. Speed is essential right now. Get on base put a ball into play. They can circle the bases quickly. It's the fundamentals of baseball.  It's what Bleeding Yankee Blue has been preaching since last may when they wrote a simple piece mocking the fact that Yankee baseball needs to change... read YANKEE BASEBALL: THE BASICS OF HITTING for context on that.

Look, Ichiro still moves pretty quick for a guy at 39. He has 452 stolen bases in his career, 14 of them with New York in 2012. Brett Gardner had a career high 49 stolen bases in 2011.  So speed is an integral part to getting runs scored without Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter. Both Ichiro and Gargner have to be aggressive on the bases, because if we're to score runs, it starts with those guys hitting lead off.  For now, the strategy HAS to be the small ball strategy, faster legs and our best contact hitters early.

Someone once said, "to play small ball, you need a small ball line up." Guess what? We've got one. Execute Joe... execute!  I'm not saying we lack any pop, we don't, but we have the spark plugs, we need to use them. We're not going to see a home run derby that we are accustomed to right now. Sure, we can be happy we've seen a few homers from some of the power guys lately, and I'll take that, but I like seeing the team scoring as many runs as possible... any which way they can.  But until the big bats make it back, we have to rely on Ichiro and Brett to be the guys to get it started.  That's what lead off guys are supposed to do right? Get those runs, guys. We need them now more than ever... we're in the basement!

-- Rudy Laurens, BYB Writer
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