I'm so tired of the freeloading members of this 2024 Yankee team. Every night it is either the Juan Soto show or the Aaron Judge show or a combo of both. And the rest of the team just swings and misses, hits into double plays and essentially freeloads off the Soto-Judge party. And if Soto or Judge don't hit, the Yankees simply lose and sometimes these losses are to terrible teams, which gets them no closer to a championship. It's everyone's job to hit, not just Soto and Judge.
"Going into the weekend, Soto had hit six homers in his past seven games, seven in his last 15 and 13 in his last 30. Say he keeps up that pace for the next 30 games and plays in every game. That gets him to 47 with 10 games left in the regular season, one in which the Yankees will likely be grinding against the Orioles until the very end to see who’s going to end up winning the AL East," report MLB.com.
But what if Soto doesn't go on that tear? Like why is it on him? How about the rest of the team who passes off the work to Soto and his teammate Judge? As MLB.com reported about a month ago when the Yankee offense hit all time low and Brian Cashman visited the team, “It’s been a struggle, obviously,” Cashman said. “Thankfully, we got out of the gates really strong. Hopefully that cushion will allow us to work through this, hopefully sooner than later, because it’s gone on long enough. It’s been a tough stretch for us.”
Seriously, that's a cop out. How about letting Oswaldo Cabrera play more consistently and let DJ LeMahieu ride the bench? Why not let Oswald Peraza actually get some quality playing time and let Gleyber Torres sit? And what about Jasson Dominguez? He's lighting up in Triple A, isn't he ready again for primetime?
“I kind of knew what I needed to do. I just couldn’t figure out how to do it,” LeMahieu said Thursday (8/8) before he was set to bat eighth and start at first base against Angels lefty Tyler Anderson. “But I think taking a couple days off gave me a little different perspective. Able to look at a few things more closely," reported The New York Post.
And there's this take back in late July from the Post, "Some strong at-bats have not translated into enough strong results. Ben Rice’s average is down to .218. DJ LeMahieu is 0-for-his-last-17. Alex Verdugo is in a 3-for-35 rut." Now we have the Yankees getting clobbered 12-2 by the bottom-feeder White Sox this week, and Tigers are putting on show against them in front of their home crowd in Detroit with Carlos Rodon on the mound and the bats silent.
At the end of the day, it's every pitcher's job to pitch, every fielder's job to field and every hitter's job to hit. Don't throw all of the work onto one or two players in each of those categories. If the Yankees are going to win convincingly and be a dominant force in the playoffs, everyone needs to contribute. No more cop outs. No more excuses. You either want it and give it your all or you don't. What's it going to be?
--Suzie Pinstripe
BYB Senior Managing Editor
Twitter: @suzieprof
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