It cannot be lost on general manager Brian Cashman and the organizational hierarchy that the Yankees were shut down for six innings on Sunday by a young power pitcher the Tigers obtained in a rental deal last July only after the Detroit front office yielded to the reality that their team wasn’t good enough to win anything of significance.
The pitcher’s name is Michael Fulmer, the rental property was Yoenis Cespedes, and that provides just one example of the road map the Yankees must follow as this season morphs into the trading season.
The first five games of this homestand that the Yankees swept by scoring 33 runs in defeating the Angels four times and the Tigers on Friday provided an oasis of sorts for the offense-parched Pinstripes.
But then the Yankees were limited to one run on six hits in Saturday’s 6-1 defeat, in which Justin Verlander was dominant through 6 ²/₃ innings, before Sunday’s 4-1 loss, in which they got two hits in six innings off Fulmer, who extended his shutout streak to 28 ¹/₃ innings.
Ah, the baseball adage of good pitching beating bad hitting was never more in evidence.
For better or worse, these are the Yankees 63 games through a season in which they’re one under .500. Which means, for better against bad teams with questionable pitching staffs and for worse against the good ones.
Being mediocre on the field isn’t a baseball crime, even in The Bronx where winning — and in this borough, that means championships, not wild-card game losses — is the thread that binds generations.
But being in denial in the front office is a felony.
Yes, with the Rockies (28th of 30 in MLB ERA) and Twins (29th) up for the next 11 games on the schedule beginning Tuesday with two in Colorado and four in Minnesota, the Yankees probably won’t crash over the next couple of weeks if they continue to get the caliber of starting pitching they have since the beginning of May.
Still, it doesn’t appear as if they have the pieces to compete with the elite. Rather, they have pieces in Carlos Beltran, Dellin Betances, Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller, who seem more valuable as trade assets to regenerate the future than as present-day assets on the field.
The Yankees pounded their way into the second wild-card spot last year largely on the bats of Mark Teixeira (until he got hurt), Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran. Then the club went into this season crossing its fingers and toes hoping for a repeat.
Teixeira is on the DL again, his value diminished. The Yankees are bringing in Ike Davis to take over the black hole at first base.
Rodriguez is having the season (.211, seven homers, .406 slugging, OPS+ of 77) pretty much everyone expected he’d have last year upon his return from the 2014 season-long PED-suspension. Indeed, on the bench Sunday after going 0-for-7 the previous two nights against Detroit and 5-for-24 on the homestand, Rodriguez stayed on the bench with two on and two out in the bottom of the eighth with lefty Didi Gregorius due up as the tying run against lefty reliever Justin Wilson.
Joe Girardi cited Gregorius’ split against lefties (.370, best lefty v. lefty in the AL), as the primary reason he did not go to A-Rod in that spot. But Gregorius hadn’t hit a home run in 54 at-bats against a lefty this year. Fact is, Gregorius had hit one home run in 363 lifetime AB’s against lefties before lining out to center field on Sunday.
Beltran, at age 39, has been carrying the Yankees, even in going 0-for-7 in these two defeats. But as with the back-end arms, Beltran (who has a modified no-trade clause that allows him to block deals to 15 clubs) has his greatest value as a rental property. There is no debate.
Optics aren’t an acceptable explanation for dallying. Hanging around the second wild-card spot sure isn’t, either. The only legitimate reason for Cashman to delay is if the GM believes the market will expand and the return will thus be greater as July 31 approaches. But it takes only two teams to create a bidding war and the more aggressive the GM, the more quickly he should be able to stoke competitive interest in his high-end assets.
And the sooner the Yankees can move on to getting their own equivalent of Michael Fulmer for 2017 and beyond.