DETROIT -- Losing the American League Championship Series to a team which won seven fewer games than you is bad.
Being swept by that same team in the ALCS is worse. And never holding a lead, for even a fleeting moment in the entire series, is the absolute worst.
Welcome, New York Yankees, to rock bottom.
In the last two post-seasons, the Yankees have yet to win a single game past the Division Series. They were knocked off in five games by the Tigers in 2011, then got by the Baltimore Orioles in this year's ALDS only to be outclassed by Tigers Thursday, 8-1, who completed their four-game sweep.While eliminated by the Tigers for the second straight October, the Yankees set records for offensive futility. In the four game series, they scored a grand total of six runs. They hit a collective .157 for the ALCS.
"There's a lot of a good hitters in that (visitor's clubhouse) and to be able to shut them all down is surprising,'' said Joe Girardi.?
"Collectively, we didn't get it done...We didn't just struggle. A lot of guys struggled mightily.''
For the first three games, the Yankees got strong starting pitching and it didn't save them. They went into Game 4 with a 2.25 ERA in the ALCS -- and hadn't won in a game.
Then, when CC Sabathia sputtered Thursday in Game 4, it was too late to matter. By the ninth, the Yankee lineup looked like something Joe Girardi might bring to Fort Myers for a game next March.
In truth, the Yankees' offensive struggles weren't a total shock. Scouts who watched them over the course of the season warned that the Yanks were too dependent on home runs, which, by definition, are harder to hit against quality pitching staffs in the post-season.
Sure enough, the Yankees hit five homers in nine post-season games -- three of them by Raul Ibanez. And three of the five homers they hit came with the bases empty.
"Just bad timing,'' shrugged Mark Teixeira. "Really bad timing for four games like this.''
"We didn't hit the way we were supposed to,'' said Robinson Cano in a bit of understatement. "We had our chances and didn't take advantage. We didn't do our job with men on base and they beat us.''
The Yankees problems go far beyond the temporary embarrassment of the playoff sweep. Any team, after all, can have a bad week, and it's dangerous to read too much into such a small sample size.
"We lost,'' concluded Nick Swisher. "That's it. We went out and gave it everything we had. It just wasn't good enough.''
That said, the Yankees are in trouble. Their aging roster is becoming problematic.
Take a look around their roster of position players, and while you're at it, their ledger sheets.
At first, Teixeira has seen his OPS decline in each of the last three seasons and is only halfway through his eight-year, $180 million.?
Derek Jeter will undergo surgery Saturday and it's unclear whether he'll be ready for Opening Day. He'll turn 38 next year, an age when few continue to play shortstop everyday.
Curtis Granderson is wildly inconsistent, capable of power (43 homers), but too often, failing to make contact (.232 batting average, 195 strikeouts). Swisher is a free agent and won't be back.
Behind the plate, Russell Martin is also a free agent, and because the Yankees traded one catching prospect (Jesus Montero) and have had another (Austin Romine) slowed by injuries, probably will return.
The Yankees hold a $15 million option on Cano and will exercise that. Next year, the Yankees might have a tough call on whether to extend him beyond 2012. Cano will be 30, relatively young, but his .699 career OPS in the post-season may give the Yanks some pause.
Finally, of course, there's Alex Rodriguez, who was benched for three of the nine post-season games and pinch-hit for in three others. Rodriguez looks for all the world like the most overpriced platoon player, with five years and $114 million in salary obligations remaining.
It's here where the Yankees might secretly envy the Red Sox. In unloading Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Beckett in their megadeal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Sox unloaded $259 million in payroll obligations and got the chance to start over.
For now, the Red Sox have $45.6 million in payroll committed for next season -- a figure that admittedly doesn't include several arbitration cases, nor free agents David Ortiz and Cody Ross. By contrast, the Yankees are on the hook for $119.1 million in 2013.
The disparity is best exemplified thusly: while the Red Sox are committed to just $34.4 million in 2014, two years from now, the Yankees have twice?as much committed in 2016,?four?years from now.
And remember, the Yankees have vowed to be under the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) threshold of $186 million by 2014.
Ordinarily, a team with virtually unlimited resources and coming off a season in which they had the best record in the league is a team to be envied.
So how come it doesn't feel that way for the New York Yankees?
Tags: mlb, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, ALCSmt rainier caucus stanford vs oklahoma state occupy rose parade vesta williams stanford stanford
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