The Bronx View

Football has the Monday Morning Quarterback.  Well, baseball has the… Sunday Morning Manager…?

Yeah, I’m going with that.  Each Sunday we’ll take a moment to quickly address the week, second guess Joe Girardi, and rundown the players of the week.

If it seems like time to worry about AJ Burnett in the playoffs, don’t get too ahead of yourself.

AJ has spent his career as a streaky pitcher, evidenced yet again by this year’s results.  It’s simply how he pitches.  When he has command of his breaking pitches, he can be almost unhittable.  When he doesn’t, hitters sit on his fastball and it becomes a frustrating evening.

The bad news is that Burnett will throw some turkeys.  The good news is, there’s no reason to believe his current slump will last forever.

Many were asking why Damaso Marte was allowed to face six batters on Friday night after the coronation of King Jeter.

The answer is… I don’t know.

Marte has proven to be quite effective against lefties and less so against righties.  He’s also proven that short stints are better for his arm.  When he arrived around the deadline in 2008 alongside Xavier Nady, Girardi was leaving Marte in to face five, six, sometimes nine batters in an appearance.  For some relievers,that’s not a big deal, but Marte wasn’t particularly effective in any of these outings.

Marte wasn’t effective on Friday either, but Girardi left him out there anyway.  It was a curious move considering the long layoff Marte just returned from.  Maybe not overextending him would be a good idea, Joe?

Girardi has always done some funny things with the bullpen that have left me puzzled.  This September, as the Yankees try to figure out how they’ll configure their postseason bullpen, the moves will get more confusing.  It’s not that the Yankees don’t care about winning games right now; there is little danger of the Red Sox catching them at this stage so the focus is on the staff.

It will lead to some frustrating games at times, but the only way to figure out what your pitchers can do its by letting them pitch.

Lost in the great run the Yankees have gone on in the last two months has been the changes in Alex Rodriguez.

His OBP and SLG have been decent for most of the year, but ARod has raised his batting average from .247 on July 31st to .286 as of last Friday.  His home run totals are down a little (only 6 home runs in that 35 game span), but it’s been less feast or famine for ARod.

Interestingly, over the last 35 games, ARod has scored 25 runs and driven in 26 while hitting .361 with only six home runs.  The 35 games previous, ARod hit .270, scored 25 runs, drove in 31 and hit 10 home runs.

The moral of the story?  Batting average ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

A rundown of the offense over the last two weeks ending this past Friday: *

* A week isn’t a lot of data so I’m going to run the previous two weeks.

Despite this having been the Week of Derek Jeter, Nick Swisher takes the top spot this week.  Five homers and  ten walks is a pretty good tally.  ARod and Posada both have had very good weeks, Posada’s topped off by a three run pinch hit home run on Friday, a suitable clincher for his good friend Derek Jeter’s coronation game.

The pitchers over the last two weeks:

Starter of the week is obviously CC Sabathia.  Two runs over 56 plate appearances makes for a nice week.

Best reliever probably goes to Mariano Rivera although, despite giving up a game tying home run against the Rays, Phil Hughes had a pretty good week as well.

Yankees finish up their series today with the Orioles, then the Angels come in Monday to makeup a rain out game.  Toronto arrives Tuesday for two games and then the Yankees fly to Seattle Thursday for a weekend series starting Friday.

Scott Ham blogs about the Yankees here and at TheBronxView.com. He also hosts The Bronx View Yankee Podcast.  He can be reached at feedback@thebronxview.com.