The State of the Yankees.

Going into tonight’s game against the Twins (7:05EST, Wang/Bonser), on May 31st, I thought the Yankees deserved some evaluation.

Yankees are 27-27 on the season. Their best hitter has been Hideki Matsui. The leader in homeruns is Giambi. The leader in Innings Pitched and ERA is Chien Ming Wang. Leader in wins is Mike Mussina. Leader in saves is the greatest relief pitcher on the face of the Earth, Mariano Rivera.

Couple of important points- Jeter is in a slump. Joba is being moved to the rotation. Both Hughes and Kennedy are on the DL for the forseeable future. Posada is close to a return to the team (amen!).

I don’t know. Should Yankees fans be concerned about the Rays? They  have the best record in the AL and are 1st in the East. Yankees are in 4th. I still see it as Yankees chasing Sox kinda thing. Lets see how this plays o ut.

Considering the meager hitting, and having to face the worst possible scenario with the young pitchers, I guess the Yankees are in good shape. If Hughes and Kennedy had stayed healthy and pitched well, we’d probably have a better record.

At times the hitting has gone through the annoying 0-50 with RISP slump. The bullpen has been atrocious besides Joba, Mo (who’s having the best 1st half since who knows), and Edwar Ramirez. With Joba going to the rotation, the setup man scares me. Farnsworth is a HR machine, and Hawkins has been bad too. So there we go, we’re back to the pre-Joba setup woes.

Mike Mussina is the odd ball. Besides his heartiest fans (like me), no one expected he’d be TIED FOR THE LEAD IN AL WiNS. Did you? I don’t think so. But he’s figured things out. His ERA is a respectable 4.26 right now, and he’s 8-4. Imagine if this is the season in which he wins 20 games. It would be soooo ironic.

Jeter hasn’t been hitting like Jeter (he’s been hitting but not the whole Jeterian thing). Cano, yeah idk, hello Robbie wake up! He’s still hitting below .250 and it’s almost June. I hope Bowa keeps an eye from him, even though he has his own thing to do in LA. But I hope someone does a Bowa on Cano.

We need to go on a big win streak where Wang is superb, Pettitte is Pettitte and Moose continues this stuff. Rasner has been great too, btw. If we can get Mo in the game every other day (he could pitch everyday, he throws only like 13 pitches an innings). The hitters, ALL of them need to come together on a tear and the bullpen needs to be tighter.

All in all, I remain very positive. We’re not in some crazy hole sitting 14.5 games back. We aren’t in 1st either but I see the signs of consistency coming back.