They are many (long read) I know some of this may have been touched by others, but I thought I would put this out there... there are 156 games played leaving 6 left, so the numbers below won't change much. Reasons for the Yankees failures this year: Injuries: -Jeter – only played 17 in games this year -Teixeira – only played in 15 games this year -Youkilis – only played in 28 games this year -A-Rod – only played in 42 games this year (so far) -Granderson – only played in 55 games this year (so far) -Pineda – played in NO games this year -Nix – played in 87 games this year (~half the season) -Hafner – played in 81 games this year (~half the season) Poor performance: CC: career worst year in record as far as win percentage goes finishing 14 – 13, career worst in WHIP at 1.37, career worst in ERA at 4.78 (0.39 worse than his rookie season), career worst in having most ER allowed 112 (previous was 102 in his 2nd year), career worst in runs allowed at 122 (previous worst was 109 also in 2nd year), career worst in home runs allowed at 28 (previous worst was 22 last year), career worst in WAR at 0.3 (previous low was 1.6 in 2005), and he tied his career low in shutouts by having 0 which he has done 6 times now. Andy Pettitte: First losing season in his career at 10 – 11 (unless he wins his next start to get to .500). Aside from that, his numbers (to date) are pretty much consistent with his seasonal averages. Phil Hughes: had an abysmal record at 4 – 13 with a WHIP of 1.42 and an ERA of 5.07. His WAR so far this year is -0.5. He has given us only 143.2 innings… Of that 143.1 innings were starts coming to an average of just over 5 innings a game… Not much positives to be said here. Joba Chamberlain: had probably his worst year in many categories. While he gave up 21 HR in 2009 as a starter, he gave up 8 in only 41.2 innings… 0.19 HR/inning where in 2009 it was 0.13 HR/inning. His WAR was -0.1, he has a career worst in WHIP at 1.68 which was .13 worse than last year, he has career worst in ERA at 4.97. Not much positives here. Hiroki Kuroda: While he has had a good year as a whole, he had a great 1st 2/3 of the season. At the end of July, his ERA was 2.38 at a 10 – 6 record. August he had an ERA of 5.12 only slightly bringing up his season ERA to 2.89, but had a record of 1 – 4. So far in September, he has had an ERA of 5.18 with a record of 0 – 2 and 2 no decisions. At present, his record is 11 – 12 with an ERA of 3.17. David Phelps: While he is only in his second season, his current WHIP is 1.42 (last year was 1.19) and his ERA is 4.93 (last year it was 3.34). Mariano Rivera: Dare I say it… He is having one of his worst years as well. With the season not over yet, he already has a career worst in 7 blown saves (previous worst was 6 in 2003). His WHIP is up a little over both career average and the last few years. His ERA is actually lower this year than career average as well as last year but at 2.15 is significantly lower than his worst year as a full time closer (2007) at 3.15 or his first year in the bigs (in which he started 10 of 19 games) at 5.51 in 1995. Alex Rodriguez: He has only played 42 games so far, but in those games, his batting average is .253 which is significantly lower than career batting average of .300. Same with SLG which is .440 compared to career .558. Same with OPS which is .793 compared to career average of .942. He has 7 HR this year which I an average of 1 every 6 games. His career average rate is at a little better than 1 every 4 games. This is likely all chalked up to not being on PEDs anymore. Catchers combined: The catchers combined are hitting at a .215 BA with a .302 SLG and an OPS of .594 while having a total of 8 HR, 56 R, 42 RBI, and only 102 H. DH combined: The DH combined are hitting at a .190 BA with a .312 SLG and an OPS of .587 while having a total of 16 HR, 63 R, 61 RBI, and only 105 H. The only position to have a BA over .300 is 2B at .320. Next closest is CF at .284. The team as a whole has a BA of .245 (22nd in MLB), SLG of .380 (24th in MLB), OBP of .309 (22nd in MLB), and an OPS of .689 (25th in MLB). The entire team only has 142 HR (20th in MLB) and a total of 637 R (16th in MLB). 236 doubles (25th in MLB), 1280 H (26th in MLB), and 1988 TB (27th in MLB) The team as a whole has an ERA of 3.95 (18th in MLB), 82 Quality starts (16th in MLB), 610 ER (14th in MLB), 648 R (16th in MLB)(yes, that means there were 38 unearned runs this year), 421 BB (4th in MLB), 1177 K (15th in MLB), opponents have a BA of .262 (26th in MLB), 10 SHO (18th in MLB), and 6 CG (tied for 4th with 3 other teams). Believe it or not, fielding was a strength this year. This team as a whole has 65 errors (only 2 teams better: Tampa Bay with 56 and Baltimore with 48) BUT are 29th in total chances with 5711 and only Oakland having fewer chances to make an error. In the AL, Cano is 5th in Batting Avg, 14th in HR, 5th in RBI, and 3rd in WAR (7.4). In the AL, Mariano is 3rd with 44 saves. Highest ranking NYY SP in AL is Kuroda who is 9th with a 3.17 ERA.
In spite of that they did better than expected, many thought the Yankees would be buried by mid May. What really did them in was a West Coast Trip going 4-6 & getting swept by the A's. Then a West Central Trip going 2-6 ending up getting swept by the White Sox.
...or you can look at 2 games vs the Rays...if they had won just 2 games vs the Rays that they lost instead, the Rays would be tied with Texas (85-71) and the Yanx would only be one game behind them for the final WC slot...and starting tonight the Yanx would be playing at home where they have fared better vs TB.
I'd have to go with May 27th-30th when they got swept by the lowly Mets in a 4 game series. And scoring only 1 run in 3 of the 4 loses. And lets not forget the 3 game sweep at the hands of the equally lowly Chicago White Sox. back in early August.
