It's over.
The fat lady has sung. It got late early. Enter Sandman. Even the shouting is over. It's done. Forget it. The Yankees 2014 season has ended six weeks earlier than most other teams, and more than two months earlier than fans were hoping.
In some ways, it's amazing it lasted this long. Four out of five starting pitchers were gone for most of the year, although Michael Pineda is looking like he didn't lose anything (except games he gave to the bullpen) in the time he was out. And they keep dangling Masahiro Tanaka at us, promising he'll be back for the stretch run.
Let him stay rested. There ain't gonna be no stretch run. This puppy is over.
The funny thing is, the starting pitching turned out to be the least of this team's problems. Replacements like David Phelps, Brandon McCarthy, Chris Capuano (!) and a cast of thousands managed to pitch pretty well considering everything. That's why the games that were lost were close.
The bullpen has held up remarkably for a group of pitchers who are used pretty much every day and whose arms must be dangling by a thread. Lately there have been signs of fatigue, but how could there not be? This whole pitching staff has been held together with baling wire and chewing gum. They have performed above expectations given all the injuries.
But the hitting--and calling it that seems perverse--just never showed up this year. At Spring Training, we were salivating: Look at this deep lineup! Ellsbury to lead off! Jeter in his last year with something to prove! Teixeira back from his boatload of injuries! Additions of Beltran (the latest "always wanted to be a Yankee" to flop fairly seriously on getting his wish--remember Vernon Wells?), McCann (the next Thurman Munson? Maybe the next Rick Cerone) and Brian Roberts (because the Orioles were so stupid to let HIM go, right?).
The poster child for this year's Yankees is probably McCann. The Yankee farm system is notoriously thin, but the one thing it definitely has is a bunch of promising catchers. So the team goes out and spends beaucoup bucks on a not-quite-aging-but-almost hitter coming over from the National League (uh-oh) at that precise position. No trust in the farmhands? Does this remind anyone else of the pre-banishment George era?
What happens? The catcher of the present and the future comes out and hits .233 with a few home runs and a couple of runs batted in. He appears to call a decent game. So does Francisco Cervelli, and he actually has hit better than McCann when he could manage to walk onto a field this year.
Things aren't good in the Bronx, folks, and they ain't gonna get better soon. There's talk Brian Cashman's job might be on the line, but when you hogtie a general manager with massive contracts, tell him it's important to get under the arbitrary salary cap to save so you can spend more on aging free agents later (only to go back on that salary limit thing), and give up draft picks by signing other teams' free agents, how much can a general manager change? Will it matter if Cashman leaves after this year?
It's time to look at 2015, boys and girls, and that's not seeming a huge amount better. Or maybe even as good. The starting rotation--if the injured come back as planned--will be quite attractive, with Tanaka, Pineda, Sabathia, probably not Ivan Nova, at least at the beginning of the season, maybe McCarthy, who has been good, and who knows what expensive free agent (Jon Lester? Max Scherzer?) they give too much money and too many years to over the winter.
But the lineup? Still Ellsbury, Teixiera, Brett Gardner (who's always going to be a good but not great hitter), Martin Prado, McCann, Beltran (presumably as a right fielder after off-season surgery on his elbow), someone to play shortstop, someone to DH when it's not Beltran, Ellsbury, Teixeira or McCann, and oh yeah, Mr. Rod will return, no doubt in true All-Star form after essentially not having played for two years, one assumes without chemical help, and reaching the age of 40. Uh-huh, he'll be great.
There won't be Jeter 2 watch next year. Expect empty seats on your TV screen. Because there's not a ton of wiggle room, the hitters who aren't hitting this year will be a year older, there are going to be injuries we haven't thought of yet and, just to reiterate, Mr. Rod will be back.
This isn't getting better soon, folks. It's possible the dark era of the 80s and early 90s is back.
