Following Yankees Loss to Tigers, It’s Time to Place Blame Where It Belongs
October 7, 2011 · TheFanManifesto · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
I get it. The New York Yankees lost.
They’re dead and done with. Their season is over, finished, terminado. They’ll be playing golf next week. The season was a disappointment, maybe even a bitter one.
As the calendar flipped to October, the American League leader in runs put up a Mexican League effort. A top-tier Cy Young candidate morphed into Denny Neagle redux. A much-maligned $30 million third basemen became—well, a much-maligned $30 million third baseman.
All of the above is as frustrating as it is true. As a Yankee fan, it’s hard to keep all the anger inside. It’s hard not to yell at A-Rod at the top of your lungs. It’s hard to refrain from throwing furniture and/or feeling generally depressed/hungover the next morning.
But for once, it’s time to react rationally to a tough loss. The Yankees didn’t lose because Alex Rodriguez struck out to make the inevitable official. Joe Girardi didn’t throw away a title run through his admittedly questionable bullpen management. Brian Cashman didn’t screw up by not making some arbitrary and unrealistic deadline deal you thought he should have. Mark Teixeira didn’t lose it, and neither did Nick Swisher, Russell Martin or an umpiring crew with Stevie Wonder as its crew chief.
They all lost it.
It’s our nature to blame wrongdoings on the most vulnerable target, to attribute a loss to one man. That’s the basis of scapegoating and more often than not, it’s incorrect. There are far too many variables that go into an outcome for one player to be the singular cause of despair.
That may be obvious, but even Bill Buckner had Bob Stanley. Grady Little had a Tim Wakefield knuckleball and a Jorge Posada bloop. Jonathan Papelbon had a tired arm. There’s almost always plenty of blame to go around.
However, like cream cheese on a Dunkin’ Donuts bagel, the blame tends to be spread disproportionately. People see A-Rod strike out to end a game—especially given his reputation as a “choker”—and end up lambasting him to no end. The tabloids put him on the back page. The talking heads talk about him. A lot.
For all intents and purpose, the Yankees lost the 2011 ALDS in February. Sure, there was always a possibility that they’d catch a couple of breaks and take advantage of weaker-than-usual competition to reach the Fall Classic.
But the Yankees are the Yankees, and thus their titanic perception is almost never commensurate with their less-rosy reality. They’re always viewed as favorites, even when they shouldn’t be. Their $200 million payroll and lineup of big stars and their prominence in the national media ensures it.
It’s not correct, and it’s almost detrimental. Coming into this series, there was no tangible reason for Yankees fans to feel as confident as they did. On paper, they didn’t have a single clear-cut matchup advantage over the Tigers.
CC Sabathia may be great, but Verlander is greater. Ivan Nova may be a solid young pitcher, but so is Doug Fister. Freddy Garcia is the same guy he’s been for the better part of five years—which is to say that he’s a finesse-throwing fly-ball pitcher whose “talents” weren’t guaranteed to translate in October.
And God forbid the Yankees had to rely on A.J. Burnett, the same man who hasn’t posted back-to-back quality starts in an eternity.
Amazingly, the Yankees ended up failing not because of their weak rotation (which, despite its solid-enough playoff performance, is a legitimate concern for 2012 and beyond), but because of poor offensive execution.
A total of 10 hits in Game 5 were not enough for the Bombers to hang a three-spot on Detroit. Six plate appearances with the bases loaded wasn’t enough for them to even lift the ball out of the infield—unless you count Russell Martin’s infield fly, which landed squarely in Miguel Cabrera’s mitt just a few steps beyond the dirt behind first base.
Despite having five at-bats with the bases loaded, the Yankees didn’t score a single run, going o-fer with runners in scoring position.
Alex Rodriguez, Russell Martin and Mark Teixeira may have incubated that goose egg, but they didn’t lay it. Even Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner, both of whom contributed a few large moments versus Detroit, had their shortcomings.
Gardner popped out to end one of the Yankees’ many Game 5 threats and was unable to steal a base when the Yankees sorely needed it. Granderson came up short a few times as well. And it’s worth mentioning that his first laudatory catch in Game 4 wouldn’t have been necessary if he didn’t take the scenic route to get to the ball.
However, there’s no need to lampoon either of those guys. Unless, of course, you lampoon A-Rod.
From the twittersphere to the blogosphere to the Worldwide Leader, the sports media took advantage of an opportunity to do what they love most: irrational and exaggerated blame. That’s why “Alex Rodriguez,” “A-Rod” and “Choker” were all trending on Twitter in the latter half of Wednesday night’s game.
A narrative is what sells papers and garners advertising impressions, and the narrative has always been that Alex Rodriguez falls short in clutch situations. Never mind that A-Rod played hurt throughout the entirety of 2011, or that he actually contributed three RBIs in the series. Or that, meanwhile, Nick Swisher is 1-31 in his Yankees postseason career with runners in scoring position.
It’s also probably worth forgetting that the Yankees were really never that great in the first place. After all, the postgame narrative was wrapped long before A-Rod’s strikeout put the wraps on the 2011 Yankees.
Jesse Golomb is the creator and lead writer of TheFanManifesto. You can follow him and the rest of the FanMan team on twitter at @TheFanManifesto, or like FanMan on facebook by clicking here.
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