Yanks Sox

Time's Running Out for a Yanks
Another loss makes the #Yankees task that more difficult

By Rich Mancuso

BRONX, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 3- It does not get better for the New York Yankees. Tuesday night the Boston Red Sox came to the Bronx and made things that more difficult for the Yankees post season chances with a 9-4 win. This was not the intensity of past Yankees-Red Sox games in the Bronx though the Yankees have more to play for than the defending world series champions.

From the looks of things, and the way things are going, everyday it becomes more realistic that the Yankees will miss the post season for the second consecutive year. They are running out of time with 26 games left to play and September will have to be magical.

A marvelous and historic run for the Yankees to keep playing baseball in October will take, maybe an 18-8 stretch from Wednesday night until the last game.

That would be historic, though baseball is a game of unpredictability and it is not impossible. But these are the Yankees, a team that has not been able to put together any type of long winning streak since April.

For a team that has struggled to drive in runs, a consistent pattern since April, the writing is on the wall. Once again they failed to score when they had to and it did not help to play catch up baseball because starter Shane Greene could not get past the second inning,

It becomes more difficult for the Yankees when their starting pitching fails, and those starts have accounted for keeping the Yankees in the race for a second wild card, but that is becoming a harder task as they trail Seattle and Detroit by five games,

Oh, another late season surge by the Cleveland Indians has them also five games from that wild card spot. In essence with time not on their side, the Yankees now have to battle three teams for that final playoff spot and that can change as Oakland is in the running with their divisional lead in the AL west gone by to the Angels, a team with the overall best record in baseball.

"These series are extremely important,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said, “This is not the way you want to start the homestand.” Pretty much the manager has been saying the same thing the past few weeks and hoped something would change,

Girardi tried to explain how hard it has been to score runs in the ballpark that has always played to a home field advantage. Except this season that has expanded away from the Bronx as the Yankees are next to last in runs, next to the Red Sox.

They did manage to get two home runs. Martin Prado got his fifth as a Yankee and Brian McCann hit a solo shot in the ninth inning, his 16th of the season that put the Yankees final run on the scoreboard.

McCann has been one of those disappointments, the off-season acqusition of a team with a $200 million dollar payroll that continues to not produce. Prado, in his 29th game has been the Yankees most productive hitter.

But, Prado left the game with a tight left hamstring and will be examined further Wednesday. Assuming Prado has to miss any amount of time, and that will further diminish any slim hopes for the Yankees to have a post season run.

“That’s not someone we want to lose,” said Girardi. He will see how Prado is. The manager also will determine if he wants to bat Brett Gardner third again in the lineup, as he did Tuesday night to try and get some type of offense going with time running out.

Gardner was ejected from the game in the sixth inning by home plate umpire Tim Timmons for arguing a called third strike. Perhaps that was a spark for the Yankees as they need everything they can get at this point. And sometimes one player can ignite the fire by showing how much the Yankees still feel they are in this wild card race,

It is referred to as not quitting, and the Yankees will keep saying that until they are officially eliminated from post season contention. But time is not on their side as they need more than Gardner or someone else getting ejected to ignite a fire.

The Yankees need to pitch and hit at the same time. And from their consistent pattern that may be an impossible task as this possible post season run may soon be coming to an end.

Comment Rich Mancuso: Ring786@aol.com  Facebook.com/Rich Mancuso  www.newyorksportsexaminer.com