Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Mussina Growing Impatient with .500 Yanks

From M.A. Mehta:

NEW YORK -- Mike Mussina isn't ready to panic just yet, but the veteran pitcher certainly feels a sense of urgency for the Yankees to put together a few good weeks of wining baseball.

"We've been saying that for a month, that it's inevitable (that we'll go on a long winning streak)," Mussina said. "And we're still a .500 team. If it's inevitable, it better start soon. We did something impressive last year to come back and get to the postseason. I don't want to have to try to do that again."

"We just haven't played consistently the whole time," said Mussina, who had a no-decision in yesterday's 3-2 loss. "You got to fight through these times and keep your head above water. Hopefully we can play better baseball and get a couple good weeks in a row."

Unlike last season, Mussina's performance this season (9-4, 3.82 ERA) has given him the right to complain, and it doesn't bother me at all that he did. This team does need to start winning consistently, starting now.

Luckily for the Yanks nobody has run away with anything.

5 Comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised more players haven't said anything. With their payroll, there are expectations. The team is not playing up to those expectations. And some of the vets need to start stating as much.

Jeff said...

I'm really at a loss to explain what's going on with this team. Just about everyone on the team has their ups and downs. One day 10 runs are scored and the next day none.

The Yanks could use a good deal of consistency, but how do you go about achieving that? Maybe Girardi needs to pick out a lineup and stick with it for a while.

Injuries have been a problem, with people bouncing around, but that's not the whole problem. Some of it is luck - like the bad call on Melky's bunt yesterday that cost the Yankees a run in all likelihood. There are so many things that it's hard to point the finger at just one area.

Every time the team shows flashes of playing well, they quickly sink back down the next day. It's been an exasperating season.

Greg Cohen said...

The Yanks did the same thing last year Jeff, as soon as you thought they'd turn it around they went out to the west coast and lost to Colorado and San Fran, then they play well for a week and lose three out of four to somebody. Remember, that team was at .500 at the All Star Break.

Hopefully it doesn't take this team that long to find themselves.

Bruce Beckett said...

There always seems to be one area of the game that lets the Yanks down, whether it be starting pitching, hitting, the bullpen and now - dare I say it - even our legendary closer. When we manage a good pitching performance, we don't hit and vice-versa. Maybe our batting line-up isn't quite as good as it looks on paper, but surely it should be able to manage more than two runs against a pitcher (Luke Hochevar) with an ERA of over 5? Moose might not be panicking but after losing four out of seven to the Royals this season, I am!

Anonymous said...

yea Bruce, this team needs to put everything together at once. They get one or the other never pitching and hitting together. It's so frustrating but then again hasn't it been the case for the last couple years?