New York Yankees: Yanks can hit the long ball, but forgot how to play baseball

The New York Yankees do many things well and are probably going to be great but they need to remember the fundamentals of baseball.

It’s way too early in the season for the doomsday people to show their heads because the New York Yankees will quickly right the ship because well, they are the Yankees. However, over the first handful of games it is very obvious that the New York Yankees are long ball or bust.

After the weekend games, where the Yankees left 10 plus runners on base, it was very easy to see that these young bombers haven’t figured out how to hit for contact. Aaron Boone should be stressing the importance of having strong contact hitters, because breaking the home run record again is nice but another World Series title is a much sweeter prize.

So far, the lineup that Boone trotted out misses some tact. There is a ton of power through out the lineup, but a home run still only counts for one run when you have no men on. The problem is that when the Yankees have men on base, they can’t seem to get their best hitters, well, hitting.

The two teams that just were in the World Series made it there by playing baseball, hitting for contact, stealing bases to get in position to score, and using their pitching staff to the top of its ability. This Yankees team can do all those things, a great bonus would be using their power to make pitchers pay on mishaps.

Once hitters start pushing the ball into the gaps and eliminating the shifts, they’ll increase the likelihood of getting pitches they can send out of the park. However, if each hitter keeps trying to go home run or bust, we are going to witness an awful lot of strikeouts.

For reference, the Yankees have four home runs this year, but just seven total XBH’s. Not a great ratio. In total, they have just 28 hits meaning a fourth of their hits are home runs or doubles. That is a high reliance on the long ball, or a result of going for the long ball.

It is Aaron Boone and his staff’s job to make this lineup so dangerous that pitchers don’t have a chance to methodically cut through it. If Boone can set the lineup this way, the rest of the season becomes smooth sailing on calm waters and they will get more overall hits.

Pitching can’t find a groove

Opening Day was everything that we thought it would be, Masahiro Tanaka throwing some nasty breaking pitches and the team rallying behind him. Minus that performance, so far, the all of the Yanks’ pitchers still look like they are in Spring Training.

James Paxton had a quiet five strike out performance , and J.A. Happ looks like he’s still experimenting with his pitch grips. While the Yankees bullpen performed admirably, at no point were they in peak shape. The pitching will get better the deeper into the season we go, I hope!

Fair Ball (Positive side)

The younger two Yankees in Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar have both come out hitting well, while Aaron Judge broke out a little in Sunday’s delayed game. You can only wonder how much Judge’s wrist is still bothering him after a full work load during the spring, but hopefully he stays on track.

DJ LeMahieu has come along as advertised and may end up being a great additional piece for the rest of the team to follow his lead. There are not many leaders left in the clubhouse and hopefully he’s one of the guys to step up.

This New York Yankees team has a ton of talent, but it’s up to Aaron Boone to figure out how to maximize it.