[外電] In Playoffs, the $200 Million Yankees

[djviva (淡定~ 穩中求勝)]

In Playoffs, the $200 Million Yankees Give Their Poorest Effort 
(NT Times) http://tinyurl.com/9kwvqal

DETROIT — When it mattered most, $200 million could barely buy a hit.

The Yankees, the richest and most accomplished team in baseball, were swept
from the postseason on Thursday, embarrassed and undone by a staggering and
costly display of ineptitude at the plate. Alex Rodriguez, with 647 career
home runs and a $29 million salary for the 2012 season, managed a single hit
against Detroit, and then was unceremoniously benched as the Tigers ran off
four straight victories. Robinson Cano, regarded as among the four or five
most talented players in baseball, endured an 0-for-29 streak that now stands
as a major league record for postseason failure. Over all, he batted just
.075 in the playoffs.

The Yankees, who led the major leagues in home runs during the regular season
with 245, failed to score a single run in 20 straight innings against
Detroit, scored in just 3 out of 39 innings over all and never held a lead in
any of the four games. The same offense that produced the second-most runs
(804) in baseball during the regular season could barely manage a single as
the Yankees suffered their first postseason sweep since 1980 and only the
fifth in their glorious, 27-championship history.

The Yankees’ offense actually began to collapse in the first round of the
playoffs against Baltimore, but they managed to survive thanks to a stalwart
performance by the starting pitcher C. C. Sabathia, the team’s ace, in the
fifth and deciding game. But on Thursday afternoon, even Sabathia couldn’t
halt the unraveling. He was knocked out of the game before the fourth inning
was over, having surrendered 11 hits and 6 runs, with two of them coming on
an emphatic home run by Miguel Cabrera, who two weeks ago became baseball’s
first Triple Crown winner in 45 years.

As the game proceeded, as Detroit fans roared in pinch-me delight, the
Yankees barely fought back. They managed just two hits by game’s end as the
Tigers romped, 8-1, and captured the American League Championship Series in
one-sided fashion. The Yankees, meanwhile, dejectedly headed home, pondering
their unfathomable lack of production and what promises to be an off-season
of significant, and perhaps controversial, changes.

“It’s certainly disappointing and hard to stomach,” General Manager Brian
Cashman after the Detroit sweep was complete. “We feel we let the fans down
in New York, and each other, at the same time.”

First baseman Mark Teixeira added, “We just got cold in the worst four games
to be cold in all season.”

Actually, postseason failure has become all too familiar to the Yankees and
their fans. Despite a team payroll that is far larger than any other franchise
’s, they have failed to win a championship in 11 of the last 12 seasons and
they have they made it to the World Series in only three of those years. In
addition, they have somehow turned into the personal punching bag of the
Tigers, who have now ousted them from the postseason three times in the past
seven years.

And yet the Yankees’ 2012 postseason failure will stand apart for all the
disheartening developments that occurred over the past week.

Rodriguez was humiliated; his expensive future with the team suddenly
unclear. Derek Jeter broke his ankle in Game 1, the first time in his nearly
two decades of superb play that he missed games in the postseason. In his
absence, his teammates produced next to nothing. Curtis Granderson hit 43
home runs during the season and Nick Swisher knocked in 93 runs, but both
were helpless for almost all of the postseason, with Granderson going 0 for
11 in the A.L.C.S. Like Rodriguez, they also suffered the indignity of being
yanked from the lineup. Over all, the team scored only six runs in the four
losses.

As a final insult, even Yankee Stadium went unfilled last weekend as the team
lost Games 1 and 2 to Detroit. There were thousands of empty seats, for
reasons not completely clear, and those who were there spent considerable
time booing the Yankees.

Amid the mounting disarray, Game 4 served as the final indignity, with the
Yankees not only failing at the plate again but also making uncharacteristic
fielding mistakes, two of them by Teixeira, who is widely considered the best
defensive first baseman in the major leagues.

The miscues helped the Tigers take an early 2-0 lead and drive up Sabathia’s
pitch count. Then Cabrera struck to make it 4-0 and Tigers shortstop Jhonny
Peralta quickly followed with a two-run homer of his own to make it 6-0.

Sabathia exited, and the rest of his team was not far behind. By the end of
the game, the Tigers had added two more home runs — another by Peralta and
one by Austin Jackson — and banged out 16 hits, the most ever by a Detroit
team in the postseason.

The Yankees? They managed just 22 hits in 140 at-bats over the disastrous
four games, for a .157 batting average, lower even than the .173 average they
compiled in 1963, when they were swept in the World Series by the Los Angeles
Dodgers of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Since then, the Yankees were swept
in the 1976 World Series by Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine and in a three-game
first-round playoff series in 1980 by the Kansas City Royals.

To that list, now add 2012. But this postseason will also be remembered for
the decisions that Manager Joe Girardi made regarding Rodriguez, the
superstar third baseman, who is still under contract for five more years at
$114 million. In the most daring and successful move of his managerial
career, Girardi pinch hit Raul Ibanez for Rodriguez in the ninth inning of
Game 3 of the division series against Baltimore, and Ibanez proceeded to hit
a home run to tie the game, and another in the 12th inning to win it.

From that point on, Girardi continued to treat Rodriguez as a substitute,
benching him in Game 5 against the Orioles, and again in Games 3 and 4
against Detroit. He also pinch hit for Rodriguez three times, but after the
first magical moment with Ibanez, it never worked again. Finally, on Thursday
Girardi tried the move in reverse, pinch-hitting Rodriguez for Ibanez against
the left-handed reliever Drew Smyly in the sixth inning, but Rodriguez flied
out to center with two runners on base.

Girardi’s treatment of Rodriguez, with the support of the front office,
raises questions about what the organization has in store for Rodriguez now
that the season is over. A trade is possible, although Rodriguez would have
to approve it because he has the contractual right to veto any potential deal.

Thursday’s ignominious exit could also spell the end of Swisher’s career in
pinstripes. He was back in the lineup one day after being benched in Game 4,
but he is eligible to become a free agent. So is the closer Rafael Soriano,
who can opt out of his contract.

Soriano was scarcely needed in the series because the Yankees never needed a
save. That was because they barely hit, they hardly scored and they never had
the lead.

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清晨霧一般的思念, 清新 double, 美麗 double, 捉摸不定 double...

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