Is it really gonna matter if Hughes pitches 180 innings instead of 175, i dont see any reason he cant make his next start
Not even close? Of course we'll never know. But you don't think loosing Youkilis (975 OPS and great defense) with a guy who needs a hip replacement and is sporting a 297 OBP and sucks at defense made a difference? Or the loss of a guy with a .860 OBP who played pretty excellent defense and who seemingly was an important leader? Or the loss of a guy who stole 70 bases and played pretty good defense? A performance only 5 games better seems pretty likely if you add in those three, no?
And what if the Yankees didnt lose Granderson for a month, or A-Rod for 3 weeks, or Pettitte for over a month.
Ellsbury missed essentially the whole year, Pedroia half the year, and Youk has been done since late July, that's at a much higher cost than what you said. It's not like they didn't have their flaws already- Lackey and Beckett being so awful this year hurt just as bad and that's just underperformance but I still think it's pretty likely the Sox stick around longer if they weren't so many injuries. It's also kind of funny that JD Drew is like the only guy who hasn't had a serious injury this year but he's just sucked anyways.
You're not acknowledging the generally above-replacement level performance they've received from the guys who replaced the injured players. Yes, losing those guys was big (although I think Ellsbury is overrated). But Nava and McDonald and Hall outperformed expectations. It's not like they replaced those guys with automatic outs. And it's not like Ellsbury was playing particularly well when he did play.
If Girardi were playing for the Wild Card, he wouldn't have let the team lay eggs in the last few games. We need to lock up the wild card and rest our guys. Screw winning the division. We shouldn't be afraid to play the Twins if we're to win the World Series again.
Girardi recognizes it's an important game, which is why Hughes is going. Also, all the starters are going. There's not wanting to be swept by Boston, but more importantly, this win is needed to lock up the wild card and put the Yankees right back in the division race.
There's an old saying in baseball about momentum only going as far as the next night's starting pitcher. Streaks and slumps happen, but it's not because of some external momentum. And I'm pretty sure that the players (on both teams) want to win. (Although it's not about wanting to win more, either.)
I dont think that Momentum was the word I was looking, The better word was energy. I agree about everything you said before but if we play some of the "flat footed" baseball that they have been playing lately they could be in trouble
What I saw was that the move to put Hughes on the mound was not Girardi's choice and that it was mandated by the brass. There is also word of the senior members of the team being fed up with the way this team is being coached. I'm just waiting for the inevitable Herm-esque jumping ship by Girardi to go coach "his team" this winter. Screw him. I'm going to laugh at him just like I did at Torre. A monkey could coach this team into the playoffs. At least a monkey wouldn't have Chad Gaudin pitching 6th innings in winnable games.
