Could This Be The Yankees’ Year?

Every Yankee Hater dreams of it – the magical year when it all comes crashing down, with back stabbing and finger pointing and widespread firings and tabloid explosions and the final, glorious moment in September when mathematical elimination comes, and it becomes apparent to all that there will be No Yankees in the playoffs. You know, like the Don Mattingly Era. Simpler times.

Yankee playoff losses, while always appreciated, really do not deliver much to gloat about. There just really is no time to savor the failure, the playoffs are a crapshoot, and just making them is a significant accomplishment, no matter how large your payroll is.

Besides, when the Yankees lose in the playoffs, they frequently do so to a team that does not inspire a lot of joy for the accomplishment. Watching the Red Sox celebrate, or Jeff “Fire Sale” Loria and the Florida Marlins hoist a trophy, or see the suffered-barely-at-all Arizona Diamondback fans go nuts... well, it lessens what should be a national holiday. I want my Yankees Lose Day to be pure, with nary a Rally Monkey in sight.

No, for those of us who long for the mid-‘80s Yankee teams where the owner was paying slimeballs to dig up dirt on the star outfielder... or for complete disaster free agent signings like Ed Whitson and Hideki Irabu… in short, for personal destruction and lots of it, a first, second or third round playoff loss simply will not do.

We require – nay, demand -- the day-in, day-out knowledge and satisfaction that only an 80 to 85 win Yankee team can deliver, and this year’s model just might do the trick. Consider:

> Last year’s team caught fire only when Bobby Abreu was care-packaged in by the Phillies, adding another huge OBA to the middle of the lineup. This year, Abreu has a .312 OBA, with one home run and five steals, in 148 at bats. More than any other Yankee hitter, he needs to turn it around to make the offense go… and at age 32, it just might not happen.

> Everyone knows about the 10 starting pitchers in their first 30 games, but no one is talking – at least, not above the tone of a very worried whisper – about Mariano Rivera. Here are the numbers: 7.11 ERA, 1.50 WHIP. Twelve innings is not much of a sample size, but no one is living in fear of him any more.

> Scott Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth are supposed to be the kind of power arms that can get big strikeouts and strand inherited runners in late innings. So far this year, the two of them have combined for 18 Ks in 34 innings. And unlike Abreu and Rivera, neither man has the star pedigree, or history of success on the big stage, that you would expect from a pinstripe in a crucial role.

At 17-19, the Bombers are five games out of the wild card and eight behind the Red Sox in the AL East. They are going to be better, especially if Clemens can give them a lift, and the SPs stop dropping like flies. The rest of the division is looking weak enough to fatten up on during intra-division play, and Yankee Haters have been burned by slow starts before.

But there’s always the potential... the dream... the hope... for magic.

(And as I post this, two final logs for the bonfire… the team’s leader in wins is Kei Igawa with two, and they’re losing to the ChiSox in the first game of a doubleheader, despite having Mussina on the mound.)