Friday, May 2, 2014

I've Got Til 5! - Disappointing Players In April

(It's 5:00pm somewhere)

While it may seem hard to be disappointed with a team that finished April in first place in their division, a -11 run differential tells you a different story. This is a team that needs to play a heck of a lot better if they hope to return to the postseason in 2014 and beyond.

So who are the top five players to blame for the team's poor start? Let's take a look...


1. CC Sabathia

A 5.11 ERA and a 3-3 record is not what you want out of your ace, however I don't think anybody actually believes Sabathia is the Yankees' ace anyway. Either way, I expect a lot better out of CC. In his first three starts he had only walked three hitters, while striking out 21, but he'd also given up 14 runs on five homers in just 19 innings. CC's fourth start of the year was pretty good (7 IP, 1 ER), which gave Yankees fans some hope, but his last start made us all groan once again (5 IP, 4 R)


2. Brian Roberts

I don't think we should have expected much out of Brian Roberts, but it's still a disappointment that he hasn't given the Yankees more. Thanks to a batting line of .222/.321/.292, he's the worst hitter out of the Yankees' regulars. Like I said, though, this is a guy that only hit .231/.289/.344 in his previous three seasons (133 games), so this is hardly a surprise.


3. Ivan Nova

Before getting injured, leading to Tommy John surgery, Nova was having a very disappointing season. His ERA was 8.27, and he only had one quality start out of the four he gave the Yankees. Thankfully, that one quality start was a nice one against the Red Sox, in which Ivan went 7.1 innings while giving up just two runs. I hope he comes back strong, and we can chalk up his poor start to 2014 on the elbow, but either way Ivan was disappointing.


4. Brian McCann

When the Yankees signed McCann, who has a career batting line of .277/.350/.473 to go along with averaging 20 home runs a season, I think we all expected more than this. Brian's batting line in April was a pathetic .224/.267.353. Teams have been deploying the dreaded shift against him, but McCann has shown the ability to beat the shift. So hopefully this has just been an adjustment period, and the guy the Yankees hoped they signed in the offseason shows up.


5. Hiroki Kuroda

After two seasons with an ERA of 3.31, Yankees fans thought they'd get something better out of Hiro than they did in April. Last month Kuroda's ERA was a measly 5.28, and his triple-slash against was .288/.323/.483. For a guy that's been hot at the beginning of the season, and cools off the last couple of months, this is not what Yankees fans want to see.


I'm sure you can come up with more than one honorable mention, but I wanted to add Michael Pineda's stupidity to this list. Not officially, of course, as that would make a total of six and that's a "no-no". But it's really too bad that Pineda had to be so blatant with the pine tar.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)