The Yankees are on the brink after being swept by the White Sox and now have to face the Tigers, a team who has won 12 games in a row. There's very little hope for the season at this point, but there are still games to be played and lineups to announce:
Lineup: Gardner 8, Suzuki 9, cano 4, soriano Dh, Rodriguez 5, Granderson 7, overbay 3, Nunez 6, Stewart 2, nova 1 #yankees
— Meredith Marakovits (@M_Marakovits) August 9, 2013
Brett Gardner leads off, followed by Ichiro Suzuki, who hadn't been playing much over the recent road trip. Robinson Cano bats third with Alfonso Soriano DHing and batting cleanup. Alex Rodriguez makes his return to Yankee Stadium at third base and Curtis Granderson, Lyle Overbay, Eduardo Nunez, and Chris Stewart follow to fill out the rest of the offense. Glad to see Stewart made it into the lineup.
Randy Levine believes that the key to being a better team is to play better. I'm glad this guy is running the Yankees for his unparalleled expertise. He also isn't sure if the Yankees can make the playoffs, so it looks like that's that then. If he knows they're bad and his solution is that they shouldn't be bad then it's clear that the front office had no intention of trying to improve the team at any point during the season. Asked if Plan $189 had something to do with the Yankees' poor season, Levine honestly said that it didn't. By handcuffing Brian Cashman and not allowing him to make the proper improvements to the team, Plan $189 left the team completely vulnerable to injuries like this.
Obviously poor fortune can't be anticipated, but it can be prepared for, and the 2013 Yankees were not. Kevin Youkilis, Travis Hafner, and Vernon Wells were not the right pieces to bring in, but it was all that could be done on such a limited budget. Not having a real catcher didn't help much either and now the people who made this all necessary aren't really going to take the blame. We'll see what happens in 2014, but i'm not going to get too optimistic.