Getting The Offense Back

The Yankees offense has been pretty bad over the last week or so starting with the series against the Orioles. Excluding Sunday's 10-4 win, they have scored 13 runs over their last six games. That's not exactly what i would call high-powered offense. This was pretty odd to see since they had been scoring a good amount of runs over the previous few weeks. So what's been the cause?

Well, Brett Gardner has been out for close to three weeks now with an elbow strain and Nick Swisher sat out a week with his hamstring strain, both of who play pretty big roles in the offense. Gardner (.384 wOBA) is the second lead off man who works counts, gets on base, and is the biggest threat to steal a base while Swisher (.408 wOBA) is just an all around good hitter who gets on base as well as anyone and supply some pop to the middle of the order.

You can tell from those two numbers I have shown that though the season is very young, both of these players have produced very well. Without either of them in the lineup, Raul Ibanez, Andruw Jones, and Eduardo Nunez have all been forced to play more, and while these guys aren't bad hitters, they aren't what Gardy and Swish are and belong in more of a platoon role. Maybe part of the lack of offense is that these guys are starting to get over-exposed.

Robinson Cano and Mark Teixeira struggling certainly hasn't helped matters, but we can tell that this lineup misses Swisher and Gardner, not only because they miss their bats, but because it forces bench guys like Ibanez, Jonez, and Nunez to play essentially everyday. Swish already made his impact known with a homer yesterday and hopefully he can keep that going until some of the other bats heat up. With Gardner starting his minor league rehab tonight with Triple A Scranton, you would have to think he'll be back some time this week. With these two back, the runs should come a little easier and so should the wins.

Posted in: Lineup