Joe took a big swing at his lineup last night to try to get some offense going. He loaded up on right-handed bats against southpaw starter Scott Kazmir, inserting John Ryan Murphy and Scott Sizemore into the lineup for Kelly Johnson and Brian McCann, and giving Brendan Ryan a night at shorstop while The Captain DH'd. The results weren't there again (2 runs and only 1 XBH against Kazmir), and it made me wonder if the Yankees just stink against lefties this year. Have they been so bad that it necessitated all the moves Joe made?
Not really. As a team, the Yankees have a .716 OPS against LHP this season. It's not great by any means, but at 17th in MLB it's hardly the worst in the world. The Yanks have actually been worse against right-handed starters with a .697 team OPS and an 18-19 records against them compared to 11-9 in 20 games against lefties.
There's certainly no harm in changing things up when your team isn't hitting, and with somebody like McCann I have no problem with Joe using the L/R matchup game to give him a day of rest. Production against southpaws has not been the Yankees' biggest problem this year, however, and Joe might be better served tweaking his batting order against righties (coughcough, move Jeter down, cough cough!!) to help pull his club out of this offensive funk.
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