"Hitting coach Kevin Long suggested an altered approach after the Yankees failed to produce more than six hits for a fifth straight game, the first time since 1990 they've accomplished the dubious feat.
'We have to get back to the basics,' Long said. 'We might start having some guys bunt that you don't normally see bunt until we get it going . . . everybody should be capable of doing it and if we're not all in, then something's wrong. At this point, when you're not scoring runs, you have to try something. This is an important time right now. We need to get the guys in this room to sell out, and trusting everybody on the team, from the guys on the bench to our big horses. We have to come together and we have to do it now.'
While manager Joe Girardi has been hesitant to use words suggesting worry in the clubhouse, Long wasn't.
'You've got a 10-game lead and it'd down to zero so there's some added pressure and guys are probably trying to do too much,' Long said. 'Obviously we've lived on some home runs . . . at times like this it might be moving runners, that's just as important as hitting home runs. The biggest concern here is we've lost our cushion so we have to turn it around and we have to turn it around in a hurry.' "
I think it's probably too late to change the team's bad habits since you encouraged it for so long. (I think there was a stat from last night that the Yankee batters struck out 9 times on changeups?)
Maybe this team will wake up and meet the challenge of, you know, playing important baseball games. Or playing baseball games as if they were important.
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