These past ten days have been pretty grueling. Six hardly-contested battles with the Blue Jays book-ending three tough games in Cleveland, all of which were played with stress stemming from an offense that's sputtering. However, it's August 17th, the Yankees are in first place and they are about to embark upon a 10 game home-stand against mostly mediocre opponents. The Blue Jay locomotive has at least slowed down a little bit after this weekend and you can bet your bottom dollar that there are losses coming for Toronto. That's just the way baseball works. This stretch here could present a great opportunity for the Yanks to pad the division lead.
The first team in to visit the Bronx is the Twins. This is not a good team anymore, not that they ever really were one. They took two of three against the Indians over the weekend but they're 10-17 since the All-Star break and now find themselves just one game over .500 chasing three teams for the final wild card spot. The Yanks took two of three in Minnesota back in late July so they're familiar with what's in front of them.
The Twins have a few decent hitters in their lineup. Brian Dozier is their big bopper who has a lot of pop but can be pitched to. The rookie Miguel Sano is a really good young hitter. Torii Hunter is ok. Joe Mauer is a shell of his former self. Other than that there's really not a whole lot to worry about.
The true barometer for how badly the Yankee lineup is struggling is going to be how they perform against these next three starting pitchers; Kyle Gibson, Mike Pelfry and Ervin Santana. There is nothing impressive about any of these guys. Gibson is starting tonight and hasn't won a game in five starts. His last time out against the Yankees he gave up six runs in 5.1 IP and took the loss. Pelfry has an ERA a few ticks under 4 but a losing record at 6-7 and a 1.41 WHIP. And Ervin Santana has allowed 24 runs in his last 20 innings and has been awful since coming back from his PED suspension. If the Yankees can't get things going offensively at home against these guys then they may be in more trouble than we thought.
Bryan Mitchell is getting the nod tonight, pushing everybody back a day. There will probably be a pretty short leash on him with a well rested bullpen. He looked great during his last appearance tossing three shutout innings during the Yankees' 16 inning loss at Cleveland last Tuesday. His last start was not so great. The White Sox tagged him for four runs in four innings as he took a loss on August 1st. CC Sabathia will look to build off his last two starts when he goes tomorrow night. In those two outings he's allowed just three earned runs in 12 innings but hasn't recorded a win. Wednesday afternoon will feature Nate Eovaldi on the hill as he'll aim for his 13th win despite a 4.26 ERA. His last start against the Indians wasn't great but the Yankees did what they usually do for him and scored a bunch of runs to get him into the win column.
The biggest thing to watch for this series is A-Rod. He's in the biggest slump of the season and he's got to get going in order for this team to be as good as it can be. Otherwise there may need to be a shakeup in the batting order, i.e. Beltran moving into the three-hole. Even without an offensive explosion these are three very winnable games for the Yankees. They've been a streaky team all year and they're coming off a bit of a downslide. It's time to even that out and go on a win streak.
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