Scoring runs still issue
Despite organizational philosophy, results have not reached Yanks’ offense
It’s like deja vu all over again. The Yankees’ offense, built on power, modified to be more balanced and under new leadership, is still waiting to see results. Eight games into the season and the questions about scoring and hits with runners in scoring position are already starting after a brutal 2-1, 11-inning loss to the Orioles on Friday night.
Aaron Boone tried to cut off the comparison to last season at the pass.
“I just think we’re better. I think we’re better overall,” the Yankees manager said when asked about the team falling back into bad habits. “And I think that’s going to manifest itself. Obviously, we want to be better than 2-for-11, but that wasn’t the problem (Friday night).
“We didn’t get enough of anything tonight. That’s 11 innings, seven hits, maybe. I don’t know how many walks we had. So, it was just that we didn’t have a very good offensive night. That’s what we got to turn the page from. I’m confident in our guys that we will get it rolling.”
The Yankees’ major moves this offseason were to shake up the coaching staff. In particular, the Bombers let go long-time hitting coaches Marcus Thames and P.J. Pilittere to promote minor league hitting coordinator Dillon Lawson after the offense was inconsistent and unproductive. The Yankees were built on power hitters and to overwhelm their opponents with offense, but finished seventh in the American League in OPS (.729), 10th in runs scored (711) and were fourth in strikeouts (1,482) last season.
Lawson has instituted an organizational philosophy of “hit strikes hard,” from the bottom (rookie ball) now all the way to the top (big leagues).
“If you peel that back, just one layer. It’s not that complicated,” Lawson explained after he was promoted. “When we swing, we want to swing to hit strikes. When we swing at strikes we’re likely to make more contact. When we make more contact, we’re likely to hit the ball harder.
“The last little thing would be that when we make hard contact, if we can we would like to hit it over the infield. Sometimes we’d like to hit it over the outfield fence ... all of that works,” Lawson continued. “But that would be the next layer.”
So far that has not translated to the Yankees’ offense.
The Yankees went into Saturday night’s game against the Orioles at Camden Yards ranked second in the big leagues in average exit velocity and hard hit percentage, but are still below the league average in OPS (.684), OPS+ (99) and slugging (.376).
More to the point, however, is that the Yankees went into Saturday night’s game ranked 26th out of 30 in runs scored per game.