Hocus Pocus Reason for Yankees Success

Anthony McCarron on the Yankees' success since June:

The night everything changed for the Yankees started out like any other night in what was rapidly turning into a lost season. It was June 24, and the Bombers had been so bad in the two weeks leading up to their game in Atlanta that GM Brian Cashman made an impromptu - and uncommon - trip to see for himself the Yankees squad that was just one game better than the expensive disappointment that failed to make the playoffs in 2008. -- But Girardi was ejected in the sixth inning for arguing with the umpire when Brett Gardner was picked off first base and the Yankees rallied to score eight runs over the final four innings - keyed by Rodriguez's two-run single in the sixth that snapped a 1-for-25 skid and showed the Yankees the value of resting their recovering star, who had sat for two days in Florida. That night is the watershed moment of the Yankees' season, when several events converged and the team morphed into what it is now - the best team in baseball at 78-46 entering Tuesday's game against the visiting Rangers. The Yankees have won at an astonishing .741 clip (40-14) since that night. They have gone from five games behind Boston to 7½  games ahead and they have beaten the Red Sox in six of their last seven meetings, including two of three at Fenway over the weekend. Hideki Matsui described the June 23 team meeting and the comeback the next day as among "the key points in the season that helped this team go on a run." Mark Teixeira, who along with Derek Jeter spoke at that meeting, said the message from that night still resonates. "I remember the guys in there maybe refocusing a little bit and maybe realizing how good we are," Teixeira said. "Realizing that we expect to win every night and since then that's been our attitude."

Really?  I mean... really? New York is the largest market in the country and this is what passes for sports analysis?  Really? I remember that night.  I remember it vividly because as Girardi trotted out of the dugout, I made a post on the Yankees Google Group that said, "And Girardi will get intentionally tossed..." Girardi didn't even put up a Pinellian fight.  He went out, barked, pointed a bit, and left.  The whole argument was anticlimactic. I don't bring that up to claim that I'm Nostradamus or some kind of baseball savant.  It's just one of those moments that

always

happens in a baseball game when a team is having a bad run.  Managers think if they get out there and show some fire themselves ands get tossed from a game, thunder will clap, tears will well up, and their team will suddenly find the talent to perform better than they ever have before. The whole notion is silly.  Someone else made the comment in the group that maybe the team responded to being managed by the bench coach Tony Pena.  Or, someone had dinner at eight o'clock that night.  When they finished eating, the Yankees mounted a comeback.  Pick your absurdity and apply it. Going into that game June 24th, the Yankees were 38-32, six games over .500 for a .543 winning percentage.  Their high water mark had been 11 games over just fifteen days previous.  So, over a span of 13 games where the Yankees went 4-9, panic struck because they lost three to the BoSox, two to the Nationals, and two to the Marlins. Do you know what the Yankees run differential was in those 13 games?  52-53, or basically .500.  With a little bit of luck, the Yankees would have gone 6-7 or 7-6 during that stretch, maintained their 10 or 11 games over .500 and none of this is a big deal. What we're actually dealing with is two extremes.  38-32 wasn't a terrible record but probably not enough to get it done in the AL East.  Given the talent level of the Yankees, most people expected more and deservedly so.  Their record, however, matched their Pythagorean record based on run differential almost exactly. Looking at the Yankees 40-14 run with the .741 winning percentage yields slightly different results.  The Yankees scoring differential during that time is 318-243, which yields a winning percentage of .631, a full 100 points

below

what they're Pythagorean record would be. .631 is a bit more realistic winning percentage for this team.  Averaged over a 162 games season, it's 102 wins, as compared to the .741 winning percentage which averages to 120 wins. Of course, much like hitters and pitchers and you and me and everyone else, no one maintains their average level

all the time

.  There are ups and there are downs.  The Yankees haven't been playing .741 baseball, but they've been lucky enough to win .741 baseball, making up for a good but not great first 70 games. Can that really be attributed to a manager getting tossed?  Did Alex Rodriguez forget how to hit until Girardi lit a spark under him that night?  Would Chein-Ming Wang not have seven dreadful starts this year, thereby working the bullpen to the bone, if Girardi had gotten tossed earlier?  Are baseball players so fragile and easily manipulated that their performance over the course of a season can be altered by watching their manager argue with another person? Things have a way of balancing out.  That's the nature of things.  Leave it to an off-day for someone to try and explain it.

UPDATE:

In an effort to save their struggling season, Mets GM Omar Minaya has ordered manager Jerry Manuel to get ejected from every single game.