A.J. Burnett was horrendous for the second straight outing, digging the Yankees a 5-0 hole in the bottom of the 1st inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks en route to a 10-4 loss. After quickly retiring the first two batters he faced, Burnett gave up six(!) straight hits including three home runs, all three of which were absolute bombs, although perhaps none as impressive as Justin Upton‘s shot to dead center.
Speaking of Justin Upton, last night Yankee fans got a glimpse into 2016, in which Upton will almost certainly be patrolling some portion of the outfield at Yankee Stadium when his deal with Arizona finally ends. Upton put on some kind of show, going 3-3 with two home runs, four runs scored, four RBI, a walk and a stolen base.
Burnett’s final line of 4 IP, 9H, 7ER, 2BB and 4K was made even worse by the fact that all seven of the runs he surrendered came with two outs! Every time Burnett tried to get ahead in the count he was grooving what must have looked like batting practice fastballs right over the heart of the plate, and the D-Backs made him pay. Adam LaRoche in particular looked like he knew exactly what was coming when he took a ginormous uppercut at Burnett’s very first offering, crushing a monster three-run shot that basically ended the game right then and there in the 1st inning.
After Burnett gave up his seventh run I’d seen enough. As much as I love the Yankees and hate to ditch a game early even when they’re losing, a six-run deficit in the 5th inning at 11:30pm EDT is pretty tough to rationalize staying up for.
It looks like I didn’t miss much, as Chan Ho Park surrendered Upton’s second home run of the night, while Alex Rodriguez continued to become the highest-paid doubles-hitter in history. Don’t get me wrong; I’d obviously rather see A-Rod hit for extra bases than not at all, but the whole one-home-run-in-June thing is really starting to get to me, and frankly I’m shocked Alex hasn’t started getting killed for his lack of power in the media. Not that I want that to happen by any stretch of the imagination, but I doubt A-Rod’s ever had a month in his entire career where he hit only one home run and it seems surprising that this would fly under everyone’s radar.
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7 Responses to Burnett awful for second straight start as Yanks lose to D-Backs 10-4
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TIQ IQ
If AROD still drives in 110 + runs does it really matter if he hits 35+ home runs? He hasn't been himself this year but his avg is still 50 pts higher than Tex and he is still hitting extra base hits so how concerned should we be that he isn't hitting home runs but is still driving in runs?
The doubles are nice — last night's gave him 17 on the year, matching his entire 2009 total — and if he's still driving runs in then I suppose we can't kill him too much, but if pitchers sense that 'Rod's not going to be able to punish them with the longball then it affects the rest of the lineup as well, especially Tex.
Alex's current .276/.348/.459 line isn't dreadful, but it's nowhere near what we've come to expect from A-Rod. His current .350 wOBA would be the lowest of his career by a lot.
While I don't expect him to play at a .350 wOBA level the rest of the season — neither does ZIPS, which forecasts a .384 wOBA from Alex the rest of the way — I also don't think it's too much to ask for a little more pop from our biggest home run threat.
A-Rod and Tex have cost the team many wins. Neither has been even close to what was expected. Imagine if they were?
At a combined $56 million this year we can attack all we want. Contracts of that size carry a burden of performance. Our two biggest home run threats have played well below expectations. The team is winning despite this, and it should be noted.
And that's actually a pretty big understatement.
CHONE, typically one of the more conservative preseason projection systems, had Alex good for a .282/.383/.548, .403 wOBA; while Tex was pegged for .287/.375/.543, .395 wOBA. ZIPS preseason had Alex at a .399 wOBA; Tex at a .381.
ZIPS Update now has A-Rod finishing the year with a .369 wOBA, and Tex with a .355.
Those are both ridiculous dropoffs for guys who a lot of people expected to provide .400 wOBAs again this year.
Anonymous said ARod's avg is still 50 pts higher than Tex's
This isn't the sort of thing you'd want your agent to go around using as marketing ploy for you, because, as well all know, Teix is around 230 these days…
Also, I think we all expect improvement from both of these guys as the summer starts to heat up. Besides, ARod is hitting way better than that Aug of 08(?), the summer of the GIDP… I believe it was 12 on the month. I know I bring it up all the time, but it was ridiculous.
But, the Yankees are still a .5 game up and they haven't played their best ball yet the entire year. This is a great team with great players. The best is yet to come! I can't wait for mid summer!
By mentioning the difference btwn AROD and Tex's avg I was trying to show how AROD is contributing more in the games he is playing in than Tex who I believe should be benched for a series to get him right and should definitely be moved out of the 3 hole. Cano is getting on base and it would provide AROD more chances to drive in runs.
My only point is between Tex and AROD the guy I am not going to complain about is the guy that basically won us a WS last year while Tex batted at the .200 mark. Quite simply Tex isn't living up to his contract at all and I am not sure why he is guaranteed the 3rd spot in the line up and why we are on the verge of complaining about AROD…when AROD has lead off more innings this year than Jeter.
It's guilt by association and a strong case of what have you done for me lately. You're right. If you go back to the 2009 playoffs Tex has put forward a disturbing string of awful, awful months of baseball that are rightly concerning us all.
But, if we imagine for a second that Tex had an OPS of .965 right now, but ARod's line was exactly the same as it is currently, we'd still be complaining about him, perhaps louder. Fact of the matter is that ARod is only giving us 80% of his potential, which is 70% of what we're paying him for. Just because Tex is only giving us 50% of his potential is no reason, in my mind, to exonerate ARod. We have two underperforming sluggers, both of whom are not earning their paychecks.