State of the Yankees

The long MLB season is now 6 weeks old, enough time to get a good read and give my take on the state of the Yankees, yup so far the guys from the Bronx are having no problems winning games, the early 3-6 start was just a little bump on the road that had early observers ready to write off the Yankees as a team on the downside, but that was just wishful thinking I guess, the NY Yankees are in 1st place with no current team in the division looking like a possible challenger, Boston looks like a team loaded with offensive primadonna's whose pitching's falls way short, and the Baltimore Orioles, the team I peg to win the division looks no where near like the team that won the AL east in 2014.

Yes right now the Yanks seems like the only team to be taken serious in the division, the offense has put up plenty of run support doing it with their trademark the long ball. This is sort of a surprise to me, I thought scoring runs would be a problem because like I said in my 1st post, this is pretty much the same group of guys that struggled to score as last year only a year older, but so far they have produced like the back of their cards proving me wrong.

Early team MVP candidates Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury are providing more consistency and chemistry than last season as a 2 headed monster at the top of the order, Mark Teixera and Alex Rodriguez have fallen on hard times in the last few seasons but so far they have been 2 positives that have provided the long ball in the middle, other surprises to the offense has been former Mets Chris Young who has been more than just a 4th outfielder, Young who after sucking with the Mets in 2014 was released and picked up by the Yanks where he quickly transformed into an all star for the remainder of 2014, that got him a 1 year deal and he has continued his change of luck in 2015 which has helped masked Carlos Beltran's poor start, and Chase Headley and Brian McCann have done enough and should only get better., so far so good, well see.

But the Yankees have done more than just hit the ball out of the park to win games and pitching has been a big part as well, they are currently 2nd in the AL in ERA led by Michael Pineda who has been lights out coming off a 16 strikeout performance that had Yankee fans reminiscing of Louisiana lighting big strikeout game of 1978, Pineda has put up CyYoung caliber numbers, but more importantly he has stayed healthy and has taken over as the ace of the staff, still, the rest of the rotation must soon see an upgrade if this good pitching to the rotation is to continue.

C.C. Sabathia has struggled once again but there is still time for him to try and find himself, Adam Warren and Chase Whitley are simply stop gap guys that certainly are not the answer either, the rotation is not that strong, the good news is that Ivan Nova has begun to throw again and if Nova can make it back and be good again it will be a big lift for sure, Chris Capuano is also trying to get back but you can't really get too excited about him. Yes the pitching has held up so far but it has also begun to break down, former ace Masahiro Tanaka is currently on the DL with his lingering arm problems not likely to go away, look for the Yankees to ad another quality arm to help solidify and boost the rotation, it is their weak spot. Now the bullpen has held up just fine thanks to the duo of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller who have been lights yet to allow a run, right now they are the best 8th and 9th innings guys in the game, with these 2 all the Yankees need is 7 innings and you got yourself a win.

6 weeks into the season and the Yankees are back to winning, the division is up for grabs and the evil empire just might take it, every team will have their share of injuries along the way of 162 games but if the Yankees could avoid key injuries to Gardner, Ellsbury, Pineda, Betances and Miller, they should be able to fend off the pretenders in the AL east, hopefully I'm wrong.