Anatomy of a Yankee Season

April
The team is roughly around .500. Jeter is playing well, and A-Rod has his share of home runs. Frankly, it’s too early to notice whether anyone is playing poorly or not. Except Jason Giambi, who has sucked since John Kerry decided to try his hand at a presidential run.

May
It’s not too early anymore to notice that most of the team sucks. They probably lost a series or two to Boston, and got swept at home by either the Devil Rays or Orioles. Some combination of Matsui/Abreu/Damon is in a seemingly endless slump. Pettite and/or Mussina are on the DL, sucking, or both. And Kei Igawa has already made a start or two, pitching no hit ball for 5 innings but being taken out of a game because he’s thrown 120 pitches and given up 4 runs on 2 Cano errors and 9 walks. Rivera also blows a bunch of games, leading pundits to think that like John McCain 6 months ago, he’s done.

The fans are starting to get angry not because they know the Yankees will make the playoffs, but they’re sick of this same crap every year.

June
The team is slowly but surely improving for most of the month. Jeter and A-Rod are continuing their typical success, and Posada or Matsui goes on a power tear. Abreu/Damon are still in a slump, but at least they’re getting on base through walks. Mussina is back from the DL and has 4 really good starts in a row. In related news, he’ll have 4 more good starts the rest of the season. The highlight of June is a 3 game sweep of the Red Sox in Yankee Stadium.

The fans are thrilled with the progress of the team and Devo’s prediction that they’d lose 6 games in June starts to come true when they are 12-6 at June 22, but the team then loses 7 straight to end the month.

July
A-Rod and Jeter start to cool off, but the kids take over. Cano makes a run at a batting title, hitting nearly .400 this month while Melky hits .450 over the month, raising his average up from .210 to .270. Winning just seems more fun now that it’s being led by the youth movement. Some of the older guys start to round into form as well: Pettite looks electric in a few of his starts, Abreu hit a season high .270 in the month of July, including 3 monster home runs, raising his season total to 4, while Damon’s average creeps up to .265.

The Yankees are back, contending for a wild card birth, if not the division, and their fans start to think that this could be the year. Sure, they’ve said the same thing the last 3 years, but this year the team is coming from behind a lot more than ever, right?

August
It’s the dog days of August and the Yankees make their move. The team has a couple of 18 run outputs, and everyone in the lineup except Jeter and A-Rod are on fire. Mussina is hurt again, but Kei Igawa has taken his turn in the rotation. Igawa’s general suckiness isn’t a huge deal because Hughes and Kennedy have come into their own after a so-so beginning of the season. The Yankees clearly have the wildcard wrapped up and are now chasing the Red Sox for the division.

September
The Yankees continue to play like a well-oiled machine. Some days their pitching gets them the wins, other days it’s their lineup. They are playing well on all cylinders, but with the Super Bowl Champion Giants poised to defend their title, most people have stopped watching baseball until October.

The fans believe that given Melky’s resurgence (again), A-Rod and Jeter’s great year (again), Rivera’s continued excellence after a rocky beginning (again), and a pitching staff which when healthy has huge potential (again), this could be the year that they finally defeat the Angels, their first round opponent and return to the glory years.

October
Nope. The Angels were younger, faster, looser and hungrier, not to be confused with the ’07 Indians, ’06 Tigers, ’05 Angels, ’04 Sox, ’03 Marlins, and ’02 Angels, who were also younger, faster, and hungrier than the Yankee teams of those years. Angels in 4. Onto the NFL! Go Big Blue!