Who is to blame?

And I thought the Yankees' performance against the Mets on Sunday night was bad... last night's loss at the stadium to the Orioles with a final score of 12-to-2 was pathetically pitiful. Twelve Baltimore players crossed the plate last night and only 4 of them were earned runs. The YES announcers last night would lead you to believe that it was Jeter's error on the throw to 1st base in the 1st inning that started it all. Yeah, I don't think so. Moose clearly had nothing last night.

A-Rod returned last night and he was good for a two-run homer in the sixth inning but that was it. Like I have said before, A-Rod can not heal this team. Even if he were able to send balls into the stands every game, the Yanks are not going to survive this season on home runs alone. Among other things, the Yankees need to start playing small ball. They need to manufacture runs from the first at-bat. It isn't pretty and it isn't what the New York fans are paying to watch but the fans certainly aren't happy about these losses either.


In business, or more appropriately... in life; we like to assign blame to things that go wrong. It is actually a healthy thing to do. It creates responsibility and forces people to take ownership. The question I have been pondering is: Who is to blame for the the way the Yankees have been performing, or shall I say, not performing? The obvious answer is the position players on the field, but what kind of weight should the manager be carrying for these losses? If you are going to talk about how Girardi was voted "Manager of the Year" and if you are going to credit managers when you talk about winning seasons and world championships, then you can not just blame the players when the losses start rolling in either. Girardi is also responsible for these losses. Clearly, he needs to do something and so far, I haven't seen him do much. Kim Jones asked Joe in the post game interview if he was going to say anything to the team regarding last night's loss. He said no, explaining that they all ready know that something was wrong and that they need to correct it. Here is one of the problems as I see it. We seem to like to idolize the players, treat them like professionals, but we do not come down on them hard enough when they don't perform. I don't know about you but if I don't perform at my job, I am going to hear about it. I am going to be concerned about losing that job. This is the feeling that Girardi needs to instill in his players.