The Yankees open up a four game series against the Detroit Tigers tonight, a series that the Yankees desperately need to win.
Coming off of a 3-3 road trip, where they came from behind to beat Cliff Lee and the AL West leading Rangers on Wednesday, and yet got shut out 1-0 by the lowly Kansas City Royals yesterday.
To say the least, manager Joe Girardi was less than pleased with his team’s effort.
Girardi had every right to be mad at his team. They got shut out by Bryan Bullington, and in the process, wasted A.J. Burnett’s best start of the year.
Some are suggesting that the Yanks have the “get away day blues,” putting up sub par performances in the final game of road series.
I understand that players just want to get on the plane and move on, but that is no excuse for such a poorly played game as yesterday in Kansas City, especially in a tight division.
But the one thing that is great about baseball, and sets it apart from any other sport is that you play every day, a chance to forget about yesterday or last week in general.
And that’s exactly what the Yankees need to do as they welcome the Detroit Tigers to the Bronx tonight, a chance to recover from a disappointing and frustrating road trip.
The Tigers come into tonight’s game on the heels of two come from behind wins against their division rival White Sox, but still remain pretty much out of playoff contention and are looking to play spoiler.
The Yankees on the other hand, have split their last three series and have not won a series since taking three of four against the Cleveland Indians on July 29.
Amazingly though, the Rays are still one game back, as the Red Sox remain six games out. Just goes to show that if the Yanks had gone 4-2 on their latest road trip that they would be in a much more comfortable position right now.
But they didn’t go 4-2, and now have the Rays nipping at their heels for the AL East crown once again, meaning that the pressure is on the Yanks to win this series with the Tigers.
A series victory here would go a long way towards righting the ship, not just keeping pace with the Rays, but getting the Yankees back into a winning mindset.
And not only that, but not to sound mean or anything, but the Tigers aren’t exactly a power house team, certainly not compared to the Yankees.
With that said, I have to say that this series is a must win for the Yankees.
Joe Girardi knows it, his players know it, now it’s time to see if they can do it.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com