How the Yankees can address their crappiness

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What’s the difference between a crappy baseball team and a good baseball team that plays crappily? Twelve games into the season, absolutely nothing. Hence, it’s time for the Yankees to

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What’s the difference between a crappy baseball team and a good baseball team that plays crappily?

Twelve games into the season, absolutely nothing.

Hence, it’s time for the Yankees to proactively address their crappiness.

Aaron Boone’s bunch left Florida on Wednesday as the owners of a 5-7 record, courtesy of a 5-4 loss to the Blue Jays at TD Ballpark in Dunedin when Chad Green served up a walk-off homer to Bo Bichette to start the bottom of the ninth inning. They are 2-4 against Toronto, 2-1 versus the Orioles and 1-2 when they face the Rays, whom they’ll welcome to Yankee Stadium on Friday night for an important weekend series.

“It’s time to regroup and figure out what we need to work on,” said Aaron Judge, who delivered a pair of solo homers, “figure out what we need to work on and get back to it.”

They don’t have to work on their relief pitching — Bichette’s game-winner, which sure as heck didn’t look like a goner off the bat, marked the first earned run Green has allowed this season against 23 outs — and while the lack of length from too many Yankees starting pitchers remains a concern, the truth is that three runs over four innings against a good offensive team, which Corey Kluber registered on Wednesday, should get this club a win. I want to see more of Kluber, who induced 15 swings and misses in his third start and who clearly knows how to pitch out of trouble.

This vaunted Yankees offense, though underachieving like Robert De Niro in “The War with Grandpa,” features at least two players who should see the field less often starting immediately. This lineup requires a shake-up. Here are two recommendations:

These moves alone won’t fix the Yankees’ offense, which is averaging exactly four runs per game and paces the American League with 15 double-play grounders. Yet struggling guys like LeMahieu, Clint Frazier and Giancarlo Stanton, none of whom played on Wednesday, at least are showing signs of life. The two deadest bats (or one and a half) must go.

It’s time, as Judge said more politely, for the Yankees to stop being crappy. Time to start “banging,” to use Boone’s term. It is not time, the date on the calendar notwithstanding, to fully stay the course.

This story originally appeared on: NyPost - Author:Ken Davidoff