From the moment Joe Giradi and the Yankee ball club acquired Aroldis Chapman from Cincinnati Red last December, they envisioned a devastating back end of their ball pen. According to Yankees Unscripted, “On Saturday, Joe Girardi was able to deploy the heat-seeking trio in the same game for the first time since Chapman returned from his suspension last Monday, and the results were predictable as strikeout begat strikeout.” Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman are essential to the Yankee ball pen because of their mind-blowing arm speed. The Yankees don’t use these guys all in one night because they don’t want to use up their pitch count, but typically Betance usually starts off things to close the game.Then Miller’s arm is used to bridge Betance and Chapman. According to Bleacher Report, “Dellin Betance has the ability to dial his pitches up to and a little past 85 mph.” Before Chapman joined the ball club, Betances and Miller were a dynamic and dominating duo. To complement Betance’s arm, Miller backs him up. According to Baseball Reference, “Miller and Betances have combined to strike out 30 of 49 batters this year (61.2 percent)." The overall big league percentage is 21.9 percent. So from that, I believe the addition of Aroldis Chapman’s flame throwing arm will leave batters in a confused state of mind. The Yankees are a veteran team with championships to prove their hard work over the years, but they are currently going through a rough time. As a huge Yankee supporter, it hurts me to say this, but the Yankees aren’t playing to the best of their ability this season. Now that is not to say that the Yankee universe doesn’t have something to look forward to because they can always count on the back end of the ball pen. We are the only team that has an option to deploy a hard-throwing pitching staff in the same game.
From seeing these guys perform on the mound I only have one thing to say, “Batters Beware.” Adding a guy like Chapman really gives the Yankees an upper hand in terms of pitching duels, and this opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time because the front end of the ball pen is having some difficult and the Yankees need every winning opportunity that they can get this season, if they want to gain another World Series Championship for the 28th time. I am a proud Yankees Bomber especially when it comes to shaping the team into a winning foundation. This season shaping has come from mainly the back end of the Yankees ball pen because of the dominating arms that it is composed of.
Part of the pitching staff has been doing their job and the Yankees have had some really great batting, but what this team needs is consistency. Consistency has to come from the entire pitching staff, along with the defensive and offensive sides of the team. At this point, the 2016 Yankees have to avoid damage in order to effectively cause damage to their opponents each and every game they play.
