Baseball

Chill, Yankee haters — team will rebound

Close losses, Tuesday's win indicative of experienced, talented, hungry club

Al Bello / Getty Images

Yankees fans celebrate as Derek Jeter is congratulated by third-base coach Larry Bowa after hitting a three-run home run in the eighth inning to cap a five-run rally that lifted the Yankees to a 9-7 victory over the Royals in their home-opener Tuesday. With players like Jeter, the Yankees' poor start won't continue for long, writes NBCSports.com's Mike Celizic.

Remember, this is an old team. Even Jeter and A-Rod have hit the big three-oh, and the other key members of the team — Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera, Randy Johnson, Johnny Damon and Gary Sheffield — are all moving into the twilight of brilliant careers, if they aren’t there already. Hideki Matsui won’t be far behind.

Winning early is vital, and they know it. But they also know they’re very, very good and that four losses in the first six games aren’t critical. Maybe they would have liked to come out 10-0, but they know now that’s not going to happen, that a lot of games are going to be a grind. They will get over it.

Last year at this time, I was already writing that the Yankees were in trouble. Though they won the division, I was right. They didn’t get through the first round of the playoffs, a worn-out team getting thrashed by the Angels. And their failure was starting pitching, from Randy Johnson on down through the rotation and the bullpen, with only Mariano Rivera remaining healthy and dominant from wire to wire.

So far, though, that’s not the case this year. Johnson is no longer the overpowering thrower he once was, but he’s become more of a pitcher, spotting the fastball and using a nasty slider to put hitters away. He’ll get lit up now and then, but he looks sharp early this year, and unless he gets hurt, he’ll be just fine.

Mike Mussina will get lit up now and then, too, and he’s not going to pitch very often through seven innings let alone eight, but he, too, has been surprisingly effective in his two starts. Chien-Ming Wang and Shawn Chacon have the team’s other two starts, and, while neither one got out of the sixth inning, they weren’t as bad as two of the guys who started ahead of them last year, Carl Pavano and the atrocious Kevin Brown.

I’m still not nearly as certain as Steinbrenner that they’ll win the World Series. I’m not convinced their aging lead pitchers will have enough left in October to do that.

But I know they’re not a 2-4 team, and they won’t sleep-walk through the first couple of months like they did last year. They’re just too good for that up and down the lineup. They’ll start winning. Soon.

Mike Celizic writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer based in New York.

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