Looking at the Yankees recent history after big offensive showings

As amazing as the Yankees offensive performance was in the third inning of Wednesday's game, I'm sure we all had in the back of our minds that there was a very real possibility that the team would lay an egg in the very near future. After all, the team has the consistency of a schizophrenic on a coffee bender. They did not upend those expectations in any way yesterday as they managed only two runs against rookie hurler Kyle Lobstein. As several PSA members noted it seems like this team does something like this an awful lot. They put together a good offensive game one day and then follow it up with a real stinker the next.

Well at least in regards to this year, give yourselves a prize for perception because this team has been positively awful the game after scoring eight or more runs. Sure, eight runs is an arbitrary cutoff but that's what they scored on Wednesday so shut the hell up. Their last five run totals the game immediately following after scoring eight have been 2, 2, 0, 2 and 2. Perhaps their arms got tired from making solid contact over and over. But since this is a problem that seemed like it stretched further back than even just this year, I compiled the same data for 2010-2013 as well for the purpose of comparison.

That may be the funniest thing ever. If any of you noticed that the 2013 team was particularly exceptional after scoring eight or more runs last year, please let us know because I certainly didn't. They scored eleven runs after putting fourteen on the Cleveland Indians in April and put fourteen up on the Los Angeles Angels after scoring eleven in August. Throw in three straight days of eight or more against the Boston Red Sox in early September (in which they lost all three) and that's why they were in such stark contrast to this year's squad. As improbable as it seems, they were great after they scored eight runs.

It was pretty depressing how long it took me to compile the numbers for 2010-2012, but those were the wonderful days of when the Yankees actually had a good offense. The team's troubles in this very specific scenario were definitely not as pronounced as they are this season, but the 2012 team did seem to have issues there. Overall it isn't some sort of epidemic infecting the franchise, even if it has seemed to be standing out as such. Most likely just a couple of really terrible performances clouding our collective memories.

So what does any of this mean? Not much, really. It's just another of the many depressing aspects of the 2014 Yankees offense. If they want to avoid sharing yet another characteristic aside from not scoring runs with the 2013 team (missing the playoffs) they should probably stop falling off the face of the Earth when they actually put together a good performance. Try stringing a couple of them together for once, rather than relying so heavily on the pitching staff for your winning streaks.