Hour 1: Yankees Pitching Prowess vs. Offensive Struggles

**Craig Carton** (0:06)
It's The Carton Show with Big Mac on a gorgeous Monday afternoon in New York City. Phone number to join as always, 1-888-808-1019.
Got a great show for you today, all the way to six o'clock. You saw over the weekend exactly why the New York Yankees can win the World Series, and you saw over the weekend exactly why they can't win a World Series. Two things could be the same, but different at the very same time. Pitching staff good enough to win a World Series, you bet your ass, offense bad enough to not win a World Series, you bet your ass. Good afternoon, under 10, how are you today?

**Chris McMonigle** (0:50)
What's going on, Craig? Guess which one I want to focus on?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:53)
Let me guess. Let's take a guess which one I think you should focus on as a Yankee fan.

**Chris McMonigle** (0:57)
And if you're trying to look at this team objectively as they head into the postseason.

**Craig Carton** (1:01)
Let me think, is it going to be the boring, listless one run a game offense or is it going to be the dominant starting pitching, albeit Schlittler doesn't get the run support that they had over the course of this specific series from Fried to Garrett Cole to Kam Schlittler?

**Chris McMonigle** (1:19)
I think you should focus on the pitching. You can't. They won two out of three against the Atlanta Braves. Which is a great series win. The Atlanta Braves are one of the best teams in baseball. They have a better record than the Dodgers right now, who are scuffling, believe it or not. They came in winning eight games in a row and the Yankees took two out of three.
That's just on the basis of it. They beat a damn good baseball team over the weekend. Now, yes, they can't hit to save their lives.

**Craig Carton** (1:41)
And let me just stop you on that. I do think, like I said to you and I called into you on Saturday, I think if things suddenly go the Yankees way, the Friday night come from behind victory when they were dead in the water and a little dribbler towards third base from Lombard turns out to be a single and a two base error. And then all of a sudden, everybody starts hitting the ball. That could be the turning point of the season.

**Chris McMonigle** (2:04)
And you did see some good things. You have that inning, you have the Wells double, you have the Rice off the wall. Then Saturday, you see a young Spencer Jones off of one of the best lefties in baseball come through not once but twice to drive in some runs. And then they hit the home runs late and end up winning a game against, again, a very good team. But here's my main point of the New York Yankees. Because there's no doubt, the offense right now is god-awful. No one could argue it, they don't score runs, they're terrible situational hitters, they're not good with running the scoring position. Yesterday, I know they hit the ball hard several times, which is right up our alley for the argument, but they didn't do enough. And they're not good enough right now. But here's what I'll say.
You saw it, you mentioned it already. We saw the three starting pitchers that we are going to hope and hook our wagon to going through the postseason. That's who we're going to believe in. If it's a wild card series, which more and more every day looks like it's going to have to be a wild card series.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:59)
It's almost more of a lock now than it ever was.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:01)
It's looking that way. Those are the three pitchers who will be pitching in a wild card series. And here's what I'll say to you, and I want to ask you a question before we get into why I do feel good about the offense moving forward, or at least better.

**Craig Carton** (3:11)
You don't.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:12)
No, listen.

**Craig Carton** (3:13)
You can't.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:13)
It was the best offense in the American League when Judge was here. It was the best offense in the American League. Now it's the worst, right? Hopefully Judge comes back. If Judge doesn't come back, then yeah.

**Craig Carton** (3:23)
Comes back and is Aaron Judge, obviously.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:25)
I don't think he was Aaron Judge for the first part of the season, to be quite honest with you.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:28)
Okay, go ahead.

**Chris McMonigle** (3:28)
And they still scored more runs than any team in the American League while Judge was in the lineup.