Streaky Power Hitters Are Letting The Yankees Down When It Matters Most

The Yankees essentially won two straight weeks of baseball games last month, and now they stink. So what happened? Well, if you watch how the Yankees have lost this past week, you'd see that the lineup isn't getting it done. They've gone ice cold and put a ton of pressure on that pitching staff that's eventually burst a pipe.

Now the Yankees sit just 2.5 games above the freaking Seattle Mariners for the second wild card. It's a complete joke, but let's dive deeper into these lineup woes.

When everyone was clicking on all cylinders, newly acquired Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo were contributing, Aaron Judge was raking, and Giancarlo Stanton couldn't get out -- the Yankees piled up wins. It seemed easy to the point where no matter the start, we knew the game would finish with Frank Sinatra singing "Start spreading the news..."

Suddenly, all those hitters went ice cold. And that makes sense because the entire lineup's strength is putting baseballs in the seats. Maybe they're not always great at it, but they're absolutely trying. That said, power hitting and swinging-and-missing have gone together like peanut butter and jelly since baseball began. The Yankees lineup now either hits a ton of homers, or they all stink up the joint like stoners in the basement of a frat house. No consistency whatsoever from week to week.

My proposal is that the Yankees need more contact hitters to pick up the slack and take pressure off their power bats. God forbid Aaron Judge goes through stretch like he is this week (0-12) -- hitters more focused on batting average can alleviate some of the inconsistency we're witnessing. I'm not arguing to get rid of power bats, but they need to complement them better.

Stat geeks in the front office think homers, walks, and strikeouts are the only way to play the game, but they couldn't be more wrong. Notice how the best offenses in the league like Toronto, Tampa and Houston conveniently have high batting averages in the heart of their lineups. Think that's a coincidence, or is it telling to how the Yankees should approach this upcoming offseason? I argue the latter.

The Yankees are officially free falling out of a wild card spot and that streak really had us, at least for a moment, forgetting their inconsistent past.