Yankees Say Goodbye and Good Riddance to Detroit

If anything goes right for the Yankees, it will be an accident.

There's been a steady flood of people leaving Detroit in the last few decades and it is normally painted as a negative.

We won't argue with that view of the decline of a once proud city, but we're also as thrilled as you could be to see the Yankees heading out of the Motor City. It has been three terrible days against the Tigers and maybe a change of scenery will get this team back on track.

Thursday's 6-3 loss was the third straight to a team that had lost seven consecutive games heading into Tuesday night. In those three losses, the Yankees have rarely looked like a team capable of competing for a winning record, let alone a playoff spot.

When the team isn't failing to get a hit with runners on base, they are being sloppy on the field or on the basepaths. When they get a chance to score some runs or slam the door on the opposition, the manager makes choices that guarantee they'll do neither. 

That Eminem commercial from the Super Bowl certainly didn't make it seem like visitors to Detroit were in for such a rough go of things.

How bad were they on Thursday? A.J. Burnett no-hit the Tigers for five innings but the game was still totally in doubt and the Yankees figured out a way to give up a run in the process.

Burnett was actually the lone bright spot of the day as his strong first five innings kept his rebirth moving in the right direction. It came apart in the seventh thanks to Joe Girardi and Eduardo Nunez, but it was still a positive day overall for Burnett.

Girardi keeps managing from a book written in a language only he can understand and kept Burnett in the game despite the pitcher's long history of struggling to get opponents out the third time through the lineup. He was pitching well enough to get a chance in the seventh, but it was clear he didn't have it and Girardi never responded as the Tigers put the game out of reach.

That wouldn't have happened without a helping hand from Nunez, however. Most of your professional infielders can make a throw to first base without much incident, but Nunez is a unique individual.

He had two throwing errors Thursday and now has five errors in limited playing time this season. His bat has looked very good so it wasn't impossible to see a groundswell of support for him to play more if Derek Jeter can't get it together, but you can't play if you can't do the simple things.

That would eliminate most of the Yankee lineup right now as the comatose offense slept through yet another game. The talent makes you confident better days are right around the corner, but it is becoming alarming to see just how big this corner has turned out to be.

And, as if all of this wasn't bad enough, Eric Chavez is down with a broken bone in his foot that he suffered while running to third on a triple. It would normally be surprising to hear a professional athlete broke a bone by simply running, but when it is Chavez you just offer thanks that he doesn't need several kinds of reconstructive surgery.

Is there any good news, you ask? Next up are the Rangers, a team that's looked just as lost as the Yankees of late.

So take that and the fact that Detroit is in the rearview, mix and pour yourself an optimism shake.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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