After a solid April, the Yankees headed into May hoping to continue their winning ways.

On paper, the May schedule looked to be a bit easier than April’s.  In terms of expected winning percentage, the Yankees were expect to win 12.3 of 21 games in April, a winning percentage of .585.  May had 30 games scheduled, and their log5 expected wins was about 18.3, or a .609 winning percentage.

xW: Expected wins for this series using log 5
aW: Actual wins
diff: Difference between xW and aW.  Positive means team is ahead of their projected pace

The Yankees took care of business in the first three series they played, taking two of three against the White Sox and sweeping Baltimore before shipping up to Boston and taking two of three. 

Then came a disappointing series in Detroit where they lost three of four, when they probably should have split.

They finished off the month by taking two of three from Minnesota at home then splitting a two-gamer with Boston.  Then came the first series of the year were they didn’t win a game, as Tampa Bay came into DNYS and took a two-gamer.  Next up came a three game exhibition series against the Mets in Flushing, where the Yankees dropped two of three.  However, for some reason Bud Selig decided exhibition games should count so the Yanks got saddled with a series loss. 

They finished up the month by doing what they should have done on the road against Minnesota and Cleveland, winning both series and finishing up the month with 17 wins, about one win less than log5 would have expected.

The Yankees scored 171 runs in May, an average of about 5.7 per game.  That was a hair better than April.  Here’s how the hitters performed.

wOBA: Weighted on-base average
br: Total Linear weights batting runs, not position-adjusted or compared to average/replacement level

The injury bug hit the Yankees in May, with Curtis Granderson, Jorge Posada and Nick Johnson all going down, pressing Francisco Cervelli, Randy Winn and Juan Miranda into the lineup a bit more than you’d hope for.  Cervelli was up to the task, but it’s probably safe to say the others weren’t so much.

Nick Swisher was the best offensive player on the team in May, hitting .374/.441/.670 with seven homers.  Alex Rodriguez also had a good month, and although Cano dropped from otherworldly to really good he was also very valuable.  Mark Teixeira also showed signs of life after a disastrous April.

In April the pitching staff allowed an average of 3.76 runs per game, but they fell off in May, going to 4.4 runs per game.

rsar: runs saved above replacement level, calculated as n times league average RA minus pitcher RA time innings pitched, where n = 1.25 for starters and 1.15 for reliever.

May was the Phil Hughes show, as he was the most valuable pitcher on the team.  Although his ERA went up by about a run, his FIP went down as he improved his walk rate from 5.5 batters per nine inning to 1.9.  Andy Pettitte also continued to pitch well, and although Javier Vazquez’s final May line wasn’t very good, he ended the month pitching quite well.  CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett both had rough months after good starts to the season.

Once again, the bullpen disappointed. 

Even Mo had a rough month before going down for a while with an oblique injury.  Joba Chamberlain had three spectactular disaster games. 

On May 16 he started teh eighth with a 3-1 lead.  He did manage to get two outs in between allowing two singles and a walk to load the bases, at which point Mo came in and did things he’d only done four times in his career. 
a) He walked in a run
b) He gave up a grand slam

Apparently, one implosion wasn’t good enough for Joba, as he came in two days later on May 18 in a home game against the Red Sox with a 5-1 lead, and proceeded to allow four hits and four runs as Boston tied the game.  An error in the ninth allowed Boston to score one against Mo and the Yankees had one of the most painful losses of the season.

Apparently, that wasn’t good enough either, because on May 29 he once again turned what looked like a sure win into a loss.  This time, he came in with the Yankees ahead 10-6.  Despite the fact that Cleveland had runners on first and second, the Yankees had a win expectancy of about 95% since there were two outs.

- A single cut the lead to 10-7, and the win expectancy to 90%
- A walk loaded the bases and cut the win expectancy to 85%
- A double cut the lead to 10-9, and the win expectancy to 67%
- Another double put Cleveland ahead 11-10 and cut the Yankees’ win expectancy to 33%.
- Another single gave Cleveland another run and cut the Yankees’ win expectancy to 21%.

Joba finished up strong though, striking out Shin-Soo Choo to end the inning and moving the Yankees’ win expectancy back up to 22%.

And hey, his FIP was 1.52 in May, so that’s something.  I know bebop was wondering about Joba’s BABIP and if we could expect it to get better, and I’ll try and get to that in a few days.

The rest of the pen really didn’t do anything of note, although it should be noted that Chan Ho Park’s ERA of 9.39 was almost two runs higher than his 7.50 FIP, so he may have been a little unlucky.

As far as the defense, once again the Yankees cumulative ERA(4.25) was lower than their FIP (4.50).  The gap wasn’t quite as big as it was in April, but that’s a difference of about seven runs.  Again, I don’t think we necessarily want to give all the credit for that to the defense, but I’m sure they deserve some of it.

Despite the frustrating games where Joba turned what looked like wins into losses, in the big picture May wasn’t really a bad month either.  You could almost say that to this point, the Yankees had been consistent.