One Third of The Season Is Over

The Yankees will have to play a lot of double headers and that takes its toll on the team.  Not because it is hard to sweep a doubleheader as is stated all the time.  In fact, it appears to not be much different than your chances of winning back to back games based on the stats.  51.8% of doubleheaders are swept with home teams doing it more often (as would be expected).  The issue with doubleheaders is more about the stress on the team.  Sometimes a bullpen person is up for the first game and not inserted and then a long rest and is up again in the 2nd game.  You rest your starters (as does the other team) and occasionally they have to be put back in and it is tougher on the body to get up to that "ready level" and then rest and have to do it again (think very long rain delay for a day-night doubleheader).   One note on this; I have said many times, that if you want to give a player a day off, you should give him a full day off so that he doesn't have to even warm up.  I am not saying that resting someone for a part of a game and bringing them in later should not happen, but when a player needs a day, give them a FULL day.  It is also why I would never vote any Yankees into the All Star game.  Why do I want them to play a game that does not matter (I know there are home field implications) rather than rest?  I want my players rested rather than playing in the AS game and then perhaps needing rest, because they played in the AS game, while we are playing games.  I also don't want them screwing up their swing for HR derby (which can also tire them out). 

Onto Monday's DH...which, of course, ended in a split :-)

Severino is a stud.  On his 99th pitch, he threw 99 MPH!  But his slider and change are legit pitches as well.  I love zero walks and 10 k's.   At 9-1 and a 2.20 ERA, we have an ace! 

It was disappointing that Chapman had to come on and get a 1 out save.

The Yankees got 7 hits and 7 runs, thanks to 6 walks,  2 HR's (Romine with a huge 3 run blast) and getting 3 hits in 7 tries with RISP.

In the 2nd game, German, pitched pretty well, even though his numbers show 4 ER in 6.2 IP.  He was a bit unlucky in that a pop up should have been caught where Andujar gave a great effort, Torres (playing SS) took a bad angle and Frazier probably should have taken control.  It was in a bad spot but that has to be the OF calling everyone off as it was a very tough play for Andujar; it could have been a SS's ball as well, but Torres has not played a lot of SS this year.  regardless, that play cost him a run and then with 2 outs Warren allowed another one of his runs.  German has to get more consistent as he has good stuff, but he will throw a great changeup and then throw one that doesn't have near the movement.  His curve can spin or have great bite.  I know he is 0-4 and his ERA is high, but I chalk it up to being young and I would keep sending him out there. 

Observation: German, on the mound wearing 42, had a similar physique and look as Rivera

Other Notes:
Judge was 0-9 with 8 strikeouts...Ouch!

Andujar is an excellent off-speed hitter on pitches over the plate (even low).  He has a great ability to square up those pitches and one of the reasons he has 20 doubles (28 extra base hits). 

Sanchez had another lazy PB

This was written before Monday night's game:

So where are we after 1/3 of the season?

An oddity had us technically in 1st base by winning % because we had played 5 games less than the Red Sox before their Sunday win against Houston yet we were 1/2 a game behind Boston.

I will try and go through some positions over the next weeks of the blog...let's start with the catchers:

Catchers:
Sanchez - a .777 OPS is not what I was hoping for him when he had the hot 2016 (200 AB's) and a 1.032 OPS and then followed it up with a semi full season of an OPS of .876 (471 AB's).  I didn't discuss his offense in my preseason blog, but I would have expected a mid .800 OPS from Sanchez and with upside.  The main issue is the .205 Batting average as his walks and power are not bad.  If he was hitting .250 (8 more hits) he would have an OPS of .867 about what I would have expected. His pace is for 36 HR's and 105 RBI's, although he is slumping right now.

Defensively he can do better as has the ability, but is lazy...overall, defensively, he is what he is.

Romine - Wow, who saw this coming?  No, you didn't!  At 30 years old, he has hit the ball great!  He is leading our team in OPS with a 1.078 in 56 AB's.  I don't expect this to continue, but if he can give us an OPS of .750 the rest of the way we should be happy as that is a heck of a backup.  He has played so well he deserves more than just catching Sonny Gray...at least until he cools.  he should be catching 40% of the games

Overall, I would say that the catchers have been about what we would expect combined, it is allocated differently than I would have expected though.  For projecting, I would expect the same production moving forward.