First Place Battle

The first two games of the Tampa series were very good pitching duels.  You can see why Tampa is a legit team with their very good pitching and modern day understanding of using statistics to give you an edge.

I wrote my update on the first two games of the series before I watched the Sunday game

The Friday night game saw CC pitch a solid 6 innings where he had pretty solid command and held TB to one run in 6 innings.  The outcome was good, only allowing a solo HR, but I thought he could have used his change a little more as he was getting a lot of swinging strikes on it (something he hasn't been getting a lot of).  After the 6th inning, I didn't understand the flow of pitchers?  I have a philosophy of getting as much as you can from your pitchers when the game is close, because you never know when you will go into extra innings.  Also, I like to leave an effective pitcher in the game because you never know when the "other" guy just doesn't have it.  That being said, there are matchups that you have to take into account and when your righty stud gets 3 righties out and looks great, it does make sense to bring in your lefty stud to get the next 3 lefties coming up (as an example)...

In this case, Ottavino was chosen to start the 7th inning, after 2 outs and a walk he was replaced by Kahnle.  10 pitches and Ottavino was pulled in a 1-1 game?  Kahnle allowed a single and then K'd the guy for the 3rd out and then after 9 pitches he was replaced with Chad Green for the 8th inning.  This entire sequence made little sense to me.  For one, you are playing against the first place team, therefore, you are playing a little more for the win, but how do you only get 1 inning out of Kahnle and Ottavino combined???  This game could go to extra innings!  Further, Green had been awful all year before being sent down and then coming back up he had ONE good outing.  I don't have faith in Green yet.  Green, of course, allowed 3 hits in 1 inning as 2 runs scored.  Honestly, Green didn't pitch that poorly, but he allowed a double on an 0-2 pitch that was on the corner (not a bad pitch) and Torres made an error (he has been mediocre defensively at SS).  But now we were down 3-1 because of poor use of the pitchers.  In the bottom of the 9th, we got to Alvarado with a HR from Voit and then ripped single by Sanchez.  After a strikeout to the newly acquired Morales (who homered for our 1st run), Torres just missed a HR, but got a double putting us at 2nd and 3rd with one out.  After Frazier was intentionally walked, Maybin pinch hit for Gardner and Alvarado threw a wild pitch that allowed us to tie the game.  Maybin grounded into a FC where they threw home to get Torres.  Urshela then delivered the game winning 3 run comeback with a bullet to CF that beat Kiermaier over his head for a hit.  Really exciting and rewarding comeback!  First place!

Saturday saw another pitchers duel with Tanaka shutting out Tampa for 6 innings while we salvaged one run off of the excellent stuff delivered from Snell.  Tanaka came out a little early in the game because he took one off his shin to end the 6th inning (the ball luckily ricocheted off of Tanaka directly toward first base).

Neither team got much going, but once again, if a reliever has a good 10 pitch inning, I am OK extending them for another batter or 2 to get more of our better pitching, especially in a close game against one of the 2 teams you are battling the division for.  Kahnle threw 11 and Britton threw 10 pitches.  I understand that pitches aren't the only factor, in fact, the rest between innings is worse than an additional 5 pitches or so, but 10 pitches is not a lot.  It ended up where Holder and Cessa pitched the 10th and 11th innings and Meadows got to Cessa in the 11th. 

The Yankees rallied in the 11th.  Alavarado came in again for Tampa (he threw 26 pitches in allowing 3 runs the night before) and he was met with a bullet single by Voit.  Estrada pinch ran for Luke.  Here is where I was annoyed.  It was a 3-2 count on Hicks and Hicks was on Alavarado's fastball and because of this, I wanted to send Estrada.  If Alvarado threw a breaking ball it would make it easier to steal the base and hopefully stay out of the DP.   Tampa felt Hicks was on the fastball as well and threw a slider and Hicks swung and missed it while Estrada stayed at first base.  Poor coaching there!  Unfortunately, it hurt us as Sanchez then hit into a DP to end the game.  I was very annoyed at this, especially when you scored so few runs, you need to take advantage of the situations and try to create something (or avoid the DP)

Back in second place

The Sunday game:

The Yankees took a page from the Tampa and started Green.  I think the part that Tampa does differently is that they usually take one of their top guys in the pen to start, not their 5th best (or so) guy.

Predictably, Green allowed 2 HR's in 1.2 innings.

Cortes Jr. came in and pitched 4 innings and allowed 3 runs.  He showed very good control of his fastball, hitting spots very consistently but his stuff isn't outstanding.  He does have a sneaky fastball and has movement on his other pitches, but e needs his control.  He hung a slider and that allowed all 3 of his runs.  However, it was pitch selection that had me ticked.  Cortes is a lefty and he was facing a righty.  on a 2-1 pitch Sanchez asked for a fastball inside and his target was way inside for a ball and Cortes hit the target, but it was a ball.  Now at 3-1 he went away with a change and the batter swung threw/over it.  Now at 3-2 what do you throw?  Your fastball is 90/91.  My son was in the room with me (notice I didn't say watching with me) and when Sanchez lined up inside again I said,
"this is a bad idea."  Sanchez called for the fastball on the inside corner and Cortes would have hit the glove perfectly, unfortunately the bat crushed the ball for a double down the line.  Very poor choice of location and I also thought the pitch.  I thought a change away was the pitch, even a change for a strike was ok, but not the fastball inside as the pitched didn't want to walk him and there was a good chance the fastball would leak out over the plate.  As it turned out he delivered the pitch exactly as the catcher wanted it and it was still drilled.

Down, 5-3 going into the bottom of the 4th Morton had great stuff against us, but outside of Sanchez swinging at the first pitch twice (and making an out), the rest of the lineup was really working him.  he had about 70-75 pitches going into the 4th inning.  Hicks tied the game on a hanging changeup that he jumped all over. and we got Morton out of the game after 4 innings and 88 pitches.

Working the count against the good pitchers is so important.  Morton has a fantastic curve ball and a 95 MPH fastball that has great movement.  Fortunately, he didn't control it well against us.  He also throws a slider and a change, but neither is as good as his curve or FB.

Their pen didn't throw strikes either and we walked and had some help from their poor defense as we put up a 7 spot in the 6th inning (they walked us 5 times in that inning).

Back in 1st Place!

A few notes:

The Kendry Morales signing - I don't have all the financial details, but it appears we don't have to pay much at all of the 9 mil he is owed and the player to be named later leaves it open ended.  That being said, I think he gives us a professional batter to use until we get some more players back.  I would rather someone who was a stronger platoon type of player (very strong against righties) as Morales is pretty equal for his career and actually has been a little better from the right side of the plate the past 2 years (which surprised me).  I say this was a good low risk signing though as he works the count.

Hicks has been taking a lot of pitches and you can see hitting a fastball (or something straight) has been easier than the breaking balls.  Having him play CF and work the count and be productive is a huge plus for us.  Gardner being able to rest will make him better as well. 

Frazier has been more off balance of late and defensively he is more of a LF'r as his arm isn't RF quality.  He had a good chance to throw a batter out and his throw was not even close...Then again, we are spoiled with Judge out there.  I am not down on Frazier as a player, he has tools and his overall OPS of .756 is acceptable right now.

Urshela has been a great pickup and while his offense was a huge surprise, his defense has been steady and very solid.  Last night he was way out in front of a pitch and just got a piece of it and the ball fouled down and toward the backstop and when it came up it hit him right in the groin.  Urshela went down in pain and it took awhile for him to be able to continue the AB.  I am not sure it was intentional or not but Michael Kay then said, "Urshela will resume the AB with NO balls and two strikes."   OK, maybe that is just my stupid humor, but I thought enough of it to write it here.

Sanchez hit his first career triple with nobody out and we left him there.  It was not because of poor hitting either, we drilled two balls with the infield in and both were excellent plays by the Rays infielders.  Even with the infield back our last grounder was struck well...that was some good defense.

Enjoy your week!