The Yankees took a page out of Tampa Bay's book as Green started and did well (the part that had been missing) and journeyman, Hale pitched 4 innings allowing 2 runs before our 4 best in the pen shut out SD for the final 4 innings.
Gardner, who isn't as good against lefties (.531 OPS against .848 against righties) got the start against lefty Matt Strahm, who lefties have hit well. Gardner came through with a 2 run HR that gave us the lead we never lost.
Tangent Warning: The Game Winning RBI stat has gone away and I don't think it should have. We have stats for everything and as we know the stats many times don't mean as much because the timing can matter more. The one thing about the game-winning RBI stat was that no matter when it happened, it was an important hit/play at the time and not many stats can say that.
Frazier jumped on a hanging slider for his 10th HR and Sanchez now has 16 with a short porch RF fly ball.
Frazier's defense has been very shaky of late and he will need to improve or Stanton would play over him and Frazier would DH (assuming Stanton is healthy).
OPS (at least 35 plate appearances):
Sanchez: .985
Estrada: .939 (47 PA)
Judge: .925 (89 PA)
Torres: .881
Frazier: .876
Voit: .867
Urshela: .834
LeMahieu: .797
Gardner: .786
Maybin: .753 (79 PA)
Morales: .591 (37 PA)
Hicks: .554 (47 PA)
Romine: .503 (81 PA)
Estrada (23) has played great in his time up here, but his minor league numbers don't suggest a 900 OPS guy. Then again, Urshela, who is 27, didn't show this type of offense either. Ride it while you can!
This brings me to the question of what do we do as players come back? I could see a lot of people rotating the DH spot and playing the field. Stanton could mix in the OF and DH and I think Voit would be the same way with DJ playing some 1B, 3B, and 2B. If Didi is healthy and playing well, he will play most of the time at SS, but we should ease him into the role. I don't see a guy like Morales sticking with us once everyone is healthy. Maybin is a possibility because he is a better option than Tauchman and I am not aware of a better option in the minors right now. Estrada has options so I could see him going down.
As poor as the bullpen had done for a while, the four of Ottavino, Kahnle, Britton, and Chapman have a solid ERA between them:
Combined they have 93 IP, 57 hits, 39 walks, 7 HR's and 120 K's and an ERA of 1.74. This is pretty solid and while the walks are high, that is mostly from Ottavino and his 18 walks in 25.1 innings.
Kahnle let up that 3 run HR the other night but has been throwing really well. Yesterday, he was dominant! He was throwing 97/98 and threw his changeup anywhere from 90 - 93 and it had a lot of movement. It was most effective in the 90-91 range, but it reminded me of Greg Maddux's fastball (without the pinpoint control). Regardless, even though Kahnle has allowed 3 HR's in 22 IP, he has allowed only 1 double and 7 singles for an OPS against of .469.
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If they get rid of the game winning RBI, they should also get rid of Wins for pitchers. Think about it: the winning pitcher is nothing more than the pitcher who was sitting on the bench when the game winning RBI was hit! You would think they'd reward the guy who actually did something at that moment rather than the other way around.
ReplyDeleteI like the stat; as you said, it's not perfect, but not every stat can be as close to perfect as OPS. :-) Everyone who doesn't like the game-winning RBI always brings up the example of putting your team up 1-0 in the first example, and the game ends 9-8, arguing that the guy who drove in the 9th run deserves it. But isn't it more clutch to give your team the lead than it is to pad the lead?
All I know is that when I played ball, the at-bats that I felt the best about were the game winning RBIs, even those that were in the first inning.