Padding the Stats

Baltimore is a bad baseball team.

Down 6-1 and then 7-3, the Yankees came back with the help of 3 throws from the OF that were 3 of the worst throws you will see from a professional OF'r. 

It was 7-3 in the 7th inning when the Yankees had 1st and 3rd with one out.  After a single made it 7-4 Baltimore brought in Armstrong to pitch to Hicks.  Hicks lofted a shallow fly ball to right field , so shallow that Maybin couldn't try to score.  However, Dwight Smith Jr. "threw" home like he was trying to hit a bird.  Not only was the throw embarrassingly high, it was way off target (in between catcher and 1B (remember he was close).  This allowed Maybin to score and LeMahieu to go all the way to 3rd from 1B. 

The score is now 7-6 entering the 9th and Gardner leads off with a line drive single to LF after a really good AB fouling off pitches.   Maybin then hits a line drive to RF where Rickard makes a very soft and off target throw to 3rd base with no chance to get Gardner and also no chance to cut the ball and get Maybin going to 2nd...It was one of the softest and ill advised throw from a RF.  With 2nd and 3rd.  Down 1 with 2nd and 3rd LeMahieu grounded out on the 1st pitch and the runners had to hold (weak swing on a first pitch where he pulled an outside pitch).  Then Hicks lofted a fly ball to normal depth LF, definitely deep enough to score Gardner, but Dwight Smith Jr decided to airmail another throw way over the cut to allow Maybin to move to 3rd (and possibly score on a wild pitch).  With 2 outs and the game tied at 7 Voit popped out to the catcher, except the catcher misjudged the ball so badly he never got near it and by the dumber laws of baseball did not get an error for it.  (I don't want to get too far off base here, but that IS what an error is in my book.  Misjudging a ball is an error and after then allowing Luke to walk, Sanchez hit a 3 run HR that shoudl never have happened.

Nice comeback scoring the last 7 runs, but Baltimore is bad.

Last night the Yanks continued their HR parade and German kept Baltimore in check before allowing a 3 run HR after being up 9-0.

Some overall notes:

Sanchez homered in each game with Torres hitting 2 HR's in the first game and Frazier hitting 2 HR's in the second game.  Both Frazier homers were fastball on the outside corner that he drove to dead center field that were a few feet beyond the fence.  It was good to see as the shots to CF are legit, the power alleys in Baltimore are too short, kind of like ours is short in RF.

Happ was very weak in his game.  He was throwing about 91-92 MPH and his change was coming in at 88 usually.  He got it to 85 a few times and that was more effective, but he didn't control it well.  His ERA is now 5.16; not good!

Gardner is slowing down.  He had two plays in LF that in his prime he would have made both and he missed both.  One he turned into a triple as he couldn't beat the ball to the spot (not an error) where in his prime he would have.  the other was a bad route to the ball and he didn't make a play on it.  BTW, I wouldn't consider either of those an error because taking a slightly bad route because you misjudged the ball off the bat is not the same in my book as running in and then the ball goes over your head as you leap up and just miss it...or the catcher pop up example.

Speaking of dropped popups, Voit, Alberto and Severino (their catcher) all dropped routine popups.

I want a sweep of Baltimore.  Tonight CC goes against a guy with an 8 ERA and this is a game we should win.  Thursday, Tanaka goes against Bundy who has had a good month, but as long as Tanaka is healthy, we should win.