Severino!

It was great to see Severino look very sharp.  His fastball was good, his changeup was at the right speed with just enough fade and his slider was decent.  I say decent as it didn't have as much sharp late bite as I would like, but it was ok.  What I really liked was his control of the pitches.  He spotted his fastball really well and located his change as well.  That by itself will make him successful.  Against a weak team, one doesn't want to get too excited, but 5 innings, 3 singles, no walks and 9 k's is an excellent line!

Judge homered in the 1st inning for his 26th to tie Gardner and then Gardner hit his 27th later in the first.  Forgetting the extra 115 AB's Gardner has, it is crazy that Gardner has more HR's than Judge.

Going back to the previous nights game, I want to make a few points:

Frazier misplayed a fly ball badly turning an out into what was called a triple.  I want to first talk about the bad play in that he overran the ball then twisted around yet still could have caught the ball, but reached out and it went off his glove.  Use teh link below to see it...

https://twitter.com/i/status/1175191160974954496

Anyway, as bad as the play was, it is possible there were some swirling winds, but with his past of poor plays, I don't give him an excuse.  The other side of this is what they actually called a triple; how can that not be an error?  The idea that if it doesn't touch an outfielders glove it can't be an error is ludicrous to me (even though I believe it did tick is glove).  The other view on not giving an error to a fly ball has been that you don't give an error for misjudging a fly ball and they use this when a player runs in on a ball and the ball is over their head and no error is given.  This specific play can be a tough one to judge if they could have caught it, but, it was an error; at least an error in judgment.  While I am at it, why does an OF'r get away with misjudging where the ball is hit but an infielder gets an error for misjudging a hop or exactly where they thought the ball would bounce as it ticks off their glove?  This doesn't make much sense to me, all errors are a misjudgment of some sort.  Anyway, a bad play by Frazier and he does look like a poor OF'r.

That being said, later in the game he played a ball off the wall really well and threw a ball into 2nd base and for some reason, Didi took the throw on the 3rd base side of 2nd base and then couldn't reach back to get the runner who slid on the outfield side of the bag.  It was really bad positioning by Didi and if he took it on the OF side of the bag he would have been out.

Happ made a lot of bad pitches again and his change was not effective.  His fastball has movement so if he could get his change to work well and of course spot his fastball just a little better he would be fine, but he just has not been consistent enough.

Finally, the umpire Joe West abomination behind the plate.  In the 9th inning (Friday night), Luke led off and had a 2-0 count on him when ball 3 should have happened and Joe West called it a strike.  It was a ball but close and it changed the bat, the inning and perhaps the outcome as Voit K'd.  The Gardner came up and on a 3-1 call took ball 4 and started a few steps toward first base only to be called back for a 3-2 count.  The picture is below for those who didn't see it.  It was a terrible call and the Yanks were up in arms and justifiably so.

Saturday night, the Yankees continued with Joe West as they complained, correctly, on some more bad calls and Joe West tossed Boone from 3rd base.  I am not excusing the Yankees behavior, honestly, we have acted immature at times and the Gardner banging of the roof of the dugout is an example.  But, we have been damaged by calls this year more than our opponents and the fact Judge has had the 2nd most bad calls against him shows we have facts to back us up (I will try and find any stats that show the teams that have had the worst calls but I haven't found that yet).  Umpires should be held responsible as well and West should not be umpiring playoff games as he is simply not good.

I also think we will see the computerized strike zone and I am surprisingly all for it.  It is frustrating to have different strike zones and have them change based on the count or whatever.  The momentum is heading that way and they are working out the kinks, but a playoff game mess up will be the final straw to get us to stop complaining about balls and strikes...and I say bring it on!

The Tale of Two Emotions II

Can we ever just enjoy something?

Yankees' 100th win clinches AL East title 

That should have been the title to this, but we also found out that German is on administrative leave for possible domestic abuse and his postseason is in jeopardy.  I don't have all the detail and my hope is (this sounds wrong) that maybe he was abused as that would be a lot better for us (yeah, that does sound wrong).

Ugh.  German has the highest winning % in the majors.

On a positive note, Tanaka pitched well, Chapman routinely hit 100 and we added to our record amount of home runs.  I can't believe Gardner has 26 Home runs this year.  You could have bet 100-1 odds that he wouldn't hit 13 going into the season.  In what was supposed to be his last year the guy has hit 5 more HR's than he ever had in his career!  His .838 OPS is the best of his career and the only time he ever broke .800 (in 2012 he had an .803 but he only had 31 AB's.)

I hope Stanton can get his groove on because if he is swinging well in the playoffs the lineup is pretty scary.

Voit was hitting the ball hard but not having anything to show for it.

I liked that Didi lined a grounder through the left side and hit it with authority.  

Maybin and Frazier homered and while Frazier hopefully will not be needed to play (maybe a pinch hitter for a pitcher if he makes the team) if Maybin can continue to hit he could play CF against a tough lefty.

Should be interesting as our roster is changing daily.

The Tale of Two Emotions

Sadness/frustration for Betances.  He has such an electric arm and for him to come back was very exciting for me.  To know he is now done for the season because of a slight tear to his Achilles is terrible news.  We could say this is just a fluke, but once again this seem like an avoidable injury if the body was stretched correctly.

Excitement for Severino.  I was very interested in seeing how Sevy looked and I was very happy!  The ball was coming out of his hand well and when he wanted to he could reach back and hit 99.  While he was under 95 as well I think it was excellent to see him throw and have pretty good command.  The speeds of his slider and change were good and his mechanics were solid.  He did have a slight change from teh stretch at times, but that isn't unusual for midseason form on some pitchers anyway.  This was excellent news!

Correction:  I usually don't proofread (as many of you can probably tell), but I had two people let me know that I wrote the below:

Cone says that throwing breaking balls was easier (less taxing) on him than throwing breaking balls.

I should have written "Cone says that throwing breaking balls was easier (less taxing) on him than throwing fastballs."

11 More Games To Go!

I have watched all the games but have not been able to get a blog out.  Some of the things I heard/observed/thought:

Sanchez out again with another groin injury

The injury bug has been unreal this year.  While many things can be a fluke, I don’t understand why we don’t immediately take players out of the game when they get banged up?  Players will fight through and play while injured.  The other day Torres went into the hole planted and his knee slightly buckled.  He immediately grabbed at his leg, but it didn’t seem that bad and they left him in the game and then after finishing the inning they eventually took him out.  The same thing happened to Encarnacion (EE) when they spoke to him after getting to 1b and they left him in and eventually took him out.  This has happened a few times and these games are less meaningful and you have great depth so taking them out doesn’t mean as much.  Fortunately, Torres was fine, but EE had a mild oblique strain.  Why not just shut them down at that moment and then ice and do whatever it is that is necessary?

BTW, I said less meaningful games as getting home filed against Houston does have meaning based on us having a .706 winning % at home (.592 road) and Houston having a .737 at home (.560 road).  Being healthy and hopefully hot going into the playoffs is more important IMO, but getting home field is better than not having it.

It was good to see Montgomery and Betances throw the other day.  Betances is still 4-5 MPH less than normal, but he is in spring training and should build velocity just by pitching more.  He needs to make sure he keeps his mechanics consistent and he should be able to help us.

It looks like Severino will be back starting today and Stanton will be back within a week as well.  Unfortunately, it looks like Hicks will not be back and that is a big blow as defense in CF is our lead protected position.  Sanchez is the other position where the drop off is a lot but on the offensive side where Sanchez is a real differentiator so getting him back would be huge.

While we discuss the plethora of injuries we have been dealing with and even while understanding some things are just flukes, when we see players get injured so often and then reinjured or not taken out, I wonder what we are doing for preparation and post-game and finally how does our head athletic trainer still have a job?  Maybe Steve Donahue is great and his assistants are poor, but something is clearly wrong; get to the core issue and fix it!  It is ridiculous as guys are going down like my old man softball league.

The other day Happ had pitched 4 innings of shutout ball and I thought he was awful…and lucky.  He was missing spots all over the place and only Detroit swinging poorly stopped him from getting crushed.  He did allow 2 runs and was not able to get the 3^rd out in the 5^th inning and his line ended up a respectable 2 runs in 4.2 innings, but he was very fortunate.  His numbers have been good of late, but he is questionable to make the postseason right now.

In the Detroit game, I was watching their pitcher Boyd and he took a really long time in the set position and then unloaded a fastball and caught Judge sleeping a little as it was a very long pause.  I wondered if it was intentional and the next pitch didn’t have a long pause and it was a breaking ball.  Next had a long pause and, yep, you guessed it, it was a fastball.  I was able to predict every pitch correctly after that when he was in the stretch.  I am hopeful that others picked up on that?

The Yankees have lost some games of late to let minor leaguers get some action and I don’t want to give away games for that.  Let them get their work in less leveraged situations.  The other day Chase Adams came into the game and I just said “this game is lost now” and he didn’t get out of the inning and we lost.  I am not sure what happened to him as the hype was supposed to be real with him, but I don’t see anything other than a decent curveball.  He will need to get pinpoint with his control.

DJ had a bad game at 1b the other day committing errors on two easy plays.  He is sliding a bit at the plate as well with his last 70 AB’s garnering only a .744 OPS.  Not meant to knock a guy who has had a great year, but early on he was hitting amazing with RISP and with bases loaded and while his numbers are still great (.988 and 1.374 OPS), they are coming back to earth  (bases loaded is only 14 AB’s).  I did notice that in his 48 AB’s in late and close situations (perhaps the closest thing to being clutch – even though I am not a believer that being clutch is a skill or at least a statistically significant one), DJ has an OPS of only .594 and a .229 BA.  Overall, an .891 OPS and good defense playing all over the infield has been incredibly valuable.

Paxton has been excellent of late and that is very encouraging.  In his last 5 starts, he has allowed 2 runs or less and has an ERA of 1.48!

I will go into many other players as we get close or before the playoffs.

I did want to make a quick comment that Cone had made regarding resting pitchers.  Cone gives me a reason to think frequently and I enjoy that.  He has said some things that some other pitchers differ with as he says that throwing breaking balls was easier (less taxing) on him than throwing fastballs.  I always thought that was interesting.  The other day, he said that when trying to rest starting pitchers, it is more important to get rest in between starts rather than limiting their pitch count during a performance.  I would love to follow-up on this as I assume there is a limit other than effectiveness; such as are the mechanics starting to break down because they are tired?  I also do think that this was not meant for relievers who I believe like to get into a rhythm and pitch 2-3 times every week.  When was the last time Chapman pitched?  Today is September 17^th and he has pitched only twice this month.  All of our relievers should be getting whatever work they want to be ready for the playoffs (This isn’t so cookie-cutter as some guys may want more work)

Nice Answer!

After getting shut out for the first time in a year and a half, the Yanks responded with 2 very well pitched games (both shutouts until the 9th inning) and 7 HR's compared to the 9 total hits by Texas!  Paxton looked outstanding and while Texas chased a lot of pitches, his curve (more of a slurve) was very sharp with huge break.  This played great with his 96 MPH fastball and only one walk; dominant performance and huge lift for us as he is our best starter right now.

Outside of all of the homers, (I liked seeing Sanchez take an outside pitch and drive it hard to RC for a great HR), Louisiga came in throwing very hard.  The YES gun seemed a little fast showing 99 many times (They also had Paxton at 97 consistently), but MLB had Louisiga at 98 consistently!  He has a good breaking ball too, but as he comes back he has to harness that stuff and his control hasn't been as good as it can be.  Another great arm that hopefully will be peaking for the postseason.

Cessa has been throwing very well too.  His curve is a good one, but he needs to throw it to the correct spots and his fastball can be lively.  His key is location; that is obvious with any pitcher, but when he is hitting his spots he has been very effective.

Britton was the only pitcher who struggled getting through his inning.  He did get out of it, but he wasn't as sharp as he has been.  Boone will need to balance rest and keeping them sharp.  I would rather our relievers get consistent use regardless of the situation right now.

Other Notes:

• I don't always get the time to write my blog even after taking some notes and watching most every game.  Before last nights game, I was going to write about Didi and Tauchman and how the lefties have been struggling of late.  They each were 4 for their last 30, but the difference was that Didi had 3 HR's in his 4 hits and Tauchman didn't have any extra base hits.  Didi is swinging at so many bad pitches and thus why his OBP is a pathetic .284 (.747 OPS because of 14 HR's in only 257 AB's).  Tauchman, to his credit still has an OPS of a very good .850 to go along with his solid defense (Didi is solid defensively as well)
• Ford has his OPS at .844, but it will be hard for him to make the postseason roster.  I haven't looked through everything on who should make it yet and won't until we have a better picture on the injuries.  The team will be very different when Urshela, Hicks, Stanton, Betances and Severino come back!  That is a studly group still waiting to help the team with the barely best record in baseball.
• Michael Kay stated that he didn't think using a game of bullpen pitchers would make sense because as each goes out there for an inning or so, someone will have a bad night and mess up the game.  That is not a logical thought process because what is failing for that reliever?  Allowing one run in an inning is a 9 ERA, so yeah that reliever didn't do his job, but if everyone's ERA is less than 3, one should expect allowing 3 runs or less on average (with 3 pitchers allowing one run).  Keep in mind, this is different than comments I make which are why take a guy out when he hasn't thrown many pitches and is very sharp because you may get a guy who doesn't have it (when you stick to each guy only have one inning).  I don't think blindly giving them each their one inning is the right thought process when you watch how they look.  The matchups and how they look are the keys (how they look more so for most of our pitchers - Ottavino is more of the exception as he is much better against righties.)
• I am not sure what Severino will look like, but I would go with a bullpen approach and possibly go with Severino for 3 innings and turn it over to the pen.  Right now the talk is 3 starters with Paxton, German and Tanaka being the starters.  The way things play out matters a lot but the more I see the reliever starting (Green), the more I think it makes sense in big games.  Why start a weaker starter; I want my best arms in there so that I am not hoping my weaker guy doesn't get me too far behind.  
• Boone will have some very tough choices as we get everyone healthy; but I look forward to getting everyone back!