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!
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