Game 2 Minnesota Series

I wrote this early this morning and realized I never sent it...so here is some lunch reading...

First, one has to be impressed by our team and the response to "stepping it up" for the playoffs.  As usual, I am proud to be a Yankee fan and pleased with the team stepping up.

However, I think Minnesota played a pretty poor game.  They made some very questionable pitch selections and they missed some hittable pitches.  We had a great bottom of the 3rd, which was aided by terrible pitch selection and location.  Outside of the bottom of the 3rd, we were outscored 2-1.

Let's discuss the 3rd inning and the selection/location of pitches.

Judge: fastball pretty much down the middle hit for a single.

Gardner - two balls and a well spotted 2-0 pitch that Gardner fouled back followed by 2 more balls (although ball 3 was probably a strike)

Edwin - After 2 bad pitches, Edwin got a grooved fastball that he hit for a single to load the bases with nobody out.

After a pitching change

Stanton - Took 4 fastballs for a 2-2 count - he then swung at a breaking ball for a sac fly.

Nothing really poorly pitched in the Stanton AB although Stanton should have swung at one of the fastball strikes before swinging at a good breaking ball

Torres - Slider for a foul and a then swung at a borderline fastball.  0-2 count in a key spot in the game, I would expect a guy who throws 93 to use his good breaking ball, but instead, he threw a fastball right down the middle and Torres turned it around for a single making the score 3-0.

Sanchez was up and after 2 sliders that Sanchez took and waived at for another 0-2 count, they decided to go away with what works and throw a fastball inside and they hit Sanchez.

That brought up Didi, who, obviously, has not been swinging the bat well.  He has really struggled on pitches away and specifically, slow pitches away, but also hasn't been squaring too much either.  Anyway, after fouling back a fastball on a pitch right down the middle. Didi swung at a curve in the dirt.  0-2 count, this time they correctly threw another in the dirt but it was even worse and Didi barely held up.  At this point, I would have thrown a back door breaking ball and if it was a ball so be it, but they decided to throw a fastball that ended up right down the middle and Didi fouled it off.  Now is the time to go back to the breaking ball but instead they threw a fastball that was a high strike but Didi launched it for a grand slam.  I have no idea what they were thinking but it was very bad pitch selection and bad pitch location and we took advantage of it.

The above illustrates that with good pitch location and the right pitch selection, Torres would have struggled to get on and Sanchez was given an 0-2 gift followed by a mistake to Didi on the 4th pitch (fastball down the middle) that we didn't take advantage of.  Against Verlander or Cole you may get that one mistake, but you won't get 2+ mistakes (that is location and selection) in an AB very often.

I was happy to see Ursehla get 2 hits and Didi contribute.

I also don't want to discount the job Tanaka did.  He only walked one batter and the pen didn't walk anyone either.  Overall 1 walk and 14 k's was impressive.  Tanaka did a good job of not centering too many pitches and I thought he had a little extra bite on his pitches, specifically the breaking ball.  He did a good job of mixing speeds, locations, eye levels and movements.  He was a craft righty!

Let's end it tonight and move on!

9 more to go!