Down 2 Games to 1

• Morton has really good stuff, but he made a lot of middle of the plate pitches and the Yankees either took them or missed them.  This was one of the keys to the game
• The 2nd Key to the game was Tanaka making a lot of bad pitches and TB making him pay for them.  Those centered pitches did not come back.
• The 3rd key (I guess I have 4) was the AB where Luke was up with bases loaded (3rd inning) and had a 3-0 count.  I did not want him to get the green light and he didn't and Morton threw a pitch that was low, but called a strike; that was unlucky.   Morton, who was all over the place threw one outside that was close and once again we did not get the call for strike 2....Luke then grounded out.  That was very unlucky that Morton was either just off the plate and got both calls or just barely threw a strike and got both calls.  Either way, a bad break as it would have been a run and Stanton up with the bases juiced and Morton reeling.
• The final key to the game was the 3 run HR by Kiermaier who can only drive the down and in pitch (I mentioned this yesterday) and Tanaka missed his spot and gave him his perfect pitch.  The main key to this was the play before should have been a strikeout/throwout to give us 2 outs.  The ump was giving the low strike (see Luke) until this VERY critical missed call.  Kiermaier homered on the next pitch.  The ump hurt us bad with that missed call.   The Ump was pretty good the rest of the way :-)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            A few other points
• Excellent catch by Judge in the first inning!  The ball was crushed had a little topspin and the sun was not helpful.  Judge also made a good play cutting off a ball later and made it look easy.  Glad he is doing that as he has zero pop in his bat going the other way.  His Sac fly to RF to tie the game was a good example of his struggles to drive the ball.  His OPS is now .490 in the 5 PS games
• DJ should have been able to snag the 2 out single that plated TB's first run/  He thought he had it as he jumped with 2 hands up; if you felt you needed to stretch for the ball you would only use your glove hand to jump and stretch up.  I am sure DJ would tell you he should have had it.
• Torres had an AB that was a little typical.  He took two hittable strikes and then swung at a ball in the dirt
• Voit has been awful at the plate (.348 OPS) 
• Stanton is scorching hot and needs to swap spots with Voit, if you want to play Voit (I think you have to).  It is a shame Stanton and Hicks are the only ones really doing anything offensively.  I would seriously think of walking Stanton if anyone is on base.
• Speaking of Hicks, he was beaten inside on a bunch of fastballs that he fouled off, but he did make the adjustment later for a double.
• Higgy was 0-3 (They ended up giving Adames a tough error that I agree with), but it is nice to have him behind the plate so we don't have to see a passed ball and a ball hit off his face mask as he missed a ball (I forgot to mention that yesterday)
• Gardner has been OK with a .762 OPS
• This was a disappointing performance by Tanaka who had been excellent in the postseason coming into this year.  Tanaka had allowed 9 earned runs in his previous 46 innings (1.76 ERA) and this year he has allowed 11 earned runs in 8 innings.  Yet another example of why there is no statistical validity to someone being clutch (having clutch ability).  While there are clutch performances, there is not clutch ability; or at least it is statistically unlikely.  I know this always brings out strong views, but all of these players have played in high-pressure situations and if someone was a "choker", they would not be able to have such success to get to the majors.  I have written about this many times.  ARod was a choker until he would have been our MVP until Rivera had his rare blown save against Boston.  Andy Pettitte was such a clutch performer in the postseason, yet his ERAwas 3.81 in the postseason and 3.85 in the regular season; pretty close.  Is Judge a choker with how bad he is performing...or is it because he just was not swinging well coming into the playoffs?  My favorite example is how amazingly clutch Girardi was in the postseason.  That RBI triple against Atlanta was an amazingly clutch hit; he was definitely clutch...right?  Girardi stepped to the plate 127 times in the playoffs and that triple represented half of his total extra-base hits and it was his ONLY RBI in the postseason!  I should just drop the mic, but I want to be fair and use Jeter to show the other side and that is he had an OPS of .817 in the regular season and .838 in the postseason and he pretty much had a full season of numbers in the postseason 650 AB's, 32 doubles 5 triples and 20 HR's.  While pretty close, I would say to perform in the postseason slightly better than the regular season (with a large sample size) may show a tiny, tiny bit of more clutch ability to others as I assume the pitching in the postseason would be better than the regular season.

Our backs are against the wall and we are relying on Jordon Montgomery to pitch for us...Nothing against Jordon as he is a fine back of teh rotation guy that may improve as well, but   I think I would rather start Garcia.  Maybe start Montgomery and have a very quick hook and then it is bullpen time?  Let's see what we have!