I almost always stick to baseball, but as someone who has not served in the military, I have tremendous respect for those who have. Today serves as a day to remember the brave Americans who have lost their lives for the freedom we cherish. The freedom to write this blog, the freedom for you to read it and your freedom to critique it!
I know the difference between Veteran's Day and Memorial Day, but I still want to thank everyone who has served and especially the people who have given the ultimate sacrifice!
Memorial day makes losing to the lowly Royals not important, but we are here to read about our beloved Yankees. Taking 3 of 4 should be a good thing, but when you have won the first 3 games and are playing a weak team with your most successful pitcher on the mound; you get greedy.
German did not look good from the beginning. His fastball was more like 92-93 than 95 and his sharp break in his pitches was not there. The positive was that he didn't walk anyone, but the negative to that was too many pitches that were very hittable. He allowed a 3 run HR with 2 outs in the 2nd inning, he allowed a solo HR with 2 outs in teh 4th inning and then the crushing blow of a 3 run HR with 2 outs in the 5th inning. All with 2 outs and we were down 7-1 going into the 6th inning. Torres got back one of the HR's with a 3 run HR with 2 outs himself. It stayed that way until the 9th inning where we were down 7-4 because Cortes Jr held the Royals in check for 3 innings.
In the 9th, Morales weakly grounded out, Frazier singled and Urshela singled. Brett Gardner pinch hit for Maybin and struck out in a foul tip where the ball deflected off the catcher's glove (popped up) and the catcher went and caught it. I have seen a catcher double clutch, but it is rare to see what I just described. Anyway, down to our last out (2 out theme), DJ singled to knock in Frazier and we were down 2 with 1st and 2nd. Ian Kennedy appeared to want no part of Voit and walked him to load the bases for the struggling Hicks. Hicks took 4 pitches and had a 3-1 count in his favor before hitting a hard ground ball to RF tying the game. Sanchez had a chance to get us the lead, but flew out to RF.
Here is where I was surprised at Boone. Tie game and he left our last pitcher out there? Cortes Jr had pitched well putting up zeroes, but there is no chance I would have left him out there. It worked because Cortes got through the bottom of the 9th, but the bases were loaded when we got out of the inning.
We went down in the top of the 10th and I expected Ottavino to come in as he was warming up, but Boone went with Holder. I don't get going with our weaker relievers in a time like this and perhaps Ottavino didn't feel well when he got up, but I would have had Britton up before I went to Holder. Holder got the 1st out and then committed the costly mistake of walking speedster Billy Hamilton on 5 pitches (after going 3-0).
Then the most important play of the game happened when Hamilton stole 2nd base and Sanchez got rid of it quickly and the ball beat Hamilton but Torres was not able to catch the throw that did tail away from him a little. Torres was a little late but got there and because the throw was slightly on the 2nd base side, the ball tipped off the end of his glove. His arm was not fully extended and it was in the middle of the chest of the incoming Hamilton, but Torres could have taken the throw just to the catcher's side of the runner and he didn't. The throw had Hamilton easily out, but Gleyber couldn't make the play. The next ball was hit down the line where Urshela made a game-saving backhand and somehow still looked the runner back and made the throw to first base. The throw was straight but bounced before Morales who made a nice scoop. Now with 2 outs things were more promising, but once again with 2 outs the run scored on a ground ball that was an in-between hop for Urshela and the ball took a crazy hop over his head for the winning run. Urshela could have tried to charge and smother the ball just to keep it in the infield, but as great as he was playing, I think he expected to make the play and unfortunately, it took a bad hop.
Not sure why Boone allowed our two weakest pitchers to go in those final two innings, but I didn't like those moves, especially after the 6 run come back.
SD at home today at 1:05
Enjoy our freedom today!
Monday, May 27, 2019
Friday, May 24, 2019
The Game Could Have Been Excellent
Boone really screwed up this game. He decided to rest Sanchez and Gleyber even though they have been hot against Baltimore. I don't really have any issue with that as you do want to give guys some rest and I think it is important they get a full days rest when you keep them out of the lineup. In fact, while I might not rest both, I like the idea of sometimes not letting them even get loose so they can truly get full days rest because preparing in case you play does not allow your body to fully rest. Just think of a bullpen guy who gets up like he is going in and never gets into the game; he didn't get much rest.
Anyway, in the top of the 6th inning, Urshela came up in a huge spot. With the score 1-1, we worked to load the bases with 2 outs, Urshela (who had two weak AB's earlier) was down 1-2 after swinging after a fastball just on top of the strike. It was a very good swing and he was on it but didn't get it. After taking a slider in the dirt he hit the next slider into LF for a huge 2 run single finally getting a few runs across. Gardner struck out as a lefty was brought in to end the top of the 6th.
Tanaka breezed through bottom of the 6th and had gone 6 innings and allowed 5 hits, only 1 walk and allowed one run. He had retired the last 7 batters and had thrown 95 pitches. That is approaching 100, but remember this was a guy who used to complete most games before he came to the states. For whatever reason we won't allow him to throw 110 pitches, even once in awhile?
After a solo HR by Voit (where he jumped on a slider) , we took Tanaka out leading 4-1 and Boone went with Holder. Holder pitched a good 7th not allowing a hit or a walk. I would have left Tanaka in, but Holder did the job so Boone made a good choice.
We then tacked on another run as Romine knocked in Estrada who walked and stole 2nd.
With a 5-1 lead Boone made a poor decision; he sent Holder back out there. The guy who is so set on one inning guys, decides to roll the dice with one of our weaker guys? After Holder walked the leadoff guy, I assumed that Kahnle, who was ready to start the 8th would be brought in. For some reason, Boone decided to stay with Holder who proceeded to walk the next batter on 5 pitches. OK, that is enough and the poor idea to start him in the 8th has now gone at least one batter too much! Nope, Boone made the moronic decision to leave Holder out there for yet another batter and he allowed a line drive single on his first pitch and now the tying run was at the plate (5-2, nobody out and 1st and 2nd). Finally, Boone takes Holder out. Kahnle got a pop up and now I felt a lot better. However, it didn't last long; on a 2-2 Kahnle left a changeup up and Renato Nunez hit a game tying 3 run HR! Kahnle struck the next two guys out, but the damage was done.
I get that Kahnle didn't do his job, but he has been pitching well and he would not have allowed so many guys on (most likely); he should have started the 8th!
Now, we have a tie game going into the 9th. Gardner and Maybin (who was brought in for defense in place of Frazier) struck out to start the 9th. Now instead of Gleyber getting a full days rest, he comes in to pinch hit and worked a walk. Sanchez is then brought in to hit for Romine (same non rest for him) and dropped a single into RF. I was surprised Gleyber didn't get to 3rd base. DJ then walked to load the bases for Hicks.Givens almost hit Hicks 3 times but the count went to 3-2 before missing wildly on a changeup forcing in the go ahead run. Voit almost got hit and then had a bad swing to end the inning.
Britton came on to save the one run lead and got an out and a single before inducing a DP with his great sinker and we won the game.
I know we won, but we wasted a good opportunity to rest our guys because of stupidity.
Tampa and Boston won.
Some other notes:
Top 10 Injury Update:
Anyway, in the top of the 6th inning, Urshela came up in a huge spot. With the score 1-1, we worked to load the bases with 2 outs, Urshela (who had two weak AB's earlier) was down 1-2 after swinging after a fastball just on top of the strike. It was a very good swing and he was on it but didn't get it. After taking a slider in the dirt he hit the next slider into LF for a huge 2 run single finally getting a few runs across. Gardner struck out as a lefty was brought in to end the top of the 6th.
Tanaka breezed through bottom of the 6th and had gone 6 innings and allowed 5 hits, only 1 walk and allowed one run. He had retired the last 7 batters and had thrown 95 pitches. That is approaching 100, but remember this was a guy who used to complete most games before he came to the states. For whatever reason we won't allow him to throw 110 pitches, even once in awhile?
After a solo HR by Voit (where he jumped on a slider) , we took Tanaka out leading 4-1 and Boone went with Holder. Holder pitched a good 7th not allowing a hit or a walk. I would have left Tanaka in, but Holder did the job so Boone made a good choice.
We then tacked on another run as Romine knocked in Estrada who walked and stole 2nd.
With a 5-1 lead Boone made a poor decision; he sent Holder back out there. The guy who is so set on one inning guys, decides to roll the dice with one of our weaker guys? After Holder walked the leadoff guy, I assumed that Kahnle, who was ready to start the 8th would be brought in. For some reason, Boone decided to stay with Holder who proceeded to walk the next batter on 5 pitches. OK, that is enough and the poor idea to start him in the 8th has now gone at least one batter too much! Nope, Boone made the moronic decision to leave Holder out there for yet another batter and he allowed a line drive single on his first pitch and now the tying run was at the plate (5-2, nobody out and 1st and 2nd). Finally, Boone takes Holder out. Kahnle got a pop up and now I felt a lot better. However, it didn't last long; on a 2-2 Kahnle left a changeup up and Renato Nunez hit a game tying 3 run HR! Kahnle struck the next two guys out, but the damage was done.
I get that Kahnle didn't do his job, but he has been pitching well and he would not have allowed so many guys on (most likely); he should have started the 8th!
Now, we have a tie game going into the 9th. Gardner and Maybin (who was brought in for defense in place of Frazier) struck out to start the 9th. Now instead of Gleyber getting a full days rest, he comes in to pinch hit and worked a walk. Sanchez is then brought in to hit for Romine (same non rest for him) and dropped a single into RF. I was surprised Gleyber didn't get to 3rd base. DJ then walked to load the bases for Hicks.Givens almost hit Hicks 3 times but the count went to 3-2 before missing wildly on a changeup forcing in the go ahead run. Voit almost got hit and then had a bad swing to end the inning.
Britton came on to save the one run lead and got an out and a single before inducing a DP with his great sinker and we won the game.
I know we won, but we wasted a good opportunity to rest our guys because of stupidity.
Tampa and Boston won.
Some other notes:
- Estrada has been really good both offensively (.908 OPS) and defensively, but he did mess a DP that cost us Tanaka a run. He was playing SS with one out and he came across the bag and took an extra step and it cost us a DP on a close play because Wilkerson got down the line fast. The ball was a bullet to DJ's backhand at 2nd base and Estrada was a little late and maybe that through him off?
- Many of our replacement starters are doing very well, but Romine (.476 OPS) and Hicks (.641) have not done too much yet. Hicks is obviously much more important, but he has not been comfortable yet. The good thing is his patience has been good. Hicks did misjudge a fly ball coming in on a ball that went over his head and turned it into a triple.
- Maybin has been mediocre overall (.712 OPS and played decent defense)
- Morales hasn't given us much yet either (.601 OPS), but he has less than 30 AB's with us.
Top 10 Injury Update:
- CC is now on the 10 day list with knee inflammation.
- Judge is catching fly balls, but has not swung yet (from what I can tell)
- Stanton was hit by a pitch and this has hurt his knee otherwise he would have been up next week. I am hopeful he is two weeks away, but that is not scientific.
- Paxton - will throw Friday and then could go down for a start or if we are lucky start next week. With CC out getting Paxton back would be huge (remember Loaiza is out for at least a month)
- Didi is scheduled to play SS on Thursday in an extended Spring Training Game
- Tulo could be cleared to begin a Minor League Rehab assignment this weekend
- Betances is playing long toss from a distance of 120 feet. No date yet to get on the mound
- Bird - Might not matter unless he plays well in the minors, but he is trying to come back from a left Plantar Facia tear - he is on the treadmill and has not done any baseball work yet
- Andujar - He is probably out for the year (I haven't see that he is definitely having surgery.)
- Severino - Still a long way away (mid August?)
- OK I added an 11th as Montgomery could be back in August as well
I think we should try and battle with what we have. Our bullpen has not been as good as it can be and getting Betances back could be huge. As long as we are hanging in the race, I would not make any crazy moves. As it is, we have a lot of decisions to make when Didi, Stanton and Judge come back.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Going Yard at Camden Yards
The slugging % keeps going up!
Baltimore pitching has really helped the slugging % go up for the Yankees. Last night had a lot of poor pitches that were taken advantage of.
Some notes about the 7-5 victory!
Baltimore pitching has really helped the slugging % go up for the Yankees. Last night had a lot of poor pitches that were taken advantage of.
Some notes about the 7-5 victory!
- The Yankees have hit 25 HR's in the 6 games at Camden Yards this year. Think about that.
- The Yankees have hit at least 3 HR's in 6 consecutive games at Camden Yards; that is a record by any team at any ball park in history
- Torres has 10 HR's and Sanchez has 9 against the O's, only once have teammates had 10 HR's each off of a common opponent in the same year. The only ones to do it are some guys you may have heard of; Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
- While on Torres, the cool thing was that he hit a fastball away, he hit breaking balls out to CF and pulled homers as well. Now he needs to tighten up his defense a little bit as he has been a little shaky.
- The Yankees were winning 6-1 when an overthrow went into RF. Frazier picked up the ball in shallow RF down the line and with just a decent throw the Baltimore runner would have been thrown out at home. Two things: 1) What was Baltimore doing sending that guy down 6-1? 2) Frazier made a poor throw, way off line. His accuracy of throwing has not been good.
- DJ Lemahieu played 3rd base and continued his excellent defense there. He made a nice play on a ball down the line where he snagged a ball almost behind him and then got the force at 2nd. Later he dived to his left to make another play. Combined with his .833 OPS and all of our injuries, he has been a great pickup. I am nit picking here, but his .833 OPS is a little low for a guy with a .329 batting avg; he hasn't hit for much power (10 doubles and 4 HR's) and has only walked 12 times. Contrasting, Luke Voit has an OPS of .858 with a batting avg of .259 because he has walked 28 times and has only 6 doubles, but 11 HR's in similar AB's. This is why I use OPS as it gives a very good indication of total offensive value. There are areas that it doesn't take into account such as SB's/CS, speed in taking the extra base and even total pitches taken which can wear out an opposing pitcher, but it is far better than batting avg or even OBP by itself.
- CC didn't pitch as bad as his stat line showed. His change was excellent early on and then he lost the touch of the pitch and started to get hit. One of the big hits off of him was a slider very low in the strike zone that the hitter deposited on a nice swing...hard to get too mad when a pitch is clearly a ball and a guy hits a HR on it.
- Speaking of balls, the ump was awful yesterday. Very inconsistent and made some terrible calls that impacted AB's on both sides a lot. In general, I thought we got the short end of the stick more than the O's did.
- Gardner played CF and charged hard on a single up the middle and made an excellent throw home to nail a runner. Live, well my live, DVR'd, I thought Sanchez might have blocked the plate and the Orioles challenged but the call was upheld. It was close, but the ball beat him so I think they correctly upheld the call.
- Chapman did not look good in getting the save. His control of his fastball was very poor and his velocity started out at 96, 95 and even 93. Then he was about 96 and 97 but with a lot of balls. Sanchez finally started to call for a few sliders and that was good because Chapman threw 21 pitches, 17 fastballs and 4 slider. The 4 sliders were all strikes and he threw 8 fastballs for strikes and 9 for balls. He did finish throwing 100 MPH so maybe he just needs to warm up more. He has the stuff to struggle and still get the job done, but he can be shaky. He is 13 of 14 in save situations.
Let's hope we can sweep this afternoon!
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
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.
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.
Monday, May 20, 2019
First Place Battle
The first two games of the Tampa series were very good pitching duels. You can see why Tampa is a legit team with their very good pitching and modern day understanding of using statistics to give you an edge.
I wrote my update on the first two games of the series before I watched the Sunday game
The Friday night game saw CC pitch a solid 6 innings where he had pretty solid command and held TB to one run in 6 innings. The outcome was good, only allowing a solo HR, but I thought he could have used his change a little more as he was getting a lot of swinging strikes on it (something he hasn't been getting a lot of). After the 6th inning, I didn't understand the flow of pitchers? I have a philosophy of getting as much as you can from your pitchers when the game is close, because you never know when you will go into extra innings. Also, I like to leave an effective pitcher in the game because you never know when the "other" guy just doesn't have it. That being said, there are matchups that you have to take into account and when your righty stud gets 3 righties out and looks great, it does make sense to bring in your lefty stud to get the next 3 lefties coming up (as an example)...
In this case, Ottavino was chosen to start the 7th inning, after 2 outs and a walk he was replaced by Kahnle. 10 pitches and Ottavino was pulled in a 1-1 game? Kahnle allowed a single and then K'd the guy for the 3rd out and then after 9 pitches he was replaced with Chad Green for the 8th inning. This entire sequence made little sense to me. For one, you are playing against the first place team, therefore, you are playing a little more for the win, but how do you only get 1 inning out of Kahnle and Ottavino combined??? This game could go to extra innings! Further, Green had been awful all year before being sent down and then coming back up he had ONE good outing. I don't have faith in Green yet. Green, of course, allowed 3 hits in 1 inning as 2 runs scored. Honestly, Green didn't pitch that poorly, but he allowed a double on an 0-2 pitch that was on the corner (not a bad pitch) and Torres made an error (he has been mediocre defensively at SS). But now we were down 3-1 because of poor use of the pitchers. In the bottom of the 9th, we got to Alvarado with a HR from Voit and then ripped single by Sanchez. After a strikeout to the newly acquired Morales (who homered for our 1st run), Torres just missed a HR, but got a double putting us at 2nd and 3rd with one out. After Frazier was intentionally walked, Maybin pinch hit for Gardner and Alvarado threw a wild pitch that allowed us to tie the game. Maybin grounded into a FC where they threw home to get Torres. Urshela then delivered the game winning 3 run comeback with a bullet to CF that beat Kiermaier over his head for a hit. Really exciting and rewarding comeback! First place!
Saturday saw another pitchers duel with Tanaka shutting out Tampa for 6 innings while we salvaged one run off of the excellent stuff delivered from Snell. Tanaka came out a little early in the game because he took one off his shin to end the 6th inning (the ball luckily ricocheted off of Tanaka directly toward first base).
Neither team got much going, but once again, if a reliever has a good 10 pitch inning, I am OK extending them for another batter or 2 to get more of our better pitching, especially in a close game against one of the 2 teams you are battling the division for. Kahnle threw 11 and Britton threw 10 pitches. I understand that pitches aren't the only factor, in fact, the rest between innings is worse than an additional 5 pitches or so, but 10 pitches is not a lot. It ended up where Holder and Cessa pitched the 10th and 11th innings and Meadows got to Cessa in the 11th.
The Yankees rallied in the 11th. Alavarado came in again for Tampa (he threw 26 pitches in allowing 3 runs the night before) and he was met with a bullet single by Voit. Estrada pinch ran for Luke. Here is where I was annoyed. It was a 3-2 count on Hicks and Hicks was on Alavarado's fastball and because of this, I wanted to send Estrada. If Alvarado threw a breaking ball it would make it easier to steal the base and hopefully stay out of the DP. Tampa felt Hicks was on the fastball as well and threw a slider and Hicks swung and missed it while Estrada stayed at first base. Poor coaching there! Unfortunately, it hurt us as Sanchez then hit into a DP to end the game. I was very annoyed at this, especially when you scored so few runs, you need to take advantage of the situations and try to create something (or avoid the DP)
Back in second place
The Sunday game:
The Yankees took a page from the Tampa and started Green. I think the part that Tampa does differently is that they usually take one of their top guys in the pen to start, not their 5th best (or so) guy.
Predictably, Green allowed 2 HR's in 1.2 innings.
Cortes Jr. came in and pitched 4 innings and allowed 3 runs. He showed very good control of his fastball, hitting spots very consistently but his stuff isn't outstanding. He does have a sneaky fastball and has movement on his other pitches, but e needs his control. He hung a slider and that allowed all 3 of his runs. However, it was pitch selection that had me ticked. Cortes is a lefty and he was facing a righty. on a 2-1 pitch Sanchez asked for a fastball inside and his target was way inside for a ball and Cortes hit the target, but it was a ball. Now at 3-1 he went away with a change and the batter swung threw/over it. Now at 3-2 what do you throw? Your fastball is 90/91. My son was in the room with me (notice I didn't say watching with me) and when Sanchez lined up inside again I said,
"this is a bad idea." Sanchez called for the fastball on the inside corner and Cortes would have hit the glove perfectly, unfortunately the bat crushed the ball for a double down the line. Very poor choice of location and I also thought the pitch. I thought a change away was the pitch, even a change for a strike was ok, but not the fastball inside as the pitched didn't want to walk him and there was a good chance the fastball would leak out over the plate. As it turned out he delivered the pitch exactly as the catcher wanted it and it was still drilled.
Down, 5-3 going into the bottom of the 4th Morton had great stuff against us, but outside of Sanchez swinging at the first pitch twice (and making an out), the rest of the lineup was really working him. he had about 70-75 pitches going into the 4th inning. Hicks tied the game on a hanging changeup that he jumped all over. and we got Morton out of the game after 4 innings and 88 pitches.
Working the count against the good pitchers is so important. Morton has a fantastic curve ball and a 95 MPH fastball that has great movement. Fortunately, he didn't control it well against us. He also throws a slider and a change, but neither is as good as his curve or FB.
Their pen didn't throw strikes either and we walked and had some help from their poor defense as we put up a 7 spot in the 6th inning (they walked us 5 times in that inning).
Back in 1st Place!
A few notes:
The Kendry Morales signing - I don't have all the financial details, but it appears we don't have to pay much at all of the 9 mil he is owed and the player to be named later leaves it open ended. That being said, I think he gives us a professional batter to use until we get some more players back. I would rather someone who was a stronger platoon type of player (very strong against righties) as Morales is pretty equal for his career and actually has been a little better from the right side of the plate the past 2 years (which surprised me). I say this was a good low risk signing though as he works the count.
Hicks has been taking a lot of pitches and you can see hitting a fastball (or something straight) has been easier than the breaking balls. Having him play CF and work the count and be productive is a huge plus for us. Gardner being able to rest will make him better as well.
Frazier has been more off balance of late and defensively he is more of a LF'r as his arm isn't RF quality. He had a good chance to throw a batter out and his throw was not even close...Then again, we are spoiled with Judge out there. I am not down on Frazier as a player, he has tools and his overall OPS of .756 is acceptable right now.
Urshela has been a great pickup and while his offense was a huge surprise, his defense has been steady and very solid. Last night he was way out in front of a pitch and just got a piece of it and the ball fouled down and toward the backstop and when it came up it hit him right in the groin. Urshela went down in pain and it took awhile for him to be able to continue the AB. I am not sure it was intentional or not but Michael Kay then said, "Urshela will resume the AB with NO balls and two strikes." OK, maybe that is just my stupid humor, but I thought enough of it to write it here.
Sanchez hit his first career triple with nobody out and we left him there. It was not because of poor hitting either, we drilled two balls with the infield in and both were excellent plays by the Rays infielders. Even with the infield back our last grounder was struck well...that was some good defense.
Enjoy your week!
I wrote my update on the first two games of the series before I watched the Sunday game
The Friday night game saw CC pitch a solid 6 innings where he had pretty solid command and held TB to one run in 6 innings. The outcome was good, only allowing a solo HR, but I thought he could have used his change a little more as he was getting a lot of swinging strikes on it (something he hasn't been getting a lot of). After the 6th inning, I didn't understand the flow of pitchers? I have a philosophy of getting as much as you can from your pitchers when the game is close, because you never know when you will go into extra innings. Also, I like to leave an effective pitcher in the game because you never know when the "other" guy just doesn't have it. That being said, there are matchups that you have to take into account and when your righty stud gets 3 righties out and looks great, it does make sense to bring in your lefty stud to get the next 3 lefties coming up (as an example)...
In this case, Ottavino was chosen to start the 7th inning, after 2 outs and a walk he was replaced by Kahnle. 10 pitches and Ottavino was pulled in a 1-1 game? Kahnle allowed a single and then K'd the guy for the 3rd out and then after 9 pitches he was replaced with Chad Green for the 8th inning. This entire sequence made little sense to me. For one, you are playing against the first place team, therefore, you are playing a little more for the win, but how do you only get 1 inning out of Kahnle and Ottavino combined??? This game could go to extra innings! Further, Green had been awful all year before being sent down and then coming back up he had ONE good outing. I don't have faith in Green yet. Green, of course, allowed 3 hits in 1 inning as 2 runs scored. Honestly, Green didn't pitch that poorly, but he allowed a double on an 0-2 pitch that was on the corner (not a bad pitch) and Torres made an error (he has been mediocre defensively at SS). But now we were down 3-1 because of poor use of the pitchers. In the bottom of the 9th, we got to Alvarado with a HR from Voit and then ripped single by Sanchez. After a strikeout to the newly acquired Morales (who homered for our 1st run), Torres just missed a HR, but got a double putting us at 2nd and 3rd with one out. After Frazier was intentionally walked, Maybin pinch hit for Gardner and Alvarado threw a wild pitch that allowed us to tie the game. Maybin grounded into a FC where they threw home to get Torres. Urshela then delivered the game winning 3 run comeback with a bullet to CF that beat Kiermaier over his head for a hit. Really exciting and rewarding comeback! First place!
Saturday saw another pitchers duel with Tanaka shutting out Tampa for 6 innings while we salvaged one run off of the excellent stuff delivered from Snell. Tanaka came out a little early in the game because he took one off his shin to end the 6th inning (the ball luckily ricocheted off of Tanaka directly toward first base).
Neither team got much going, but once again, if a reliever has a good 10 pitch inning, I am OK extending them for another batter or 2 to get more of our better pitching, especially in a close game against one of the 2 teams you are battling the division for. Kahnle threw 11 and Britton threw 10 pitches. I understand that pitches aren't the only factor, in fact, the rest between innings is worse than an additional 5 pitches or so, but 10 pitches is not a lot. It ended up where Holder and Cessa pitched the 10th and 11th innings and Meadows got to Cessa in the 11th.
The Yankees rallied in the 11th. Alavarado came in again for Tampa (he threw 26 pitches in allowing 3 runs the night before) and he was met with a bullet single by Voit. Estrada pinch ran for Luke. Here is where I was annoyed. It was a 3-2 count on Hicks and Hicks was on Alavarado's fastball and because of this, I wanted to send Estrada. If Alvarado threw a breaking ball it would make it easier to steal the base and hopefully stay out of the DP. Tampa felt Hicks was on the fastball as well and threw a slider and Hicks swung and missed it while Estrada stayed at first base. Poor coaching there! Unfortunately, it hurt us as Sanchez then hit into a DP to end the game. I was very annoyed at this, especially when you scored so few runs, you need to take advantage of the situations and try to create something (or avoid the DP)
Back in second place
The Sunday game:
The Yankees took a page from the Tampa and started Green. I think the part that Tampa does differently is that they usually take one of their top guys in the pen to start, not their 5th best (or so) guy.
Predictably, Green allowed 2 HR's in 1.2 innings.
Cortes Jr. came in and pitched 4 innings and allowed 3 runs. He showed very good control of his fastball, hitting spots very consistently but his stuff isn't outstanding. He does have a sneaky fastball and has movement on his other pitches, but e needs his control. He hung a slider and that allowed all 3 of his runs. However, it was pitch selection that had me ticked. Cortes is a lefty and he was facing a righty. on a 2-1 pitch Sanchez asked for a fastball inside and his target was way inside for a ball and Cortes hit the target, but it was a ball. Now at 3-1 he went away with a change and the batter swung threw/over it. Now at 3-2 what do you throw? Your fastball is 90/91. My son was in the room with me (notice I didn't say watching with me) and when Sanchez lined up inside again I said,
"this is a bad idea." Sanchez called for the fastball on the inside corner and Cortes would have hit the glove perfectly, unfortunately the bat crushed the ball for a double down the line. Very poor choice of location and I also thought the pitch. I thought a change away was the pitch, even a change for a strike was ok, but not the fastball inside as the pitched didn't want to walk him and there was a good chance the fastball would leak out over the plate. As it turned out he delivered the pitch exactly as the catcher wanted it and it was still drilled.
Down, 5-3 going into the bottom of the 4th Morton had great stuff against us, but outside of Sanchez swinging at the first pitch twice (and making an out), the rest of the lineup was really working him. he had about 70-75 pitches going into the 4th inning. Hicks tied the game on a hanging changeup that he jumped all over. and we got Morton out of the game after 4 innings and 88 pitches.
Working the count against the good pitchers is so important. Morton has a fantastic curve ball and a 95 MPH fastball that has great movement. Fortunately, he didn't control it well against us. He also throws a slider and a change, but neither is as good as his curve or FB.
Their pen didn't throw strikes either and we walked and had some help from their poor defense as we put up a 7 spot in the 6th inning (they walked us 5 times in that inning).
Back in 1st Place!
A few notes:
The Kendry Morales signing - I don't have all the financial details, but it appears we don't have to pay much at all of the 9 mil he is owed and the player to be named later leaves it open ended. That being said, I think he gives us a professional batter to use until we get some more players back. I would rather someone who was a stronger platoon type of player (very strong against righties) as Morales is pretty equal for his career and actually has been a little better from the right side of the plate the past 2 years (which surprised me). I say this was a good low risk signing though as he works the count.
Hicks has been taking a lot of pitches and you can see hitting a fastball (or something straight) has been easier than the breaking balls. Having him play CF and work the count and be productive is a huge plus for us. Gardner being able to rest will make him better as well.
Frazier has been more off balance of late and defensively he is more of a LF'r as his arm isn't RF quality. He had a good chance to throw a batter out and his throw was not even close...Then again, we are spoiled with Judge out there. I am not down on Frazier as a player, he has tools and his overall OPS of .756 is acceptable right now.
Urshela has been a great pickup and while his offense was a huge surprise, his defense has been steady and very solid. Last night he was way out in front of a pitch and just got a piece of it and the ball fouled down and toward the backstop and when it came up it hit him right in the groin. Urshela went down in pain and it took awhile for him to be able to continue the AB. I am not sure it was intentional or not but Michael Kay then said, "Urshela will resume the AB with NO balls and two strikes." OK, maybe that is just my stupid humor, but I thought enough of it to write it here.
Sanchez hit his first career triple with nobody out and we left him there. It was not because of poor hitting either, we drilled two balls with the infield in and both were excellent plays by the Rays infielders. Even with the infield back our last grounder was struck well...that was some good defense.
Enjoy your week!
Monday, May 13, 2019
Post Mothers Day Post!
Been a little bit since I posted, but I have watched almost every game.
Without getting into each game, I want to make a few comments about the Tampa series and then some stats.
German allowed 2 HR's but held it together long enough to get the win (now 7-1) with one scoreless inning each from 4 different relievers. Kahnle, continued looking excellent and only Ottavino struggled but pitched his way out of 2 walks and a hit to not allow a run. The Yanks held onto a 4-3 win.
The second game is what happens a lot in baseball. A 2-2 game going into the bottom of the 6th, turned a close game into a blowout as we used our "lesser" pitchers. Holder, did not live up to his name as he allowed 2 runs in his inning and Nestor Cortes Jr, allowed 3 runs in 2 innings as we let the game get away from us. While this is still early in the season, Tampa is a team to take serious and with a tie game, I would have either stuck with CC (he had only 76 pitches and had gotten out of the previous 2 innings without a run even if his control was awful all game) or I would have used my better pitchers. Getting into a teams weaker bullpen pitchers is very key these days and thus why I like to work pitchers and get their pitch count high.
Game 3 saw a good pitchers dual between Snell and Tanaka. Each of them was dominant. Snell struck out 12 in 5.2 innings and showed a very live 96 MPH fastball that he spotted well to go along with a moving changeup. Tanaka matched him by throwing really good strikes and having better movement on his splitter (which has floated a lot this year). Tanaka went 7 innings allowing only a HR on a low pitch (probably a ball) that was over the heart of the plate. He threw only 73 pitches and I thought he would come out for the 8th inning, especially after we scored another run to go up 3-1, but Boone went with Britton. Brittion had good stuff but allowed a single in a good AB and then an inside out single to make it 1st and 3rd with 1 out. After a pitch got far enough away from Romine they had 2nd and 3rd with 1 out, but Britton struck out Choi and Diaz to get out of the inning. The Yankees then returned the favor beating up on weaker pitching by adding 4 more runs in the 9th including putting the game out of reach with a 2 run double from Urhsela, who had struck out in his previous 4 AB's.
Some observations/stats:
In game 2 Voit got hit after a HR and then Sanchez was hit a few batters later on a breaking ball. While the Voit's HBP was eye raising right after the HR and it was a fastball, their pitcher was wild and the game was too close to be throwing at someone there. I didn't think it was intentional
In Game 3, the Yankees were up 3-1 in the 9th when Estrada led off with his 2nd HR of his career. Then, after 2 singles, Boone had LeMahieu sacrifice to move 2 runners up. Noting was said by the announcers, but then after they intentionally walked Voit, Michael Kay said that this was not a good move as you lose Voits bat and the sac is not used much. While in some cases that is correct, Michael wasn't taking the situation into account. Up 4-1, you want to give yourself the best chance to score 1 more run as that should be enough. Further, bases loaded with 1 out has a higher run expectancy than 1st and 2nd with nobody out. Therefore, it is a better move normally to do that and with the goal to just get one more across, I thought it was a good move. I do agree that if we were down by 2 or so I probably would not do that as I would want Voit's stick to get an AB there. All that being said, when you can move 2 runners up on a sac it is twice as worthwhile as one runner.
Also, in game, 2, LeMahieu had his worst game defensively. He didn't get any errors, but he got one for Sanchez when he didn't field a low throw form Sanchez that was really right where he could have caught it and tagged at the same time, but he was late to cover. He also missed a play that the scorer gave a hit to. DJ has been great two way player so far so no complaints at all, but he did not have a good game there.
Gardner has a .694 OPS as he is in a slump
Andujar has been awful so far. His OPS is under .300...that is his OPS! 47 AB's is not just a few either. They need to give him more time as he will hit, but the shoulder is probably bothering him and I would find some days off for him.
Torres has his OPS up to .779!
Sanchez is leading us with a .960 OPS thanks to his HR's, Urshela is next at .918 and then DJ and Voit at .831 and .830 respectively
We have won 7 out of last 8 Series'
The Red Sox have started their winning ways (on a 8-1 run). I think we all expected that as they do have a solid team. Tampa is competitive as well, but I don't see as good of a team as The Red Sox and of course the Yankees. Tampa did win 90 games last year and many people forget that.
Without getting into each game, I want to make a few comments about the Tampa series and then some stats.
German allowed 2 HR's but held it together long enough to get the win (now 7-1) with one scoreless inning each from 4 different relievers. Kahnle, continued looking excellent and only Ottavino struggled but pitched his way out of 2 walks and a hit to not allow a run. The Yanks held onto a 4-3 win.
The second game is what happens a lot in baseball. A 2-2 game going into the bottom of the 6th, turned a close game into a blowout as we used our "lesser" pitchers. Holder, did not live up to his name as he allowed 2 runs in his inning and Nestor Cortes Jr, allowed 3 runs in 2 innings as we let the game get away from us. While this is still early in the season, Tampa is a team to take serious and with a tie game, I would have either stuck with CC (he had only 76 pitches and had gotten out of the previous 2 innings without a run even if his control was awful all game) or I would have used my better pitchers. Getting into a teams weaker bullpen pitchers is very key these days and thus why I like to work pitchers and get their pitch count high.
Game 3 saw a good pitchers dual between Snell and Tanaka. Each of them was dominant. Snell struck out 12 in 5.2 innings and showed a very live 96 MPH fastball that he spotted well to go along with a moving changeup. Tanaka matched him by throwing really good strikes and having better movement on his splitter (which has floated a lot this year). Tanaka went 7 innings allowing only a HR on a low pitch (probably a ball) that was over the heart of the plate. He threw only 73 pitches and I thought he would come out for the 8th inning, especially after we scored another run to go up 3-1, but Boone went with Britton. Brittion had good stuff but allowed a single in a good AB and then an inside out single to make it 1st and 3rd with 1 out. After a pitch got far enough away from Romine they had 2nd and 3rd with 1 out, but Britton struck out Choi and Diaz to get out of the inning. The Yankees then returned the favor beating up on weaker pitching by adding 4 more runs in the 9th including putting the game out of reach with a 2 run double from Urhsela, who had struck out in his previous 4 AB's.
Some observations/stats:
In game 2 Voit got hit after a HR and then Sanchez was hit a few batters later on a breaking ball. While the Voit's HBP was eye raising right after the HR and it was a fastball, their pitcher was wild and the game was too close to be throwing at someone there. I didn't think it was intentional
In Game 3, the Yankees were up 3-1 in the 9th when Estrada led off with his 2nd HR of his career. Then, after 2 singles, Boone had LeMahieu sacrifice to move 2 runners up. Noting was said by the announcers, but then after they intentionally walked Voit, Michael Kay said that this was not a good move as you lose Voits bat and the sac is not used much. While in some cases that is correct, Michael wasn't taking the situation into account. Up 4-1, you want to give yourself the best chance to score 1 more run as that should be enough. Further, bases loaded with 1 out has a higher run expectancy than 1st and 2nd with nobody out. Therefore, it is a better move normally to do that and with the goal to just get one more across, I thought it was a good move. I do agree that if we were down by 2 or so I probably would not do that as I would want Voit's stick to get an AB there. All that being said, when you can move 2 runners up on a sac it is twice as worthwhile as one runner.
Also, in game, 2, LeMahieu had his worst game defensively. He didn't get any errors, but he got one for Sanchez when he didn't field a low throw form Sanchez that was really right where he could have caught it and tagged at the same time, but he was late to cover. He also missed a play that the scorer gave a hit to. DJ has been great two way player so far so no complaints at all, but he did not have a good game there.
Gardner has a .694 OPS as he is in a slump
Andujar has been awful so far. His OPS is under .300...that is his OPS! 47 AB's is not just a few either. They need to give him more time as he will hit, but the shoulder is probably bothering him and I would find some days off for him.
Torres has his OPS up to .779!
Sanchez is leading us with a .960 OPS thanks to his HR's, Urshela is next at .918 and then DJ and Voit at .831 and .830 respectively
We have won 7 out of last 8 Series'
The Red Sox have started their winning ways (on a 8-1 run). I think we all expected that as they do have a solid team. Tampa is competitive as well, but I don't see as good of a team as The Red Sox and of course the Yankees. Tampa did win 90 games last year and many people forget that.
Friday, May 3, 2019
Arizona Games
Just a quick read on the two games in Arizona:
1st Game:
Greinke shut down our mostly minor league lineup with Greg Maddux type of control. His slider was just off the plate and his 89 MPH fastball was placed in great spots and then he ran his change-up in to righties and away from lefties. He then had a really slow curveball that was a true 12-6 one that dropped like crazy. He was making really good pitches. Lost 3-1
2nd Game:
I was ornery from the start as Gardner led off with a single (not ornery yet)...Voit works a 3-2 count and Gardner is not running and what do you think happens? DP by Voit. How is Gardner not running there? It didn't get better for me (or the Yankees) as Tanaka really struggled with his control for his 4 innings and I agreed to pull him when he did as he just didn't have it. Cessa, Kahnle and Ottavino went 4 scoreless innings but the Yankees couldn't score the 3 runs Tanaka allowed.
Other notes on game 2: Tauchman overthrew the cutoff on a possible play at the plate allowing the batter to get to 2nd base. I expect more from major leaguers! The announcer, who was not Singleton, (not sure who he was but he was not good), made a lot of comments I didn't agree with and was just wrong at times. One time, he was talking about a wild pitch that was a tough block, and the announcer went out of his way to say how that was "not Sanchez' fault as he did everything he could to stop the ball from getting away." While that can be true and Sanchez has been much more active this year at blocking balls, this was not "doing everything he could." First, the way Sanchez setup made it harder for him to move quickly (to his right) and 2nd he didn't move quickly and 3rd, because he wasn't able to get outside the ball he wasn't able to turn (block) the ball back toward home plate and the pitch got outside of him and away from him for a wild pitch. It was one of those plays that pros fairly routinely block and you say, that was a nice block...and it saves two baserunners from moving up; a pretty substantial difference when one scores.
There was a bunt play with a man on 3rd for Arizona where the bunt went straight up off the plate and Sanchez hopped out grabbed it and threw him out. The ump behind home plate immediately called it fair but after Arizona asked the ump at 3rd (not a challenge) as an appeal they overturned it. I think the ball was still over the plate and fair and should not have been overturned. Boone had challenged a play at 2nd base where Arizona in the act of turning a DP (we hit into 2 tough ones) the fielder might have come off the bag early, but while Boone felt this was a "head scratcher" it is one of those plays I would rather them not overturn (very close). Later, Wade had a pitch graze him and without a challenge, Boone asked to appeal it. Boone seemed very calm and even covered his mouth his hand as he requested help and the ump tossed him very quickly if you ask me. I thought the ump did a poor job there as Boone did not show him up and later Boone said it was "pretty harmless
comment."
Maybin had a really good feel for the strike zone for us as he walked twice with one of those AB's showing great control of some tempting 2 strike pitches. He has been a very good pickup for us and is performing better than we could have hoped. My hope is we won't need him later in the year, but we need to win some ball games in the meantime.
Lost 3-2
Congratulations to CC! 3000 k's is a really remarkable achievement because it shows you have enough quality stuff and longevity to reach that goal. When only 17 players have done it, it says a lot.
Back home with 3 against Minnesota starting Friday as we should be seeing Frazier, LeMahieu, and Andujar pretty soon. Then, we will only be without Judge, Stanton, Hicks, Didi, Severino, and Betances :-)
1st Game:
Greinke shut down our mostly minor league lineup with Greg Maddux type of control. His slider was just off the plate and his 89 MPH fastball was placed in great spots and then he ran his change-up in to righties and away from lefties. He then had a really slow curveball that was a true 12-6 one that dropped like crazy. He was making really good pitches. Lost 3-1
2nd Game:
I was ornery from the start as Gardner led off with a single (not ornery yet)...Voit works a 3-2 count and Gardner is not running and what do you think happens? DP by Voit. How is Gardner not running there? It didn't get better for me (or the Yankees) as Tanaka really struggled with his control for his 4 innings and I agreed to pull him when he did as he just didn't have it. Cessa, Kahnle and Ottavino went 4 scoreless innings but the Yankees couldn't score the 3 runs Tanaka allowed.
Other notes on game 2: Tauchman overthrew the cutoff on a possible play at the plate allowing the batter to get to 2nd base. I expect more from major leaguers! The announcer, who was not Singleton, (not sure who he was but he was not good), made a lot of comments I didn't agree with and was just wrong at times. One time, he was talking about a wild pitch that was a tough block, and the announcer went out of his way to say how that was "not Sanchez' fault as he did everything he could to stop the ball from getting away." While that can be true and Sanchez has been much more active this year at blocking balls, this was not "doing everything he could." First, the way Sanchez setup made it harder for him to move quickly (to his right) and 2nd he didn't move quickly and 3rd, because he wasn't able to get outside the ball he wasn't able to turn (block) the ball back toward home plate and the pitch got outside of him and away from him for a wild pitch. It was one of those plays that pros fairly routinely block and you say, that was a nice block...and it saves two baserunners from moving up; a pretty substantial difference when one scores.
There was a bunt play with a man on 3rd for Arizona where the bunt went straight up off the plate and Sanchez hopped out grabbed it and threw him out. The ump behind home plate immediately called it fair but after Arizona asked the ump at 3rd (not a challenge) as an appeal they overturned it. I think the ball was still over the plate and fair and should not have been overturned. Boone had challenged a play at 2nd base where Arizona in the act of turning a DP (we hit into 2 tough ones) the fielder might have come off the bag early, but while Boone felt this was a "head scratcher" it is one of those plays I would rather them not overturn (very close). Later, Wade had a pitch graze him and without a challenge, Boone asked to appeal it. Boone seemed very calm and even covered his mouth his hand as he requested help and the ump tossed him very quickly if you ask me. I thought the ump did a poor job there as Boone did not show him up and later Boone said it was "pretty harmless
comment."
Maybin had a really good feel for the strike zone for us as he walked twice with one of those AB's showing great control of some tempting 2 strike pitches. He has been a very good pickup for us and is performing better than we could have hoped. My hope is we won't need him later in the year, but we need to win some ball games in the meantime.
Lost 3-2
Congratulations to CC! 3000 k's is a really remarkable achievement because it shows you have enough quality stuff and longevity to reach that goal. When only 17 players have done it, it says a lot.
Back home with 3 against Minnesota starting Friday as we should be seeing Frazier, LeMahieu, and Andujar pretty soon. Then, we will only be without Judge, Stanton, Hicks, Didi, Severino, and Betances :-)
Monday, April 29, 2019
The West Was Not Lost - In Fact Kind
Wednesday's Game:
The Yankees found themselves down 5-0 as CC had a rough time keeping the ball in the yard. He allowed 3 dingers in 5 innings. The Yankees were fortunate that the Angels allowed us to peck away at them by walking our guys and playing poor defense (their catcher is very weak). We scored 2 in the 6th and then tied in the 7th before winning it in the 9th. Loaisiga pitched a scoreless 3 innings to get teh win and Chapman got the save (still not hitting 100 very often if at all). In the 9th, Wade did a good job by getting on base and then stealing 2nd and then scoring.
Thursday's game:
Tanaka was given a 4 run lead going into the bottom of the 5th and he couldn't hold it. He gave up two 2-run HR's in the 5th Then in the 6th got a pop out followed by a walk and then got another pop out followed by another walk on 3-2. This is where Boone had a tough decision. Tanaka was not sharp in the 5th and was pitching carefully in the 6th. He had only 89 pitches and I have a lot of faith in Tanaka to reach back when he needs to as he tends to be good in key spots. That being said, with what should be a good bullpen, I can understand taking him out after allowing 4 runs the previous inning. I took notes and wrote I would stick with Tanaka here for another batter as he had easily handled Fletcher in his 2 previous AB's. Unfortunately, after Sanchez had a passed ball (he still is a bad receiver and gets crossed up too much - but has been much better at blocking balls and threw out a runner on a perfect throw), Fletcher got a single and both runners scored. Holder got the next out but we were down 6-5. In the 7th, Boone took out Holder to use Tarpley against the lefties and Tarpley was awful walking two batters and Harvey continued the poor bullpen pitching as 5 runs scored in the 7th and the game was over.
Friday's Game
Paxton started and did fairly well, while the offense had 15 hits led by Luke and Lemahieu who had 6 hits combined. The Yankees hit Bumgarner well and cruised to a 7-3 victory.
Saturday's game:
Happ did a great job as he hit his spots extremely well right on the inside part of the plate and also top of the zone and then worked down with his offspeed pitches. He went 7 innings without allowing a run. Sanchez hit a bomb for a grand slam and we had a 6-0 lead until the 9th where Cessa gave back 4 runs before Chapman had to come in and get the final out. It is amazing how bad our bullpen has been. This game was in the bag until the 9th.
SF had a terrible LF'r that cost them a few times in the series and their normally reliable SS booted an easy DP ball with the bases loaded and nobody out and once he picked it up he looked at 2nd and the double clutched before throwing late to 1st. Once he booted the ball, if he would have just picked up the ball and thrown to 1st he would have gotten Sanchez by a step; instead, everyone was safe. That was a huge play.
Sunday's game:
We scored 2 runs in each of the first 3 innings and then tacked on 2 more for a 8-0 lead. In the bottom of the 6th, German who was pitching great, lost it, and they scored 4 runs off of him. We ended up winning 11-5.
What I noticed:
The Yankees found themselves down 5-0 as CC had a rough time keeping the ball in the yard. He allowed 3 dingers in 5 innings. The Yankees were fortunate that the Angels allowed us to peck away at them by walking our guys and playing poor defense (their catcher is very weak). We scored 2 in the 6th and then tied in the 7th before winning it in the 9th. Loaisiga pitched a scoreless 3 innings to get teh win and Chapman got the save (still not hitting 100 very often if at all). In the 9th, Wade did a good job by getting on base and then stealing 2nd and then scoring.
Thursday's game:
Tanaka was given a 4 run lead going into the bottom of the 5th and he couldn't hold it. He gave up two 2-run HR's in the 5th Then in the 6th got a pop out followed by a walk and then got another pop out followed by another walk on 3-2. This is where Boone had a tough decision. Tanaka was not sharp in the 5th and was pitching carefully in the 6th. He had only 89 pitches and I have a lot of faith in Tanaka to reach back when he needs to as he tends to be good in key spots. That being said, with what should be a good bullpen, I can understand taking him out after allowing 4 runs the previous inning. I took notes and wrote I would stick with Tanaka here for another batter as he had easily handled Fletcher in his 2 previous AB's. Unfortunately, after Sanchez had a passed ball (he still is a bad receiver and gets crossed up too much - but has been much better at blocking balls and threw out a runner on a perfect throw), Fletcher got a single and both runners scored. Holder got the next out but we were down 6-5. In the 7th, Boone took out Holder to use Tarpley against the lefties and Tarpley was awful walking two batters and Harvey continued the poor bullpen pitching as 5 runs scored in the 7th and the game was over.
Friday's Game
Paxton started and did fairly well, while the offense had 15 hits led by Luke and Lemahieu who had 6 hits combined. The Yankees hit Bumgarner well and cruised to a 7-3 victory.
Saturday's game:
Happ did a great job as he hit his spots extremely well right on the inside part of the plate and also top of the zone and then worked down with his offspeed pitches. He went 7 innings without allowing a run. Sanchez hit a bomb for a grand slam and we had a 6-0 lead until the 9th where Cessa gave back 4 runs before Chapman had to come in and get the final out. It is amazing how bad our bullpen has been. This game was in the bag until the 9th.
SF had a terrible LF'r that cost them a few times in the series and their normally reliable SS booted an easy DP ball with the bases loaded and nobody out and once he picked it up he looked at 2nd and the double clutched before throwing late to 1st. Once he booted the ball, if he would have just picked up the ball and thrown to 1st he would have gotten Sanchez by a step; instead, everyone was safe. That was a huge play.
Sunday's game:
We scored 2 runs in each of the first 3 innings and then tacked on 2 more for a 8-0 lead. In the bottom of the 6th, German who was pitching great, lost it, and they scored 4 runs off of him. We ended up winning 11-5.
What I noticed:
- We were playing 2 teams that simply didn't play well against us. It is amazing that we are playing on a pace to win 98 games when we are missing more starters (almost twice as many) than any team since modern day stats have been tracking them. (For those stat junkies, our WAR on the IR was twice what any other team had.) BTW, WAR has some limitations and defensive stats are still flawed, even if getting better.
- The Angels had no lefties in their pen...that amazes me as it makes managing against them so much easier
- When Andujar comes back I would DH him and maybe play some 1B and 3rd base. Urshela has been playing well and we should continue to ride that. I would send Ford down when Andujar comes back. I also know that Urshela got hit on the hand and left the game so I hope he is OK?
- I said in the preseason blog that I thought Voit was for real as a hitter and he is not disappointing. He uses a leg kick (in his case a sweep) for timing, but he is able to adjust for offspeed pitches by keeping his hands back and still unloading on breaking pitches. This is why he is less off-balance than our other big righties who look very bad on low and away pitches more frequently. (He has a .935 OPS now). His weakness is up and in fastballs, but if a pitcher makes a mistake he can turn on it and he also has been able to muscle the balls up the middle by pulling his hands in.
- Paxton was tipping pitches so he is moving his hand around in the glove a lot now from the stretch. He has to watch though as he is slowly dropping his hands after his stop from the stretch and good base stealers will take advantage of that. One did and he stole without a throw. For clarity, he comes set and then fiddles around in his glove and before he starts up again, he has been slowly moving downward which would give the runner a head start.
- Romine was setting up too early with runners on 2nd base and guys can give the location. He knows better than that or needs to fake it sometimes.
- Britton's stuff has been outstanding, but he struggled to throw strikes the other night. He was throwing 94-96 with amazing sink on his ball, but he needs to throw more strikes as 7 walks in 11 innings are too many.
- Chapman has not had his good fastball yet; I am hopeful it is the cooler weather still?
- Kahnle has been getting his changeup in good spots and has been very effective with his 96 MPH fastball. Somebody needs to step up
- Voit got thrown out at 3rd base tagging up on a great throw. The key was the fielder surrounded the ball and had momentum toward 3rd base and got rid of the ball on 2 steps rather than the 3-5 some people take.
- Urshela has a .925 OPS right now and has been a huge reason for our success.
- The other guys like Ford and Tauchman are not hitting for avg, but have worked the counts well and gotten on base. Their OPS's are 708 and .711 which is as much as we could hope for considering both guys are hitting in the high .100's. I don't see Ford staying in teh majors. I don't expect Tauchman either but at least he could be a serviceable weak hitting corner OF.
- Maybin was brought in for defense. He hits equally to both sides and I think it would be better if we get some more specialized guys to fill in, but it made sense when Frazier got hurt. It seems like a long time ago, but we could have used Ellsbury against righties if he could have gotten himself healthy.
- Wade still doesn't have an extra-base hit and still has not shown enough, but he has been decent in his last 20 AB's with a .263 BA and a .417 OBP (which for him is important as he turned 5 singles into doubles stealing bases). We could use him to step up. He also has covered ground in the OF making a long running catch into the corner.
- Both LeMahieu and Urshela left the game but X-rays were clean...thankfully
- Off today and on to Arizona
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
West Coast Trip
These west coast games can be brutal on OUR sleep. I almost always record the games and then try and watch either late at night or very early. The first game (Monday night), I was working late and went to bed at midnight and ended up getting up at 3 am and the work day didn't allow me to watch the game until last night (while the Tuesday night game was being recorded. The irony is that when I got up at 3 am the game was just finishing up...
Anyway, getting you a quick lunch time update...the Monday late night game was a fairly wild one. It was mostly a pitchers dual, but mostly because of weak hitting. It was 2-2 after the 3rd and that held all the way to the 12th inning where we pushed a run across on a double by Frazier (who didn't slide and almost was out) and then Tauchman moved him to 3rd and Urshela came through with a sac fly.
Unfortunately, Chapman was not able to secure the one run save and we ended up winning it in the 14th as Urshela came through again with a single to knock in our run with 2 outs. An interesting move happened where Holder got the 1st two outs in the 14th and Calhoun ( a lefty was up) and because the Angels lost their DH earlier their pitcher was up afterward. Boone elected to intentionally walk Calhoun to pitch to the pitchers spot as the Angels had no other position players to pinch hit. I am not sure I would have done that, just because with a 1 run lead you could allow a SB and a fluke hit and the game is tied and then you don't have the pitcher leading off the next inning. It is an interesting call but Calhoun doesn't even have amazing lefty righty stats as his OPS against righties last year was .670 and he is a mediocre hitter. Anyway, it worked, but I have to give you my opinion and sometimes bad moves work and good moves don't (and this move wasn't crazy)
In Tuesday's game, German pitched really well again only allowing 1 run that was caused by his own error in 6.2 innings. He left with us cruising to a 7-1 lead until Green came in and was horrible once again (His ERA is now 16.43 in 7.2 innings). He allowed 4 runs to score without getting an out in the 8th inning and Cessa came in and was able to get us to 9th with a 2 run lead. Britton closed this time and had his sinker working great and he got 3 straight groundouts to make it a more relaxing 9th inning. Even though has has not been great for us, if he continues to get his feel back, I would not be shocked if he regained the closer job.
Urshela has really played well for us. His defense has been excellent and he has supplied reasonably good offense. He is providing well above replacement level performance with great defense and a .740 OPS.
Torres - We could use Gleyber to step up for us. He went through a short hot streak, but his OPS is only .708...
Congratulations to Ford who got his 1st Major league HR and has his OPS up to .776 showing a good eye and mediocre stick. WE need guys like this to have one of their career stretches.
Another congratulations to Thairo Estrada who got his 1st major league hits as well and has sacrificed perfectly, walked and got 2 hits in 4 AB's.
Meanwhile Wade looks to still be over-matched at the plate with an sub .500 OPS
LeMahieu has been struggling at the plate as well as his OPS has plummeted to a .713 OPS having a 2-28 run. I would not be leading him off and never liked him there to begin with. Of course, the guy who was supposed to be on his final year for us and be our occasional leadoff guy batted 3rd for us and has been on a hot streak with an OPS now at .851. Of course, I am talking about our LF who is playing CF and now batting 3rd...Gardner.
Go figure...then again we have won the first 2 games on the west coast trip starting these 5 juggernaut names: Tauchman, Ford, Estrada, Wade and Romine.
Lets win at least one of these last 2 against the Angels.
Anyway, getting you a quick lunch time update...the Monday late night game was a fairly wild one. It was mostly a pitchers dual, but mostly because of weak hitting. It was 2-2 after the 3rd and that held all the way to the 12th inning where we pushed a run across on a double by Frazier (who didn't slide and almost was out) and then Tauchman moved him to 3rd and Urshela came through with a sac fly.
Unfortunately, Chapman was not able to secure the one run save and we ended up winning it in the 14th as Urshela came through again with a single to knock in our run with 2 outs. An interesting move happened where Holder got the 1st two outs in the 14th and Calhoun ( a lefty was up) and because the Angels lost their DH earlier their pitcher was up afterward. Boone elected to intentionally walk Calhoun to pitch to the pitchers spot as the Angels had no other position players to pinch hit. I am not sure I would have done that, just because with a 1 run lead you could allow a SB and a fluke hit and the game is tied and then you don't have the pitcher leading off the next inning. It is an interesting call but Calhoun doesn't even have amazing lefty righty stats as his OPS against righties last year was .670 and he is a mediocre hitter. Anyway, it worked, but I have to give you my opinion and sometimes bad moves work and good moves don't (and this move wasn't crazy)
In Tuesday's game, German pitched really well again only allowing 1 run that was caused by his own error in 6.2 innings. He left with us cruising to a 7-1 lead until Green came in and was horrible once again (His ERA is now 16.43 in 7.2 innings). He allowed 4 runs to score without getting an out in the 8th inning and Cessa came in and was able to get us to 9th with a 2 run lead. Britton closed this time and had his sinker working great and he got 3 straight groundouts to make it a more relaxing 9th inning. Even though has has not been great for us, if he continues to get his feel back, I would not be shocked if he regained the closer job.
Urshela has really played well for us. His defense has been excellent and he has supplied reasonably good offense. He is providing well above replacement level performance with great defense and a .740 OPS.
Torres - We could use Gleyber to step up for us. He went through a short hot streak, but his OPS is only .708...
Congratulations to Ford who got his 1st Major league HR and has his OPS up to .776 showing a good eye and mediocre stick. WE need guys like this to have one of their career stretches.
Another congratulations to Thairo Estrada who got his 1st major league hits as well and has sacrificed perfectly, walked and got 2 hits in 4 AB's.
Meanwhile Wade looks to still be over-matched at the plate with an sub .500 OPS
LeMahieu has been struggling at the plate as well as his OPS has plummeted to a .713 OPS having a 2-28 run. I would not be leading him off and never liked him there to begin with. Of course, the guy who was supposed to be on his final year for us and be our occasional leadoff guy batted 3rd for us and has been on a hot streak with an OPS now at .851. Of course, I am talking about our LF who is playing CF and now batting 3rd...Gardner.
Go figure...then again we have won the first 2 games on the west coast trip starting these 5 juggernaut names: Tauchman, Ford, Estrada, Wade and Romine.
Lets win at least one of these last 2 against the Angels.
Sunday, April 21, 2019
The Walking Wounded
I want to start with last night’s game (Sunday). Paxton was excellent as he had an excellent
breaking ball and great control. His fastball
hit 97 once but most of the night was around 95/96 (less than the 98 he was
dealing against the Red Sox), but he located it very well. He worked in changing speeds and elevations
great. After 6 innings we had a 5-0 lead
(thanks to a 3 run bomb by Frazier) and Paxton was throwing well but threw 95
pitches. I felt that he should come out
of the game and save him as at most you would get another inning out of
him. Instead, Boone stuck with him and he
allowed a double and a walk and then took him out. While pitches are important, starting another
inning is a lot to me, when you have to rest and go back out there when you are
near your end, I just thought it was time to shut him down. Fortunately, Kahnle did a good job (his
control was very good and his change had good movement) and got us out of the
inning with no runs. He had thrown 17
pitches and I felt it was fine to take him out.
Unfortunately, Green was awful again allowing a cheap popup (that a
better fielding 1B, or at least one with more speed, might have caught, but
Ford was playing there) a walk and a single.
Britton was warming up prior, but for some reason, Boone went with Ottavino with
a switch hitter who is equal both ways and then a lefty in Gordon? The matchups were one reason, but also the
fact Britton was up made me wonder why he didn’t go with him? I could see if the matchups were more
righties than that could override it.
Regardless, Ottavino had nothing and allowed a double and then a HR to
Gordon to tie the game at 5. Then he
allowed a HR to Dozier and we were now down by 1. Really terrible job by Ottavino, but also
Boone messed that up.
In the bottom of the 8th, Tauchman led off with a
double, but Urshela and Ford got out moving Tauchman to 3rd. Romine came through with a big 2 out single
tying the game! He was fortunate to get
a fastball in the inside part of the plate but perfect height.
Chapman pitched the 9th and looked pretty good; he
allowed a single and 2 SB’s, but he got out of the inning. The odd thing was he threw 18 straight
fastballs. Part of that was the speedy
Hamilton was on the base, but he stole the bases anyway and you have to get the
batter.
Britton came in anyway to pitch the 10th and got
the job done, he did tweak his groin when he covered on a rundown, but he
stayed in the game…hopefully he won’t be yet another on the IL (BTW, when did
the DL become the IL, I must have missed that memo?)
In the 10th the Royals brought in a lefty who
threw hard but could not find the plate and he walked Tauchman and Urshela to
start the inning and now the lefty Ford was up.
I would have brought Ford up to the plate to see if he would leave the pitcher
out there as a righty was up there. In
my opinion, there was no way they would leave this guy in there even to face a
lefty, but Boone just made the move to bring Thairo Estrada for his first major
league AB. Kennedy was brought in to
face him and Estrada put down a perfect bunt.
Based on the hitter we had, I was OK with bunting, but I would have
tried to bluff the Ford AB. Regardless,
it worked as Romine came through again with what would have been a deep fly
out, but with the OF correctly in, it beat the OF for a deep single and the victory.
Overall, the only bad move was not bringing in Britton and
it ended up hurting us today. The other
moves were only my preference and could be debated.
Switching to the Friday game, CC struggled with is control
but fought through it walking 4 but not allowing an ER. Gardner had a good game, but we saw some bad
fielding by CC and then a few bad plays by Voit of which one earned him an
error and the other gave a guy a hit. The
bullpen did a good job and held onto the 6-2 win.
Saturday, Voit let another ball go under his glove for a
triple and that should have been an error if you ask me. Tanka worked his way through that and gave us
7 good innings without his best stuff.
We hit 4 HR’s, but the big news was Judge being added to the injured
list and I think this could be a month.
It is crazy the amount of injuries we have. Our 8 position players out are: Judge, Hicks
and Stanton in the OF, and our infield that is out would be Bird at 1st, we
will put Tulo at 2nd base, Didi at SS and Andujar at 3rd
base and we round out the team with Sanchez out. Of course, we still have Betances and
Severino out as well.
Onto 4 games against the 9-14 Angels.
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