Grinding Out Wins!

 For much of this year we grinded out losses as well, but instead of everyone playing poorly, many are "evening" out their year and playing more like we would expect.  Nothing is easy though and everything is a grind.  Sweeping the Red Sox is always rewarding, especially after dominating us earlier in the year.

The game:

I was texting with one of our readers and I spoke about Heaney.  My one comment was "his stuff is OK. He must make quality 2 strike pitches or he doesn't do well."  Later in the evening, I watched the game and in the first inning 0-2 pitch he allows a HR to Bogaerts.  The pitch was probably a ball and Bogaerts went with it well, but it was up (making it much easier).  Bogaerts is an excellent hitter (even better for a SS), but he seems to always be ready for a fastball.  That concerned me, but Heaney's results were an excellent game. It is interesting because I do not think he controlled his pitches very well, but he mixed them up well and threw 4 pitches (FB, CB, Slider and change) keeping them off balance.  Honestly, I don't think Boston has been swinging the bats very well.  Devers had very poor AB's and he is usually a problem for us.

We were up 2-1 in the bottom of the 2nd and runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out and DJ up.  DJ had a 3-1 count on him (remember an open base) after he didn't swing at a slider in the dirt.  He then waived on a slider way outside rather than taking the walk.  He then fouled off two fastballs that were grooved before swinging at 2 sliders that were both balls.  He should have walked but hit a hard one chopper on the 10th pitch (fastball) into the ground in the hole between 3rd and short and Devers made a diving play, got up and threw out DJ.  Sanchez was on 3rd and Valazquez was on 2nd; how did they not move up and get one run in there.  Sanchez isn't fast, but that is a play I think you go on contact as long as it isn't a bullet or back to the pitcher.  Worst case scenario is they make a good play and throw you out and you have 1st and 3rd instead of 2nd and 3rd.  Yes, that isn't as good but they made a good play.  There is zero chance Devers could have thrown out Sanchez if he went after reading the chopper, but again there isn't much downside.  Also, the defense could try and go home and not get him or make a bad throw and then you have a huge inning.  We were fortunate that the next batter was Rizzo and Dalbec didn't glove a ball he should have and 2 runs scored on the generously scored single.

Speaking of Rizzo, and this may be known but I don't listen too much to the announcers, but I was not aware he choked up with two strikes?  I will watch him more, but in the AB against a lefty he choked up a little with 1 strike and then choked up a lot with 2 strikes.  Later in his AB against Ottavino, he didn't choke up at all and had his hand on the knob.  

I like DJ so much more at 2nd base.  He will start to get more comfortable and we are seeing some of the plays he is making there.  Tuesday night, he made an excellent sliding play to his left and threw a strike to Wade that would have been a DP if Wade didn't fumble his exchange and last night he used his height and length to go up and snag a line drive that perhaps only he could have caught as a tall 2nd baseman.  I am not sure DJ is a gold glover there now, but he is solid.

While we are on defense and announcers...Rizzo's defense is a huge upgrade from Voits or anyone else we have there, but let's not praise him for what I think are fairly routine plays for a competent glove at 1B.  The last play of the game, which was an excellent play (maybe game saving) by Valazquez sliding in the hole and dealing with Odor diving in front of him, was not such a tough hop for Rizzo.  The ball skipped from the grass (not the dirt) so it wasn't much of an in between hop, it was a long hop.  Rizzo fielded it so close to his body he almost turned it into a hit.  I think he was ensuring he made the play and doing what he did allowed him to make sure he had it, but even no stretch would have made it a clear out instead of a very close play.  Further, Kay was gushing about how great the play was from Rizzo and it was 99% Valazquez.  

OK, Let me pile on Kay for gushing about what a great read Judge had Tuesday night on the ball that dropped in and Judge scored from 2nd.  Judge made the correct read, but then wasn't sure and slowed up looking back.  If the ball wasn't hit by the CF'r as he tried to grab the ball after he made a good effort on the pop-up, Judge would have been on 3rd only, but if it were caught Judge would have been doubled up.  A good read, or an aggressive chance, would have been that he took off from the beginning and scored on the ball even if the ball was missed and picked up normally.  I thought Judge took off and then sort of panicked.

Oneill also is always bringing up when the shift doesn't work and it drives me crazy.  I also think he misses a lot.  Cone is great on correcting him but not disagreeing with him.  Example:  Oneill was talking about Chapman and how he didn't trust his FB because he was only throwing 97/98 and allowed the HR off the FB and that is a problem for him.  Cone just said something like, "and he may be throwing the slider because it may be the only pitch he feels he can throw for a strike."  This simple exchange is why Cone gets it and O'neill misses a lot because that is exactly why he is throwing so many sliders.

Britton pitched a very clean 8th inning, but he is still struggling with control.  The good thing is that he threw strikes and let his stuff work.  His fastball has absurd sink on it and they either swung over it or grounded out.  He has a good breaking ball, but he is not controlling that either yet.  Also, he was throwing a fastball that tailed into lefties (not as much sink) earlier and I thought that was a great addition for him.  However, I think maybe it is throwing off his release point and did not throw any of them yesterday.  Perhaps he is saying let me control my sinker and breaking ball first?

Minnesota is not a good team, but they are 7-3 in their last 10.

A Boston DH Sweep Brings Back The Genius Maker!

 I am sorry I have not written for the longest stretch since I started this.  There were a variety of reasons, but the main was the passing of my wife’s father suddenly and in our presence.  This has led to a lot of extra time being diverted and along with my normal heavy workload, I just chose to take some time away.  Further, this has been one of the most frustrating teams to watch that I can ever remember.  To the Yankees credit, they keep hanging in there, even in the face of their annual absurd amount of people not available to the team.

 After watching both games of the double header late last night, I wanted to just give a couple comments (and finally write a blog); I won’t go into great detail.

 Some comments:

Boone has had an up and down year.  He does a lot of things well, but seemed to miss a lot in some key spots.  Overall, he has had a very difficult situation to deal with and has done a pretty good job.  At the end of the day with almost every player under-performing (seems like it starting to even out), the blame should go to the players.  What we don’t know is if they were struggling because of the coaching staff or environment?  I blame the players mo

Some blame can go to Cashman as well.  He made some questionable moves in the offseason and most have not worked out well.  The Jay Bruce signing was not one I liked from the beginning and retiring after being awful showed it was a bad move.  It was not a high price to pay, but everyone knew we needed some lefties who could hit righties well.  I was not a fan of getting Odor, but he has hit much better of late because he has been going the other way more in the last week than he had in the entire year.  That can help, but his defense is simply poor everywhere.   His .731 OPS is nothing too exciting, but when you compare to what we were getting from many that is acceptable.  My comment when we got him was that he will hit some big HR’s and not much else still has been pretty accurate.  He is a great cheerleader though.

Higgy has really disappointed me.  A .617 OPS is pretty weak and his defense has really slipped.  His throwing has been bad and he has been letting a lot of balls get by him.  Sanchez is frustrating as anything behind the plate, but he is our best option and his offense can be a huge plus (.771 OPS right now). 

Stanton – He seems like he can’t pick up a slider.  He has swung (more like waived and missed by a foot) at more sliders low and away than anyone I have seen (and Sanchez can rival him at times).  Something is wrong with him as he is just not seeing the ball right.  He is an extremely streaky hitter, but I have never seen him look so bad (hopefully this is what he needs to start ripping the ball)  His .820 OPS isn’t horrible, but we need more from him and he needs to get hot like he did in the playoffs last year.

It is amazing that we had 5 starting pitchers out, including Severino (along with 4 or 5 players depending on if you count Hicks).  The team stepped up well, but at the same time, our closing situation became terrible.  Hard to count on anyone.  Louisiga is the guy I have the most confidence in, but he needs to get his slider more consistent.  That being said his 98-102 MPH running fastball is a great pitch. 

Some shout outs:

·    Gardner and Wade have played really well of late and this has helped our winning ways.

·    How about the 23 year old Gil?  He has started 3 games and while not going deep into games has pitched 15.2 innings and has yet to allow a run!

·     I really liked the pickups we got in Gallo and Rizzo.  I know the Voit thing is an issue, but as we have seen, injuries happen a lot and Covid brings another element into needing depth.  We needed good lefties and they are.  I like that they work counts as well.  This team can wear you out when we have the right lineup.  I also like the upgrade on defense they bring. 

·     While on defense, Velazquez has a very weak stick, but anyone watching can see how quickly he gets to balls with his quickness and great jumps.  It is like night and day compared to the defense we have had there. 

·     Cortes – he has given us 49.1 innings of 2.55 ERA ball.  He is a crafty lefty for sure and his delayed/held windup throws guys off (so does him dropping down). 

·     Judge misses a lot of time, but he is consistently solid everywhere!  His .900 OPS has been the only consistency on offense all year.

As I write this, we are in the WC right now.  A lot can happen, but we have people coming back and imagine this lineup:

DJ – 2B

Judge - CF

Rizzo – 1B

Stanton - RF

Gallo - LF

Luke - DH

Gio – 3B

Sanchez - C

Torres - SS

 

Get a lead and bring in the defense.

 

I hope everyone is well!

Triple Play Masters

A little lunch update:

I haven't written in a long time, but have watched the games.  In my last writing, I discussed how hard it was to watch this team.  Between such a frustrating lack of offense, such horrible base running, finding ways to lose, we just didn't have much excitement.   I wrote, "It should get better" and it has.  We still have our moments where we have 2 outs and nobody on and then we allow 2 hits and a 3 run HR after an 0-2 count (this was when Peralta came in and against a lefty threw a hanging slider to a weak-hitting lefty and he hit a 3 run HR.  Peralta has good stuff, but his control/command is just not good enough)

A few negatives before I list some positives:

• DJ has not played well!  a .685 OPS isn't getting it done.  His defense at 2nd is fairly solid, but he takes too long to turn a DP in my view as he is a little long in his catch and release.  Overall, he is the biggest disappointment because of all the money he is getting.
• Torres at a .663 OPS and overall poor defense hasn't been getting it done enough as well.
• Gardner, Andujar and Frazier have about 450 plate appearances and they have a rough combined .640 OPS
• Higgy has been terrible at the plate over the last 30 days (.440 OPS)
• Pitching - Taillon is really the largest disappointment with a 5.59 ERA.  Peralta on only 15 innings and a 5.28 hasn't been sharp nor has Justin Wilson with his 6.08 ERA

Positives:

• We are seeing a trend of more positive results from the hitters above.  Over the past 30 days, Sanchez has been hot (1.063 OPS), Gardner (.805) and Andujar (.761).  
• Torres' defense has been adequate since the horrible beginning.  I still have concerns as adequate isn't good, but if he has an OPS of .800+, I can live with the more recent defense.
• Getting Voit back will be a huge plus if he can give us his expected OPS.  Moving DJ back to 2nd improves our defense and our offense at 2nd base.  
• I wrote many times about how much I liked Loaisiga last year, but he has taken a larger step than I envisioned with a consistent 98 MPH running 2 seamer!  1.63 ERA can be maintained with his excellent stuff.
• Three triple plays in a year are pretty rare.  Ending a game on a triple play with a one run lead was a lot of fun to watch; we need more of that satisfaction!

 

The Yankees Are Hard To Watch - But It Should Get Better!

This team is incredibly underperforming.  The overall pitching has been very good, but in key times it has let us down.  The hitting has been abysmal scoring 3.72 runs a game which is the worst performance since 1972.  We have the 6th fewest runs in baseball.  The stats/projections say we should be scoring 5.53 runs a game, but our subs have been as awful as our starters.  We walk enough and we hit the ball hard and we actually don't even have a high chase rate.  The worst thing offensively is that we have simply been very bad (worst in baseball) in scoring the guys we get on base.  Our 11.2% base runner scoring rate is the lowest in all of baseball.  These numbers are pretty close as 1st place is Boston at 16.1% (league avg is 14.1).  This is because our base running is terrible; we have had 28 guys thrown out on the bases (most in baseball) and no team has taken a lower rate of extra bases than the Yankees 30%.  Finally, our % of grounding into DP's is the worst in baseball (13.3%) with the league avg at 9.8%.  TB has the lowest at 6.5%.  

Outside of Urshela and Judge our defense has been bad.  

Our coaching and managing have not been very good either.  While all the baserunning issues have something to do with boneheaded running plays (Frazier and Sanchez leading the charge), clearly the coaching could be better.  Boone himself has made some very poor decisions in using pitchers and making out lineups in my view. Some very recent examples: 

• Saturday against the RedSox, the Yankees are up 2-0 and Tallion has been effective for 5 shutout innings but wasn't very sharp.  A good manager realizes that Boston hasn't swung as well and is watching the worst pitcher in your rotation (about a 5 ERA) go into the 6th for the first time this season.  While I probably would have taken him out, I can understand leaving him in if you feel he has a lot left in the tank.  He got the 1st out so that was good, but then allowed a single.  I am uneasy now as the pitches have been hittable, but Boone leaves him in there.  The next batter was Bogaerts, he had a meatball to hit but didn't get all of it.  The ball went back to the wall but Andujar didn't and he misplayed into a double.  Now it is 2nd and 3rd with their top hitter Devers up (they were without their other in JD Martinez and still swept us).  With an open base we could walk him, or we could bring in a lefty to face Devers in a key spot.  Devers has an OPS of .975 against righties and .754 against lefties.  There is no chance we should pitch to Devers in this spot unless you brought in a lefty.  Boone lets him to pitch to him and gives up the game tying single.  THEN, Boone takes him out.  It makes no sense.  if Tallion couldn't;t go on after this, what was the point in leaving that matchup?  Too many dumb decisions like this.  I hate leaving a guy in and then taking him out after he allows the 2 run HR.     
• Sunday, we are up 3-1 going into the 6th inning.  German has pitched very well, but after a 2 out walk, Devers was up and Boone might have learned his lesson so he brought in Luetge.    He strikes out Devers and left Boegarts at 2nd base (He advanced on a Wild pitch).  Hey, this can work if we use common sense.  Luetge isn't reliable as he hasn't pitched much in the past 4 years, but he has been respectable. Next mining, with the righties up, it is time to get Luetge out of there, but Boone leaves him in there and after allowing a walk on 4 straight pitches, I was pretty annoyed that it would take Boone that to pull him rather than have a sense of urgency to lock this game down.  But, I was still wrong as Boone left Luetge out there and he allowed a 2 run ZHR to tie the game.  
• The same lack of sense of urgency to win is the issue I have had with Boone resting his players against our key rivals TB, Boston and even Toronto.  Not having Judge in RF cost us as Frazier allowed DJ to misplay a ball by not taking control (DJ should have caught it, but it is far easier for a RF).  Further, we saw how poor Fraziers throws can be with his 5 step rainbow throws.  All year we have rested guys at odd times.  When you are playing Minnesota, you can rest guys, but not your division foes.  Three of those losses are 6 game swings later in the year and we can see we will need them.

And don't get me started on the Odor call that was a joke in extra innings.  Calls usually even out and overall they probably have, but recently we have lost games by the umps and the pitches haven't been close.

The positive is that we are 31-29 and we can be much better.  Can't expect much more from the pitching, but our base running, defense and most importantly or offense will get better.

Still Many Issues!

I have a ton to write about but in the interest of getting this out, I will focus on a few points.

After a bad start, the umpiring started to be much better, but the recent games have slipped again where the umpiring, specifically, behind home plate, has been very poor.  It hasn't always gone against us, but it has been so inconsistent, which is just not good for baseball.  Remember when Urshela had a 3 pitch walk?  How does that even happen?  How is it possible so many people were not on top of this?  I watch the game fast-forwarding between every pitch and when he started to walk to first, I figured I must have missed a pitch, but where was everyone else?  

Last night, against TB in an important game, the umpire behind home plate, cost us the game.  Those are strong (perhaps absurd) words considering we lost 9-2, but the ump made a huge difference which also led to events spiraling somewhat.  There were at least a dozen pitches that went against us and these were big AB's.  Not only did their pitcher consistently get clear balls well outside the strike zone called strikes (Frazier was struck out, ironically and stupidly on his part on a real strike that was a great pitch, but all of the previous 5 pitches were well outside the strike zone), but Cole was getting pitches that were called balls in the same spots but even closer to the zone than the ones called strikes for TB.  The other odd thing was these were outside to righties and they had a lefty and Cole is obviously a righty so you would think the other way would happen if anything.  On the Frazier AB, it was with 2nd and 3rd and one out.

Before a 2 run HR, Brandon Lowe walked on 2 pitches that were strikes! In the 5th inning where TB scored 3 runs and put the game in deep trouble with how pitiful our offense has been.  The leadoff batter walked after being down 0-2: Cole threw a strike called a ball, then barely missed and it was called a ball and then missed in the exact spot that we were called strikes against us at least 6 times and it was called a ball.  Then Kiermaier clearly ran out of the running lane to 1st base to avoid a tag and the home plate umpire didn't rule him out for this and I assume it is not reviewable.  It was really a pathetic job by Chad Whitson, the HP umpire.

The night got more frustrating because in this gifted 3 run inning, with 1st and 2nd, a pitch was hit off the end of the bat to Frazier in RF and with 1st and 2nd and 2 outs, their catcher on 2nd was waived home and Frazier made an awful play to not only allow the slow runner to score when he should have been easily out but threw a rainbow allowing both runners to move up to make it 2nd and 3rd and they both scored.  On the Frazier play, the ball was hit to RF and he started in and then waited for the ball to land (rather than charge it) and then flat-footed caught the ball and took his 5 steps (which drives me crazy) and then threw a rainbow well offline.  First, it is never good to take 5 steps to throw, but if you have to, you better make a good strong throw and make it accurate.  He actually fielded the ball (even waiting on it) with the catcher still 2 steps away from 3rd base and Frazier was not deep.  By the time he released the ball, the catcher took at least 4 strides and probably still might have been out if the throw was online.  Frazier has made some good diving plays (an excellent one a few nights earlier that he had to come in on) and he has made some diving plays that were unnecessary, but he does not throw well and this was as bad as it gets.  

This brings me to another point, they are now throwing up graphics about the speed of the OF's throws and they are using that as the answer to whether the OF'r should be run on or not.  It is good to know what their arm strength is, but it says nothing about accuracy nor how quick the release is.  So if an OF took 5 steps after catching the ball and threw 85 MPH and an OF threw 82 MPH but took 2 steps (assuming the same accuracy), which throw would arrive first?  The answer is the 82 MPH throw.  There is a good reason why catchers do not take multiple steps to throw to 2nd base, it is because they would never throw someone out if they did.   

I have more that I will discuss in the next post, but I don't understand why Boone is resting players so often when our offense has simply been putrid compared to expectations?  How is Judge not in RF against the team in 1st place in our division?  Where is Stanton against a lefty?  I know he has been bad since returning from his injury, but I would rather him up than any of the FOUR guys in our lineup that batting .185 or below .200!  

No hitters, Triple Plays, 1st Sweep Of a 3/4 game series and Judge Gets An Actual Walk Off

Obviously, the no hitter was exciting to watch, but I really enjoyed the Montgomery game against Rodon on Friday night.  We have faced some good pitchers this year (think Max Scherzer), but I thought Rodon pitched better against us than anyone so far this.  Not only was his stuff excellent, but he also hit spots really well.  His fastball started at 96 and got up to 99, but his breaking ball was at least as good as Klubers from the opposite side.  The movement was insane and while the Yankees haven't been hitting much, he made us look really bad. Montgomery matched him and according to STATS, it marked the first time in the modern era that both starting pitchers had 10 or more strikeouts (11 Montgomery and 13 for Rodon) while allowing no walks and no runs.

We entered the 7th with the score tied and Torres hit a solo HR to RF that gave us a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the 8th, we allowed our first run in 4 games when Loaisiga walked Eaton on a 3-2 pitch and then he went to 2nd on a "wild pitch" that was another that most of our competitor's catchers would block.  The runner ended up scoring on a single on a 1-2 pitch where the batter reached out and stuck out the bat (almost threw the bat) and dropped a hit into RF.  Tough way to break the streak, but the Yankees came back in the bottom of the 8th getting singles by Andujar and Gardner (both guys starting to make a little noise at the plate).  DJ was up in a key spot with 1st and 3rd (Tyler Wade pinch ran for Andujar) and unfortunately, DJ failed to come through again as Wade was gunned down at home.  The Yankees didn't score and then Chapman came in for the 9th as he was warmed up when we had 1st and 3rd with nobody out.  Chapman, like Loaisiga, walked the leadoff guy (see a bath theme?).  A bunt caused Chapman to hurry his pickup of the ball and fumbled it one too many times and the White Sox were in business with 1st and 2nd nobody out.  Then Chapman got them to hit the ball to Urshela who made such a smooth play to start a triple play that made me scream out "YEAH" at midnight!  

The Triple Play: Urshela starts to move toward 3rd before he fields the short hop so that as soon as he fields it he already is moving toward 3rd, he takes 4 quick steps and fires a strike to Odor, who turned it avg, but makes a strong throw to Voit, who had a good stretch and a pumped-up exclamation like I had.  Chapman also threw his fist in excitement!

Courtesy of MLB:

https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-turn-triple-play-against-white-sox

The Yanks scored a run in the bottom of the 9th to win, but it was a great game regardless.

After Saturday's Yankees blowout win, the Yankees relievers allowed some runs on Sunday after Taillon pitched 5 scoreless innings.  Peralta walked a batter and allowed a HR in 1/3 of an inning and then Green allowed a HR.  Loaisiga pitched a solid 8th and hit 100 twice (he has looked very good).  Finally, with a one-run lead, even Chapman allowed his 1st run and blown save giving up a HR on a fastball down the middle.  He has not been throwing his splitter and I am not sure why?  

In the 9th, Frazier led off with his 3rd single and stole 2nd as Gardner K'd.  DJ was intentionally walked to have the lefty pitch to Wade and Tyler was able to beat out a dribbler that got past the pitcher.  That brought up Judge who was still looking for his first walk-off hit.  He didn't get it, but in this case, a walk was clearly as good as a hit as he did get his first walk-off walk as he took all 5 pitches.  Great 3 game sweep off of a very solid team.

Other Notes:

• Yanks starters have fired 35 consecutive scoreless innings -- tied for second-longest in franchise history, behind a 40-inning stretch in May 1932.
• It is good to see us get some production from guys like Gardner, Wade and Frazier.  While Wade may not hit better, he has helped out using his speed on the bases and OF and also added depth at 2nd base and SS.  Frazier could not play worse, so it was good to see him get some hits.
• Tampa has won 10 in a row.  Who would have thought the AL East would be the toughest division in the AL?  I thought Tampa lost too much pitching to be much over .500 and I thought Boston would be better than people thought, but they have hit better than I expected.  I felt Toronto would be our toughest competition, but they are in 4th (with a winning record).
• I was asked about why I thought the run-scoring was down so much.  My two main answers are that the defensive switches are really paying dividends.  Seeing the exact location of balls hit by players is allowing defensive shifts to take many hits away.  Odor caught a line drive the other day when he was playing short RF (rather than deep 2nd base) and that would have always been a hit.  The 2nd reason is spin rates.  As pitchers have started to understand this and track it, their balls are not necessarily going much faster (that trend has been going up based on mechanical improvements mostly), but they are getting greater movement which makes it harder to square up the pitches.

We all should be feeling much better about the team now!

Kluber Pitches First Yankee (road) No-Hitter Since 1923!

And we barely win as Tyler Wade supplies all of our offense with a triple knocking in a run and then scoring on a sac fly.  He also used his speed to catch a ball in RF that most decent RF's would catch, but a slow one probably wouldn't.  Wade has played so poorly this season that it is only a matter of time where some of these guys who have been awful, come through.  Hopefully this will get him to elevate his performance to mediocre (not asking for too much).  Actually, he is close now with a .715 OPS.

As for Kluber, he had an amazing slider going, it was like a whiffle ball.  He also mixed in a lot of changeups and enough fastballs/cutters located well to keep Texas off balance.   He grooved one pitch in the 9th, but it was fouled back; you need a little luck.  I liked the signing and it has really worked out so far, especially after a little bit of a slow start.

I want to bring up some of the things I saw over many of the previous games 

First, I had asked the question about what striking out 5 times in a game is called after Judge "accomplished" this.

The Golden Sombrero is striking out 4 times and a Platinum Sombrero is striking out 5 times (also called the Olympic Rings).  Judge struck out the next 2 times up for 7 straight k's.  I think the record is 9 straight (I may be wrong on this).  

Torres had a great running play more than a week ago.  As he rounded 2nd he realized the defensive shift left 3rd base open and he took off for 3rd, bringing the catcher to help try and cover 3rd base and then realized that home plate was uncovered and he out ran the catcher home and scored.  Very heads up play!

Going back to the Altuve (cheater) HR that Green allowed.  He should never have thrown a fastball to Altuve (cheater) because he was sitting FB based on the AB and the cuts he had on them.  You know it was the wrong pitch as he hit a ball well above the strike zone for a HR.  The curve was an obvious choice, so much so that the announcers even talked about it.

Judge has been playing pretty solid defense.  He made a very good play on a ball off the wall where he released the throw extremely quickly.  As you know this is a pet peeve of mine (when OF'rs take so many steps before throwing).  Wade ended up dropping the throw and the runner was originally called out.  

Frazier makes so many bonehead plays; he is just not a smart baseball player.  He gets tossed out on a pitch he complained about that was a strike, he makes outs on the base paths that are head scratching and he guesses at the plate with 2 strikes and watches a ton of called 3rd strikes on pitches down the middle.  I am pointing this out because he clearly has physical skills, but the mental part is an issue.  I also point this out because it shows how far off his game he is right now, even if we don't know what his game actually is.  It would not surprise me that his bat becomes a solid mid .800 bat and he made an outstanding catch the other day in RF, but he also dives way more than he needs to and will probably get injured and continue stupid plays to make him reliable.

It is almost impossible for Frazier (.582), Ford (.523), Gardner (.511), and Andujar (.312) to not raise their OPS'!  What happened to Andujar?  This guy was a raking machine a few years ago.  Anyway, these numbers are crazy low for the players and then you have very poor performers Odor (.659), Voit (.656), and Hicks at (.627).  That is not to mention guys who probably won't see the Yankees roster anymore; Ryan LaMarre 0-7 (I have no idea why this guy was even brought up?), Jay Bruce (.466), and Mike Tauchman (.552).  It is really anemic to have so many guys perform so terribly.  DJ has been poor as well with a .727 OPS.  Gio is holding his own with a what looks to be excellent .763 OPS, Higgy has a .822, all because of his 5 HR's, but I will take that all day and then Stanton at .882 and Judge at .972.  We really can't get worse offensively.  We need to get a lefty who has great righty splits.  When I get time, I will review candidates.

Some other things I noticed or want to comment on:

I understand this is a 162 game schedule, but when a team is really struggling at the plate, it is hard to bench the guys who are actually producing.  Some of the lineups we have put out are anemic based on the production this year.  The previous paragraph showed that in one game we had 5 total players with a sub .600 OPS with 1 sub .400 and one who never had a hit.  Another way of looking at it is to say only one guy above .800.  

Gio at SS was not as bad as I thought it would be.  His range may not be good and his turn isn't quick, but he has made every play that was hit near him and that is better than what Torres was giving us.  Of course, now that Torres is back he should play there, but it does give us another option, especially if Andujar would actually hit like he used to.  Torres has been better since he started to get rid of the ball with a sense of urgency, but I still think he is much better suited for 2nd base and with DJ not hitting well (I know he will do better, but how much better is the question), the decision to sign him long term does put us in a bind with Torres if he is not up for SS.  More on this subject as the season unfolds, but I did state the problems with signing DJ even though "everyone" said Cashman must pay DJ.  We are seeing the downside; hopefully we can see more of the upside as this is very early in the process.

The umpires behind home plate were better in the Texas games, but a 3 or 4 game stretch prior they were absolutely awful.  They didn't hurt or help us, but it was a coin flip on what they were going to call.  If they can fine tune the up and down for the players size, I do think we will see balls and strikes called by the machine even if the ump is still there and he gets pinged for the balls and strikes.

We have had so many issues with Sanchez defensively that we assume Higgy is the much better defensive catcher and while he is a better all around defensive catcher than Sanchez, he isn't very good at blocking balls and his receiving skills are avg at best.  Our pitches get a lot of wild pitches that should be blocks.  Think about how many bad pitches get routinely blocked by the opposing catchers and we have too many get away from us that should not.  Higgy has actually been poor of late.  If he can keep hitting HR's at the pace he has I could live with it, but I wanted to bring this up as a reality check (he also has a batting avg of .193 but a good reason why OPS is what I use because .193 sounds horrible by itself, but his walk and HR % is good and his OPS is a solid .822).  

People always talk about how much we strike out and that is the problem.  I have pushed back to say that striking out at least makes the pitcher work by throwing a minimum of 3 pitches.  But, I would rather a strike out than hitting into a DP.  This is something the Yankees have done 46 times this year.  So the next time someone says you have to put the ball in play...not necessarily.

Urshela's game winning 3 run HR many games ago was an excellent AB and huge hit for us.

Odor's weak defense still bothers me and he had a pick off throw from Sanchez (who threw a bullet) where he caught the ball in front rather than letting it travel and then reached for the body instead of snapping to the front of the bag and on instant replay the runner was ruled safe.  

Finally, I will leave you with this.  Many times I hear complaints about how the offense just strikes out too much and you can't win this way.  While there are some truths to not being able to move runners along at times and not getting the runner in from 3rd, remember that the pitcher has to work harder for a strikeout compared to a first pitch ball in play swing.  Also, when the ball is put in play, you can hit into a DP which is FAR worse than striking out.  The Yankees have hit into 46 DP's this year in 43 games.  Every one of them, I would rather a strikeout (yeah I know a scenario where we got a run out of it maybe worth it but by run scoring % charts it shouldn't be better).

Going For The Sweep Today

Very quick post today

Again we were tied at 3 and we pulled it out late

Stanton has been hot and is by far our best hitter this year.  After him dominating the playoffs at a level maybe never seen before, is it time to realize that we have a great hitter on our time?  I have never seen someone hit the ball so hard in my life and while that does not make him the best hitter, what we saw in the playoffs last year was awesome.  He wasn't a bad fielder either and ran pretty well, but this year he looks slower to me.

Wade has not proven to be able to hit at the major league level and I was always more critical of him than others (early on), but he has made a few good plays in the field and last night in the 9th charged a ball and made a nice throw that I don't think DJ could have made (there was a lot of ground to charge) and Odor definitely would not have made it.  His ability to pinch run and the fact many of our players are still not hitting, he may be able to help us if he can just give us a .700 OPS (boy, the bar is low now, but Frazier, Gardner and Hicks have been awful).

Judge had a terrible day going 0-5 with 5 K's.  Anyone know if that has a name?

Montgomery had no command all game as he was centering his pitches; we were fortunate he only allowed 3 runs in 6 innings.  The bullpen was excellent again and Chapman continues to be fun to watch while he dominates hitters.

Welcome Cheaters!

I was very interested in this game as I wanted to see how German pitched and see if his velocity got back to a more consistent 95 with some run and also that his change at 87-89 would have more of a difference.  I also was very interested to see how the fans reacted to Altuve and the cheating Astros who won and beat us because of cheating.  The worst part was the players didn't get into trouble.

I was immediately "feeling" baseball for the first time in a long time.  Altuve stepped to the plate and the crowd of 10k or (a guess) was roaring!  It was electric!  Boy, did they let Altuve have it and plenty of signs showed the displeasure of a possible title and an MVP for Judge that was taken away by crossing the line in cheating.  A big asterisk was on a bunch of signs...lol.   Judge deserved it more than Altuve even with his cheating.  Less informed people thought Altuve's .346  batting avg. outperformed Judges .284 BA even though Judge had 52 HR's and an OPS of 1.049 compared to Altuve's .957 OPS.  92 points of OPS is a lot.  For perspective, as crossing 1.000 may throw you off, it is the same point difference as a guy with a .750 OPS and one of .842.  To be fair, Altuve did steal 32 bases while being caught only 6 times (probably because he knew top run when a breaking ball was coming (nobody thinks about that) which would add about 30 points to his OPS, but 60 is still a lot.  Judge had 114 RBI's to 82 and 128 runs scored to Altuve's 112.  Playing 2nd base and getting that production is better, but Judge had a stellar defensive year so I would call that a wash.  The Jury says Judge wins!

On to the fun game:

• Unfortunately, German left a 93 MPH fastball over the heart of the plate and Bergman deposited it
• The Yankee came back on a hanging breaking ball to Stanton who got it over the fence on a high fly to give us a 2-1 lead.  His OPS is now .887 after this 4 hit game and his hot streak,
• The Yankees continued to get guys on base as Greinke was really struggling to throw strikes as Judge walked Gio singled and Torres walked (not even close on ball 4) to load the bases with nobody out and 2 runs in.  Fraizer steps to the plate and Greinke misses twice in the dirt. I literally said out loud to my wife (she rarely listens) they should give him a take sign to stop him from swinging.  Greinke throws ball 3 pretty far outside, but the seemingly low IQ Frazier swings at it.  2-1 count and Grienke throws another ball outside and high but Frazier swings and yanks it into a DP to kill the rally.  I don't think he is a smart player.  I want him to do well, but he really ticks me off.  Frazier and his OPS of .557 is followed by the equally pathetic Hicks (.579).  Hicks grounded out.  We had the chance to blow that game open.
• German left another 93 MPH ball on the inner part of the middle and Brantley crushed it for a long HR to make it 3-2.  After a single, Gurriel got a double off the top of the wall that Frazier actually overran and should have caught it.  He got to a farther spot and kind of reached back a little and the ball landed behind him off the top of the wall.  I was surprised none of the announcers caught the mistake.
• 3-3 in the 5th the Yankees correctly called a pitch out (have to give them credit as this is called from the bench and they have not called one all year (I don't think).  Great job by someone!  Higgy was a little slow getting to the spot but did get rid of it quickly and threw a strike.  However, despite Kay saying that odor made a great tag, Odor actually took the throw too far in front of the bag and then did catch and swing the tag fast.  But, you want to let the ball travel as far as you can in the best case is to have your glove moving with the ball as you catch it.  He might have been a little late but he made up for it with a quick tag and it was enough to show in replay that the runner was out.  
• There was a great 6-5-3 double play where the shift was on.  With Torres playing a 2nd base position shaded up the middle and Urshela playing SS a ball was hit up the middle and Torres came across quickly, fielded it sliding and flipped it to Urshela who caught it and did a pirouette and then threw to first to complete the sweet DP.
• And now one of the more weird plays you will see as there was a lot wrong with it.  Bases loaded and 2 outs with DJ up.  He took two strikes before swinging at a low ball and dribbled it to 3B where the fielder barehanded and threw low to 1b.  DJ would have been safe and one run should have scored, but the first baseman didn't smother the ball to make sure it didn't get by him.  The ball did get by him allowing the 2nd run to score and then threw home in plenty of time to get the 3rd runner, but the catcher didn't handle the low throw and went to tag Odor coming home and they collided after Odor stepped on home plate.  Both players were hurt on the play, but it was a terrible play by the catcher and also a cheap one.  The reason why they collided was the bat was in the way of Odor sliding, so he went in standing up.  There is no excuse for the bat to be there on such a long play.  The umpire should have cleared it and when I played the ump would ask me to sometimes, but someone should have cleared it as it is dangerous and could cause the bat to also hurt the catcher.  So many bad plays on one dribbler, but the outcome was a great one for us and led us to victory.  
• The umpire was really bad, he didn't hurt us, in fact, he might have helped us, but I never knew what he was going to call.  There were bad calls both ways and when you think about the bat, the ump had a bad game.

Enjoyable win, now lets keep it going!

Detroit Gets Us to .500

Playing the worst team in baseball can make you feel better than you really are.  This is true but it was still nice to see us get the offense clicking.  It started a little in Cleveland and Baltimore and it continued until Sunday, but thankfully the pitching bailed us out.  Seeing many pitches in the middle of the plate should get your offense going, but we still have some worries.

Thoughts:

• I did not like splitting with Baltimore.  We lost two close games to them and those are series' where you need to take 3 of 4.  
• I still hate the extra innings rule where you start with a runner on 2nd base.  I don't agree that a game can be lost (or won) by allowing a run to score without a hit, walk, balk, wild pitch or error!  Sac and sac fly should not take a game away from one team or win a game for another.  Isn't the idea to award a team for earning a victory and not just award one team a victory to end the game?  I don't see any harm in ending the game as a tie after 9 10 or 11 innings.  Do you think they would ever allow a playoff game to end that way?   I would doubt it because it doesn't make you earn your run or victory.   Some people say they love the excitement of it.  Then, why not start every inning the same way?  Shoot, why not start every inning with the bases loaded?  Why, because it is a bad idea and doesn't make you earn your runs.  Part of the beauty of baseball is that runs need to be earned (or given up by the poor fielding/pitching of the other team).  Finally, why in America are we so afraid of a tie, especially if the issue is that you don't want extra innings to go on for so many more innings?  If after 9 innings one team has not been better than the other, then a tie is fair.  If you want to limit it to 1, 2 or 3 extra innings, I am fine with that too, but don't artificially try and break the tie.   The only positive thing I will say is that it is fair, although being at home does give you a slight advantage to know what to play for.
• We really padded our stats on Detroit.  
• I like Stanton batting 2nd.  Outside of our slump, our lineup is really good, but it is not a great lineup for setting a lineup.  What I mean is that we don't have good righty lefty matchups that make it hard for another manager.  A righty who is tough on righties can slow us down.  We have been forced to bat Hicks higher than he should be because we don't have a lefty stud to place in between Judge and Stanton.   Putting Odor there is absurd to me.  We are really hoping he steps up, mostly because he is a lefty, but so far he has an OPS of .642 and that is only because he has 4 HR's.  This really needs to be a priority for us as it will transform our lineup.  The other part is playing 81 games with the RF porch is what we need and Cashman has failed at that.  Back to Stanton, just get your better hitters up more often.  This is why I never liked leading off a fast guy who wasn't a good hitter.  The idea is to get high on base guys in front of your power hitters (or better hitters).
• I have spoken about our hitting a lot because they have been putrid, but many of you have written saying that this team won't win anything with this team.  I don't agree and still think we will win the division.  Do we have some flaws, yes, but we are a good hitting team and we have hit terribly.  Detroit may make us feel better, but better pitching we still have not hit well and that is a concern, however, we should hit it and we will get better.
• I have not spoken much about pitching because of our issues hitting, but our pitching has been really good.  In fact, we have the lowest ERA in the AL (3.02) and why that doesn't tell the entire story of our weaker defense, when I look at other teams doing well in ERA our 12 unearned runs are in line with the other teams.  The stat is not readily available without doing it yourself but runs allowed per game (earned or not) or per 9 innings would be a good stat.  Of course, now with the silly extra-inning rule, more runs are scored than before...see how bad this is  :-)
• Chapman continues to be fantastic - in 10 innings he has allowed 2 hits, 3 walks and struck out 24 batters while not allowing a run and a perfect 6-6 in save situations
• Our bullpen has been great so far with only Nick Nelson getting lit up and our lefties Justin Wilson and Lucas Luetge being mediocre/weak.  
• Speaking of pen, I am not sure I liked the Tauchman trade for Wandy Peralta.  He has been better against lefties, but he hasn't been very good in his career and he is 29.  It is possible that he got better last year, but I have to see more of him before I decide, but with Gardner looking so old so quickly and Frazier just not getting it done, I felt we may need Tauchman.  Now Tauchman wasn't doing anything for us either in his very limited play, but He has always hit well in the minors and when he played a lot in 2019 he was really good (.865 OPS).  In the 2020 year in less than 100 AB's he was weak at a .648 OPS but he gave us solid defense.  It should be noted that Tauchman is 30 also.  I just think we need him more, but hopefully, Peralta has found himself.
• I like our starters, Cole, Kluber, German, Montgomery, Tallion and Garcia are fine by me.  

Bring on Houston!